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Good points from John which I think conclusively answer beliefs some (not myself) Christians may have that moral ideas and equality were absent pre 30-33AD.I've appreciate both standpoints in this Blog! I think the source of Jesus' & Paul's beliefs has to be founded in OT theology due to their context which was most certainly Jewish?

(James Thompson, on "Atheism and the Good Life")


The ‘Jesus Seminar’ and the Second Quest

There are still scholars operating today in the mode of the Second Quest. The so called Jesus Seminar is a group of American scholars led by Robert Funk. Members of the Seminar continue to apply the criterion of dissimilarity and other tests, and then vote on whether a certain saying or deed of Jesus is authentic (they literally get together and take votes). The result is a conglomerate of the Gospels published for the popular market in 1993, complete with colour-coding: black text for the parts that definitely did not come from Jesus, grey for those that probably did not, pink for the things that may well correspond to something he said and red lettering for ‘the authentic words of Jesus.’ Needless to say, very little red ink was required in the printing.

In a manner that few mainstream scholars would accept, the Seminar also emphasizes alternative Gospels, particularly the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. In these Gnostic Gospels, which we will explore later, Jesus is stripped of his Jewish identity and his preaching of a future kingdom and appears instead as a simple teacher of universal wisdom. Unsurprisingly, the Jesus that emerges from the Jesus Seminar is un-Jewish, uninterested in a future kingdom and a perfect model of democracy, equality and freedom. He very much resembles the neo-liberal Christian academics who have devised him. The Jesus Seminar should be haunted by Albert Schweitzer’s critique of 19th-century versions of Jesus—‘a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical gab’—but it isn’t. ‘Jesus has once again been modernized,’ writes Professor James Dunn of Durham University reflecting on the efforts of the Jesus Seminar, ‘or should we rather say, post-modernized!’  
  Unsurprisingly, the Jesus that emerges from the Jesus Seminar is un-Jewish, uninterested in a future kingdom and a perfect model of democracy, equality and freedom.
 		 
 

The Third Quest: significant advances in contemporary scholarship

 Most scholars today are deeply sceptical about the methods and conclusions of the Second Quest just described. Divorcing Jesus from his first century Jewish context amounts to a serious historical blunder, akin to trying to assess the life of Napoleon Bonaparte by ignoring 18th century European philosophy and politics.In recognition of this deficiency many scholars have called for a new quest, the so called Third Quest (following on from the flawed quests of the Enlightenment and the mid-20th-century).
Over the last 30 years a massive industry of academic literature has sprung up around the figure of Jesus. It does not all speak with one voice but there is a wide consensus on at least one significant thing. The surest first-step toward discovering the historical reality about the man from Nazareth is to locate him firmly in his first century Palestinian environment. 

The publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls—first found in 1947 but becoming widely available during the 1980s and 90s—has aided this effort to see Jesus in his Jewish context. The Scrolls have deepened and widened our picture of Judaism in a way that was impossible before.

Two scholars deserve special mention, and many others stand in their wake:

Martin Hengel (born 1926)

Martin Hengel has been Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism at Germany’s prestigious University of Tübingen since 1972 (he is still there as Professor Emeritus).
  The surest first-step toward discovering the historical reality about the man from Nazareth is to locate him firmly in his first century Palestinian environment
 
 

In some ways Hengel was part of the mid-20th century quest launched by Ernst Käsemann. In writing after writing he has applied a rigorous historical method to uncovering the connections between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. But there is one major difference. Whereas others in the 20th Century Quest downplayed the connections between Jesus and Judaism, and still others sought to play up the connections between Jesus and pagan religion, Hengel resolutely set out to clarify our picture of first century Palestine, and then to set Jesus and the Gospels within that assured context. It was Hengel who wrote the definitive account of the rise of Jewish revolutionaries in the first century (known as the Zealots).  It was Hengel who wrote the brief but unsurpassed history of crucifixion in the New Testament period.  And it was Hengel who clarified for scholars the relationship between first century Judaism and the surrounding Greco-Roman environment.

Because of his peerless knowledge of the Jewish (and Greco-Roman) context Hengel has also been able to write books of lasting significance directly on the topic of Jesus. In The Charismatic Leader and his Followers he refuted the suggestion of theologians like Rudolf Bultmann that the early church proclamation of Christ had little to do with the historical ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  In The Son of God he overturned the notion, popular at the time, that Christian beliefs about a ‘divine son’ derived from pagan myths. He demonstrated that all of the New Testament descriptions of Jesus come from Jewish traditions (not pagan ones) current in Jerusalem in the period of Jesus himself.  
  Hengel resolutely set out to clarify our picture of first century Palestine, and then to set Jesus and the Gospels within that assured context
 		 
 

Ed Parish Sanders (born 1937)

Perhaps the key figure in the Third Quest is Professor Ed Sanders of Oxford University in the UK and now Duke University in the US. Like Hengel, Sanders is an expert in first century Judaism and has written standard scholarly works on Jewish history.  He has applied this background to thorough analyses of both Jesus and the Apostle Paul.

While Sanders’ work on Paul has a great many detractors, his Jesus and Judaism published in 1985 remains a seminal text in the field.  In this book Sanders shows how the Gospels’ portrait of Jesus fits very plausibly into what we know of various movements in Judaism in the period before AD 70 (what is known as Second Temple Judaism). In particular, Sanders places Jesus within a movement in Judaism which longed for a new temple and a new age of God’s presence in the world. This hope for a renewed Israel drove Jesus into conflict with the existing temple authorities in Jerusalem and ultimately led to his death.

Other important scholars of the contemporary Third Quest include Ben F. Meyer, Marcus J. Borg, John P. Meier, James Charlesworth, Norton Thomas Wright (Tom Wright) who is also the Bishop of Durham, Sean Freyne, John Dominic Crossan, Graham Stanton, Gerd Theissen, James Dunn and Richard Bauckham. These scholars differ on plenty of things—this is not a univocal movement—but the shadow cast by the work of Martin Hengel and Ed Sanders can be seen throughout.

Overconfidence never bodes well for scholarship and experts must always remain open to new evidence, but there is little doubt that the search for the historical Jesus is today on its surest footing since Saint Luke wrote: ‘I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning’ (Luke 1:3). To quote James Dunn (University of Durham), someone rarely given to overstatement:

It has now become possible to envisage Jesus, as also ‘the sect of the Nazarenes’ … within the diversity of late Second Temple Judaism in a way which was hardly thinkable before. This breakthrough has been accompanied and reinforced by other important developments … In short, it is no exaggeration to say that scholarship is in a stronger position than ever before to sketch a clearer and sharper picture of Judaism in the land of Israel at the time of Jesus and as the context of Jesus’ ministry.


Dr. John Dickson
Director of the Centre for Public Christianity
Honorary Associate of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University (Australia)