Historical background of the New Testament that the Temple would not be rebuilt in their lifetimes, Christianity reflected the acknowledgment of early Christians that the Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of God's kingdom on earth was not to happen in their lifetimes. The critical analysis of the Gospels involves, at least in part, a consideration of how these concerns affected the Gospels' accounts of Jesus. According to historian Paula Fredriksen (1988: 5), critical scholars rely on four basic criteria for extrapolating an "authentic" historical account of Jesus out of the New Testament sources: As Fredriksen observes, these criteria do not guarantee an accurate historical
New Testament people named Mary New Testament people named Mary The name "Mary" (Greek ' or ') appears 61 times in the New Testament, in 53 different verses. It was the single most popular female name among Palestinian Jews of the time, borne by about one in five women, and most of the New Testament references to "Mary" provide only the barest identifying information. Scholars and traditions therefore differ as to how many distinct women these references represent and which of them refer to the same person. A common Protestant tradition holds that there are six different women named as "Mary" in the New Testament: