Reflection on the Historical Jesus and the Early Church

The amount of writing about the historical Jesus and the development of Christianity has multiplied in the past munber of years to the point where it is almost impossible to keep up with it. And the number of questions, puzzles, multiply as the number of commentators explodes. What theological positions produce which picture of Jesus, for instance? What is the consequence, if any, for Christian faith and the Jewish community? What does it really mean to affirm the obvious, that Jesus was a Jew? Public Broadcasting recently produced a 4-hour program, "From Jesus to Christ," that was an excellent introduction to these topics. The material PBS put on its web site is well worth careful examination. Check it out.

John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus
Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Gregory J. Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs: How Jesus Inspired Not One True Christianity, but Many
Richard A. Horsley, Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis
Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries
John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
Burton L. Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth
Burton L. Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (2 volumes so far)
Richard A. Horsley & Neil Asher Silberman, The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World
Marcus J. Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship
Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith
Gregory J. Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels
Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium
Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity
John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity : Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus
Paul M. van Buren, According to the Scriptures: The Origins of the Gospel and of the Church's Old Testament
Gerd Lüdemann, Heretics: The Other Side of Christianity
Étienne Nodet & Justin Taylor, The Origins of Christianity: An Exploration
Gerd Lüdemann, Virgin Birth? The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus
Gerd Lüdemann, The Unholy in Holy Scripture: The Dark Side of the Bible
R. A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity
James Charlesworth & Walter Weaver (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Faith
Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus
Michael O. Wise,The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus
Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism
Donald Harman Atkenson, Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds
Alvar Ellegård, Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ
Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?
Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?
Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyhptic Prophet of the New Millennium
Richard E. Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God: The Epic Fight over Christ's Divinity in the Last Days of Rome
Israel Knohl, The Messiah Before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls
David Noel Freedman, The Nine Commandments: Uncovering the Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible
Bruce Chilton, Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography
Donald Harman Akenson, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus
Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity
Tikva Frymer-Kensky et al (eds.), Christianity in Jewish Terms
James A. Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History
Jean Bottéro, The Birth of God
Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus
Richard A. Horsley (ed.), Paul and Politics: Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl
John G. Gager, Reinventing Paul