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In Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History, internationally renowned Jesus scholar Dale Allison addresses such perennially fascinating questions about Jesus answering them with the precision of scholarship, and sensitivity to the two-thousand year tradition of the church. He asks, What did Jesus think of himself? How did he face death? What were his expectations of the future? And can we answer questions like these on the basis of the Gospels?

Presenting the fruit of several decades of research, Allison contends that the standard criteria most scholars have employed and continue to employ for constructing the historical Jesus are of little value. His pioneering alternative applies recent findings from cognitive science about human memory to our reading of the Gospels in order to "construct Jesus" more soundly and in ways that go beyond the theological and philosophical prejudices that so often taint the discussion. 

Scholars, students, pastors, and laity engaged with New Testament studies and, Jesus studies in particular, will want to interact with the data and conclusions of this significant, ground breaking work.