In Quest of Jesus

Rating:
Summary: Never mind the Quality, Where's the Width?
Review: It is hard to decide, having read W.Barnes Tatum's "In Quest of Jesus", whether one has been thoroughly grounded in the essential information needed to grasp the scholarly study of the historical Jesus or whether, in fact, one is missing something. We certainly have here a basic grounding in historical Jesus study as it has been carried out by the scholarly community for some little time now. Also, we have orientations to key questions surrounding the study of Jesus and the Gospels. But it still seems to me that something is missing. On further reflection I think it is that the whole story is not really being told. Any one who is cogniscent with scholarly study of the historical Jesus knows that a preeminent and abiding bedfellow of that field of study is sectional interest, bias and frequent presentations of Jesus which favour an unending choice between innumerable binary opposites (such as was he a sage or an apocalyptic preacher of doom?). "In Quest of Jesus" doesn't really get to grips with any of this. This is strange since W Barnes Tatum himself is connected with the self-selected scholarly group "The Jesus Seminar" which has recently been ruffling a few scholarly as well as religious feathers, particularly on the American side of the North Atlantic, because it is so strident in making just such choices as these. But let me be clear in what I am saying: it is not that Tatum leaves out material in this book, it is that he fails to contextualise it as fully as he might. He seems to have forgotten the seemingly ever-present postmodern tendency these days to concentrate on readers as well as "objective history" - and Tatum definitely comes from that historical tradition which posits that Jesus was something in particular which is, in theory at least, open to the positivist, human eye. So I would say that this is a book which is useful as far as it goes - which isnt quite far enough. Thus, I would recommend that if you read this book you read it alongside one or two others on the same subject. Maybe then the reader may begin to get the depth and contextualisation to the subject of the historical Jesus, one which is ever prone to sectarianisation and simplisitic, positivistically conceived, assertions.

Rating:
Summary: Never mind the Quality, Where's the Width?
Review: It is hard to decide, having read W.Barnes Tatum's "In Quest of Jesus", whether one has been thoroughly grounded in the essential information needed to grasp the scholarly study of the historical Jesus or whether, in fact, one is missing something. We certainly have here a basic grounding in historical Jesus study as it has been carried out by the scholarly community for some little time now. Also, we have orientations to key questions surrounding the study of Jesus and the Gospels. But it still seems to me that something is missing. On further reflection I think it is that the whole story is not really being told. Any one who is cogniscent with scholarly study of the historical Jesus knows that a preeminent and abiding bedfellow of that field of study is sectional interest, bias and frequent presentations of Jesus which favour an unending choice between innumerable binary opposites (such as was he a sage or an apocalyptic preacher of doom?). "In Quest of Jesus" doesn't really get to grips with any of this. This is strange since W Barnes Tatum himself is connected with the self-selected scholarly group "The Jesus Seminar" which has recently been ruffling a few scholarly as well as religious feathers, particularly on the American side of the North Atlantic, because it is so strident in making just such choices as these. But let me be clear in what I am saying: it is not that Tatum leaves out material in this book, it is that he fails to contextualise it as fully as he might. He seems to have forgotten the seemingly ever-present postmodern tendency these days to concentrate on readers as well as "objective history" - and Tatum definitely comes from that historical tradition which posits that Jesus was something in particular which is, in theory at least, open to the positivist, human eye. So I would say that this is a book which is useful as far as it goes - which isnt quite far enough. Thus, I would recommend that if you read this book you read it alongside one or two others on the same subject. Maybe then the reader may begin to get the depth and contextualisation to the subject of the historical Jesus, one which is ever prone to sectarianisation and simplisitic, positivistically conceived, assertions.