Byron R. McCane

Now available for the first time in English, Karl Ludwig Schmidt's The Framework of the Story of Jesus (Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu) has been a foundation of New Testament studies. Through meticulous analysis, Schmidt demonstrates that the Synoptic Gospels are collections of individual stories that circulated orally and independently in the earliest Christian communities. Schmidt shows persuasively how, in their oral forms, most of these traditions existed apart from any sequence or specific temporal or geographic location, and that the chronology and locations now evident in the Gospels were applied by the evangelists while collecting and recording the oral traditions. Across much of the twentieth century and even into the present day, Schmidt's thesis has undergirded Gospel interpretation. Yet as long as The Framework of the Story of Jesus remained untranslated, Schmidt's ideas have been open to neglect and misinterpretation among Anglophone scholars. Discussion of the Synoptic Gospels and broader New Testament study will be enriched by engagement with the evidence and argument as originally presented.

Directly relating to our understanding of the biblical and early Christian stories of Jesus' burial, this text includes a provocative interpretation of burial practices of the period 63 BCE to 135 CE, with particular emphasis on the time of Jesus. A strong connection to the recent discovery of the ossuary (bone box) purported to be that of James, brother of Jesus features. The book reveals what took place when the early Jews and Christians in Palestine gathered to bury their dead. It addresses questions such as whether Jesus' burial was a shameful event, and how different the death rituals of the Jews were from the earliest Christian communities.