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
Antisemitism and the New Testament that the Roman Catholic Church should change its doctrine and the accepted Biblical canon to excise statements he labels as antisemitic,- he counts some 450 such passages in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts of the Apostles alone-to indicate that "The Jews' way to God is as legitimate as the Christian way". Antisemitism and the New Testament The idea that the New Testament is anti-Semitic is a controversy that has emerged in the aftermath of the Holocaust, although the Holocaust is almost exclusively known as a byproduct of the anti-Semitic ideas of racial supremacism and social Darwinism. It is often associated