title: Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Studying the Historical Jesus)
author:  Robert E. Van Voorst 
description: This book's aim is promising: to evaluate the evidence we have, outside of the Christian scriptures themselves, for the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Van Voorst is a capable guide to this territory, which ranges from citations in Roman correspondence to the early Christian writings often called the "New Testament Apocrypha." His lucid and judicious account of the state of scholarship will be most helpful to seminary students and others beginning to engage this material. Unfortunately if inevitably, the different sources are treated unevenly, with the very well-known classical quotations from Tacitus, Pliny and the like receiving extensive treatment while the more lengthy--and debated--proto-gnostic texts receive scant attention. Van Voorst devotes a surprising amount of energy to refuting the idea that Jesus never existed. He also includes a long and inconclusive chapter about what we can learn from the assumed sources of the New Testament itself, which is more a tutorial in 20th-century scholarship than evidence from "outside" the New Testament. Seminary professors will want to consider assigning this book, but those looking for revelations about Jesus of Nazareth will be disappointed, since after much scholarly muckraking the author himself concludes that the New Testament is our best evidence after all. Better to turn to works like John Meier's A Marginal Jew for more fully considered and provocative accounts of the historical Jesus. (May) <br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: Table of Contents
  Studying the Historical Jesus
  Title Page
  Copyright Page
  Dedication
  Preface and Acknowledgments
  Abbreviations
  CHAPTER 1 - The Study of Jesus Outside the New Testament
  A Brief History of Research
  Did Jesus Really Exist?
  The Plan of the Present Work
  CHAPTER 2 - Jesus in Classical Writings
  Thallos: The Eclipse at Jesus’ Death
  Pliny the Younger: The Christ of Christian Worship
  Suetonius: The Instigator Chrestus
  Tacitus: The Executed Christ
  Mara bar Serapion: The Wise Jewish King
  Lucian of Samosata: The Crucified Sophist
  Celsus: Christ the Magician
  Conclusions
  CHAPTER 3 - Jesus in Jewish Writings
  Is Jesus Mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls?
  Josephus: Jesus, a Wise Man Called the Christ
  The Rabbinic Tradition: Jesus the Magician and Deceiver
  The Toledot Yeshu: How Ancient a Polemic against Jesus?
  Conclusions
  CHAPTER 4 - Jesus in the Sources of the Canonical Gospels
  L: Jesus, the Powerful Teacher and Healer
  The Special Material of Matthew: An M Source on Jesus?
  The Signs Sourc