Publisher's Synopsis
Was there a person by the name of Jesus who lived in Palestine in the first century A.D.? Do the gospels and the letters of the New Testament really attest to the actual existence of a Messiah, or were these documents written by clever propagandists for the faith rather than by objective historians? These and other intriguing questions are explored in Jesus in History and Myth, which emerged from a powerful symposium held in 1985 under the auspices of the Biblical Criticism Research Project of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). The Project team, incorporating the work of biblical scholars, historians, archaeologists, and experts in the cognate fields of religious studies, is designed to make available to a wider public the results of the very best biblical criticism and religious studies scholarship. At this critical time, when the study of religion as an academic discipline is threatened by the twin dangers of parochialism and trendiness, the need for a serious and dispassionate review of religious truth-claims, scriptural traditions, and supernatural value systems is greater than ever before. Jesus in History and Myth combines the works of a distinguished list of researchers: John M. Allegro, Robert S. Alley, John Dart, Antony Flew, David Noel Freedman, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Robert M. Grant, Rowan A. Greer, Van A. Harvey, Randel Helms, John Hick, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Gerald A. Larue, George E. Mendenhall, Ellis Rivkin, Morton Smith, and G.A. Wells. Their views are daring, thought-provoking, and always on the cutting edge of critical investigation of the Bible and religion.
