Call number
Genres
Publication
Description
John Dominic Crossan, widely regarded as the leading authority on the words and life of Jesus, cuts through the minutiae and arcane research of much biblical scholarship to present the best possible historical depiction of Jesus - the man and his message. He presents Jesus as a social revolutionary who preached and practiced a message of radical egalitarianism. The Jesus portrayed by Crossan is a savvy and courageous Jewish Mediterranean peasant who challenged the sacrosanct social rules regarding class, gender, and status. What emerges from this stunning biography is a vision of Jesus as a Jewish Socratic philosopher and political agitator who gave voice to those who had never been heard and love to the most cast-out members of society. He proclaimed - in thought and action - that all may participate in the rule of God.… (more)
User reviews
The teachings themselves are distilled down to just a few, which are so far from the hierarchical church structure which developed that organized Christianity ends up in the same position to Jesus as all the other institutions he was trying to bring down. Crossan concludes that Jesus practiced, and taught, that the Kingdom of God can be here now only if people will 1) practice complete, open table-sharing and spiritual healing, without any care for status, class, wealth, physical condition, race, freedom, or any other division humans have invented over time; and 2) set down no roots where a hierarchy or center of power can be identified (and the reason he instructed his followers to leave anywhere after a day or two) so that the typical 1st century system of patronage (elites), brokerage (middlemen) and clients (everyone else) could not be set up. He didn’t want anyone to be the head of an organization. He wanted complete equality and sharing, which no institution can pull off by definition, let alone given human predilection for power, status and hoarding of wealth.
One of the most fascinating points Crossan makes is about the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. In her, Jesus found the only person, male or female, who actually listened when he talked about the death he expected and who recognized his need for burial preparation, knowing he’d never get it later. In an age when a couple of the major Christian organizations still won’t recognize women as equals in the church, isn’t it interesting to speculate on why that might be?
This book is the layperson version of Crossan’s arguments. The more scholarly version is "The Historical Jesus".
Crossan’s research is controversial, more focused on the real life of a first-century sage
This little 200-page book is for people who want a quick introduction to Crossan’s research without tomes or tangents.