John Crossan
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How To Read The Bible And Still Be A Christian
$19.99Add to cartThe acclaimed Bible scholar and author of The Historical Jesus and God & Empire-“the greatest New Testament scholar of our generation” (John Shelby Spong) -grapples with Scripture’s two conflicting visions of Jesus and God, one of a loving God, and one of a vengeful God, and explains how Christians can better understand these passages in a way that enriches their faith.Many portions of the New Testament, introduce a compassionate Jesus who turns the other cheek, loves his enemies, and shows grace to all. But the Jesus we find in Revelation and some portions of the Gospels leads an army of angels bent on earthly destruction. Which is the true revelation of the Messiah-and how can both be in the same Bible?How to Read the Bible and Still be a Christian explores this question and offers guidance for the faithful conflicted over which version of the Lord to worship. John Dominic Crossan reconciles these contrasting views, revealing how different writers of the books of the Bible not only possessed different visions of God but also different purposes for writing. Often these books are explicitly competing against another, opposing vision of God from the Bible itself.Crossan explains how to navigate this debate and offers what he believes is the best central thread to what the Bible is all about. He challenges Christians to fully participate in this dialogue, thereby shaping their faith by reading deeply, reflectively, and in community with others who share their uncertainty. Only then, he advises, will Christians be able to read and understand the Bible without losing their faith.
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In Search Of Paul
$20.99Add to cartJohn Dominic Crossan, the eminent historical Jesus scholar, and Jonathan L. Reed, an expert in biblical archaeology, reveal through archaeology and textual scholarship that Paul, like Jesus, focused on championing the Kingdom of God–a realm of justice and equality–against the dominant, worldly powers of the Roman empire.
Many theories exist about who Paul was, what he believed, and what role he played in the origins of Christianity. Using archaeological and textual evidence and taking advantage of recent major discoveries, eminent New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan and biblical archaeologist Jonathan L. Reed discover the real Paul as a dedicated successor of Jesus, carrying on Jesus’s mission of inaugurating the Kingdom of God on earth against the reign of Rome.
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Jesus Controversy
$61.00Add to cartThe current controversy over the historical Jesus and his significance for both scholarship and religious belief continues to rage inside and outside the academy. In this volume, three distinguished New Testament scholars debate the historical, textual, and theological problems at the core of the controversy. The three scholars are: John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at De Paul University, Luke Timothy Johnson, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University, and Werner H. Kelber, Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University.
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Who Is Jesus
$29.00Add to cartJesus Seminar member John Dominic Crossan collaborates Richad G. Watts to reevaluate the life, the work, and the message of Jesus. The authors explain the person and teachings of Jesus. Their intention is to aid readers in fuller and more accurate understanding of the kind of man Jesus was, what kind of world he lived in, and the legacy of his teachings to humankind. Controversial for obvious reasons and capturing much press coverage, the Jesus Seminar and its members do not hold to traditional, orthodox beliefs concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Birth Of Christianity
$27.99Add to cartIn this national bestseller, John Dominic Crossan, the world’s leading expert on the historical Jesus, reveals how Christianity emerged in the period following Jesus’ death. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Crossan shines new light on the theological and cultural contexts from which the Christian church arose. He argues powerfully that Christianity would have happened with or without Paul and contends that Jesus’ “resurrection” meant something vastly different for his early followers than it does for many traditional Christians today–what mattered was Christina origins finally illuminates the mysterious period that set Western religious history in its decisive course.
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Who Killed Jesus
$18.99Add to cartThe death of Jesus is one of the most hotly debated questions in Christianity today. In his massive and highly publicized The Death of the Messiah, Raymond Brown — while clearly rejecting anti-Semitism — never questions the essential historicity of the passion stories. Yet it is these stories, in which the Jews decide Jesus’ execution, that have fueled centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.
Now, in his most controversial book, John Dominic Crossan shows that this traditional understanding of the Gospels as historical fact is not only wrong but dangerous. Drawing on the best of biblical, anthropological, sociological and historical research, he demonstrates definitively that it was the Roman government that tried and executed Jesus as a social agitator. Crossan also candidly addresses such key theological questions as “Did Jesus die for our sins?” and “Is our faith in vain if there was no bodily resurrection?”
Ultimately, however, Crossan’s radical reexamination shows that the belief that the Jews killed Jesus is an early Christian myth (directed against rival Jewish groups) that must be eradicated from authentic Christian faith.
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Historical Jesus : The Life Of A Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
$24.99Add to cart“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 JesusThe 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
