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John Dickson (PhD, Macquarie University) serves as the Jean Kvamme Distinguished Professor of Biblical Evangelism and Distinguished Scholar in Public Christianity at Wheaton College. A speaker, historian, and media presenter, John is the author of more than 20 books, two of which became television documentaries. He also cohosted the documentary For the Love of God: How the Church is Better and Worse Than you Ever Imagined. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney, a Visiting Academic in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University (2016-2021), and Distinguished Fellow in Public Christianity at Ridley College Melbourne. John presents Australia’s no.1 religion podcast, Undeceptions, exploring aspects of life, faith, history, culture, or ethics that are either much misunderstood or mostly forgotten.

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Has the real Jesus been so buried by tradition and legend that he is now lost to people living in the 21st century? Join author and historian John Dickson in a captivating journey across the globe in which he examines ancient documents and consults the world's most respected historians and scholars. Discover what is known for certain about the life of one of history's best known and most influential people, Jesus of Nazareth. Filmed in various locations around the world, this four-session, video-based study with discussion guide follows Dr. Dickson as he journeys around the globe on a search through time for the historical sources that reveal the real Jesus.Session titles include the following:-Gnostics and Romans-Jews and Christians-Lost Sources and Oral Traditions-Archaeologists and ArtifactsThis video also contains six hours of extended interviews with some of the world's most respected historians and scholars such as Bishop Tom Wright, Professor James Dunn, Professor Martin Hengel, and many others.

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Christ Files

ZONDERVAN

Contents

Foreword..................................................................................11Introduction: The Da Vinci Code Factor?...................................................15CHAPTER 1 THE GAME OF SCHOLARSHIP How to Read between the Headlines......................19CHAPTER 2 SECRET GOSPELS Jesus in the Gnostic Writings...................................27CHAPTER 3 THE TROUBLE MAKER Jesus in Ancient Pagan Writings..............................35CHAPTER 4 DECEIVER AND MAGICIAN Jesus in Ancient Jewish Writings.........................41CHAPTER 5 BEHIND THE NEW TESTAMENT Earliest Christian Sources............................47CHAPTER 6 BEFORE THE GOSPELS Jesus in Oral Tradition.....................................65CHAPTER 7 JESUS IN CONTEXT Background Sources for the Study of Jesus.....................77Conclusion: Reading the Gospels Seriously.................................................91Introduction..............................................................................93SESSION 1 Gnostics and Romans.............................................................95SESSION 2 Jews and Christians.............................................................99SESSION 3 Lost Sources and Oral Traditions................................................103SESSION 4 Archaeologists and Artefacts....................................................107Notes.....................................................................................111

Chapter One

JESUS IN THE HEADLINES

READERS MAY BE SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT SCHOLARLY BOOKS and articles on the "historical Jesus" number in the tens of thousands. A vast industry has emerged in the last thirty years dedicated to uncovering the real Jesus?as opposed, it is thought, to the Christ presented by the church.

Some scholarly works are modest, trying only to clarify details, such as the extent of the Roman presence in Galilee (Jesus' home district), or the connections between Jesus and other first-century teachers, or the procedures of ancient crucifixion.

Other works are more ambitious, attempting to offer a comprehensive portrait of Christ based on the latest data and methods. Many of these are brilliant and move the scholarly discussion forward. Unfortunately, very few of them ever get read outside of academia.

Typically, the only studies to attract public attention are the "sensational" ones?those that contradict mainstream perspectives on the topic. These studies hit the headlines and make their way into Discovery Channel or BBC documentaries. The viewing public is left understandably perplexed and unaware that most of the best scholarship never reaches them.

It is a sad fact of scholarship (in many academic fields) that the most impressive work is too subtle, cautious and sophisticated?in other words, boring?to be considered newsworthy by the regular media outlets. The headline "Jesus overturned first-century dining rules" is hardly going to excite a newspaper editor, even though it is based on solid data. The headline "Jesus was gay" (Brisbane's Courier Mail, 29 August 2003) will cause a small media storm, even if it is based on the musings of an astrologer, PhD student and gay activist.

Even the major broadsheets can be seduced by the sensational over the scholarly. The Sydney Morning Herald of 2 April 2005 published the headline "Gospel according to Judas will finally be heard." In the article, which was lifted from Agence France-Presse, we were told how a "Gospel" attributed to Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, was set to overturn traditional ideas about Jesus and Christianity. Most Herald readers, who tend to be a rather educated bunch, would have had no idea that the only authority quoted in the story, one Mario Roberty, was a lawyer and antiquities dealer, not a historian. Nor could they have known that no historian in any university in the world would dream of attributing this mid-second-century writing to the historical Judas (who lived and died a century before the "Gospel of Judas" was written).

I will say more later about the origin of the New Testament Gospels and the recent "discovery" of hidden Gospels. At this point I'll simply note that mainstream scholarship on the Gospels is almost never reported in the Australian media. The British and US media, so far as I can tell, are only slightly better on this score.

BETWEEN THE MARGINS OF SCHOLARSHIP

All of this highlights something that is well worth knowing about the scholarly game. In any field of academia, and especially in New Testament studies it seems, scholarship tends to fall into three broad camps, or three points along a continuum: sceptical, mainstream and apologetic.

Somewhere out on the left-hand margin is what you might call sceptical scholarship. Experts here ply the scholarly craft of naysaying and hyperscepticism. They relish offering new theories that call into question the results of broader scholarship. Most of them have PhDs from reputable universities, but few of them publish their work in the usual academic forums. They prefer to write directly for the public. Some well-known sceptical scholars include Barbara Thiering (Jesus the Man, Doubleday, 1992), Bishop John Shelby Spong (Jesus for the Non-Religious, Harper Collins, 2007), and George A. Wells (The Jesus Legend, Open Quest, 1996). Wells is perhaps the only modern scholar?a professor of German language, however, not a historian?to argue Jesus never existed. Two far more serious scholars who are nonetheless renowned in academic circles for an overreaching kind of scepticism include Robert Funk (The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, Macmillan, 1993) and Gerd L|demann (Jesus After Two Thousand Years: What He Really Said and Did, SCM, 2000).

On the other margin (the right fringe if you like) is what you might call apologetic scholarship. Experts here are already convinced about the truths of Christianity and spend their time defending traditional belief from those who attack it (especially the sceptical scholars). Like the sceptical scholars, most apologetic scholars (sometimes called simply Christian "apologists" from the Greek word for "answer" or "defence") have very good credentials, but they tend to bypass the normal process of academic review and publish directly to the public. They often perform an invaluable service to the Christian community, providing rigorous answers to the claims of sceptics. Some of the important names here include Josh McDowell (More Than a Carpenter, Tyndale, 1987), Gary Habermas (The Historical Jesus, College Press, 1996), and Lee Strobel (The Case for the Real Jesus, Zondervan, 2007).

Between these two margins is what you might call mainstream or middle scholarship. This is where the vast majority of professional scholars are to be found. Mainstream scholars rarely hit the headlines or the shelves of popular bookstores, but their work appears regularly in the hundred or so major peer review journals dedicated to the subject area. "Peer review," by the way, is a quality control mechanism used in most academic fields. It basically means that to get one's research...