Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

Preface
am immensely grateful to the University and to my departmental colleagues for
thus encouraging and supporting me and gladly acknowledge that without that
leave the challenge of the present volume would have been impossible to take
on, let along to meet even to the extent that the following chapters attest.
During the course of the two years, a blessed anticipation (arrabon) of
early retirement in due course (take heart, Meta, there is light at the end of the
tunnel), I was able to try out several ideas and sections of the book as its structure
developed. The attempts to explain and the opportunities to defend its various
hypotheses and findings helped (as always) to clarify and sharpen my own thinking
and formulation. I am grateful more than I can say for all the pleasure and
stimulus these occasions afforded, for me certainly, and I hope for the others involved.
For more than two years I have been able to offer a one, two, or three lecture
series under various titles round the theme 'Looking for Jesus' — in San Antonio,
Texas; as the Hugh Price Hughes Lecture in Hinde Street Methodist
Church, London; as the Lund and the Zarley Lectures in North Park, Chicago; in
Lincoln Cathedral as part of a series on 'The Uniqueness of Christianity'; in
Lynchburg College, Virginia; and in Denver Theological Seminary, Colorado. At
the annual symposium on 'The Task of Interpreting Scripture Theologically' at
North Park Seminary in October 2000, I was able to develop key themes from
chapter 6 under the title 'Ex Akoe Pisteos'. The key thesis of the whole volume
(chapter 8) was tried out in a wonderful colloquium in Israel, under the inspired
leadership of Doris Donnelly, and also in the British New Testament Conference
in September 2000 in Bristol, and at the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
conference in November 2000 at Nashville, under the title 'Jesus in Oral Memory'.
Parts of chapter 9 made up a paper for the 'Jesus and Archaeology' conference
in Jerusalem, August 2000. Sections of chapter 12 provided a paper for the
'Historical Jesus' seminar at the Society for New Testament Studies annual conference
in Montreal, August 2001 and for the Festschrift for Peder Borgen. Material
from chapters 9 and 14 contributed to papers on 'Jesus and Holiness' for a
Durham interdisciplinary seminar organized by Stephen Barton in November
1999, and to a paper on 'Jesus and Purity' delivered at the SBL conference in
Denver, Colorado, in November 2001. Material for chapters 15 to 17 was first
worked through thoroughly in contributions to two symposia, one of them the
Festschrift for my old friend David Catchpole. And sections from chapter 18
have contributed to yet another Festschrift, this one for my former colleague
Sandy Wedderburn.
More interactive and generative of more feedback, the bulk of the first
fourteen chapters provided the main feature of the programme of the Durham
New Testament Research Seminar for two terms in the first half of 2001. These
were particularly stimulating and challenging sessions, and I am grateful to the
members of the Seminar for their comments and criticisms, particularly my im-
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