Declarations about the authenticity or unauthenticity of Jesus’ words, the definition of the developmental processes, and the determination of the literary forms are all essentially dependent upon which features in the figure of Jesus appear capable of being made relevant. For example, when the point of departure is the idea of Jesus as a revolutionary, the Jesus of “liberation theology”, on the one hand, entire sequences of passages fall by the wayside, whereas other elements suddenly become central, indeed, appear to suggest lost sources and categorically demand the reinterpretation of the
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