Ed Parish Sanders

Ed Parish Sanders (born April 18, 1937 in Grand Prairie , Texas ) is an American theologian . He is an important exponent of the "Third Quest" of the Life of Jesus research , a specialist in non-biblical Jewish literature, and an advocate of the New Pauline Perspective .

Life

Sanders grew up in small families in rural Texas, studied Christian theology in New York, Göttingen and Oxford and Jewish theology in New York and Jerusalem. He received his doctorate in 1966 on tendencies in the synoptic tradition .

Also in 1966 he became professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, 1984 professor of exegesis in Oxford , England, and in 1990 he came to Duke University in North Carolina, United States.

His first book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism , won national prizes in the USA, but also aroused great controversy because he adopted the traditional Christian view of the " Pharisaic righteousness of works", which Judaism allegedly cultivated, and the opposition between " works " and " grace " refuted based on Jewish sources. He is one of the earliest and most important authors of a research that later by James Dunn , the New Perspective on Paul ( New Perspective on Paul was called).

In 1990 he received the first Grawemeyer Award for religion for his book Jesus and Judaism , published in 1985 , which is seen as an essential contribution to the more recent research on the life of Jesus .

Sanders is considered an expert on non-biblical Jewish literature of the first few centuries.

In 1990 EP Sanders received an honorary degree in literature from Oxford University and an honorary degree in theology from Helsinki University . He works at Duke University .

Historical research on Jesus

His most important contributions to historical Jesus research are Jesus and Judaism (1986) and The Historical Figure of Jesus (1996). In his first book, Sanders presents various directions of ancient Judaism, which in their belief in a special, unique covenant of God converged with the Israelites and found their decisive salvation in it. Jesus and his followers also assumed this belief and shared it with their Jewish contemporaries. This position is characterized as "covenant nomism" and also determines Sanders 'interpretation of Jesus' relationship to the Torah and the Halacha of purity .

In his second book, Sanders highlights those elements of the NT tradition that he considers to be barely contested historically:

• Jesus was baptized through John the Baptist.
• He was a Galilean who preached and healed.
• He called disciples and spoke about twelve of them.
• He limited his activities to Israel.
• He was embroiled in a controversy regarding the temple.
• He was crucified outside the city of Jerusalem by the Roman occupying forces.
• After his death, his disciples continued to be an identifiable movement.
• At least parts of Judaism persecuted at least parts of the new movement, and that persecution lasted until the end of Paul's effectiveness (1960s).

Sanders is very critical of the historical evidence and does not speculate. What distinguishes him is a profound knowledge of non-biblical Jewish literature. Hence, he expertly refutes some of the stereotypical caricatures that exist in theology of Jesus' Jewish opponents.

For Theißen and Merz , Sanders is an exemplary representative of the second mainstream within the third phase of historical Jesus research. He coined the term "common Judaism" (dt .: general Judaism) for the basic beliefs and forms of expression of Judaism at that time.

Works

English

• Paul and Palestinian Judaism . A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. SCM, London 1977, ISBN 0-334-01227-9 .
• Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People . Fortress Press, Philadelphia 1983, ISBN 0-8006-0698-1 .
• Jesus and Judaism . Fortress Press, Philadelphia 1985, ISBN 0-8006-0743-0 .
• (as editor) Ed Parish Sanders (ed.): Jesus, the Gospels, and the Church . Essays in Honor of William R. Farmer . Mercer University Press, Macon (Georgia) 1987, ISBN 0-86554-269-4 .
• Studying the Synoptic Gospels, 1989, ISBN 0-334-02342-4 .
• Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, 1990, ISBN 0-334-00822-0 .
• Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah . Five studies. Trinity Press, Philadelphia 1990, ISBN 0-334-02102-2 .
• Paul . Oxford University Press, New York 1991, ISBN 0-19-287679-1 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 5, 2015]).
• Judaism . Practice and Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE. Trinity Press, Philadelphia 1992, ISBN 1-56338-016-1 .
• The Historical Figure of Jesus . Penguin, London 1993, ISBN 0-7139-9059-7 .

German

• Paul and Palestinian Judaism . A comparison of two religious structures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-525-53371-3 (American English: Paul and Palestinian Judaism . London 1977. Translated by Jürgen Wehnert).
• Paul . An introduction. Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-15-009365-1 (American English: Paul . New York 1991. Translated by Ekkehard Schöller).
• Son of god . A historical biography of Jesus. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-608-91721-7 (American English: The Historical Figure of Jesus . London 1993. Translated by Ulrich Enderwitz).

literature

• Martin Hengel , Roland Deines : EP Sanders' "Common Judaism", Jesus and the Pharisees . In: Martin Hengel (Ed.): Small writings . Part 1: Judaica et Hellenistica (=  scientific research on the New Testament ). tape 90 . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1996, ISBN 3-16-146588-1 , chapter 14, p. 392–479 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 31, 2015]).

Web links

• Literature by and about Ed Parish Sanders in the catalog of the German National Library
• An academic autobiography ( PDF file; 6 kB)
• Is Paul's Legacy Relevant Today? (from 0:04:47) on YouTube (Lecture in English at Villanova University , October 1, 2008)
• Jesus and Judaism on YouTube (Interview in English at Duke University , January 2009)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gerd Theißen , Annette Merz : The historical Jesus: A textbook . 4th edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-52198-4 , here p. 29 ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on May 13, 2017]).
2. ↑ Angelika Strotmann : The Historical Jesus: An Introduction (=  UTB . No. 3553 ). Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-8252-3553-6 , here pp. 31–32 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed on May 13, 2017]): “Ed Parish Sanders' book was a breakthrough ›Jesus and Judaism‹ from 1985 "
3. ↑ Michael Bachmann : Foreword . In: Michael Bachmann, Johannes Woyke (ed.): Lutheran and new Paulus perspective: Contributions to a key problem of the current exegetical discussion (=  WUNT . No. 182 ). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 978-3-16-148712-5 , p. vii – xiii , here p. vii ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed on May 13, 2017]).
4. ↑ Alexander JM Wedderburn : A Newer Paulus Perspective? In: Eve-Marie Becker , Peter Pilhofer (Ed.): Biography and Personality of Paul (=  WUNT . No. 187 ). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 978-3-16-148662-3 , p. 46–64 , here p. 46 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed on May 13, 2017]): “[The] expression“ the new Paulus perspective ”to denote the turnaround in Pauline research […] that the works by EP Sanders "
5. ↑ 1990 - EP Sanders. Grawemeyer Awards, accessed January 29, 2016 . 
6. ↑ Karlheinz Müller: New Testament Science and Judaic Studies. In: Lutz Doering, Hans-Günther Waubke, Florian Wilk (eds.): Jewish Studies and New Testament Science: Locations - Limits - Relationships. Research on the religion and literature of the Old and New Testaments, Volume 226. 1st edition. 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-53090-0 , p. 36f.
7. ↑ Gerd Theißen , Annette Merz : The historical Jesus: A textbook . 4th edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-52198-4 , here p. 126 ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on May 13, 2017]).
8. ↑ Angelika Strotmann : The Historical Jesus: An Introduction (=  UTB . No. 3553 ). Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-8252-3553-6 , here p. 186, note no. 7 to chapter 8 ( restricted preview in Google book search [accessed on May 13, 2017]).