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Acknowledgments This study is indebted to the work of previous researchers. Primary guides have been John Dominic Crossan (The Historical Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; Who Killed Jesus?) and Burton L. Mack (The Lost Gospel; Who Wrote the New Testament?). Other sources include E. P. Sanders' The Historical Figure of Jesus; Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's Paul: A Critical Life; Richard Horsley and John Hanson's Bandits, Prophets & Messiahs; and Joseph Fitzmyer's The Semitic Background of the New Testament. D. Moody Smith's Johannine Christianity was essential in exploring the Gospel of John, as was The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (ed. Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook) in understanding the Scrolls and their background. A. N. Wilson (Jesus: A Life), Joel Carmichael (The Death of Jesus), and Theodore Weeden (Mark: Traditions in Conflict) provided original arguments and insights to consider. Unless otherwise indicated, all biblical quotations are from The New English Bible, Oxford study ed., ed. Samuel Sandmel, M. Jack Suggs, and Arnold J. Tkacik (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). The reliance on this text had less to do with the author's preference than a lack of any other text available to him during the writing, apart from the Authorized (King James) Version. The author acknowledges his lack of training in -- or extensive familiarity with -- the ancient written languages of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic (among many others, ancient and modern), but notes that this study has more to do with reading comprehension than exegesis per se. Continue to Table of Contents Continue to Introduction Return to Front Cover |