Assignment:
Watch Flight of Faith: The Jesus Story (This 48-minute video will give you an overview of the landscape in which Jesus lived - and how it looks today. The narrator tells the traditional story of Jesus' life, but as we go through the semester, we will see that there are many other ways of understanding Jesus and his teachings.)
Read Jews and the Roman Empire. Judea was the province in which Jesus lived located within the massive Roman Empire. (Just read down through "Tensions in Judea at the Time of Jesus' Birth.")
Read The Human Journey: Jesus and the Origins of Christianity - A Multicultural Story
Read Frontline: The Tensions Between Faith and History: Can Christian faith be reconciled with an historical approach to Jesus and the Bible? This article will address the possibility of conducting a historical study of Jesus while holding firm to religious belief in Jesus.
Read Frontline: Jesus was born, lived and died as a Jew.
Read Frontline: The Complexity of His Religious Identity. Jesus was viewed as many things: healer, wisdom teacher, apocalyptic preacher, and anointed one (Messiah).
Historical references to Jesus' life. There isn't a lot of outside evidence of Jesus' life, but there is some.
Answer 3 questions
1. What do these scholars have to say about how they reconcile their Christian faith with an historical study of Jesus and the Bible?
2. What do the scholars have to say about how an historical/critical study of Jesus benefits and enhances their faith?
3. What do you see as the dangers of studying Jesus from a historical/analytical approach? What are the advantage?