NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 63, Issue 1, 2009

The article discusses Paul Verhoeven’s reconstruction of the historical Jesus in his book ‘Jezus van Nazareth’ (2008). It shows that Verhoeven’s portrait of Jesus as a ‘last minute revolutionary’ is unconvincing due to major methodological shortcomings, inter alia regarding the critical evaluation of the sources, the neglect of form-critical insights, the absence of coherent methodology. The article concludes by summing up differences between a historical and a cinematic approach to Jesus.

Antiplagiarism software involves the comparison of various texts and the measurement of percentages of agreement and disagreement in order to establish dependency relationships, that is, to find out whether one text (e.g. a student’s paper) is based on another text (e.g. another student’s paper or a text on the internet). In the computer-assisted analysis of the Hebrew Bible and its ancient versions, the computer is used in a similar way to measure distances between texts and to establish relationships of dependency. Comparing these two applications of digital text comparison is helpful to illuminate the role of the computer functions of calculation and sorting in textual analysis.

In current research, there is no clear definition of the notion of ‘Urchristentum’ (‘primitive Christianity’); its historical and theological-normative connotations are often confused. According to Franz Overbeck, ‘Urchristentum’ should be defined as the period in which the Christian believers did not distinguish between oral and literary Christian tradition. With Irenaeus such a distinction is given, as he is the first author known to quote Christian scripture as Scripture. Some methodological implications emerging from Overbeck’s definition are considered in order to set out an appropriate academic approach to ‘Urchristentum’.

Originally, the mishnaic tractate Avot ended with the sayings of Ben Bag-Bag (m.Avot 5:22) and Ben He-He. The reading of the saying in 5:22 according to ms.Kaufmann, deviates strongly from the traditional versions. Our study discusses this variant within the parameters of the rabbinic culture of Tora study. The exact translation of the variant reading remains unclear, but it can very well be understood as pointing to the mystical union of man and the Tora. This type of mysticism is related to the concept of the incorporated Tora and serves to strengthen the authority of the teachers involved. The traditional version, on the other hand, is less ambiguous and emphasises the meaning of Tora study for everyone.