At any rate, I really have only just started reading this book; to date I've only read the preface. But already I like what I'm reading, especially as I compare it to Allison's previous work on Jesus (especially his volume, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet [Fortress Press, 1998]):
This volume as a whole is testimony to my conviction that the means that most scholars have employed and continue to employ for constructing the historical Jesus are too flimsy to endure [yes!!], or at least too flimsy for me to countenance any longer. I learned the discipline during the era when everyone was taught to employ the so-called criteria of authenticity. We were to find Jesus by, first, isolating individual units and then, second, running them through a gauntlet consisting of multiple attestation, dissimilarity, embarrassment, and so on. After many years of playing by the rules, however, I have gradually come to abandon them. I have decided that knowing the old directives has been of much less help than promised. I am trying something else. This book is the result. (x; my emphasis)
This is, perhaps, the best beginning to a book on Jesus I've read in a very long time. And that would include my own book on Jesus.
I'll comment further as I work through this weighty book (pp. xxix + 588).
No comments:
Post a Comment