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The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant Paperback – February 26, 1993

by John Dominic Crossan (Author)
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"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.

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  1. Print length
    544 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    HarperOne
  4. Publication date
    February 26, 1993
  5. Dimensions
    9.22 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0060616296
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0060616298
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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.

Review

"The most important scholarly book about Jesus in decades."-- Marcus Borg, author of "Jesus: A New Vision""Lively and idiosyncratic in the great tradition of the historical Jesus genre begun by Schweitzer."-- "The Christian Science Monitor""[Crossan] argues that Jesus. . .became a wisdom teacher using Zen-like aphorisms and puzzling parables to challenge social conventions."-- "The New York Times""Adds color to the interpretation of faith."-- Martin Marty, author of "A Cry of Absence""Elegant . . .masterful. There is nothing like [Crossan's book] for thoroughness, readability, fairness, and clarity."-- Harvey Cox, author of "The Secular City" and"Many Mansions"

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperOne; Reprint edition (February 26, 1993)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060616296
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060616298
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.28 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.22 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

About the author

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John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan

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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."

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4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
297 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kenneth C. Citarella
5.0 out of 5 stars An Extraordinary Book
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2014
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This is an extraordinary and very revealing analysis of what we do and do not know about Jesus of Nazareth. It is remarkable to see how what Jesus taught arose out of the confluence of his life (as described in the title) as a Jewish peasant living in the Roman Empire. Though written through the lens of history rather than faith, the book can only benefit those who seek to understand Jesus, and indeed to follow what he taught. Though a very scholarly work, the book reads so well it is difficult to put down. I recommend this book most highly to anyone who wants to know more about Jesus.
8 people found this helpful
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Jan
4.0 out of 5 stars INTENSE, SCHOLARLY BUT FASCINATING
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2023
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This is a VERY intense, scholarly book about the historical Jesus and is not easy reading. It questions, and mostly answers, what IS and is NOT directly attributable to Jesus. The author has a very complex system (at least for the average person) for identifying which phrases in the synoptic gospels were actually uttered by Jesus. He also uses many, many words, phrases and historical references that I was totally unfamiliar with. This required frequent Googling and re-reading to grasp the point(s) he's trying to convey. It's almost as if the author wrote this book for other scholars vs the average person.

However, I bought the book because I love history. I wanted to expand my knowledge/understanding of the gospels, i.e., compare what I was taught as a Catholic, with historical facts about the formidable man named Jesus. I'm a bit shell-shocked, but mission accomplished! I also got an excellent review of the Roman Empire, Greek influences and the Jewish culture BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER the life of Jesus.
3 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book but no doubt difficult reading for a person ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2018
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A great book but no doubt difficult reading for a person without a theological education. If only one thing can be gotten from this book I hope it will be that Jesus lived the kingdom of God life and did not just talk about the Kingdom of God and that he invites us to join with him in making that life a reality upon the earth.
2 people found this helpful
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Larry Hines
5.0 out of 5 stars Lawyer/author/researcher
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2012
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The Historical Jesus is an excellent treatment of the times in which Jesus actually lived. This is critical to any attempt to determine what Jesus really meant. We have only a few original sources that were written close to when Jesus died and this makes it essential to put what he said and did in the context in which he lived. It is an important work for anyone who is making this attempt.
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Tod Stites
3.0 out of 5 stars Into The Desert
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2014
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In my system of book reviewing, five star ratings are rarely given, so that John Dominic
Crossan's three stars is relatively high praise for his "Historical Jesus", and for an intrepid
scholar who never fails to entertain.
Crossan's reconstruction is both plausible and imaginative, serving to whet the reader's
appetite for more historical Jesus study and leaving the impression that with this book, one
has glimpsed only a very small tip of a much larger iceberg. Perhaps most fascinating are
the indices at the back of the book, where units of Jesus tradition are tabulated according
to their chronological layer of origin and the number of sources which testify to each unit
during the earliest period of Christian history.
This is one of those books that requires perservering amidst proposals with which one
does not agree, but there are so many interesting ideas here that I found it well worth the
effort.
One of the hypotheses I am not sure about involves the interpretation of the units which
Crossan calls "Into The Desert"/"Greater Than John" (Matt 11:7-11):(Luke 7:24-28),which
are found together in both Matthew and Luke, and, so far as we can tell, in the Sayings
Source Q before them. Crossan however pulls them apart, using one part(Matt 11:7-9):
(Luke 7:24-26) to support his view of Jesus having supported the message of John the
Baptist, and the other part(Matt 11:10):(Luke 7:27)to posit that Jesus at some point
changed his mind and no longer considered John's message adequate(see pp.230-8).
Evidently Crossan's main criterion for separating this ostensibly compact unit is the fact
that the sayings are in fact separated in the apocryphal Gospel Of Thomas, whose
independence from the Synoptic Gospels is far from certain(see Fitzmyer, "Essays On
The Semitic Background Of The New Testament",p.360-1):(Meier,"A Marginal Jew"
vol.1,p.127).
In any case, the evidence of Mark gives us two units of tradition which call into
question whether Jesus really changed his mind about the message of John.One unit
of tradition says that,just before Jesus left Galilee, people there believed he was actually
the now dead John come-back-to-life(8:28),and in the other Jesus,toward the end of his
ministry,uses John's popularity with the masses as a shield against his opponents
(11:27-33).Crossan according to his informational glossary considers neither of these
pericopae as stemming from the historical Jesus,because "the discipline"of his book "is
to work primarily with plurally attested complexes from the primary stratum of the Jesus
tradition"(pp.409,439,445).
This methodology I consider to be the strength of Crossan's work, and makes for
some fascinating reading. However, the criterion of embarrassment has been promoted
as a means of assessing authenticity(Meier,"A Marginal Jew",vol.1,p.168-9),since the
post-Easter church would not have fabricated sayings and stories that would have been
embarrassing to the Christian creed,and indeed the overall trajectory of the Gospels is
clearly to diminish the importance of the Baptist and to magnify the importance of Jesus,
as noted by several scholars (Webb,"John The Baptizer And Prophet",p.50-1,55):(Gundry,
"Mark",vol.1,p.59-60):(Witherington,"The Christology Of Jesus",p.198-9):(Funk,Hoover;et.al.,
"The Five Gospels",p.4).
So why would the church have fabricated traditions that have the public believe Jesus
is only John "redivivus"(come-back-to-life),or have Jesus need to defer to John's (divine)
authority in order to maintain his public support ? I for one am not convinced that the early
church would do so, or that the aforesaid traditions are completely unhistorical, so that it is
inherently less likely(or perhaps unlikely)that Jesus ever gave up belief in the Baptizer's
proclamation.
And what exactly was that proclamation anyway ? Was it really so very different from what
Jesus preached ? To be sure, the Sayings Source Q depicts John as a "doom" prophet who
threatens at least some of his contemporaries with "the wrath to come"(Matt 3:7):(Luke 3:7),
but despite the fact that most Old Testament prophets preached judgment, some of them
preached deliverance(Hanson and Horsley,"Bandits, Prophets, Messiahs",p.172-3).Indeed
it seems that the responsible aspect of the prophetic office included not just warning against
ineluctable judgment,but in admonishing, so that judgment may be averted (Rengstorf in
Theological Dictionary Of The New Testament,vol.6,p.811).
And so John is cast as "Elijah"(Mark 9:13),whom the pre-Christian sages foretold would
come and allay God's wrath before it strikes the earth (Sirach 48:10), and whom the Hebrew
prophets said would accomplish reconciliation,so that God would "not come and strike the
land with a curse"(Mal 4:5-6).Thus the "voice in the wilderness"(Isa 40:3),John the Baptist
(Matt 3:3),is a herald of good tidings(Isa 40:9):(Luke 3:18):(16:16),announcing the Kingdom
of Heaven(Matt 3:2),"to give knowledge of the salvation of his people, by the forgiveness of
their sins"(Luke 1:77). Render Unto Caesar: Jesus And The Secular Authority Of His Day
12 people found this helpful
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Family guy
5.0 out of 5 stars An important book by an important scholar
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2017
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A very good book by a very fine biblical scholar. The authors points are somewhat controversial, but he documents everything very thoroughly. This is an author who knows his stuff. Keep an open mind when you read it, because he does prove what he says.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Renan Rovaris
5.0 out of 5 stars Minha relação com este livro é de amor e ódio
Reviewed in Brazil on October 18, 2021
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Minha relação com este livro é de amor e ódio: amor porque eu acho o autor brilhante em suas colocações, análises e clareza metodológica; ódio porque, apesar de tudo isso, não consigo aceitar suas conclusões.

Partindo de três camadas interdisciplinares (antropologia intercultural, história romana e judaica e arqueologia), Crossan busca separar textos de contextos para reconstruir (uma palavra-chave para o autor) o Jesus da história.

Após o uso das três camadas (antropologia, fontes históricas da época e arqueologia) de forma cruzada, o Jesus de Crossan surge reconstruído como um Camponês Cínico Judeu, alguém que, em suas atitudes e estilo de vida, fazia oposição às elites da época: "O Jesus histórico era, então, um camponês cínico judeu. Sua aldeia camponesa ficava perto o suficiente de uma cidade greco-romana como Séforis, de modo que a visão e o conhecimento do cinismo não são inexplicáveis ​​nem improváveis. Mas seu trabalho estava entre as fazendas e aldeias da Baixa Galiléia. Sua estratégia, implícita para si mesmo e explicita para seus seguidores, era a combinação de cura gratuita e as refeições compartilhadas, um igualitarismo religioso e econômico que negava por igual e ao mesmo tempo as normalidades hierárquicas e patronais da religião judaica e do poder romano."

O Jesus reconstruído por Crossan, dessa forma, está longe de ser um profeta apocaliptico judaico como João Batista; ele não está dentro do movimento apocaliptico, esperando a intervenção imediata de Deus que traria o reino escatológico do fim dos tempos, como os primeiros cristãos e Paulo; o Jesus de Crossan está mais próximo de um hippie antigo que pregava a paz, o igualitarianismo e a relação direta com Deus.

Por alguns motivos, eu não consigo concordar com Crossan (embora ache sua reconstrução digna de todo respeito): primeiro, porque, mesmo sendo próxima de cidades aparentemente gregas, Nazaré, como qualquer vila do interior hoje em dia, não seria culturalmente influenciada por um movimento estritamente estrangeiro apenas pela proximidade: o fator cultural judaico certamente falaria muito mais alto na matrix (para usar uma palavra preferida de Crossan) de Jesus de Nazaré -- não me parece fazer muito sentido, usando a analogia natural, imaginar que Jesus estaria tão longe do imaginário de seus correligionários; depois, porque reconstruir o que Jesus pensava através da veracidade histórica de algumas falas pode ser perigoso: você corre o risco de favorecer apenas os logions que lhe parecem coniventes com aquilo que já pressupõe sobre Jesus -- esse, a meu ver, é um equívoco primordial do Jesus Seminar.

Apesar de ser uma reconstrução brilhante, o Jesus Histórico de Crossan me parece muito mais com o mestre ideal desse antigo padre chamado Dominic do que com um judeu que realisticamente teria vivido há dois mil anos atrás no interior da Galiléia e que foi crucificado com a acusação de pretenso rei dos judeus.
6 people found this helpful
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Gail M Weekes
5.0 out of 5 stars The Historical Jesus
Reviewed in Canada on April 6, 2021
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I am happy with this book. It came on time and I’ve started reading it.
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Darap
1.0 out of 5 stars Not as expected
Reviewed in India on September 11, 2022
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The book is not as expected. I was expecting the author will stress on the Historical jesus but it's not as expected.
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Aria Query
1.0 out of 5 stars Not about Jesus
Reviewed in France on July 18, 2022
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M. Cooke
5.0 out of 5 stars Meticulous and compelling
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 29, 2012
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In this volume Crossan meticulously analyses the available material on the historical Jesus, including the "Q" and Thomas gospels and most importantly placing it within its first century context. To know and understand what Jesus most likely said, did and meant, means looking at that material from the point of view of a first century inhabitant of Palestine occupied by the Romans, overshadowed by an old and recent scriptural/ritualistic tradition and the complex social dynamics of Jewish society - the haves and have-nots, the rural and the urban, male and female. This book is not for the casual reader, it is quite dense as compared with Ehrman's work, it requires some commitment but it really will pay off and make you think about Jesus and the Christian history in a completely different, and ultimately more fascinating way.
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