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Dates Covered: 200 BC - 500
ISBN: 0060616296
HH Rating: 
Our Take
Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey Applebey has wisely noted that, "theology is a device for helping agnostics to stay within the Church of England." Much the same might be said about "historical" looks at Jesus. Such studies usually carry an explicit agenda to either deify or discredit the man. This is mystifying, because those keen on the former seem only to be preaching to the choir, while the latter are... well, metaphors simply fail us. Miraculously, ex-monk Crossan falls in neither camp. Along with a group of scholars no doubt damned by the fundamentalists as secular satans, he delves into Biblical texts with detailed textual analysis and socio-political observation. The chapter on magic versus religion alone is worth the price of admission. (The difference? The social status of the magician.) The end result is an attempt to explain Jesus's place in the ancient world in a context we can understand: a historically rigorous description of his radical message intentionally divorced from the centuries of embellishment which followed. Is this useful for someone trying to understand Christianity? Probably not -- the modern religious establishment doesn't seem to be keeping too close to the original. Do Crossan's conclusions about these later embellishments produce a sort of circularity to his arguments? Yes. But it's still worth a read. Read More at Amazon.com
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