Gerd Lüdemann, The Life of Jesus

Bible and Interpretation have just published an essay by Gerd Lüdemann in which he summarises the concluding section of his book Jesus After Two Thousand Years: What He Really Said and Did (London: SCM, 2000 and Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2001):

The Life of Jesus: A Brief Assessment

It's a challenge that all Historical Jesus scholars should try -- to produce a brief sketch like this. It is reminiscent of E. P. Sanders's attempt to do something similar at the beginning of Jesus and Judaism. With Lüdemann's, I can't help thinking that he pauses just a bit too long on certain of his own idiosyncracies, e.g. he labours the point on Jesus' having been "fathered in dubious circumstances". Have a look at Lüdemann's characteristically outspoken assessment of Jesus at the end of the piece too.

One nerdy point I can't resist making: Bible and Interpretation do not seem to have mastered the art of representing umlauts on the web, but it's quite a simple bit of code, ü in which "u" is the letter to receive the umlaut (etc.).