NEW dvd

The Historical Jesus

Who was Jesus of Nazareth? What was he like? For more than 2,000 years, people and groups of varying convictions have pondered these questions and done their best to answer them. In these 24 lectures, you’ll approach the subject of Jesus from a purely historical perspective. Professor Ehrman explains why it has proven so difficult to know about this ""Jesus of history."" And he reveals the kinds of conclusions modern scholars have drawn. You’ll open the lectures with a discussion of the four New Testament Gospels, which everyone agrees are our principal sources of knowledge about Jesus. As you’ll soon learn, the Gospels pose considerable challenges to scholars who want to know about the words and deeds of Jesus. After a brief consideration of the historical context of Jesus's life in the political, social, and cultural history of 1st-century Palestine, you’ll proceed to the second major part of these lectures: a fascinating, scholarly reconstruction of Jesus's words and deeds in light of the best available historical methods and evidence. Professor Ehrman closes by considering how Jesus's followers began to speak and eventually write about him in light of their belief that God had raised him from the dead. Here the focus shifts from the religion of Jesus to the religion about Jesus, or, in other words, from the search for the historical Jesus to the study of early Christianity., ISBN13: B0018QJ32G ISBN10: B0018QJ32G Material Type: dvd