Jesus People

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Marcus J. Borg

Third Quest
Before I talk about Marcus J. Borg and Anthony Harvey, let’s look at a few characteristics of third quest for the historical Jesus. N. T. Wright coined the term ‘third quest’ in 1986. Wright used the term to refer to scholars like Geza Vermes, Ed Sanders, Ben Meyer, Anthony Harvey, Marcus Borg, and himself, who (he thought) shared the following characteristic features:
· Careful, accurate, use of Jewish sources
· Stress on the importance of eschatology for understanding Jesus
· Abandonment of the flawed methods of the New Quest
· The primary interest was in historical research in its own right. This was a direct and intentional shift from the New Quest. They want to differentiate between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith.
The term is now popularly used of any current Historical Jesus research. However, Wright was eager to use it only for those who fulfill the criteria above.

Anthony Harvey
Currently, he is an Anglican Priest. He spent some time as a Lecturer in New Testament Studies at Oxford University, but he now is a Canon of Westminster Abby. His most famous work is Jesus and the Constraints of History (1980). The groundwork for Harvey’s reconstruction of Jesus is based upon the claim that we all are constrained on some level to the culture we are in. For if we are not culturally constrained on some level than we cannot be culturally relevant. However, Harvey makes it clear that Jesus was not necessarily totally subject to the constraints of his culture. It is from this premise that Harvey begins. The goal for this method is to develop a clear understanding of the historical setting of Jesus’ ministry, and from that deduce what ways Jesus must have acted (constrained). For example, Harvey argues that in light of our knowledge about Jewish and Roman law the fact that Jesus was crucified should lead us to the conclusion that the events which led up to ...