Open Commensality

Jesus and Crossan (Part II)

/ Jacob J. Prahlow / Leave a comment
This is the second part of a two post-series looking at John D. Crossan’s view of the Historical Jesus as outlined in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.

jesus_catacombKey for understanding Crossan’s perspective on the historical Jesus is his understanding of Jesus as a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.[13] In Crossan’s view, this understanding points to Jesus as a religious, social, ideological, and borderline political revolutionary who defied social norms and practiced “a shared egalitarianism of spiritual (healing) and material (eating) resources.”[14] Connecting Jesus with John the Baptist, and a form of Jewish eschatological thinking, Crossan suggests that perhaps the best approach to understanding and interpreting the historical Jesus would be through the lens of an Ancient Mediterranean Jewish Cynic.[15] For Crossan, such an understanding would explain textual traditions of both calls to poverty, social radicalism, commensality, freedom, kingdom language, and talk of followers as royalty.[16] Only with such an understanding, Crossan argues, can we really understand the methods and message of the truly historical Jesus. Continue reading →

Jesus and Crossan (Part I)

/ Jacob J. Prahlow / 1 Comment
Around Easter, various theories about the life, death, and (non) resurrection of Jesus tend to find their way onto various media outlets. Sometimes these theories are outlandish and little more than attempts at attention; other times claims about Jesus come from more respectable sources. In today’s and tomorrow’s posts, I examine one of the more respectable voices on the Historical Jesus (though a voice I often disagree with): John Dominic Crossan and his book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.
John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan

In Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, scholar John Dominic Crossan presents his reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Citing the fourfold accounts of the canonical gospels as presenting a problem for the Christian tradition when trying to determine the historical narrative of Jesus’ life,[1] Crossan endeavors to make use of historical-critical methodology in determining the true narrative, words, and actions of the historical Jesus. Considering the cross-cultural anthropology, Greco-Roman and Jewish history, and literary and textual considerations of canonical and non-canonical material,[2] Crossan seeks to find accounts that fits the known historical record, cultural expectations, and presents material unique enough to demonstrate the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Crossan operates with a set of presuppositions that some may find difficult to accept, such as his philosophical naturalism on some points. Overall however, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography presents a narrative of the life of Jesus that, given the materials and criteria used by Crossan, presents a problematic image of the historical Jesus. Continue reading →

Comparing the Historical Jesus: Conclusions

/ Jacob J. Prahlow / Leave a comment
This is the final post in our series comparing the perspectives of J. D. Crossan and N. T. Wright on the Historical Jesus.

jesus_catacombFor John Dominic Crossan, Jesus was an immensely important figure, though not in the typical Christian categories. Crossan uses the context of cultural anthropology, coordinating historical accounts of period scholars, and a historical-critical approach to gospels material to provide the basis for his historical Jesus reconstructions. Using this source material, Crossan’s reconstruction places little historical importance on the canonical birth narratives of Jesus, argues that Jesus practiced teaching and healing in a social sense without ever performing the literally miraculous, and that Jesus of Nazareth was ultimately crucified by the Romans as a result of his causing civil unrest in Jerusalem during the Passover period and for his radically anti-establishment teachings and parables. Concerning the resurrection narratives, Crossan argues that there was no historical bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and that the canonical accounts of post-resurrection activity are theological constructions. Finally, Crossan writes that Christian faith must return to its historically verifiable roots, with faith consisting of belief in the historical Jesus as a manifestation of God whose open commensality and radical egalitarian form the basis for a world-changing social program. Continue reading →