Kurt Schubert is Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies. From 1966 to 1993, he was a professor at the University of Vienna in Austria where he still lectures even now. His professional interest is research into Jewish history and culture from biblical times until the present.

It is usually a great surprise, for most Christians and Jews, to realize that the Jesus, the central figure of the Christian faith, never was a Christian, and never belonged to a Christian Church. On the contrary, during his entire life, Jesus was nothing but a Jew. He was born as a Jew, and he lived and died as such. Furthermore, according to the New Testament, he was resur­rected as a Jew and ascended to heaven as a Jew. All the events of his life, death and resurrection, narrated in the Gospels and in the first chapter of the book of Acts, occurred well before the begin­ning of the church, hence, inside the Judaism of the time.

Brad is a Christian and a native of Oklahoma who went to Israel and earned two graduate degrees from the Hebrew University. His doctorate explored the Jewish background of the life and teachings of Jesus. He compared the parables of Jesus in the Gospels to the parables of the rabbis in Jewish literature. Brad has written many books and articles on the Jewish origins of Christianity. His widely read book Jesus the Jewish Theologian (Hendrickson, 1995) opens up the original historical environment and allows readers to hear the message of Jesus afresh.

Rolf Rendtorff is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Theology. From 1958 to 1963, he was Professor at the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin; from 1963 to 1990, he was a professor at the University of Heidelberg, where he also served as Rector of the University (1970 to 1972). He has served as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.