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The Life of Jesus and Its Aftermath
- Summarize what we would know about Jesus if all we had were non-Christian sources of the first and second centuries CE.
- Why do the New Testament Gospels pose problems for determining who Jesus was and what he said and did?
- Be able to explain to your roommate three rules of thumb used for establishing authentic traditions about Jesus and the logic behind each of them.
- How can understanding Jesus as a Jewish apocalypticist help to explain the various things that he appears to have said and done?
- What can historians say more or less for certain about the last week of Jesus’ life? Why was Jesus executed? Who was ultimately responsible for his death? Who actually performed the deed?
- What is the connection between John the Baptist and the early church? Are their views related? If so, how and what does the connection tell us about the historical Jesus?
- Who is the Son of Man? Where does the title come from? How is it used in the New Testament?
- When did Christianity begin?
- How did Jesus’ followers’ understandings of him change after they came to believe he had been raised from the dead?
- How did the Jewish Bible help early Christians understand and portray Jesus as the messiah?