Rating: 
Summary: Good, but a lot of pieces are missing
Review: "You can only amputate the sick to a certain degree; if you amputate too much, you will kill the patient" says Dale Allison, another Jesus scholar, reacting to scholars in the line of Crossan and Marcus Borg, who have stripped the historical Jesus of his apocalipticism and jewishness, thus ignoring tons of ancient evidence. That Jesus was, for example, an apocalyptic prophet and an observant Jew is supported in the earliest layers of tradition, such as the Q gospel (50s CE), Mark (60s) and Paul (50s). This is not a problem for Crossan, who says that the apocaliptic material (the belief that the world was about to end) was added to the gospels by the early church soon after Jesus died. Of more historical value (at least for him) are documents like the late Epistle of Barbanas (100s), the Didache (70s), the Secret gospel of Mark (the earliest copy dating from the middle ages), the Gospel of Thomas (150s) and - how odd - the reliefs made in stone in the 3rd or 4th century that depict Jesus as a greek philospher. How far can you press your hypothesis in one direction? Key to CrossanÂ's method is the concept of multiple attestation. If one complex (for example, the relationship between children and the Kingdom of God) appears indeppendently in more than one source, then that complex goes back to the historical Jesus. I would have no problem with this if Crossan were consistent about his own methods. Other multiple attested complexes and events, such as there being a group of twelve apostles, or the passion narrative, or the words of Jesus at the last supper, or the so-called nature miracles, he simply says "they are inventions". On the other hand, some sayings appearing in only one source ("I will destroy this house...", in the gospel of Thomas) he considers authentic. Despite the evidence, in multiple independent sources, that there was a last supper (Paul, Mark, John) Crossan calls it an invention just because it isnt mentioned in a 1st century text known as Didache. If it isnt in the Didahce, then it never happened. (!) This doesnt mean that Crossan is always far from the historical Jesus. The idea of a free exchange of food and miracles at the very roots of the Jesus movement, open commensality and radical egalitarianism must be very close to what actually happened. But as one reviewer put it, many, many pieces of the puzzle are missing... or have been ignored on purpose. For more on the subject, I strongly recommend N.T. WrightÂ's Jesus and the Victory of God.
Rating:
Summary: Hold On To Your Faith
Review: As Crossan says, in biography, this is the shorter version of his much longer Jesus book, written because people didn't finish thelonger one. I boughtboth and didn't finish thelong one either. He presents a good statement of his research from the Jesus Seminar, but, like much of the material thus presented, a lot of traditional faith events get jettisoned. It is a thought provoking book, however, and presents a challenging and strong view of the career and purpose of Jesus.
Rating:
Summary: Hold On To Your Faith
Review: As Crossan says, in biography, this is the shorter version of his much longer Jesus book, written because people didn't finish thelonger one. I boughtboth and didn't finish thelong one either. He presents a good statement of his research from the Jesus Seminar, but, like much of the material thus presented, a lot of traditional faith events get jettisoned. It is a thought provoking book, however, and presents a challenging and strong view of the career and purpose of Jesus.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: Being an unitarian by choice, will and credo, I though that this book in question, i.e., Jesus : A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan , was very informative and very readable. Crossan examines many different aspects of the life of Jesus in a very well read and his ideas of Jesus (if different) as a social revolutionary, Jewish Socrates and Political torublemaker. He also delves into infancy narratives as fable-like in their depictions and are in fact easily explained by using historical data and facts. According to Crossan these fables were created to signify the importance of Jesus and to make sure that there was a continuity from the Torah. Highly Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: The Elusive Jesus
Review: Crossan is obviously an accomplished scholar and a brilliant writer. However, I do not find his portrait of Jesus as a societal rebel very convincing. His description seems to be based on too many shaky assumptions. Crossan is more successful in showing just how elusive the historical Jesus can be for any New Testament critics bold enough to join the search. The book is definitely not intended to make the reader feel comfortable but I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Crossan is informative, and analytical in his research.
Review: Crossan is skeptical about the historical Jesus. He studied cross cultural anthropology, Greco-Roman-Jewish history, and literary work. Crossan explores and compares the story of Jesus' birth. He points out many discrepancies between the Gospel of Matthew and Luke. Jesus is also compared to Caesar (similarity in births),the Cynic, and to Sophia.(Jewish Wisdom). His careful analysis of the crucifixion,burial, and resurrection of Jesus, concludes that the story is not accurate. In his conclusion, Jesus' image was based on individual Christian perceptions after his death.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Startling Acoount from a Very One sided Author
Review: Crossan is yet another Jesus Seminar scholar who's only agenda is to deconstruct the person Jesus. Crossan has a clearly naturalistic presupposition. Therefore, any hint of miracles being true is eliminated (by default) before he even starts his research (this is quite clear from this and other works by him). The Jesus in this text is not the Jesus of history, rather it is the Jesus of Crossan's imagination. This is also the Jesus of Crossan's belief in texts that were clearly written centuries after the Gospel accounts, or texts that are strictly hypothesis and do not even exist (Q). Therefore, the only thing one could conclude from this text is that Crossan is creating a Jesus that is simply more palatable to his own tastes. For example, the resurrection is rejected and replaced with an account of a body being buried in a shallow grave and then dug up by wild animals and devoured. Another example is his claim that the Book of Mark is clearly fiction (p. 35), and his rejection of some of the more obvious historical and archaeological evidence for certain accounts of the Old and New Testaments (chapter 1). Thus, for Crossan it is apparent that a Jesus that is mythological can be shaped and molded into a Jesus that is much more desirable, and this is the very thing that Crossan has done. There are many more honest text available than this one regarding the person, work, and historicity of Christ (Gary Habermas' "The Historical Jesus," N.T. Wright's "Jesus and the Victory of God," Timothy Luke Johnson, "The Living Jesus," etc.)
Rating:
Summary: For Progressive Christians
Review: Crossan isn't everyone's "cup of tea." As a prominent figure in The Jesus Seminar, this theologian is at the forefront of redefining Jesus in more human (and less mystical)terms. Crossan shows us that you can look at the historical Jesus objectively and STILL remain a Christian! If you're a progressive Christian, you will want to read this book. If you're a person of conservative religious beliefs, save yourself a whole lot of aggravation and find another book on Jesus.
Rating: 
Summary: A well told but poorly reasoned tale.
Review: Crossan tells the story of Jesus as a Mediterranean peasant cynic, and he tells it well, at least in terms of ease of reading. But he bases his portrait on poorly supported conjecture and speculation--by creatively reading between the lines of the most reliable sources, notably the Canonical Gospels, and placing undue weight on later sources generally thought to be dependent on the Canonical Gospels--e.g., the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Didache. Crossan dismisses out of hand the idea that Scripture could actually be fulfilled in Jesus. Instead, he views it as self evident that the New Testament fulfillment stories were created out of whole cloth to create the illusion that Jesus literally fulfilled Scriptures. Granted the New Testament writers may well have embellished some of Jesus's actions with an eye toward symbolic fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures. But it seems at least equally likely that in some instances actual events in the life of Jesus reminded his Jewish followers of Scriptures that aptly captured the spirit of the real life situation. Crossan has also decided that physical miracles can't happen. At the same time, though, he realizes that Jesus was famous as a miracle worker--or as Crossan likes to put it--a magician. So Crossan believes that, rather than curing actual disease, Jesus "healed" some of the social effects of disease, for example, by refusing to accept ostracization of lepers and other "unclean" people. This was undoubtedly at least one important aspect of Jesus's healing ministry. But Crossan never really comes to grips with how that sort of limited healing could bring physically crippled, blind, and diseased people flocking to Jesus for physical cures. These types of unanalyzed and false assumptions are woven throughout the book. And unfortunatley, in Crossan's own words (as applied to a far nobler text), "It is almost easier just to listen and nod or read and agree than to analyze, explore, and disentangle." (P. 150). For a far more detailed, objective and, for my money, accurate, analysis of the Historical Jesus, I recommend John P. Meier's Marginal Jew series published by Doubleday.
Rating:
Summary: A well told but poorly reasoned tale.
Review: Crossan tells the story of Jesus as a Mediterranean peasant cynic, and he tells it well, at least in terms of ease of reading. But he bases his portrait on poorly supported conjecture and speculation--by creatively reading between the lines of the most reliable sources, notably the Canonical Gospels, and placing undue weight on later sources generally thought to be dependent on the Canonical Gospels--e.g., the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Didache. Crossan dismisses out of hand the idea that Scripture could actually be fulfilled in Jesus. Instead, he views it as self evident that the New Testament fulfillment stories were created out of whole cloth to create the illusion that Jesus literally fulfilled Scriptures. Granted the New Testament writers may well have embellished some of Jesus's actions with an eye toward symbolic fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures. But it seems at least equally likely that in some instances actual events in the life of Jesus reminded his Jewish followers of Scriptures that aptly captured the spirit of the real life situation. Crossan has also decided that physical miracles can't happen. At the same time, though, he realizes that Jesus was famous as a miracle worker--or as Crossan likes to put it--a magician. So Crossan believes that, rather than curing actual disease, Jesus "healed" some of the social effects of disease, for example, by refusing to accept ostracization of lepers and other "unclean" people. This was undoubtedly at least one important aspect of Jesus's healing ministry. But Crossan never really comes to grips with how that sort of limited healing could bring physically crippled, blind, and diseased people flocking to Jesus for physical cures. These types of unanalyzed and false assumptions are woven throughout the book. And unfortunatley, in Crossan's own words (as applied to a far nobler text), "It is almost easier just to listen and nod or read and agree than to analyze, explore, and disentangle." (P. 150). For a far more detailed, objective and, for my money, accurate, analysis of the Historical Jesus, I recommend John P. Meier's Marginal Jew series published by Doubleday.
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