Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 209 pages
• Published by: HarperOne February 18, 1995
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0060616628
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0060616625
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 8 ounces

From Library Journal
Based on Crossan's acclaimed and controversial The Historical Jesus ( LJ 2/1/92), this elegant new reconstruction popularizes and occasionally elaborates on that earlier work. Gone is the massive documentation. What remains is an engrossing, often startling exploration of key themes, in which Crossan weighs scriptural texts against anthropological, historical, and literary standards, sifting through accrued layers for evidence of earlier (if noncanonical) sources. He acknowledges his naturalistic assumptions ("I presume that Jesus could not cure disease"), which, together with his critical method, cause him to dismiss the virgin birth, say, or the passion/resurrection narratives, as historically invalid. Yet he also offers nuanced, powerful readings of Jesus' teachings. Bound to disturb some people and stimulate others, this is recommended for all libraries where lay readers are likely to be interested in the issues raised.
- Elise Chase, Forbes Lib., Northampton, Mass.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Based on Crossan's more scholarly text, The Historical Jesus (1992), this biographical study makes the author's view of Jesus as a social revolutionary available to a wider audience. Crossan clearly defines the problem of trying to locate the historical Jesus in the midst of myth, and he tells readers how he intends to find that Jesus: through cross-cultural anthropology, Greco-Roman and Jewish history, and literary and textual evidence. Compared to A. N. Wilson's Jesus: A Life (1992), which brought a real man to life, this account gives little sense of a flesh-and-blood Jesus, though Crossan offers some thought-provoking theories about the man and his mission. What is most interesting about the book, though, is Crossan's portrayal of the times and the milieu that gave birth to a new religion. While, at the end of the book, readers may still not be sure if Jesus was a savior or a sorcerer, they will certainly understand the cultural and historical dynamics that allowed him to step forward in that particular time and that particular place. Ilene Cooper --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
Judaica scholar Jacob Nuesner says we create God--and Jesus--after our own image. I think he's right in respect to Crossan and "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography." While I agree with Crossan's politics, I think he makes a mistake to so thoroughly secularize and 20th-Century-ize Jesus, as if he weren't a passionately religious 1st-Century Jew. I also think, however, that the passionate Judaism of Jesus would naturally translate into the kind of social activism and "radical egalitarianism" that Crossan describes in his book. Most valuable are Crossan's description of 1st-Century Mediterranean culture (and its phobia of body-, family-, culture-, and class-contamination), and his interpretation of the parables of Jesus (consistent, for a change, with Jesus's other more direct, less metaphorical, radical teachings). It's good to read this book along with "The Historical Figure of Jesus," by E.P. Sanders. In contrast to Crossan's strictly rationale, secular setting, Sanders describes a 1st-Century Mediterranean world where most people believe in religion and magic.