James
Dunn is regarded worldwide as one of today's foremost biblical
scholars. Having written groundbreaking studies of the New Testament and
a standard work on Paul's theology, Dunn here turns his pen to the rise
of Christianity itself. "Jesus Remembered" is the first installment in
what will be a monumental three-volume history of the first 120 years of
the faith.Focusing on Jesus, this first volume has several distinct
features. It garners the lessons to be learned from the quest for the
historical Jesus and meets the hermeneutical challenges to a historical
and theological assessment of the Jesus tradition. It provides a fresh
perspective both on the impact made by Jesus and on the traditions about
Jesus as "oral" tradition -- hence the title Jesus Remembered. And it
offers a fresh analysis of the details of that tradition, emphasizing
its "characteristic" (rather than dissimilar) features. Noteworthy too
are Dunn's treatments of the source question (particularly Q and the
noncanonical Gospels) and of Jesus the Jew in his Galilean context.In
his detailed analysis of the Baptist tradition, the kingdom motif, the
call to and character of discipleship, what Jesus' audiences thought of
him, what he thought of himself, why he was crucified, and how and why
belief in Jesus' resurrection began, Dunn engages wholeheartedly in the
contemporary debate, providing many important insights and offering a
thoroughly convincing account of how Jesus was remembered from the
first, and why.Written with peerless scholarly acumen yet accessible to a
wide range of readers, Dunn's "Jesus Remembered," together with its
successor volumes, will be a sine qua non for all students of
Christianity's beginnings.
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