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
Testament of Ba of Ba" was transmitted in manuscript form over many centuries, and so there are many different recensions of the text, but not one single, canonical printed version. Two early versions of the text have been identified by scholars: The "Testament of Ba" is also widely quoted in later Tibetan historigraphical works, for example the "Scholar's Feast" ("mkhas pa'i dga' ston"). The author of the "Scholar's Feast" calls the "Testament" the "Rba bzhed" (with an 'r' prefix to the Ba clan name), and refers to 'genuine', 'impure', 'large' and 'medium' versions of the text. A later, expanded version of the "Testament