Authenticating Criteria in Jesus Research and Beyond

Kevin B. Burr (Ph.D., Asbury Theological Seminary) is the Discipleship Minister at Kings Crossing Church of Christ (Corpus Christi, TX), and Adjunct Professor of New Testament and Greek at Harding School of Theology (Memphis, TN).

Contents


Acknowledgements


Abbreviations





1 Decades of Discussion on Authenticating Criteria in Historical Jesus Research


 1 The Criteria’s Development within Form Criticism


 2 Decades of Discussion on the Criteria of Authenticity





2 Authenticating Criteria in General Historical Method


 1 The Methods of General Historians


 2 Modern Historians on Their Methods


 3 Summary of Methods for Verification in General Historiographical Methodology


 4 A Synthetic Comparison of Criteria for Verification among Historical Jesus Scholars and General Historians





3 Historical Jesus Scholars’ Use of Authenticating Criteria





A Test Case on Jesus’s Trial(s)


 1 The Trial(s) of Jesus in the “Critical but Accepting” Category


 2 The Trial(s) of Jesus in the “New and/or Revised Criteria” Category


 3 The Trial(s) of Jesus in the “Marginalize or Reject the Criteria” Category


 4 Summary of Analysis and Conclusion


 5 Excursus: Modern Historians of Greco-Roman Antiquity on Jesus’s Trial


 6 Conclusion





4 The Use of Authenticating Criteria among Modern Historians of Greco-Roman Antiquity


 A Test Case on Caesar’s Crossing of the Rubicon


 1 Caesar’s Crossing of the Rubicon in Greco-Roman Historiography


 2 What Happened at the Rubicon?


 3 Conclusion for Methods of Verification for Caesar’s Crossing the Rubicon





5 Interdisciplinary Application of Authenticating Criteria and Further Implications


 1 Analysis of Criteria Application from Chapters 3 and 4


 2 Some Further Implications


 3 Further Discussion of the Criteria by Historical Jesus Scholars


 4 Final Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research


Bibliography of Works Cited


Index