The Demise of the Criteria of Authenticity
Let me state this baldly: the portion of New Testament scholarship that I hate reading the most is historical Jesus scholarship. I like most of the scholars themselves, but I came to the conclusion early on (as an undergraduate when I took a class on Jesus and the Gospels at Illinois Wesleyan University--a class I will teach next semester at the same institution) that much of the criteria used pulled themselves apart, cancelled each other out, and most scholars chose criteria based upon what Jesus they wanted to reconstruct (something noted more recently by Dale Allison that our methods bend to our predisposed wills). I generally have operated with the view that historical Jesus research had run its course and we could focus on other things. That's probably one reason why I like to stick to Hebrews. Typically, I pick up a book on the historical Jesus with trepidation; I usually find that I put it down every few pages. It is just an area of scholarship...