Jesus

Gerard S. Sloyan, STD, PhD, is professor emeritus of religion at Temple University and currently visiting professor at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He has written extensively on Jesus, including The Crucifixion of Jesus (Fortress Press, 1995) and Why Jesus Died (Fortress Press, 2004).

Gerard Sloyan is certainly an authority on Jesus! This short work—an amazing, very literate and accurate condensation of all important aspects of modern Christology—is the fruit of his earlier works.Catholic Books Review

• ContentsEditor’s Preface   ixAuthor’s Preface   xiChapter One:Who Jesus Was in the Religion of Israel   1The Actual or Real Jesus   2Being Raised Up from the Dead to a New Life—Fact or Fancy?   3Witnesses to the Movement Rather Than to the Man  6The Little Known of Jesus’ Infancy and Early Years   8Jesus Grown to Adulthood   13Jesus as Teacher: Debates over Law Observance   13The Distinctive Purpose of Each Evangelist   18The Story of Israel Without Which Jesus Cannot Be Understood   19Kings and Kingdoms   20The Influence of the Babylonian Exile and Hellenism   22Jesus the Quintessential Jew   23The Chronicle Continued: The Markan Story   24Chapter Two:The First We Hear of Jesus in History’s Record   30The Biblical Title Messiah (Christos), Anointed One   32Kyrios as Sovereign Lord or Master   33Jesus’ Coming (Parousia) at the End in Glory   35Saul/Paul’s Faith in Jesus Found in Other Letters   37 The Silence of Paul’s Extant Letters on Jesus’ Public Life   40Jesus in Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence   42The Jesus of the Epistolary Corpus   48Signs of Jesus’ Jewishness Wrongly Imposed on Gentiles   52Jesus in the Last Written Extant Letter of Saul/Paul   56A Pauline Letter That Paul Did Not Write   58Jesus in Hebrews and Revelation   59Chapter Three:Knowing Jesus from What He Taught   68Jesus’ Many Teachings in Matthew   70The Beatitudes and the Woes   71The Our Father 76 The Devil in the Desert   78Recorded Prayers from Jesus’ Lips   79The Lengthy Prayer Spoken at the Last Supper   80Jesus’ Descent from a Long Line of Storytellers   81More of Jesus’ Teaching in Matthew   85Some Further Matthew Parables Explored   88Luke’s Teachings of Jesus Special to Him   93Prodigality Can Mean Generous Giving but Not Here   97Jesus as Exorcist and Wonderworker   101A Brief Foretelling of Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection as Bringing Redemption   103Chapter Four:What John Does with the Figure of Jesus   105John’s Technique of Having Jesus Mystify, Then Explain   108The Last Supper Discourse   113Chapter Five:Jesus’ Death and Resurrection   117The Markan Passion Narrative as Basic to Matthew and Luke   118The Roman Legionaries and the Pilate Characterization   123Some Touches Proper to Luke and John   127The Crucifixion Proper   129All Other References to Jesus’ Death Unlike These Playbooks   133 The Resurrection of Jesus that Changed Everything   135Three Non-Markan Ways of Bringing the Story to an End   137Chapter Six:Jesus in Late New Testament Epistles and Second-Century Writings   146Jesus in the Extra-Canonical Writings: 1 Clement   149Jesus in the Didachē   151The Letters of the Great Ignatius, Martyr   153Jesus in the Second-Century Apologists   154Jesus in the Lengthy Treatise of a Missionary Bishop   155Late Apocryphal Gospels, Some Orthodox, Some Gnostic in Intent   158Chapter Seven:Jesus at the Center of Doctrinal-Political Argument   160The Vocabulary of Debate and Its Major Topic   162The Heretical Teaching of Arius   164Basil’s Defense of the Holy Spirit as a Divine Person   166The Christological Teaching that Prevailed After Nicaea   168Nestorius’s Defense of the Humanity of Christ   170Eutyches and the Chalcedonian Settlement   172Epilogue   178Further Reading   183Index of Scripture and Ancient Texts   185Index of Subjects and Persons   192