A review by p_t_b
The Historical Figure of Jesus by E. P. Sanders

3.0

i mostly bought this because i wanted to buy something at verbatim books in san diego (definitely worth a browse if you are in SD) and i thought this might be useful for this thing i have been trying to write. i was hoping for more like, social historical context of mr. christ, but this was kind of cool despite a lot of necessary disclaimers that there really isn't too much concrete to know about jesus the guy (even though i want him to say like, jesus was short and bald and smelled like freshly baked bread or something to that effect). anyway: this is good history, humanely written, especially good in puzzling out what stuff in the gospels is especially forced (the moses echos, etc). but not sure it's necessary unless you are a christology superfan.