Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ, Green Joel B

The problem of the historical Jesus remains one of the most important themes in New Testament scholarship. Closely related to this problem is the question, How far can the impact made by the earthly Jesus and his own self-understanding sustain the weight of the Christological construction put upon them by the early church? In the past two decades some scholars have taken an increasingly gloomy attitude toward the possibility of knowing anything of substance about Jesus from the Gospels or, at the opposite extreme, have sometimes made outlandish claims about him. Others, like the contributors of this volume, have begun moving the discussion into fresh areas of creative, responsible inquiry.

Fueling this interest at both scholarly and more popular levels is a corresponding preoccupation with the degree to which our understanding of Jesus influences the shape of faithful life in the church and in the world today. Indeed, the church is always in danger of reshaping Jesus in its own image. Thus it is greatly in need of the kind of scholarship found in this book -- scholarship that allows its own preunderstandings and motives to be challenged by this same Jesus.

Written in honor of I. Howard Marshall on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ honors this distinguished scholar by reflecting his longstanding interest in Luke-Acts, his concern for the historical Jesus, and his stress on the significance of Jesus person and work in New Testament interpretation. Providing new insights and breaking new ground, the thirty outstanding essays in this volume offer a fresh assessment of New Testament data and methods pertinent to our understanding of Jesus and his significance both in his time and in ours.