ABSTRACT

First, though, a few things have to be stated as clearly as possible. These are:

1. Most ‘histories’ of Ancient Israel and Earliest Christianity are simply examples of circular reasoning. Many ‘historians’ use the Bible as a historical source; they reconstruct a ‘history’ which is often nothing more than a recapitulation of the biblical telling; and the Bible is affirmed as ‘historical’ because of the history so constructed. Similarly, the life of Jesus, for instance, is gleaned from a reading of the Gospels. Said reconstruction is named a ‘history of Jesus’ life’. That ‘history of Jesus’ life’ is then utilized to prove historically the life of Jesus as described in the Gospels. One need only pick up John Bright’s History of Israel4 or Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth5 to see circularity in action. True, ancillary materials are added to these histories (on the very rare occasions that they are available), but these only reinforce the circularly circumscribed reconstruction.