In the man they knew, they met the living God
Who was – who is – the “real” Jesus? These are questions that continue to be widely debated, with an equally wide range of conclusions on offer.
In Recovering Jesus: The Witness of the New Testament, Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, associate professor at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., closely examines our primary sources for Jesus – the testimony of Jesus’ first-century followers. Writing for students, and as both “a believer and scholar,” Yoder Neufeld describes the emphases of the four Gospels, Jesus’ Jewish context, and then considers the witness the New Testament writers give to Jesus’ birth, actions, teachings, death, and resurrection. He is convinced that by “listening to” and “wrestling with” this testimony, we too can “see” the Jesus of whom they spoke.
The Christian claim that Jesus is also divine is “typically bracketed out when getting at the historical Jesus,” Yoder Neufeld says, with the result that Christology – “the study of the theological meaning and identity of Jesus as the Christ” – has become a separate area of study. Yoder Neufeld ends his book, however, with Christological “beginnings.” The following excerpts are from that chapter.
The excerpt from Thomas Yoder Neufeld’s Recovering Jesus has been removed in compliance with the expiry of the publication agreement of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
Please refer to a hard copy of the June 2009 MB Herald, or request to purchase the book through Kindred Productions, or from Brazos Press.
Excerpts from Recovering Jesus by Thomas Yoder Neufeld, Brazos Press (a division of Baker
Publishing Group), 2007. Used by permission.
Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, author of Recovering Jesus and the commentary, Ephesians, will speak in three plenary sessions at the Oct. 15-17 MB study conference in Saskatoon. 
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