[1] The beginnings of the collegial relationships that formed the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research can be traced back to David Flusser and Robert L. Lindsey in the 1960s.
Recently this subject of a Hebrew Gospel and Semitic material has been discussed by James R. Edwards (although with somewhat differing results than Jerusalem School members).
[13][14] Both affirmation and strong criticism followed the publication of a co-authored book Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus[15] by David Bivin and Roy B. Blizzard Jr. which was reviewed by Michael L. Brown.
Brown wrote: In the event that JSSR devotes its primary efforts to: 1) the sober elucidation of texts which New Testament scholarship recognizes as difficult and obscure; 2) providing Jewish background to the Scriptures; 3) and shedding light on Semitic nuances of biblical words and phrases, then all of us can glean from their work.
Should the Jerusalem School continue to devote itself primarily to the hypothetical work of retranslation and reconstruction, then their potential contribution to the ongoing ministry of the Word would be relegated to relative unimportance.
However, the review contained also some concerns: While there may be something to Semitic influences, contributors routinely fail to draw the reader’s attention to the speculation necessarily involved with it as a working methodological assumption.