[February 2002 journal entry]
It is striking to me that ‘Jesus’ (i.e., the actual person who, if accessible to historical reconstruction, is known almost exclusively through the Synoptic Gospels with minimal contribution from the Gospel of John and a few sources outside the Christian canon of scripture) is virtually absent in the other early writings (Acts through Revelation) that became canonical for Christianity. There are, of course, allusions. But there is no biographical information (other than references to his death), no episodes from his life (other than Paul’s reference to ‘the last supper’), none of his teachings (other than the one quotation in Acts that is not paralleled in any of the four Gospels), no use of his parables (or the story-telling method, for that matter), . . . . No reconstruction of the life of ‘Jesus’ is possible from these writings.