The Aims of Jesus

Ben Meyer (1927-1995) studied with the Jesuits, his studies taking him to California, Stasbourg, Gottingen, and Rome, where he received his doctorate from the Universita Gregoriana in 1965. He taught briefly at Alma College and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley before joining the faculty at McMaster University in 1969, where he taught in the Department of Religious Studies until 1992. Meyer's areas of specialization included the historical Jesus, the early expansion of the Christian movement, and the hermeneutics of Bernard Lonergan. He authored several important monographs, including 'The Aims of Jesus', 'The Early Christians', 'Critical Realism and the New Testament', 'Christus Faber', 'Reality and Illusion in New Testament Scholarship', and 'Five Speeches that Changed the World'.