Here are some of the details of the lecture.

Title: Spoken by the Prophets: How Interpretation of Jewish Scripture Created the Character of Jesus.

Topic: Hawkins will discuss the conflict between historical Jesus scholarship versus the use of literary criticism and how a better, more probable explanation can be given for the existence of the legend of Jesus.  Offering a new interpretation of the Gospels, Hawkins will explain how the Gospels are not representations of a unique form of Greco-Judaic biography that came about sui generis; instead, the Gospels better express the genre of the Jewish Fiction novel. Hawkins will show this by presenting cases in the Gospel narratives where literary allusions take place not only between the Gospels and the Old Testament, but between the Gospels and Greco-Roman literature. The question of 'why' fictions were written, 'where' the character of Jesus fits in, and 'why' this genre strains the case for a historical Jesus will all be discussed.