Essential Jesus

by John Dominic Crossan

Overview

In this volume of freshly translated original sayings and beautifully reproduced illustrations, preeminent biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan presents a stunning portrait of the Jesus readers might have encountered in early first-century Galilee.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780785809012
Publisher:	Book Sales, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/01/1998
Series:	Essential Booksales Series
Pages:	199
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.86(d)

Editorial Reviews

Crossan's "essential Jesus" is the first century C.E. Jewish peasant and social rebel defined at length in his Historical Jesus (LJ 2/1/92) and more concisely in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (LJ 12/93). The "original sayings" are 93 aphorisms and parables-drawn from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas-that the author believes go back to the historical Jesus. Each saying is presented in Crossan's own, often quite free translation and in the form he considers most likely original. The "earliest images" are depictions of baptizing, teaching, eating, and healing scenes from third century C.E. sources, representing the major emphases of the sayings. Not all scholars accept the great gulf Crossan has set between the historical Jesus and the Jesus portrayed in the canonical gospels, and neither will all lay readers. However, there is much to be gained by viewing the words of Jesus within their earliest context. For public and academic libraries.-Craig W. Beard, Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham

Library Journal

Crossan concludes the trilogy he began with "The Historical Jesus" (1991) and continued with "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography" by presenting his versions of 93 of Jesus' sayings accompanied by 25 of the earliest images of Christ. This, the heart of the book, he expands on with a chapter of notes on the sayings, with references to their analogues in the New Testament or Meyer's translation of "The Gospel of Thomas" (1992), and an "Inventory of Images" accounting for all 25 scenes reproduced in the book as well as an additional 40. The attitude that informs the translations and commentaries is Crossan's controversial view that the historical Jesus was a nonviolent, egalitarian peasant revolutionary; and the insights that inspection of the images provides, Crossan argues, are that the most powerful aspects of Jesus' message for its earliest hearers were ideals of classless community and of release from oppression, which are symbolized by representations of feasting and healing, respectively. An engrossing end to a project that, however much it challenges institutional Christians, can only inspire individual believers.

Ray Olson