Who was Jesus?
Though historians have little direct evidence about Jesus, modern biblical scholarship has nevertheless developed numerous "answers" to the question.
This course examines—from a historian's viewpoint—several sources that have played a role in investigating the historicity of the 1st-century A.D. Jewish teacher and prophet whose impact on subsequent history is indelible.
Those sources include both the Gospels of the New Testament and other non-canonical Gospels, as well as archaeological discoveries including the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The goal is to determine what these sources can reliably tell us about Jesus’ words and deeds in both the context of 1st-century A.D. Roman Palestine and the Jewish religious environment of the time.