I've seen this list on a number of Christian websites. It apparently comes from a list Louis Feldman published 30 years ago in 1984. It is a list of 35 scholars who held positions that the TF was mostly genuine or had been interpolated but had a core reference to Jesus: (4 scholars regard as completely genuine, 6 mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.[ Feldman, Louis H. Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984. P. 684-91] - from http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/HistJesus3.html)
In going through the list I noticed the majority of the scholars were theologians and clerics. I also noticed that several people, Steve Mason, Robert Eisler and Louis Feldman himself apparently, hold/held positions that are problematical for them to be on the list.
There were four scholars that I could not find enough information to determine if they were theologians or clerics. Does anybody know the background of these four list members:
Andre Pelletier, Paul Winter, Paul Mier and Alice Whealey.
Also in the case of Andre Pelletier, and Paul Mier, I was wondering where I could find their actual positions on the TF.
John P. Meier – Catholic Priest
Raymond Brown – Catholic Priest, Father Brown was the only U.S. biblical scholar ever appointed to the Pontifical Biblical Society by a Pope.
Graham Stanton - master's and bachelor of divinity degrees from the University of Otago as a student of Knox College, Dunedin., Brought up in the Salvation Army, he was licensed by the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in 1965. He came to Westminster College, Cambridge, as a Lewis and Gibson scholar in 1966 to study for a PhD under Professor CFD Moule. In 1970, he was appointed to a lectureship at King's College London, becoming professor of New Testament in 1977: he stayed there until he was elected to the Lady Margaret's chair at Cambridge University in 1998.
N.T. Wright - Anglican bishop.
Paula Fredrickson - Ph.D in the history of religion from Princeton University and diploma in theology from Oxford
John D. Crossan - Catholic priest
E.P. Sanders - received a Th.D. from Union Seminary in NYC. In 1990 he received a D. Litt. from the University of Oxford and a Th.D. from the University of Helsinki.
Geza Vermes - Catholic priest
Louis Feldman - received his undergraduate degree from Trinity College, Hartford, CT in 1946 and his master’s degree the following year. In 1951, he received his doctoral degree in philology from Harvard
John Thackeray –died 1930 British biblical scholar at King's College, Cambridge,
Andre Pelletier
Paul Winter
A. Dubarle Catholic Theologian
Ernst Bammel Professor of Theology at Cambridge
Otto Betz - originated from a child-rich minister family. Evangelical.
Paul Mier
Ben Witherington - Born on December 30, 1951, from High Point, North Carolina, Witherington attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, along with minors in Philosophy and Religious Studies. He holds an M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England.
F.F. Bruce - Bruce was born in Elgin, Moray, in Scotland, the son of a Christian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren) preacher… Aberdeen University bestowed an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree on him in 1957.[
Luke T. Johnson – Catholic Priest
Craig Blomberg – Evangelical Theologian: completed his PhD in Doctoral category::New Testament, specializing in the parables and the writings of Luke-Acts, at Aberdeen University in Scotland. He received the MA from Attended seminary::Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a BA from Augustana College.
J. Carleton Paget - Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies in the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge.
Alice Whealey
J. Spencer Kennard - Evangelist Pastor who wrote "Psychic Power in Preaching"
R. Eisler - Austrian Jewish historian of art and culture,
Eisler has proposed only an hypothesis that the TF had an original negative core:
R.T. France – Anglican ClericNow about this time arose an occasion for new disturbances, a certain Jesus, a wizard of a man, if indeed he may be called a man who was the most monstrous of all men, whom his disciples call a son of God, as having done wonders such as no man hath ever yet done…He was in fact a teacher of astonishing tricks to such men as accept the abnormal with delight…. And he seduced many also of the Greek nation and was regarded by them as the Messiah… And when, on the indictment of the principal men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to the cross, still those who before had admired him did not cease to rave. For it seemed to them that having been dead for three days, he had appeared to them alive again, as the divinely-inspired prophets had foretold -- these and ten thousand other wonderful things -- concerning him. And even now the race of those who are called "Messianists" after him is not extinct."
Gary Habermas - Habermas is Distinguished Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy and chairman of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He holds a Ph.D. (1976) from Michigan State University in the area of History and Philosophy of Religion and an M.A. (1973) from the University of Detroit in Philosophical Theology.
Robert Van Voorst -- He received his B.A. in Religion from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, his M.Div. from Western Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in New Testament from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Shlomo Pines - Died 1990, Between 1926 and 1934 Shlomo Pines studied philosophy, Semitic languages, and linguistics at the universities of Heidelberg, Geneva and Berlin
Edwin M. Yamuchi - As a youth, Yamauchi was sent to an Episcopalian school. But, by 1952, he had begun to shift towards evangelicalism. In his senior high school year Yamauchi studied at a rural school and worked at a missionary farm known as the Christian Youth Center. He is a founding member of the Oxford Bible Fellowship church in Oxford, Ohio. He was a supporter of the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship throughout his career,
James Tabor - Tabor was born in Texas but lived all over the world as the son of an Air Force officer. He was raised in the Churches of Christ and attended Abilene Christian University, where he earned his B.A. degree in Greek and Bible. While earning his M.A. from Pepperdine University he taught Greek and Hebrew part-time at Ambassador College, founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder and president of the Worldwide Church of God.
Tabor earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1981 in New Testament and Early Christian Literature,
John O'Connor-Murphy – Catholic Priest
Mark Goodacre - a New Testament scholar and Professor at Duke University's Department of Religion
Paula Frederiksen - She earned a Ph.D in the history of religion from Princeton University and diploma in theology from Oxford
David Flusser - a devout Orthodox Jew who applied his skills in Torah and Talmud to the study of ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, as well as the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Steve Mason - Professor and Canada Research Chair (in Cultural Identity and Interaction in the Greco-Roman World) at York University in Toronto. Mason’s position is not quite an endorsement of the consensus that Josephus wrote something about Jesus, although he leans that way. Mason says “Consensus is likely to come only with a major new insight into the state of Josephus’ text before the fourth century, likely as the result of some new discovery. (pg. 174, Josephus and the New Testament”
Warmly,
Jay Raskin
