Kirjahaku

An authoritative collection of first-rate scholarship on Jesus, his world, the outcomes of his life, and the quest to locate him in history. The Jesus Handbook is an indispensable reference work featuring essays from a team of renowned international scholars on the significance and meaning of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Rooted in historical-critical methodology, it emphasizes a diversity of perspectives and provides a spectrum of possible interpretations rather than a single unified portrait of Jesus. The Handbook's dozens of authors--Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant--each remain committed to the principle of interpreting the life of Jesus in context, while also giving due diligence to the implications of archaeological evidence and recent discourses in the hermeneutics of history. After an introduction that lays out the considerations of the task at hand, the authors survey the history of Jesus research and take a close look at the historical material itself--textual and otherwise. From this foundation, the Handbook then details the life of Jesus before at last exploring the reception and effects of Jesus's life after his death, especially in the first centuries CE. With this wealth of information available in a single volume, scholars and students of the New Testament and early Christianity--and anyone interested in the search for the historical Jesus--will find The Jesus Handbook to be a resource that they return to time and again for both its breadth and depth.Contributors: Sven-Olav Back, Knut Backhaus, Reinhard von Bendemann, Albrecht Beutel, Darrell L. Bock, Martina B hm, Cilliers Breytenbach, James G. Crossley, Lutz Doering, Martin Ebner, Craig Evans, J rg Frey, Yair Furstenberg, Christine Gerber, Katharina Heyden, Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, Stephen Hultgren, Christine Jacobi, Jeremiah J. Johnston, Thomas Kazen, Chris Keith, John S. Kloppenborg, Bernd Kollmann, Michael Labahn, Hermut L hr, Tobias Nicklas, Markus hler, Martin Ohst, Karl-Heinrich Ostmeyer, James Carleton Paget, Rachel Sch r, Eckart David Schmidt, Daniel R. Schwartz, Markus Tiwald, David du Toit, Joseph Verheyden, Samuel Vollenweider, Ulrich Volp, Annette Weissenrieder, Michael Wolter, J rgen K. Zangenberg, Christiane Zimmermann, and Ruben Zimmermann.

Despite widespread skepticism on the matter, a significant number of people today have stories of religious experience--moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions. How should rationally minded people respond? What would your reaction be if someone told you that, one night while sitting alone, she saw through the window a brilliant light descend from the sky until it was so large that it filled the room--and that it radiated a feeling of "pure love"? And what would you say if a friend confided that one night he woke up and could not move, felt he was being suffocated, and sensed an evil spirit in the room? By default in the secular age we are skeptical about anything mysterious or supernatural. More likely than not, most people would respond to the stories above with embarrassment and concern about the person's grasp of reality, or they would attempt to explain them away through rational or scientific means. But the truth is that religious experiences like these are not as uncommon as they seem--although talking about such experiences often is. This is the case even in a faith tradition such as Christianity, despite the Bible's numerous accounts of miraculous and mysterious happenings. In Encountering Mystery, noted biblical scholar Dale Allison makes the argument that stories of religious experience are meaningful and not to be marginalized--and that we have a moral prerogative to lovingly engage with such stories regardless of whether we have had similar experiences. Through a close look at phenomena such as moments of inexplicable terror or rapturous joy, visions, near-death experiences of the afterlife, encounters with angels, heavenly voices, and premonitions, Allison shows how ordinary practices of faith need not be at odds with individual religious experiences. Above all, he enjoins us to be honest about the persistence of religious experience in a secular age and to make space for those who encounter mystery in their lives.