This is a different book about Jesus. It does not study the Gospels as sources for the historical Jesus, but reads them as memories about Jesus, each Gospel with its characteristic picture of Jesus. The book traces the transmission and growth of memories of Jesus in various contexts and in different historical periods. It also introduces readers to the little known counterstories to Christian memories in Jewish sources, as well as to the rival stories in the Quran. A central perspective in the book is the troubling fact that for centuries the memories of Jesus contributed to hate speech against the Jews in Europe. The passion narratives in the Gospels put the blame for the death of Jesus upon Jewish leaders, and these stories were transmitted across the centuries as historical truth. Memories of Jesus have served as identity markers not only for churches but also for societies and countries. The last chapters focus on how the memories of Jesus have played an important role in supporting the identity of oppressed and marginalized groups, in particular in the contemporary United States.
Despre autor
Halvor Moxnes is Professor of New Testament, em., Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo. He is an active member of both the Society of Biblical Literature and the Catholic Biblical Association of America. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and author of i. a. Putting Jesus in his Place (2003), Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism: A New Quest for the Nineteenth Century Historical Jesus (2012), A Short History of the New Testament (2014).