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For the past two centuries, theologians and biblical scholars have engaged in a relentless search for the origin of Christianity in the historical Jesus. What would happen, Burton L. Mack asks, 'if one acknowledged that the gospel story was Christianty's charter document and regarded its formation as an essential moment in the 'laying of the foundations'?' (xii) This would allow scholars to trace the origins of Christianity to the rich and complex social context of the writing and reception of the gospels. Ron Cameron writes, 'With a single stroke, Burton Mack has shifted the investigation from the quest for a singular genesis to the perspective of the social history and imaginative labor documented in the texts.'
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