Thurman among Modern Jesus Scholars

Written in honor of the seventy-year anniversary of Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, this paper takes up Thurman’s plea that we should consider the relevance of historical Jesus studies to the oppressed. I heed his call by examining Thurman’s claims about Jesus’ life and ministry in light of the work of two contemporary Jesus scholars whose work on social history have moved the conversation forward in our day, Jens Schröter and Dale Allison. This comparison shows that many of Thurman’s insights about Jesus stand up to critical scrutiny. I then ask probing questions of Schröter and Allison’s work, particularly what their scholarship has to say to the disinherited.