Abstract
A similar typology as was applied to the study of Judaism above can also be applied to the study of Christianity. In line with the analysis of the Israel phenomenon, the terminology I have devised relates to a Literary Jesus, an Historical Jesus and a Biblical Jesus. There were many forms of Literary Jesus, all claiming to be the true successor to Jesus. The search for the Historical Jesus has proved to be elusive and the Biblicall Jesus serves no purpose to believer or academic.
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- 1.
See ff.1 of the Introduction and 2 of Chap. 1 for the names of the sacred books of both Judaism and Christianity. These books form a canon or official collection for each of the religions.
- 2.
‘The Son of Man’ was a title. Literally, it means a ‘human being’. It seems to have been used in some pre-Christian Jewish texts, including Daniel, as the designation of a divine figure who was expected to take on human form and brings salvation to the beleaguered Jews.
- 3.
Flavius Josephus (37–100 CE) was a Jew, regarded by fellow Jews as a renegade because in the struggle against Rome he went over to the Roman side. He became the protégé of the Roman general, Vespasian. When Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he adopted Josephus, and Josephus took on the family name of the dynasty, Flavius. Josephus then wrote in Greek two principal books: The Jewish War in about 75 CE and The Antiquities of the Jews in about 94 CE.
- 4.
It will be described in Chap. 11.
- 5.
References to each of these can be found in the Notes at the end of this chapter.
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Crotty, R. (2017). The Study of the Christian Past. In: The Christian Survivor. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3214-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3214-1_3
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