Review of The Historical Figure of Jesus – An Outline of Jesus' Life

Chapter 2

Sanders previous chapter began by setting the scope of his project, “...to lay out, as clearly as possible, what we can know, using the standard methods of historical research, and to distinguish this from inferences, labeling them clearly as such (p. 5).” Therefore, we need to understand the world into which Jesus was born and the sources of how we can ascertain the information of, “who he was and what he did.”

From here Sanders decides that it is best, “...to begin with a very brief sketch of his life, which will serve partly as framework and partly as a launching pad for a fuller account.”(10) His assumption lies in that, “There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus' life” when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity.” Essentially, Sanders offers a list of the key points in the life of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels, however he remains agnostic about the resurrection itself.

After laying out his framework and overview of the life of Jesus he continues by discussing dating issues involving the calendar and dating of historical events surrounding the life of Jesus. He attempts to quickly elaborate on the various moments of Jesus' life concluding that his crucifixion happened because they saw him as an insurrectionist. Furthermore, his disciples claimed to find his tomb empty and began talking about resurrection experiences. These experiences convinced his disciples that Jesus was coming again and that faith in him was pivotal, therefore, they began talking about him in relationship to God, giving him important titles, i.e. Messiah.

He concludes, “every sentence of this sketch requires explanation, and we shall examine most of these points in some detail.”(14) This chapter provides the reader with a scope and sequence that functions as a key to understand the areas of Jesus' life that are important to Sanders' study. He does not want to try to delve into speculation about what could be known about Jesus from obscure ideas, rather he wishes to look at the data and see what we do know.

Question for Moving Forward

How we tell the story matters. The way that we arrange the events makes a difference in what is important to us. Think about the way the 4 Gospels choose to arrange the material from the life of Jesus. In what ways does their arrangement of the information affect the picture we get of Jesus?