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H.J. Holtzmann's Die synoptischen Evangelien(1863) is not only regarded as having established Markan priority and the basic contours of the Two Source hypothesis; it also offered a sketch of the life of Jesus based on a Mark-like source that represents a starting point for the so-called ‘Liberal Lives of Jesus’ which prevailed from 1863 until the early 1900s. Holtzmann's ‘Life’ portrayed Jesus as an exemplary personality, and posited psychological development in seven stages in the career of Jesus. This essay discusses the intellectual context leading to Holtzmann's book and then offers an annotated English translation of Holtzmann's ‘Life of Jesus’. This is Part 1 of a two-part essay.

This essay responds to Michael Bird's critique of my criterion of Greek language and its context, put forward especially in my The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals(JSNTSup, 191; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 126-80. I clarify the nature of the criterion by noting that Bird several times seems not to clearly understand that it tries to establish probability criteria for proposing that Jesus may have spoken Greek on particular occasions.

This essay examines Stanley E. Porter's proposed new criterion of authenticity, the criterion of Greek language and context. This criterion attempts to recover the Greek words of Jesus embedded in the Gospels. Porter presents a robust case for a multilingual Palestinian environment and highlights the value of language tools for historical-Jesus study. Despite this, Porter's proposed new criterion is questionable for several reasons. (1) The character of the Jesus tradition is not conducive to a recovery of the purported Greek words of Jesus; (2) the extent that Greek was spoken in Galilee remains debatable; (3) Porter risks the fallacy of moving from the general to the particular; (4) the Greek-speaking background of Jesus’ dialogue partners does not require that conversations transpired in Greek; and (5) Porter remains dependent upon additional criteria to establish the authenticity of a given logion or pericope.

Although historical-Jesus research in the last three decades has produced a great deal of divergent results, one is able to discern several important areas of progress. Perhaps the most important gain is in a renewed appreciation of the Judaic character of Jesus, his mission, and his world. New source material and more nuanced, contextual methodology have sharpened Jesus' profile as a Galilean Jew, standing in the tradition of Israel's redemption and restoration.

Many reconstructions of the life of the historical Jesus have tended to portray him as being born into illiterate peasant stock. By so doing, significant statements in the Gospels, both canonical and non-canonical, are ignored. While much caution is needed, since there is a tendency to valorize the young Jesus in early Christian literature and to heighten miraculous events surrounding his childhood, nonetheless there are indicators that Jesus' background did not reflect the lowest echelons of Galilean peasantry. Instead, it is suggested that internal Gospel evidence and knowledge of aspects of the social milieu of first-century Judaism give weight to seeing Jesus as a person with what would now be classified as functional on basic literacy levels.