Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The historical Jesus, by John Dominic Crossan

 

The Historical Jesus, The life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan.

I've been reading this book for a while six months or so; its the type of book which for me I've had to go back to after a month or so. Just to digest properly.

It is one of the most difficult books I've read. Been trained in theology I still needed to go back to dictionaries to understand some of the words that were used. I've listened to Dominic Crossan in intereviews and I've discovered that this book is really for academia. Due to the popularity of this book he has written more for the 'layman'. Ahh if i'd only started there!

Anyway some thoughts so far::

  • Josephus:: He is a character which I didn't really know that much about, other than he is often quoted as been one of the few 'writers' supporting the character of Jesus historically. What I didn't know is that Josephus telling of history was often about who he was supporting. There are others who often conflict with Josephus historical telling.
  • It would seem that there are other 'gospels' such as 'The Gospel Thomas' which can also shed much light on Jesus. The gospel of 'Q' appears to be influential in many of the 'gnostic' gospels
  • Many of the terms such as 'Son of Man' have a long tradition prior to the Jesus and his disciples. The New Testament is oozing with such statements.
I've been coming to the same opinion as Marcus Borg that how the disciples saw Jesus post resurrection was a lot differn't from pre resurrection. It is very difficult to know if Jesus would have had the same opinion as his disciples years even hundred and thousands of them after his death.

 

Anyway there will be another post....

 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dr. Crossan has a new educational DVD series titled THE CHALLENGE OF JESUS. It is amazing. The visuals along with Dr. Crossan's presentation are masterfully done and easy to comprehend. You can few the 5 minute trailer at www.challengeofjesus.com.

Scott said...

Thanks for the tip Deborah