Preface and Acknowledgments

T his book examines the ancient evidence from outside the New Testament for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is a large subject, so any one book that covers it must necessarily be very limited in depth. I have tried to present comprehensively the passages themselves in a contemporary translation, and introduce the most important issues in the current interpretation of these passages. Because of the size of this topic and the size contraints on this book, I cannot pretend to offer an exhaustive account of current scholarship, much less the full history of research into this question. The interested reader can trace out much of this by following up on the footnotes. If now and then I can go beyond these objectives to offer a new insight into the historical and theological problems at hand, I will be satisfied.

Many people have helped this book along its way, and I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank them. The editorial staff at William B. Eerdmans have been fine partners in developing this book. I especially thank Daniel Harlow, my editor at Eerdmans, now at Calvin College, and Craig Evans and Bruce Chilton, general editors of the Studying the Historical Jesus series, for inviting me to write this volume and guiding it along. They may not agree with everything here, but they have made this a better book.

My New Testament students at Lycoming College, where I taught from 1989-1999, heard most of this, read much of it, and contributed to the process. They were a constant stimulation, and usually a delight! They all had an indirect hand in this book, and a few of them had a larger impact. By asking questions I could not readily answer, Kay drove me to deeper consideration of many interpretive issues. By wondering about the contemporary religious significance of these texts, Herb kept in view their religious significance in the ancient world. And by laughing to herself at my every mention of Q, Jill reminded me that not all hypotheses are as obvious to some people as to others.

Most of the research for this book was done during a sabbatical leave in Oxford, England, in 1997. The historical and cultural enchantments of Oxford are exceeded only by the vitality of its intellectual climate. The faculty and staff of Westminster College and its principal, Richard Ralph, kindly hosted me as a visiting researcher, and R. Joseph Hoffman twice welcomed me as a guest lecturer in his lively “Jesus in Contemporary Thought” course. Christopher Rowland of Queen’s College admitted me to the university course of special lectures on the historical Jesus. The clergy and congregation of St. Ebbe’s Church welcomed this stranger into its life, and its academics gave me other points of contact with the university. Not least, I am grateful to Lycoming College for providing sabbatical leave, and financial support in two summer research grants, for work on this project.

Three libraries and their staffs provided excellent help in my research. The Burke Library of Union Theological Seminary in New York City was a fine place to begin and end my research; its main reference and reader services librarian, Seth Kasten, gave me timely assistance on the electronic databases. The Bodleian Library of Oxford University was the wonderful center of my sabbatical and the research for this book. Its librarians were unfailingly kind and helpful to “the American working on Jesus”: Christine Mason at the Main Enquiry Desk of the Old Library, Mary Sheldon-Williams superintending Classics and Theology, and Jacquie Dean and Liz Fisher at its Lower Reserve. Snowden Library at Lycoming College provided continuous high-level support for my research; numerous interlibrary loan requests were expedited by Marlene Neece, and not a few acquisitions by Sue Beidler. The staff of Beardslee Library of Western Theological Seminary obtained several interlibrary loans, and my capable secretary, Marilyn Essink, helped with the final typing and indexing.

I owe an inexpressible debt of gratitude to my wife, Mary, and our two sons, Richard and Nicholas, for their love and support. In addition to reading and critiquing this book, Mary took on, while I was in Oxford, the burden of running by herself a busy household where duties are usually, albeit imperfectly, shared. What the author of a poem taken into Proverbs 31 said of a good wife applies especially to Mary in everything she does: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

This book is gratefully dedicated to my two highly esteemed New Testament teachers at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. J. Louis Martyn was a gracious and encouraging Doktorvater who taught excellence in biblical scholarship as much by example as by precept, and encouraged history and theology to embrace each other. The late Raymond E. Brown’s combination of excellence in biblical research with a concern for relating scholarship to the church has been deeply inspiring. Lux perpetua luceat ei .