L. Michael White, Ph.D.

L. Michael White, a popular professor of classics and Christian origins at the University of Texas, was the central figure in the successful PBS special “From Jesus to Christ.” He is an expert on early Christianity and can speak to the changes in theology and practice from Jesus’s early followers to what later became orthodox Christian dogma of the church centuries later.

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Bible/Jesus Experts

Scripting Jesus

The Gospels in Rewrite

Talking Points

Famed scholar of Early Christian history reveals how the gospel stories of Jesus were never meant to be straightforward historical accounts, but rather were scripted and honed as performance pieces for four different audiences with four different theological agendas.

Description

The gospel writers were storytellers, and the stories they told about Jesus and his followers have shaped the beliefs of almost two-and-a-half billion people. Scripting Jesus explains how the gospel writers “honed their pitch” about the life of Jesus and the birth of Christianity for the greatest dramatic effect.

For centuries, in their attempt to discover the real, historical Jesus, people have wrestled with the contradictory stories in the Gospels. For instance, in Jesus’ birth narrative, there is no mention of a stable in Matthew and Luke, there are no wise men in Luke, and no shepherds in Matthew. In several gospels and Pauline letters, Jesus has brothers (and sometimes sisters), but to preserve the virginity of Mary, the Catholic Church insists James was only the “half-brother” of Jesus—and the Protestants snicker.

These sorts of questions and confusions are addressed in Scripting Jesus, arguing that not only do we moderns read into Jesus’s story what we want to see, but even the ancient gospel writers, like any circuit preacher or stand-up comedian, saved the material that got the best response, and cut whatever fell flat—essentially retelling Jesus’s story to serve their own theological agenda and for greatest effect.

With his usual engaging style which he perfected on several PBS series, Early Christianity scholar L. Michael White uses all the tools of criticism for better understanding all four gospels. In his previous, successful book From Jesus to Christianity, the author offered an introduction to the New Testament and the historical and cultural background of a burgeoning religious movement. In Scripting Jesus, White focuses on the gospels, revealing the agendas of the “handlers” who made a man into a messiah.

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Bible/Jesus Experts

From Jesus to Christianity

How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith

Talking Points

L. MICHAEL WHITE, a popular professor of classics and Christian origins at the University of Texas, was the central figure in the successful PBS special “From Jesus to Christ.” He is an expert on early Christianity and can speak to the changes in theology and practice from Jesus’s early followers to what later became orthodox Christian dogma of the church centuries later.

Description

Rather than reading the New Testament straight through in its traditional, or “canonical,” order, White takes a historical and chronological approach to see what they divulge about the disagreements, shared values, and unifying mission of the earliest Christian communities.

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