Like his original hearers many people today find Jesus' sayings hard. Some sayings are hard because they are difficult to understand, others because the demands they make on us are only too clear. F. F. Bruce examines seventy of the hard sayings of Jesus to clear away the cultural and historical difficulties which keep us from grappling with the real challenge of Jesus' message. Evident in each…
Many of the Nag Hammadi writings are considered 'heretical' and therefore not valid sources for traditions about the founder, Jesus. Majella Franzmann, however, shows that it is a mistake to believe that Christianity was a homogeneous entity from the first and that the only valid traditions about the founder are preserved by those early Christians who became the dominant, mainstream group. The …
In Christianity in the making, James D.G. Dunn examines in depth the major factors that shaped first-generation Christianity and beyond, exploring the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, the Hellenization of Christianity, and responses to Gnosticism. He mines all the first- and second-century sources, including the New Testament Gospels, New Testament apocrypha, and such churc…
Combines archaeological discoveries with interpretation of the Gospels and other sources to explore Jesus' relationship with Jerusalem