New Book on Jesus: Seeking the Identity of Jesus

A new book on Jesus has recently published that sounds pretty interesting, its called, Seeking the Identity of Jesus. Here is the list of points the scholars in the book all came to agreement on over the course of three years working together on the project.

  • 1. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew.
  • 2. The identity of Jesus is reliably attested and known in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
  • 3.The entirety of the canonical witness is indispensable to a faithful rendering of the figure of Jesus.
  • 4. In order to understand the identity of Jesus rightly, the church must constantly engage in in the practice of deep, sustained reading of these texts.
  • 5. To come to grips with the identity of Jesus, we must know him as he is presented to us through the medium of narrative.
  • 6. The trajectory begun with the the NT of interpreting Jesus’ identity in and for the church has continued through Christian history.
  • 7. Because Jesus remains a living presence, he can be encountered in the community of his people,the body of Christ.
  • 8. Jesus is a disturbing, destabilizing figure.
  • 9. The identity of Jesus is something that must be learned through long-term discipline.

Here’s the list of contributors:
Dale C. Allison Jr.
Gary A. Anderson
Markus Bockmuehl
Sarah Coakley
Brian E. Daley
Beverly Roberts Gaventa
A. Katherine Grieb
Richard B. Hays
Robert W. Jenson
Joel Marcus
R. W. L. Moberly
William C. Placher
Katherine Sonderegger
David C. Steinmetz
Marianne Meye Thompson
Francis Watson

What are your thoughts on this? Would you be interested in reading something like this on Jesus?

LeRon Shultz posted this question on his blog which has stirred a nice conversation:
“What are the presuppositions about the holy texts of Christianity that lay behind these nine assertions? How might accepting these assertions shape the way in which Christians interpret their own identity and the identity of religious others?”

(HT: Tony Jones)

2 responses to “New Book on Jesus: Seeking the Identity of Jesus”

  1. I wondering what your thoughts on this book are.
    While I think the points are capable of being critiqued the ones I have read so far are mainly made from perspective that isn't familiar with these scholars. My professor who was the SBL discussion raised the point that these scholars are working with Hans Frei's project, whose book on this is hardly ever read..
    Having read many of the scholars involved it seems that are trying to unashamedly Christian in an age when doing such seems futile. Most of them don't ascribe to inadequate categories of postmodern and modernism to hold what we mean when we confess Jesus as Lord. My guess is that Leron's problems (on his blog) stem from being not being Postmodern enough, and NT Wright's critique at SBL was because they weren't modern enough.
    So I'd take up this book in heartbeat.