The contemporary approach to the question of the historical Jesus in E. P. Sanders

: a theological analysis

Abstract

This piece of academic research seeks to explore the question of the Historical Jesus and its relevance in our contemporary world. This research aims at enlightening modern minds about the person of Jesus. A long the history so many things were said about the historical Jesus, scholars and critical minds sit and have a round table discussion about the person of the historical Jesus, however, the aftermath of their discussion only offer us an idea of who the person of the historical Jesus was. In their quest to unmask the real identity of the historical Jesus, these great scholars present to us diverse interpretations of the historical Jesus according to their Christological orientations. However, some of these images do not offer us an in-depth information about the person of the historical Jesus. They only offer us superficial information about the person of Jesus. The best way to have access to the person of the historical Jesus is to study him holistically with consideration of the environment he grew up. Therefore, this research seeks to investigate the history of Jesus not depending solely on the reports of the New Testament Writings, but also references will be made to some vital materials outside the New Testament that contain crucial information about Jesus. The above assertion is not in any way relegating to the background the importance of the New Testament writings as our basic sources of information about the historical Jesus; however, we wish to investigate if something can be known about the historical Jesus outside the New Testament Writings. In this research we shall equally address the contemporary approach to the question of the historical Jesus. This contemporary approach to the question of the historical Jesus, seeks to study everything about the historical Jesus in the context of his immediate environment and all the activities that shaped the life of this great figure of history. We do hope that studying the life of the historical Jesus from this perspective would to a very large extent unfold and offer us fundamental and first-hand information about the person of Jesus. Our intention in this academic research is not basically a critique, but an exposition of the various contributions of authors about this subject under investigation. We do hope this piece of academic research will be of great help to you.

Date of Award	14 Feb 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Pedro Lopes Angélico (Supervisor)