The Vermes Quest: The Significance of Geza Vermes for Jesus Research

✍ Scribed by Hilde Brekke Moller

• Publisher: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 257
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Geza Vermes is a household name within the study of the historical Jesus, and his work is associated with a significant change within mainstream Jesus research, typically labelled ‘the third quest’. since the publication of Jesus the Jew in 1973, many notable Jesus scholars have interacted with Vermes’s ideas and suggestions, yet their assessments have so far remained brief and ambiguous. Hilde Brekke Moller explores the true impact of Vermes’s Jesus research on the perceived change within Jesus research in the 1980s, and also within third quest Jesus research, by examining Vermes's work and the reception of his work by numerous Jesus scholars.
Moller looks in particular depth at the Jewishness of Jesus, the Son-of-Man problem, and Vermes’s suggestion that Jesus was a Hasid, all being aspects of Vermes’s work which have attracted the most scholarly attention. Moller’s research-historical approach focuses not only on the leading scholars of the field such as E.P. Sanders, J.D. Crossan, J.P. Meier and C.A. Evans, but also sheds light on underplayed aspects of previous research, and responds to the state of affairs for recent research by challenging the rhetoric of current historical Jesus scholarship.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Part I Introduction
Chapter 1 The Significance of Geza Vermes for Jesus Research
The Purpose of the Study
The Problem
Main Questions, Material, and Method
Historiographical Considerations and Terminology
Previous Assessments of Vermes’s Jesus Research
Outline
Chapter 2 Vermes and Jesus Research
Biographical Notes on Vermes
Vermes and Jesus Research
Vermes’s Works on Jesus
Early Essays
First Trilogy: The Jewish Jesus
Second Trilogy: Nativity, Passion, Resurrection
Follow-ups
Anthologies
Vermes’s Works as Material for This Study
Chapter 3 The History of Jesus Research: Mapping the Quest(s)
The Three-Quest Scheme
Limitations of the Three-Quest Scheme
Alternative Mappings of Jesus Research
The Third Quest
Part II The Significance of Vermes's Jewish Jesus for Jesus Research
Chapter 4 Vermes’s Jewish Jesus (1973)
Method and the Jewish Jesus in Jesus the Jew
A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels – Jesus the Jew as Jesus Research?
Authenticity of Gospel Narratives in Jesus the Jew
The Historical Jesus of Jesus the Jew
Vermes’s Judaism in Jesus the Jew
Charismatic Judaism
Galilee and Galilean Judaism
Conclusion
Chapter 5 The Significance of Jesus the Jew: the 1970s and 1980s
Reviews of Jesus the Jew from the 1970s
Book Reviews as Sources
A Varied First Reception
Jesus the Jew in Histories of the Third Quest from the 1980s
Conclusion
Chapter 6 The Jewishness of Jesus before Vermes
Anti-Semitic Tendencies in Jesus Research
De-Judaizing Methodology: The Dissimilar Jesus
Jewish Scholars and the Jewish Jesus
Christian Scholars and the Jewish Jesus
German Mission to the Jews and Institutum Judaicum
Franz Delitzsch and One Day in Capernaum
Hermann L. Strack and D. Paul Billerbeck’s Commentary
Gustav Dalman and Die Worte Jesu
Summary
Additional Reflections on the Jewishness of Jesus within Jesus Research
Chapter 7 The Significance of Vermes’s Work on the Son of Man
Vermes on the Son of Man in the 1960s and 1970s
The First Reception of Vermes’s Work
Vermes’s Significance for the Son of Man Debate
Vermes’s Significance Displayed in Accounts of the Son of Man Debate
Vermes’s Impact on Barnabas Lindars’s Work on the Son of Man
Vermes’s Impact on Maurice Casey’s Work on the Son of Man
Concluding Reflections on the Significance of Vermes’s Work on the Son of Man
Chapter 8 Final Considerations on the Jewishness of Jesus within Jesus Research
Part III The Significance of Vermes's Hasid Theory
Chapter 9 Vermes’s Hasid Theory and Its Precursors
The Hasid Theory before Vermes
The Hasid Theory in Jesus the Jew
The Hasidim
The Setting: Galilee
The Hasidim as Miracle Workers
God as Father, Hasid as Son
Summary and Reflections on Vermes’s Methodology
Chapter 10 The Hasid Theory within Jesus Research after 1973
The Debate on Vermes’s Hasid Theory
Approaches to Vermes’s Terminology and Categorization
Challenges to Vermes’s Categorization
Endorsements of Vermes’s Terminology
Vermes’s Work on the Hasid Category in the 1980s and 1990s
The History Approach to the Hasid Theory
Developments in Vermes’s View on the Hasid Theory
The Literary Approach to the Hasid Theory
Development in Vermes’s View on Parallels to the New Testament
The Significance of the Hasid Theory for Jesus Research
Chapter 11 Hanina Ben Dosa Heals from a Distance: A Case of Christian Influences upon Talmudic Judaism?
The Problem
Healing from a Distance
The Jesus Tradition
The Hanina Tradition
Date and Chronology of Traditions
The Possibility of Influence between Traditions
Examples of Rabbinic Appropriations
Concluding Reflections
Part IV Conclusions and Outlook
Chapter 12 Conclusion
Chapter 13 Outlook
Bibliography
Index