First-century Galilee Research Articles

First-Century Galilee – New Discoveries

First-Century Galilee – New Discoveries

Poverty in the first-century Galilee

In the Ancient world poverty was a visible and common phenomenon. According to estimations 9 out of 10 persons lived close to the subsistence level or below it. There was no middle class. The state did not show much concern for the poor. Inequality and disability to improve one’s social status were based on honour and shame, culture and religion.In order to understand the activity of Jesus and the early Jesus movement in Galilee, it is essential to know the social and economic context where he and his followers came. The principal literary source in first-century Galilee is Josephus, who provides a very incomplete glimpse of the political and economic character of the Galilee and his account is both tendentious and selfserving. There is no consensus among the scholars on the conditions of ordinary people in Galilee at the time of Jesus and the early Jesus movement. The evidence can be interpreted either so that first-century Galilee was peaceful and people had somewhat better times economically because of the large building projects, or just the opposite – the building projects demanded a lot more taxes and forced labour and made life even more difficult. In this article it is argued that the latter conditions explain better the birth and rapid increase of the early Jesus movement in Galilee.

First Century Galilee: A Fresh Examination of the Sources by Bradley W. Root (review)

FIRST CENTURY GALILEE: A FRESH EXAMINATION OF THE SOURCES By Bradley W. Root. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 378. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. xvii + 228 pp.Bradley W. Root makes a significant contribution to ongoing conversations about the cultural, religious, and economic environment of first-century Galilee. His study, based on the 2009 University of California, San Diego history dissertation he wrote under David Goodblatt, focuses on seven issues: ethnicity, urbanization, economic conditions, political climate, religious ethos, Jewish-Gentile relations, and Galilean-Judean relations. In exploring these themes, Root argues that scholars often prematurely jump to historical reconstruction without sufficiently wrestling with the methodological problems posed by their sources. He thus devotes the bulk of his twelve-chapter book to critical analysis of individual sources, leaving historical synthesis for the end. He sifts through the writings of Josephus, the classic four sources of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, the hypothetical sayings source Q, special Matthean material, and special Lukan material), the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of John, and published archaeological reports. He does not engage rabbinic texts in depth because of the methodological difficulty of identifying traditions that accurately preserve glimpses of the first century.In combing through Josephus's Jewish War, Jewish Antiquities, and Life, Root takes his methodological cues from scholars such as Steve Mason and Shaye J. D. Cohen. Noting the oft-discussed inconsistencies in Josephus's works, Root rightly concludes that some are so dramatic that they probably reflect a conscious decision by Josephus to alter his presentation of events. Furthermore, he observes, is about the events that took place in that region [Galilee] that Josephus had the greatest incentive to lie (11). Nonetheless, Root argues that the consistency of Josephus's comments about region suggests their general accuracy. Though Josephus drastically exaggerated the size of Galilee's population to boost his own prestige as its military commander, he probably not far off the mark when praising the region's agricultural productivity and general prosperity. Josephus was unable to come up with any major problems that Galilee experienced while Antipas Tetrarch (21) and he did not report the same level of mid-century banditry there that he does for Judea. Though Josephus depicted rural Galileans as hostile toward Sepphoris during the revolt, he did not attribute such antipathy to class, ethnic, or economic tensions. In short, Josephus's portrayal suggests a region that fared well in many respects for most of the first century, with relatively few communities suffering even in the revolt.Root's exploration of gospel materials pays careful attention to issues of provenance and Tendenz, finding varying amounts of information applicable to his chosen focal points. He finds little explicit support for views of the region as extensively hellenized or romanized, thoroughly urbanized, and in the midst of widespread upheaval because of economic crisis, and considerable evidence for a predominantly Jewish population with strong cultural ties to Judea. Though the Gospel of Thomas has figured prominently in much recent historical Jesus research, Root's evaluation of it finds few sayings that shed much light on Galilee's cultural ethos. …

Torah for the Man Who Has Everything: “Do Not Defraud” in Mark 10:19

During Jesus's dialogue with “the rich young man,” he recites a list of commandments that the rich man must follow. Most of these commandments come from the Decalogue. The exception occurs in Mark's version, in which Jesus also says, μὴ ἀποστερήσῃς, “Do not defraud.” Scholars have not agreed on why Mark's Jesus includes this injunction, which is not part of the traditional ten. This critical note argues that the best framework for interpretation emerges from an economic analysis of the conditions by which someone could become rich in first-century Galilee—conditions partially obscured to readers situated in modern Western “growth” economies. The commandment was thus specifically chosen as a prophetic critique of the rich man's prior activities that led to his wealth.

Torah for the Man Who Has Everything: “Do Not Defraud” in Mark 10:19

During Jesus's dialogue with man, he recites a list of commandments that the must follow. Most of these commandments come the Decalogue. The exception occurs in Mark's version, in which Jesus also says, ..., not defraud. Scholars have not agreed on why Mark's Jesus includes this injunction, which is not part of the traditional ten. This critical note argues that the best framework for interpretation emerges an economic analysis of the conditions by which someone could become in first-century Galilee-conditions partially obscured to readers situated in modern Western growth economies. The commandment was thus specifically chosen as a prophetic critique of the man's prior activities that led to his wealth.(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)..., not defraud (Mark 10:19)In a review essay about economic analysis of NT texts, Peter Oakes isolates three lines of inquiry in the field-three ways to relate economics to interpretation of early Christian evidence. First, economics can provide an overall analytical framework for interpretation. Second, the aim of the interpretation of a text may be to gather economic evidence. Third, economic evidence may be a resource that is used in interpretation.1My task in this short article falls under both the first and the third categories: I propose that an economic analysis of the conditions by which someone could become in first-century Galilee offers the best framework to explain a particular exegetical problem in the Gospel of Mark.2 Consider Mark's version of the story that we often entitle man (Mark 10:17-22):17As he was setting out on a journey, a ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit life? 18Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good God alone. 19You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; shall not commit adultery; shall not steal; shall not bear false witness; shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.' 20He said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth. 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, You lack one thing: go, sell what you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. 22When he heard this speech, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had [or estates]. (NRSV adapted)The title man is a conflation of the story in Matthew's Gospel, which labels the young (...), and Luke's, which calls him rich (...) and a ruler (...). Mark uses none of these words, and the man's claim of piety from [his] youth in fact implies that he is not young. Instead, Mark characterizes him as eager (running, ...) and perhaps obsequious (kneeling, ...), preserving the detail of his many possessions or estates (...) until the punch line of the episode.For Mark, this is the tale of an acquisitive who seems to have everything feels in his heart that there is one thing he lacks: assurance of his fate. His query about eternal (...) is the only time the topic is introduced as such in the Gospel of Mark (the question is answered more fully in the subsequent pericope), whereas most of Jesus's interlocutors find the trials of this life quite enough to occupy them. But the who thinks he has everything-possessing items and practicing perfect obedience to the law-has sought out the itinerant rabbi in order to complete his perfect life, to acquire one final thing. Sadly for him, the thing he lacks is not what he thought. You have it all, Jesus says, but the thing you do not have is to give all that you have away. Do that, and you will have what you want. So goes the zen-like message of Jesus in this episode, a message well known to biblical scholars.3I. DO NOT DEFRAUDA pesky exegetical weed has been planted, though, in the middle of this salutary story. …

Instability in Jesus' Galilee: A Demographic Perspective

(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.) There can be no doubt that Galilee, once mere background to historical Jesus research, has moved to the foreground. What was going on in Galilee during the reign Herod Antipas has become a central question in discovering who Jesus was. But how can this be determined? Literary sources are notoriously unreliable, archaeological excavations are spotty, and theoretical models are often forced onto anecdotal literary or archaeological evidence. A key question in historical Jesus research has been the socioeconomic impact Antipas's urbanization Galilee when he rebuilt Sepphoris and founded Tiberias, in particular the extent and nature subsequent urban-rural relations.1 In spite extensive scholarship on these subjects for over a decade, the Galilean debate has moved toward a consensus on Antipas's urbanization only with regard to religion and culture: Galilee was largely Jewish; Antipas added only a Greco-Roman urban veneer to the cities; and extensive Roman-style urbanization did not occur until after the Bar Kokhba Revolt.2 But no such consensus has emerged on socioeconomics and rural-urban relations. Indeed, the array positions, which are based in large part on whether urbanization is viewed as exploitation or opportunity, is striking. The discussion is stuck in a rut. On one end the spectrum, Richard A. Horsley, David A. Fiensey, and Douglas E. Oakman take negative views Antipas's urbanization and suggest that it exacerbated the plight the peasants and divided town and country, so that the latter viewed the former with animosity.3 I argue that Antipas's urbanization created a strain on agricultural practices in rural Galilee so that-regardless whether their lives improved or worsened in any absolute sense-the cities were viewed with suspicion.4 Most recently, Morten Horning Jensen has weighed in by describing Antipas's rule and his cities as having a negligible impact on Galilean socioeconomics.5 On the other end the spectrum, Douglas R. Edwards and James F. Strange characterize Galilee's urbanization as part a vibrant economy that fostered reciprocal relationships between urban and rural areas from which villagers also benefited.6 Oddly, it is not that each position emphasizes a particular aspect the archaeological record, but that the very same evidence is interpreted in opposite ways!7 Is there a way out this rut? In this article, I intend to evade the tireless debate over models, to move beyond the disputed archaeological finds, and to reframe the question in terms social stability by drawing on the hitherto neglected field historical demography.8 In particular, the tightly interrelated aspects fertility, mortality, and morbidity will be examined with an eye toward assessing internal migration. To anticipate the conclusions at the outset, life in first-century Galilee- though not necessarily dissimilar to other parts the Mediterranean-was substantially different from the modern world and cannot be characterized as stable. Chronic and seasonal disease, especially malaria, cut down significant segments the population and left even the healthy quite often ill. The age structure was youthful, women bore many children, random death made family and household patterns ephemeral, young men were often mobile, and elderly women especially vulnerable. Survival depended on extended family networks, especially for the most vulnerable: old women and young children. The ancient Mediterranean was, in Walter Scheidel's words, a place of frequent pregnancy and sudden death, with several factors in Antipas's Galilee also fueling considerable internal migration.9 Galilee was not demographically stable. I will conclude with some implications that instability for socioeconomics and rural-urban relations under Antipas, and will suggest a few avenues worth pursuing with regard to the historical Jesus. I. METHODS AND MODELS The study ancient demography has recently made significant strides, and a consensus has been reached on many issues, albeit more in terms distinguishing the ancient Mediterranean from the modern world than in nuancing differences among regions within the Roman Empire. …

Nazareth's Rebellious Son: Deviance and Downward Mobility in the Galilean Jesus Movement

Using social—scientific criticism, I imagine that Jesus' family and village elders labeled him a “rebellious son” because his kingdom of God agenda threatened their domestic economy and the patriarchal power relations that sustained it. Consequently, Jesus left Nazareth and initiated a movement among Galilean fishing villages that had marked economic impact on a variety of Galileans. The Jesus movement fostered several economic dynamics including exacerbating the downward mobility of peasants alienated from their families, these very families, and even some “wealthy” persons associated with the movement. Passages from Q suggest that new fictive-kin groups quickly emerged and developed their own patron-client economy. By meeting the basic needs of its members, this household-based domestic economy also created a safety-net for its disenfranchised and honored poor. The Jesus movement represented one of the many sub-systems within first-century Galilee, and—with some modification—it resembled later urban Christian households, especially those characteristic of Paul and Luke—Acts.

Herod Antipas in Galilee: Friend or Foe of the Historical Jesus?

AbstractThe quest for the secrets of first-century Galilee has recently attracted much intense interest, fuelling not least the occasionally heated debate about the cultural and socio-economic setting of the historical Jesus. Interest centres in particular on Herod Antipas’ impact on the region’s socio-economic stability. Was he good or bad news for the ordinary rural peasant population, and did his urbanization pro-gramme critically impact on Jesus and his movement? No consensus has been reached regarding this and similar questions, and Antipas is presently promoted as the key figure in conflicting views of first-century Galilee as either enjoying good and stable conditions, or subject to heavy economic pressure aggravating indebt-edness and tenancy. Surprisingly, the reign of Antipas has only been treated cur-sorily, with Harold Hoehner’s dissertation from 1972 being the one exception, since when intense archaeological activity has produced much new insight on ancient Galilee. Building on a larger study, this article therefore explores the sources, both literary and archaeological, of Antipas’ reign with a view to deter-mining its socio-economic consequences. It will be argued that Antipas’ impact on early first-century Galilee was probably more moderate than often assumed by scholars of the historical Jesus.

Domestic Space, Family Relationships and the Social Location of the Q People

In the Q Document there are about twenty references that provide information about family life. Most of them mention different types of houses that are observed from different perspectives. By locating these references and the point of view they presuppose in the context of the different types of families that existed in first-century Galilee, this article will illustrate how they can help identify more precisely the social location of the Q people.

Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel

Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel, by John S. Kloppenborg Verbin. Minneapolis: Fortress: London: T. & T. Clark 2000. Pp. xii + 546. $32.00. Excavating began as an introduction to Q but got out of hand, as Kloppenborg Verbin admits (p. 9). It evolved into a book "about Q ... and the difference its existence makes" (p. 1), or, as the subtitle indicates, about the history and setting of Q. The book caps several decades of Q research, launched mainly in Germany in the 1960s by three students of Ganther Bornkamm, namely, Heinz Eduard Todt (Der Menschensohn in der synoptischen Tradition [Gerd Mohn, 1959; ET 1965]), Odil Hannes Steck (Israel and das gewaltsame Geschick der Propheten [Neukirchener, 1967]), and Dieter Liihrmann (Die Redaktion der Logienquelle [Neukirchener, 1969]). The proliferation of Q studies from that point on is quite dramatic (measured simply on the basis of published books): eleven in the 1970s, twenty in the 1980s, and thirty-nine in the 1990s. The pace shows no sign of slackening: five more books in 2000, three already announced by early 2001. Kloppenborg Verbin's insightful and incisive review of this literature is itself a valuable contribution. Though the book incorporates the results of studies Kloppenborg Verbin has published separately since The Formation of Q (Fortress, 1987), it does not set forth a new proposal regarding Q. There are, however, some new features, especially an effort to situate Q in first-century lower Galilee (chs. 4, 5). The Synoptic Problem also receives a thorough and balanced analysis, including Roman Catholic contributions (chs. 1 and 6). Some observations by Kloppenborg Verbin are also new, or at least more cogently argued than in Formation. For example, on the question of multiple recensions of Q, he concludes: "that Q ... could have been preserved in identical forms in two or more copies simply strains credulity" (p. 109). In ch. 3 (pp. 118-28), he has added new arguments to those I advanced concerning "The Literary Unity of Q"(JBL 101 [1982]: 365-89). Kloppenborg Verbin's discussion of the stratigraphy of Q (method: pp. 114-18; stratigraphic analysis: pp. 143-53) had already been worked out in Formation and is treated only briefly here. He seeks, however, to correct the popular misuse of his analysis by those who have passed lightly over the literary arguments and have characterized Ql as "sapiential" and Q2 as "prophetic or apocalyptic" (pp. 379-98; cf. pp. 150-51), reserving special criticism for N. T. Wright and Richard Horsley (p. 385 n. 45). He insists on a preference for formal rather than material criteria for discussing the composition and genre of Q (p. 382). In Formation, Kloppenborg Verbin had already argued that Q3 was moving in the direction of the genre bios. I would suggest that it may be worth exploring whether Q3, with its interest in Torah and temple, had already come within the Matthean orbit. The fact that Matthew reworked Q much more thoroughly than Luke suggests that his community had made extensive use of Q prior to its incorporation into the First Gospel, which would comport with my suggestion. Many of Kloppenborg Verbin's claims regarding Q are standard: e.g., it was a single document written in Greek, probably in the late 50s or early 60s of the first century in lower Galilee. However, his efforts to situate Q in first-century lower Galilee are especially noteworthy. The village scribes who produced Q were, he concludes, of relatively low social standing, suspicious of local administrative institutions, probably stable rather than itinerant, and Israelites who observed at least common practices such as Shabbat and kashrut. They perhaps encountered a few Pharisees, but rarely, and followed the "little tradition" of the Torah as known in Galilee. In spite of some criticism of Horsley's proposals (see, e.g., Whoever Hears You Hears Me, by Horsley and Jonathan Draper, [Trinity International, 1999]), Kloppenborg Verbin agrees with him in seeing the Q people as a renewal movement, offering "hope in God's renewal of society, a renewal in which the poor would acquire honor and dignity" (p. …

The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals

The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals, by Stanley E. Porter. JSNTSup 191. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Pp. 304. $84.00. Stanley Porter briefly describes the development of five criteria for authenticity-- dissimilarity, coherence, multiple attestation, least distinctiveness, and Aramaic background-critiques the ways they are formulated and used, and then suggests three new criteria. He first objects to the notion that there is a for the historical Jesus and to the whole -first quest, quest, new quest, third scenario. The first quest, he finds, was not as uncritical or romanticized as is often purported to be; there was lack of scholarship on Jesus during the no period; and Porter sees a basic continuity of method throughout the twentieth century, linking quest/new quest/third quest into one multi-faceted quest of the historical Jesus, with various modifications and adjustments in approach (p. 56). In the second chapter, Porter traces the rise of the five criteria, and some of the criticisms lodged against them. He argues that the of dissimilarity can only be used to prove something is historical, can only deal with content and not wording, and requires exhaustive detailed knowledge of both Judaism and the early Church (p. 74). He argues that multiple attestation tells us about common motifs but not absolute wording, and speaks only to the independence of documents and not to their reliability (p. 86). Porter notes that coherence is very subjective, and that actually argues in the opposite direction from dissimilarity, producing a sort of paradox of methods that many interpreters do not address (pp. 81-82). His most trenchant critique is of attempted retroversions into Aramaic, which he demonstrates is a very chancy procedure. Porter then turns to the works of John P. Meier and Gerd Theissen, since both have produced extended discussions of the criteria. He describes the way each defines the criteria, and then looks at specific proposals by each to refine them. Meier's of embarrassment, notes Porter, turns out to be a variant of dissimilarity. His use of the crucifixion as a criterion-the historian must ask what words and deeds of Jesus can explain his being crucified-Porter takes as a more positive step, since it clearly enshrines a principle of similarity (p. 112). Theissen's contribution is his criterion of historical plausibility, which abandons the idea that the historian can recreate what actually happened for a process of testing plausible scenarios. Theissen also turns one half of the double dissimilarity test on its head, stating that goodness of fit with what we know of first-century Galilee makes a tradition more likely to be historical. Porter's overall criticism is that after decades of use and despite criticism from various quarters, scholars still mostly use the standard criteria without significant alteration. He deems this an impasse, and offers three new criteria as a way out. I disagree with impasse as the proper characterization for using the normal criteria. His critique of the of Aramaic background is convincing enough to dispense with that test, but his treatments of the dissimilarity, coherence, and multiple attestation are inconclusive. It is not true that in order to gain anything from dissimilarity, one must know everything about ancient Judaism and the early church. Once we admit that history is our best guess, based on available evidence, of the most plausible reconstruction of past events, then relieves us of needing to know everything. Do we know enough about life in firstcentury Galilee to make inferences about the relative plausibility of historical scenarios? We probably do, but if subsequent discoveries prove us wrong, then we should adjust our thinking. The of dissimilarity has also been offered in a form that eases the paradoxical relationship between and coherence: material that fits well within what we know of first-century Galilee and that appears to be at odds with the tendencies of the early church is likely to go back to Jesus (see, e. …

The Galilean Fishing Economy and the Jesus Tradition

Building on the earlier studies of ancient fishing by Rostovtzeff and Wuellner, this article examines fishing as a sub-system within the political economy and the domestic economy of first-century Galilee. I employ a model of embedded economics to articulate the relationships between the various players in the sub-system: the Roman emperors; Herod Antipas; the tax administrators; the brokers, tax collectors, and toll collectors; the fishing families; the hired laborers; the suppliers of raw goods and other products; fish processors; and shippers and carters. This model is developed in order to provide a more focussed frame of reference for the interpretation of the Jesus tradition (metaphors and narratives) and the location of Jesus' activity and network recruitment in Galilean fishing villages.

Cynics and Christian Origins (review)

Reviewed by: Cynics and Christian Origins Richard I. Pervo F. Gerald Downing . Cynics and Christian Origins. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1992. Pp. ix + 377. This serves as a synthesis and extension of Gerald Downing's decade of labor on the relevance of ancient Cynicism to early Christianity. Renewed interest in Cynicism has emerged in the course of attention to the historical Jesus and the related investigation of "Q," no longer viewed as a hypothetical synoptic sayings source but as a hypothetical "gospel," the limits, structure, genre, history, and meaning of which deserve analysis. The underlying historical issue is the basic preference of the emergent catholic church for an ethos more like Paul's than that of Jesus. The nineteenth-century liberal quest for the historical Jesus produced many romantic understandings of his ethics. Church historians are aware that such movements are by no means limited to the past one hundred years but represent a recurrent [End Page 62] phenomenon. Specifically, historians of early Christianity are aware that antisocial, ascetic, world-denying manifestations of the faith survived in marginal or heretical groups and became more or less regularized within monasticism. Downing's object is to elucidate this phenomenon within its social and intellectual context. Cynicism supplies the most likely context—and a bag full of problems. Although the movement was of great duration, it lacked formal organizations, like the Academy, generally disdained "schools" of even the ancient sort, and had no formal dogmatics. Furthermore, it had two major wings, a "harsh" kind of tradition that nearly everyone reviled, and a "gentle" embodiment from which nearly everyone cribbed. Finally, one may ask, how does Cynicism fit into rural, first-century Galilee? M.-O.Goulet-Cazé has clarified the problem of description (ANRW II 36.4, 2720-2823). While scholars have been challenging such oppositions as "Hellenistic" and "Jewish," archaeologists have been revealing a Galilee deeply immersed in an urban network. Granting these advances, Downing must still face the problems of identifying and evaluating "influences" and "parallels." Even those inclined to dispute his conclusions must admit that he is quite explicit about his methods and the texts he selects, that his research comprehends a full range of primary and secondary works, that he dodges no problems, and that he recognizes the difficulties. The conclusion is that "from very early days Christianity looked like a variant of a popular . . . Cynicism, and that this Cynic strand went on being obvious and entirely acceptable to informed Christian writers in the early centuries . . ." (p. 302). One must read the book to appreciate the strength of his case. Downing's repeated emphasis upon the lack of embarrassment relates to his program for contemporary church and society. His focus upon how others might see at least some early Christians is historically apposite. Much criticism of early Christianity's effort to inculcate virtue in men and women of every status, as well as its exhibitionism and disrespect for social convention and structure, closely resembles what critics had to say about at least some Cynics. The two most formidable obstacles to this comparison are religion and dogma, both of which aroused considerable Cynic ire. Much of the prophetic element of emergent Christianity, as well as the missions of John the Baptizer and others, is quite congenial to a Cynic perspective and model. Eschatology, specifically apocalyptic eschatology, is not. (At this point I should note that some students of the Jesus tradition, such as J. D. Crossan, regard the historical Jesus as anti-apocalyptic, but do accept the Cynic strains.) Downing's solution to the question of eschatology is not very convincing. On religion in general he can show that both Cynics and Christians were contemptuous of conventional religion, but the root problem is more basic: prior to c. 250 there was little in the Greco-Roman world that would conform to our understanding of a religion. Comparison with philosophy was normal in descriptions of Judaism and early Christianity. Lucian mocks miracle and exorcism (e.g., Philopseudes) without mentioning Christians. When he does use the term, it is in conjunction with Epicureans (Alexander the False Prophet) and, of course, in his story of the Cynic Peregrinus. In terms of ancient models, Downing...

Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels

This now classic book is a significant corrective to several recent developments in the study of the historical Jesus. In contrast to depictions of Jesus as a wandering Cynic teacher, Geza Vermes offers a portrait based on evidence of charismatic activity in first-century Galilee. Vermes shows how the major New Testament titles of Jesus-prophet, Lord, Messiah, son of man, Son of God-can be understood in this historical context. The result is a description of Jesus that retains its power and its credibility.