BI-7003 Historical Jesus

Who was Jesus of Nazareth, and how can we know? Learn to answer with historical care from the best sources: the Gospels, read in Jesus' Jewish world.

The course follows Craig S. Keener's The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. You survey how scholars have pictured Jesus over two centuries, ask what kind of books the Gospels are and how their contents were handed on, and then look at what the best sources show about Jesus' teaching, his mission, his death and the resurrection. You learn to weigh the evidence fairly and to answer today's claims about Jesus with knowledge and confidence.

What you will study

• The quests for the historical Jesus, and why scholars' portraits differ so widely
• The "other gospels", and why Keener holds that the four Gospels are our earliest sources
• The Gospels as ancient biographies, and Luke-Acts as ancient history
• How the Gospel traditions were handed on, and how scholars test them
• Jesus in Galilee: John the Baptist, the kingdom of God, discipleship and conflict
• Jesus as teacher, prophet and Messiah
• Jesus' death and the evidence for his resurrection

Course materials

• The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Craig S. Keener), the textbook you obtain
• The Bible