The symbolic Jesus: historical scholarship, Judaism and the construction of contemporary identity

It is widely accepted that Jesus was a Jew. However, both Christian and New Testament scholarship have a strong anti-Jewish history. 'The Symbolic Jesus' presents the controversies surrounding the Jewishness of Jesus.

It examines the insistence among historical Jesus scholars that Jesus was a Jew and the ways this frames the figure of Jesus in ancient Christian literature.

The book examines the anti-Jewish legacy of the past and more recent approaches to biblical scholarship.

Contemporary identity issues - scholarly, political, religious and cultural - are shown to lie at the heart of the debate.