From Library Journal
This monumental work by a leading biblical scholar combines history, literary analysis, and social anthropology into a comprehensive picture of the historical Jesus. Crossan clearly addresses textual problems of the tradition, its chronology, and its attestation in a well-documented and succinct manner. The Jesus who emerges from the inclusive (rather than the exclusive) strain of Judaism resembles a magician more than a prophet, a messianic claimant, a bandit leader, or a nonviolent protestor. He preaches "a religious and economic egalitarianism" through "miracle and parable, healing and eating . . . calculated to force individuals into unmediated physical and spiritual contact with God . . . and one another." Essential for all academic and large public libraries.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


New York Times
"[Crossan] argues that Jesus...became a wisdom teacher using Zen-like aphorisms and puzzling parables to challenge social conventions."



"The most important scholarly book about Jesus in decades."



"Lively and idiosyncratic in the great tradition of the historical Jesus genre begun by Schweitzer."



"[Crossan] argues that Jesus. . .became a wisdom teacher using Zen-like aphorisms and puzzling parables to challenge social conventions."



"Adds color to the interpretation of faith."



"Elegant . . .masterful. There is nothing like [Crossan's book] for thoroughness, readability, fairness, and clarity."


Martin Marty, University of Chicago
"Every couple of years someone tries to prove that Jesus was a Zealot who carried a dagger, or that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and the French monarchy are their descendents, or that Jesus was a member of a mushroom-munching cult. Crossan in is neither of those camps. It may not be an orthodox portrait, but he's not doing it for sensation or headlines. He is a very honest literary critic and he has worked very quietly for a lot of years. What he's doing adds color to the interpretation of faith rather than being a displacement of it."


Martin Marty, author of A Cry of Absence
"Adds color to the interpretation of faith."


Associated Press
"Crossan's Jesus isn't gentle, meek, or mild. Crossan's Jesus is an illiterate peasant, both healer and social revolutionary--a Jesus without the Lord's Prayer, the Last Supper, the Virgin Birth, or the Sermon on the Mount."


Christian Science Monitor
"Lively and idiosyncratic in the great tradition of the historical Jesus genre begun by Schweitzer.... Crossan leads the reader on a meandering bumpy ride through the back streets of Judea as he searches for a rabble-rousing peasant named Jesus and his ragtag followers."


Marcus Borg, author of Jesus: A New Vision
"The most important scholarly book about Jesus in decades."


Book Description
"He comes as yet unknown into a hamlet of Lower Galilee. He is watched by the cold, hard eyes of peasants living long enough at a subsistence level to know exactly where the line is drawn between poverty and destitution. He looks like a beggar yet his eyes lack the proper cringe, his voice the proper whine, his walk the proper shuffle. He speaks about the rule of God and they listen as much from curiosity as anything else. They know all about rule and power, about kingdom and empire, but they know it in terms of tax and debt, malnutrition and sickness, agrarian oppression and demonic possession. What, they really want to know, can this kingdom of God do for a lame child, a blind parent, a demented soul screaming its tortured isolation among the graves that mark the edges of the village?" -- from "The Gospel of Jesus," overture to The Historical Jesus The Historical Jesus reveals the true Jesus--who he was, what he did, what he said. It opens with "The Gospel of Jesus," Crossan's studied determination of Jesus' actual words and actions stripped of any subsequent additions and placed in a capsule account of his life story. The Jesus who emerges is a savvy and courageous Jewish Mediterranean peasant, a radical social revolutionary, with a rhapsodic vision of economic, political, and religious egalitarianism and a social program for creating it. The conventional wisdom of critical historical scholarship has long held that too little is known about the historical Jesus to say definitively much more than that he lived and had a tremendous impact on his followers. "There were always historians who said it could not be done because of historical problems," writes Crossan. "There were always theologians who said it should not be done because of theological objections. And there were always scholars who said the former when they meant the latter.' With this ground-breaking work, John Dominic Crossan emphatically sweeps these notions aside. He demonstrates that Jesus is actually one of the best documented figures in ancient history; the challenge is the complexity of the sources. The vivid portrayal of Jesus that emerges from Crossan's unique methodology combines the complementary disciplines of social anthropology, Greco-Roman history, and the literary analysis of specific pronouncements anecdotes, confessions and interpretations involving Jesus. All three levels cooperate equally and fully in an effective synthesis that provides the most definitive presentation of the historical Jesus yet attained.


From the Inside Flap
"He comes as yet unknown into a hamlet of Lower Galilee. He is watched by the cold, hard eyes of peasants living long enough at a subsistence level to know exactly where the line is drawn between poverty and destitution. He looks like a beggar yet his eyes lack the proper cringe, his voice the proper whine, his walk the proper shuffle. He speaks about the rule of God and they listen as much from curiosity as anything else. They know all about rule and power, about kingdom and empire, but they know it in terms of tax and debt, malnutrition and sickness, agrarian oppression and demonic possession. What, they really want to know, can this kingdom of God do for a lame child, a blind parent, a demented soul screaming its tortured isolation among the graves that mark the edges of the village?" (from The Gospel of Jesus," overture to The Historical Jesus) The Historical Jesus reveals the true Jesus--who he was, what he did, and what he said. It opens with The Gospel of Jesus" Crossan's studied determination of Jesus' actual words and actions stripped of any subsequent additions and placed in a capsule account of his life story. The Jesus who emerges is a savvy and courageous Jewish Mediterranean peasant, a radical social revolutionary, with a rhapsodic vision of economic, political, and religious egalitarianism and a social program for creating it. The conventional wisdom of critical historical scholarship has long held that too little is known about the historical Jesus to say definitively much more than that he lived and had a tremendous impact on his followers. "There were always historians who said it could not be done because of historical problems," writes Crossan. "There were always theologians who said it should not be done because of theological objections. And there were always scholars who said the former when they meant the latter." With this groundbreaking work, John Dominic Crossan emphatically sweeps these notions aside. He demonstrates that Jesus is actually one of the best documented figures in ancient history; the challenge is the complexity of the sources. The vivid portrayal of Jesus that emerges from Crossan's unique methodology combines the complementary disciplines of social anthropology, Greco-Roman history, and the literary analysis of specific pronouncements, anecdotes, confessions, and interpretations involving Jesus. All three levels cooperate equally and fully in an effective synthesis that provides the most definitive presentation of the historical Jesus yet attained.


From the Back Cover
"Crossan's book is the one I've been looking for for ten years and never found.... It is elegant, even masterful. There is nothing like it for thoroughness, readability, balance, fairness, and clarity. He makes his method clear (combining peasant anthropology, ancient history, and textual analysis) without swamping you with it. He delivers the goods with a credible reconstruction of the historical Jesus and avoids projecting current ideologies." (Harvey Cox, Harvard University, author of The Secular City and Many Mansions) "Brilliant, comprehensive, multi-disciplinary.... The most important scholarly book about Jesus in decades."--Marcus Borg, author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time


About the Author
John D. Crossan is generally acknowledged to be the premier historical Jesus scholar in the world. His books include The Historical Jesus, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, and Who Killed Jesus? He recently appeared in the PBS special "From Jesus to Christ."

ANNOTATION

A seminal portrait of Jesus the man in his time--"the most important scholarly book about Jesus in decades" (Marcus Borg). In this groundbreaking work, Crossan presents the verifiably original sayings of Jesus and places them in an account where the man who emerges is a savvy, courageous Jewish peasant--both a revolutionary and a compassionate healer.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"He comes as yet unknown into a hamlet of Lower Galilee. He is watched by the cold, hard eyes of peasants living long enough at a subsistence level to know exactly where the line is drawn between poverty and destitution. He looks like a beggar yet his eyes lack the proper cringe, his voice the proper whine, his walk the proper shuffle. He speaks about the rule of God and they listen as much from curiosity as anything else. They know all about rule and power, about kingdom and empire, but they know it in terms of tax and debt, malnutrition and sickness, agrarian oppression and demonic possession. What, they really want to know, can this kingdom of God do for a lame child, a blind parent, a demented soul screaming its tortured isolation among the graves that mark the edges of the village?"

— from "The Gospel of Jesus," overture to The Historical Jesus

The Historical Jesus reveals the true Jesus—who he was, what he did, what he said. It opens with "The Gospel of Jesus," Crossan's studied determination of Jesus' actual words and actions stripped of any subsequent additions and placed in a capsule account of his life story. The Jesus who emerges is a savvy and courageous Jewish Mediterranean peasant, a radical social revolutionary, with a rhapsodic vision of economic, political, and religious egalitarianism and a social program for creating it.

The conventional wisdom of critical historical scholarship has long held that too little is known about the historical Jesus to say definitively much more than that he lived and had a tremendous impact on his followers. "There were always historians whosaid it could not be done because of historical problems," writes Crossan. "There were always theologians who said it should not be done because of theological objections. And there were always scholars who said the former when they meant the latter.'

With this ground-breaking work, John Dominic Crossan emphatically sweeps these notions aside. He demonstrates that Jesus is actually one of the best documented figures in ancient history; the challenge is the complexity of the sources. The vivid portrayal of Jesus that emerges from Crossan's unique methodology combines the complementary disciplines of social anthropology, Greco-Roman history, and the literary analysis of specific pronouncements anecdotes, confessions and interpretations involving Jesus. All three levels cooperate equally and fully in an effective synthesis that provides the most definitive presentation of the historical Jesus yet attained.

About the Author

John Dominic Crossan was born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, Ireland in 1934. He was educated in Ireland at Maynooth College, in Rome at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and in Jerusalem at the Ecole Biblique.

Crossan was a member of the 13th-century Roman Catholic religious order, the Servites, from 1950 to 1969 and an ordained priest from 1957 to 1969. He taught at DePaul University for 25 years and held a visiting professorship at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. He has been a guest lecturer at many distinguished universities including the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. He was co-director of the Jesus Seminar from 1985-1996 and chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature from 1992-1998.

He has contributed articles and reviews for dozens of journals and has written 18 books over the last 30 years. The Birth of Christianity was a Publishers Weekly 1998 "best book of the year" while all four of his most recent — The Historical Jesus, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Who Killed Jesus and The Birth of Christiantiy —were national bestsellers for a combined total of 22 months. In a recent book, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts, Crossan joins a brilliant archaeologist to illuminate the life and teaching of Jesus against the background of his world. He has received numerous academic awards over the years including the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in Religious Studies and the Via Sapientiae Award, DePaul University's highest honor.

The list of his print, radio, and television interviews and reviews takes up over 13 full pages. Crossan's interviews include The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio's "Fresh Air", Larry King Live and he will be featured in the upcoming ABC special "The Search for Jesus" with Peter Jennings on Monday, June 26th 2000, 9:00-11:00 p.m. (ET).

He lives with his wife Sarah near Orlando, Florida.

FROM THE CRITICS

Harvey Cox

Elegant . . .masterful. There is nothing like [Crossan's book] for thoroughness, readability, fairness, and clarity.

Martin Marty

Adds color to the interpretation of faith.

New York Times

[Crossan] argues that Jesus. . .became a wisdom teacher using Zen-like aphorisms and puzzling parables to challenge social conventions.

Marcus Borg

The most important scholarly book about Jesus in decades.

Christian Science Monitor