Recomendo outro artigo em The Bible and Interpretation, publicado em junho de 2014, e que pode ser útil para os interessados na questão do Jesus Histórico. O autor lista, em 8 itens, características fundamentais da pesquisa sobre o Jesus Histórico nos últimos vinte anos.
De Mark Allan Powell: Historical Jesus Studies Today: An Update
Ele explica o que é a pesquisa sobre o Jesus Histórico assim:
“For those who might not be familiar with this field of inquiry, historical Jesus studies is a science that attempts to determine what can be known of Jesus on the basis of historical research alone, that is through the analysis of data pertaining to Jesus in accord with the same standards that would be employed when analyzing data pertaining to any other figure from antiquity. Such analysis is supposed to be free of religious (or anti-religious) bias, and scholars engaged in the field call each other to task when they suspect that one’s conclusions have been influenced by personal predilection. The scholars frequently maintain that they are not trying to discover what might be true of Jesus, but what is verifiable. Thus, if (as a Christian) you want to believe Jesus was born to a virgin, that’s fine, but (as a historian) you must recognize that this is not verifiable–at least, not in accord with any criteria that are normally employed for historical research. So where are we now? I will list eight developments that have marked the last twenty years of research–and, then, I will mention three ‘peripheral currents’ that might be of interest to purveyors of this website”.
Não deixe de verificar também o importante livro de Mark Allan Powell sobre o tema:
POWELL, M. A. Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee. 2. ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, 288 p. – ISBN 9780664234478.
