See more of this title: Jesus Christ Today: The Historical Shaping of Jesus for the Twenty-First Century

Jesus' identity is not simply "out there" to be discovered scientifically. Jesus' identity is shaped historically in believers' experience with him. Interpretation of Jesus of Nazareth, the significance of Jesus Christ, and Christian identity operate and interact in the same fashion as the hermeneutical circle. These elements simultaneously call forth and justify themselves and each other.

This book addresses twenty-first-century Christians who are challenged intellectually and spiritually to read the Gospels' story of Jesus in light of what contemporary scholarship offers for understanding the first-century prophet from Nazareth, the founder of the Christian movement. he data and relational sequences discovered by "modern" categories of historiography are enriched by a higher ordering, a mentality that includes but is not limited to our usual charting.