James CROSSLEY and Chris KEITH (eds).  The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2024, pp. xix + 681. $64.99 Hb. ISBN: 9780802882707. Reviewed by Daniel SMITH-CHRISTOPHER, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA.

This sizeable volume, edited by two important New Testament scholars, represents a veritable smorgasbord of cutting edge scholarship in New Testament studies generally, and the study of historic Jesus specifically.  There have been a number of “Quests” for the historic Jesus.  What this refers to is a body of scholarship, which tends to come in “waves” of publications (thus called “Quests”, usually after the fact).  These waves of works typically claim to have made serious progress on explaining what we can verifiably (or at least rationally) say about the Jesus of history as opposed to the “Christ of faith”.  Many of the scholars involved would not agree to accusations that they are somehow “opposed” to Christian faith – but that the questions they are pursuing are driven by historical concerns.

This usually involves some means of getting at historically sensible conclusions drawing on the Gospels (and often non-canonical literature as well) and critically examining this ancient literature using  contemporary methods and questions, including analysis of historical, geographical, and socio-political contexts (First century Palestine under Roman rule, etc.).  The assumption is, of course, that the canonical Gospels were as concerned with expressing faith in Jesus as much as telling us about the historical person.  They are not, as is often stated, intended to be merely “biographies” of Jesus.

The irony is, of course, that each of the three previously identified “Quests” have typically been judged to be either failures or at least falling short of a confidently assembled collection of historically verifiable “facts” about the historical Jesus.  While each of the three previous waves of Jesus scholarship is appreciated in Crossley’s important Introduction to this volume, what we have learned are scholarly arguments that are now considered to be no longer tenable.

So, if there is to be a new “Quest” – what are the questions that modern ‘historical Jesus’ scholarship must pay attention to?  What were some of the issues that previous scholars either ignored or were not even aware of?  This seems to be precisely the question that was put to each scholar who has contributed to this volume.  This interesting method – asking each scholar a similarly stated question – results in a very coherent collection of writings!   Virtually all essays begin with something like, “The next Quest will need to pay attention to…”.  The essays are not long, and often not extensively detailed.  This, also, makes this an easier read – although it would be a mistake to understand this to mean that the arguments are not often well established!

So, what are the areas of investigation that are included?  We can only sample some of the topics covered in all of the 34 (!) essays featured in this extended volume, but even an abbreviated list gives the reader a good idea of the wide variety of issues that scholars believe must be included in any future studies that attempt to illuminate what we can (and perhaps can never) know about the historic Jesus.  Essays cover: Reviewing the historical context of previous Jesus scholarship and how some of their conclusions (including erroneous ones) continue to impact modern work; revisiting what we can say about Jesus as a first century Jew; Writing and scribal traditions of first-century Jewish writings (“Ancient Media”); information and evidence that we don’t now have, and may never have (“Missing Pieces”); Material and Visual Culture; ancient social groups as a context for early Christian associations (“Networks”); the nature of first century Synagogues; Class Conflict; Galilee and Jerusalem; the meaning of “slavery” and the striking possibility that Mary was a slave (!); “Disability, Healings, Miracles”; The Spirit World in first-century belief and practice; Violence and Trauma; “Armies and Soldiers”, that is, the nature of the Roman imperial presence in Palestine in the first-century; the meaning of Death of Martyrdom in first-century Jewish thought, and much more. 

A perusal of even this abbreviated list provides a clear understanding that one of the goals of this volume is to present a variety of essays on what needs to be included in any new scholarly work on the historical Jesus.  These are not in themselves “the work” that needs to be done – but a kind of prospectus of the work that should be done.  Some of these scholars have produced extensive books dealing with the topics they suggest.  Therefore, for anyone interested in asking, “What are New Testament scholars saying about the historical Jesus today?” there is surely no better place to begin than here!  Crossley and Keith have pulled together a very impressive variety of essays that are astonishingly suggestive for anyone serious about New Testament study.  While some may take issue with a few arguments made here and there – the significance of each and every one of these areas of investigation is frankly hard to dispute.  I found this work informative, and at times even exciting!  Highly recommended.