Recap Historiography II – Views on the Gospels

  • All writers talk about how the Gospels were all written with bias and to achieve an overarching purpose and goal, so we need to keep this in mind
  • The four authors got their information from written word, stories told to them, etc. and then picked which stories to include to create their individual portrayal of Jesus
  • Discussed how the historical Jesus doesn’t fit in with modern day Christian faith
    • Not necessary to understand the historical Jesus to have and practice Christian faith
  • Important to remember Jenkins’ point about the difference between the past and history when thinking about Martin’s statement “when we put forward a ‘historical Jesus,’ that is not the same as ‘the Jesus who actually existed in the past,'”
    • we are only given a flat narrative record of the historical Jesus