I Once Knew a Man: A Case Study Analysis of the Relationship Between Masculine Social Constructions and Historical Jesus Studies

This is a two part thesis. Part I contains a literature survey in which I surveyed published material on the way Jesus\u27 canonical masculinity is constructed in the context of Greco-Roman masculinities. Part II of this work is a case study analysis of the masculinity of Jesus as constructed by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright in their book, The Meaning of Jesus. In order to do this, I surveyed literature and compiled profiles of masculinity from the late 20th century western world. Next, I analyzed Borg and Wright\u27s Jesus\u27 in the context of the relevant profiles of western masculinity. The findings of the case study reveal that N.T. Wright\u27s Jesus performs a more traditional and dominant masculinity than Marcus Borg\u27s Jesus