Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), a German deist and rationalist, inaugurated modern critical investigation into the life of Jesus. He asserted that much of the New Testament record was a pious fabrication and that Jesus was primarily a political revolutionary. Albert Schweitzer has said of Reimarus: His work is perhaps the most splendid achievement in the whole course of the historical investigation of the life of Jesus, for he was the first to grasp the fact that the world of thought in which Jesus moved was essentially eschatological. This edition contains Reimarus' writings, On the Resurrection and On the Intention of Jesus and His Disciples, as well as a portion of D. F. Strauss's evaluation of Reimarus. Dr. Talbert, Professor of Religion at Wake Forest University, offers a critical introduction to the book. This new translation of the two writings was done by Ralph S. Fraser, Professor of German at Wake Forest.

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In Christianity in the making, James D.G. Dunn examines in depth the major factors that shaped first-generation Christianity and beyond, exploring the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, the Hellenization of Christianity, and responses to Gnosticism. He mines all the first- and second-century sources, including the New Testament Gospels, New Testament apocrypha, and such church fathers as Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, showing how the Jesus tradition and the figures of James, Paul, Peter, and John were still esteemed influences but were also the subject of intense controversy as the early church wrestled with its evolving identity.

James A. Herrick offers an intellectual history of the New Religious Synthesis, examining the challenges it poses to Judeo-Christian tradition, demonstrating its sources and manifestations in contemporary culture, and questioning its acceptance in church and society.

In The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing, Jon Stewart argues that there is a close relation between content and form in philosophical writing. While this might seem obvious at first glance, it is overlooked in the current climate of Anglophone academic philosophy, which, Stewart contends, accepts only a single genre as proper for philosophical expression. Stewart demonstrates the uniformity of today's philosophical writing by contrasting it with that of the past. Taking specific texts from the history of philosophy and literature as case studies, Stewart shows how the use of genres like dialogues, plays and short stories were an entirely suitable and effective means of presenting and arguing for philosophical positions given the concrete historical and cultural contexts in which they appeared. Now, Stewart argues, the prevailing intolerance means that the same texts are dismissed as unphilosophical merely due to their form, although their content is, in fact, profoundly philosophical. The book's challenge to current conventions of philosophical is provocative and timely, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, literature and history.