Rating: 
Summary: Digging Through the Dry Dust
Review: There is much to be learned in this book, but my complaint is really about how it's written...a tad on the dry side. In fact, some of the writing was so cumbersome (do they make up words?) that I had to re-read entire paragraphs two or three times to figure out what they were trying to communicate.So it's a little dry. However, there is some really good stuff if you "excavate." The book takes its thesis from the premis that in order to really understand who Jesus was, you have to uncover his life and world one layer at a time. They peel back the layers of archeology and ancient writing to try to reveal who Jesus might have been, and many of their conclusions are useful, though probably not earth-shaking. When you understand the context of his life, you understand better what the "Kingdom of God" movement was really about, i.e. a direct asault on the authority of the Kingdom of Rome, and very likely the reason he was executed. I especially enjoyed the archeology, as I felt it was the more clearly elucidated portion of the book. They reconstruct Nazareth, many of the principle cities of Galilee, and Jerusalem, most notably the temple mount, and explain their significance to understanding the movements of Jesus and John the Babtist in that context. There are photos and reconstructions throughout the book which are very useful tools for the reader in seeing what the authors are talking about. Add this to the growing library of books that suggest that Jesus is not the man we have grown up to believe in, but he was clearly of significance, and well worth the effort to get to know.
Rating:
Summary: Digging Through the Dry Dust
Review: There is much to be learned in this book, but my complaint is really about how it's written...a tad on the dry side. In fact, some of the writing was so cumbersome (do they make up words?) that I had to re-read entire paragraphs two or three times to figure out what they were trying to communicate. So it's a little dry. However, there is some really good stuff if you "excavate." The book takes its thesis from the premis that in order to really understand who Jesus was, you have to uncover his life and world one layer at a time. They peel back the layers of archeology and ancient writing to try to reveal who Jesus might have been, and many of their conclusions are useful, though probably not earth-shaking. When you understand the context of his life, you understand better what the "Kingdom of God" movement was really about, i.e. a direct asault on the authority of the Kingdom of Rome, and very likely the reason he was executed. I especially enjoyed the archeology, as I felt it was the more clearly elucidated portion of the book. They reconstruct Nazareth, many of the principle cities of Galilee, and Jerusalem, most notably the temple mount, and explain their significance to understanding the movements of Jesus and John the Babtist in that context. There are photos and reconstructions throughout the book which are very useful tools for the reader in seeing what the authors are talking about. Add this to the growing library of books that suggest that Jesus is not the man we have grown up to believe in, but he was clearly of significance, and well worth the effort to get to know.
Rating:
Summary: good read with a tiresome style
Review: This book is a worthwhile read if you can deal with the pedantic and repetitive style. A lot of the information is not exactly new, but the format is interesting. At times, I had an odd impression I was reading an article from Time magazine. But the book is worth reading if you have an interest in the first century.
Rating: 
Summary: Another biased fable
Review: To understand this book, you must understand the anti-Christian agenda of the author, John Crossan. Mr. Crossan is a member of The Jesus Seminar, whose core beliefs go something like this: It's impossible for the Gospels to be historically accurate, because they record things that simply can't happen, like dead people coming alive again and food multiplying--miracles, in other words. We live in a closed universe of natural order, with God (if there is a God) locked out of the system. If miracles can't happen, then the reports in the New Testament must be fabrications. Therefore, the Gospels are not historical. Further the Jesus Seminar believes, if miracles can't happen, then prophecy (a kind of miraculous knowledge) can't happen. The Gospels report that Jesus prophesied the fall of Jerusalem. Therefore, they could not have been written early, but after the invasion of Titus of Rome in 70 A.D. In addition, they could not have been written by eye-witnesses, as the early church Fathers claimed. Notice that the Jesus Seminar doesn't start with historical evidence; it starts with presuppositions, assumptions it makes no attempt to prove. This is not history; it's philosophy, specifically, the philosophy of naturalism. Robert Funk (Jesus Seminar founder) admits as much: 'The Gospels are now assumed to be narratives in which the memory of Jesus is embellished by mythic elements that express the church's faith in him, and by plausible fictions that enhance the telling of the gospel story for first-century listeners...'[3] [emphasis added] The Jesus Seminar falsely claim that their conclusions are based on scientific, historical analysis: the resurrection didn't happen; the miracles are myths; there is no authentic prophecy in the Bible; the Gospels were written long after the events took place; they were not written by eyewitnesses; the testimony of the early church Fathers can't be trusted. This is misleading, though, because the Jesus Seminar doesn't conclude the Gospels are inaccurate. That's where they begin before they've looked at one single shred of actual historical evidence. When you start with your conclusions, you're cheating. You haven't proved anything at all. The conclusions of the Jesus Seminar don't represent facts. Rather, their point of view and research methods are deeply flawed because of their prior commitment to a philosophic position that is already hostile to the events described in the text of the Gospels. It isn't an issue of historical fact versus religious faith. The facts are actually on the side of the resurrection, not on the side of the wishful thinking of the Jesus Seminar.
Rating: 
Summary: Finially! Ironic macroscope reveals the bias of Crossan.
Review: [I]'Excavating Jesus,'[I] unearths perhaps my favorite time-event scenario not often experienced: the invariable illumination of pseudo-deconstructionism and revisionism in art or the sciences. In [I]Excavating Jesus [I] this occurs when a highly esteemed and lauded individual is unmasked in the middle of putting on the most narcissistic and austentatious airs at the social-science ball: Jean-Dominic Crossan. I was appalled that this book even got published and have heard from multiple sources that Crossan is unsatisfied with the final product. I was not suprised, however, at Crossans' buoyant wake upon the surface of [B]*Modern Historical Narratives [B], or the oily, blackish hue tainting the negligent rift in the water behind a cheaply made French yacht. There is an important Dichotomy here; crucial to the cogs of modern ethno-religious philosophy: factual and partial objectivity versus agendicized alibi. Some have corralled the work of the Jesus Seminar into the "tolerant and liberal anthem of progressive christianity," for others it is, "a believable and mundane portrait of Jesus." The quantitative ethos of The Jesus Seminar is disruptive to the historical messianic fabric because of its underlying beliefs that the Gospels are not Historically accurate.
I reccomend this book because it exposes Crossan for who he is: an elitist 'mensa' society nut who has enough legitimate poetic cohesion with history and penmanship as to write engineered theoretical and interpretive texts to the watering pallets of an increasingly popular quasi-antinomian American audience. From a protestant perspective, Crossans' work is the anthem of liberal and pluralistic methodist and episcopalian heresy. There are many striaght shooters in the methodist church, such as Pastor John Miles, and in the Episcopalian diocese, Sen. Pastor William Beasley, but alas, herecy has little to do with hisorical accuracy -- BUT WAIT, there is such a thing called revisionist history, and social-science heresy. In fact, Atheist author Rodney Stark, [I]"For the Glory of God" (Princeton Press 2003) [I] observes of a man Crossan admires much: Paul Tillich's neo-marxist dogma, and the acceptence there-of by pluralist sects of protestantism, "God is only a psychological construct, according to them, [Crossan, Marcus Borg Bis. Sprague, Bis. Spong, Bis. Griswald] who attempt to banish the possibility of miracles and other worldly rewards and want to settle for an essence that is no more Godlike than the Tao." Full Cessionism. Crossan cleary favors irrational or post-established texts and falls upon open interpretational problems (deconstructionist philosophy manifested in Deridaa's "Force of Law,") only when he wants to point out the 'assumptions of interpretations' that don't fit his disguisedly CGI tapesty of reality. I deem it unnecessary to cite such infractions; there being a review a few below mine that chronologically indexes said circumstances with surgical precision. However, There is much tomfoolery in the Jesus Seminar -- sensationalist epistemology, haphazard regulation of interpretation, straw mans and red herrings, begging the (quantative) question of Jesus' reality in the Gospels -- I feel the non-archealogical aspects of this book are on the level of the insinuatingly geared volumes of a N.I.C.E. spokesman. I get the feeling Crossan would be an awesome mal-practice lawyer. Perhaps he would be skilled enough to argue for socio-public religious rights in socialist France, and convince the 'parliament' to not defecate on a human beings demonstrated beliefs. . . Tom Wright is clear and honest, concise and unbias, factual and percise. He is the answer to all of this foolishness, much like Augustine to the Pious, Dostoyevsky or Turgenev to the Nihilist, Lewis to the Atheist, Stark to the Gnostic Skeptic, and Hugh Ross to anyone who dosen't belive in ID.
Rating:
Summary: Finially! Ironic macroscope reveals the bias of Crossan.
Review: [I]'Excavating Jesus,'[I] unearths perhaps my favorite time-event scenario not often experienced: the invariable illumination of pseudo-deconstructionism and revisionism in art or the sciences. In [I]Excavating Jesus [I] this occurs when a highly esteemed and lauded individual is unmasked in the middle of putting on the most narcissistic and austentatious airs at the social-science ball: Jean-Dominic Crossan. I was appalled that this book even got published and have heard from multiple sources that Crossan is unsatisfied with the final product. I was not suprised, however, at Crossans' buoyant wake upon the surface of [B]*Modern Historical Narratives [B], or the oily, blackish hue tainting the negligent rift in the water behind a cheaply made French yacht. There is an important Dichotomy here; crucial to the cogs of modern ethno-religious philosophy: factual and partial objectivity versus agendicized alibi. Some have corralled the work of the Jesus Seminar into the "tolerant and liberal anthem of progressive christianity," for others it is, "a believable and mundane portrait of Jesus." The quantitative ethos of The Jesus Seminar is disruptive to the historical messianic fabric because of its underlying beliefs that the Gospels are not Historically accurate.
I reccomend this book because it exposes Crossan for who he is: an elitist 'mensa' society nut who has enough legitimate poetic cohesion with history and penmanship as to write engineered theoretical and interpretive texts to the watering pallets of an increasingly popular quasi-antinomian American audience. From a protestant perspective, Crossans' work is the anthem of liberal and pluralistic methodist and episcopalian heresy. There are many striaght shooters in the methodist church, such as Pastor John Miles, and in the Episcopalian diocese, Sen. Pastor William Beasley, but alas, herecy has little to do with hisorical accuracy -- BUT WAIT, there is such a thing called revisionist history, and social-science heresy. In fact, Atheist author Rodney Stark, [I]"For the Glory of God" (Princeton Press 2003) [I] observes of a man Crossan admires much: Paul Tillich's neo-marxist dogma, and the acceptence there-of by pluralist sects of protestantism, "God is only a psychological construct, according to them, [Crossan, Marcus Borg Bis. Sprague, Bis. Spong, Bis. Griswald] who attempt to banish the possibility of miracles and other worldly rewards and want to settle for an essence that is no more Godlike than the Tao." Full Cessionism. Crossan cleary favors irrational or post-established texts and falls upon open interpretational problems (deconstructionist philosophy manifested in Deridaa's "Force of Law,") only when he wants to point out the 'assumptions of interpretations' that don't fit his disguisedly CGI tapesty of reality. I deem it unnecessary to cite such infractions; there being a review a few below mine that chronologically indexes said circumstances with surgical precision. However, There is much tomfoolery in the Jesus Seminar -- sensationalist epistemology, haphazard regulation of interpretation, straw mans and red herrings, begging the (quantative) question of Jesus' reality in the Gospels -- I feel the non-archealogical aspects of this book are on the level of the insinuatingly geared volumes of a N.I.C.E. spokesman. I get the feeling Crossan would be an awesome mal-practice lawyer. Perhaps he would be skilled enough to argue for socio-public religious rights in socialist France, and convince the 'parliament' to not defecate on a human beings demonstrated beliefs. . . Tom Wright is clear and honest, concise and unbias, factual and percise. He is the answer to all of this foolishness, much like Augustine to the Pious, Dostoyevsky or Turgenev to the Nihilist, Lewis to the Atheist, Stark to the Gnostic Skeptic, and Hugh Ross to anyone who dosen't belive in ID.
|
