It is time for my weekly Readers’ Mailbag.  I will be dealing with two questions this time.  If you have questions, about anything at all related to the historical Jesus, the New Testament, the history of early Christianity, or anything else that I may have a remote chance of knowing something about, please ask!  You can either respond with a comment/question to this post, or send me an email, or comment on any other post!   QUESTION:   An off-topic request: what are the five most puzzling questions about the historical Jesus you would love to see resolved in your lifetime? RESPONSE:   Ah, this is a tough one.  It is made particularly difficult by two competing phenomena.  The first is that most scholars of the historical Jesus are pretty convinced that their views about what he said and did are on the money.   So in that sense, what is there that can be answered that hasn’t been?  The other is the unpleasant reality that in fact we know very few things for certain about Jesus – [...]