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Rating: 
Summary: An overlooked gem
Review: It's a shame this solid work from Maurice Casey hasn't received the attention it deserves. Casey sets out in this volume to describe the developmental process of New Testament Christology, and his work includes some features which provide correctives to other such accounts.For one thing, while Casey locates Jesus firmly within the Judaism of his time, he does not gloss over the likely disagreements between Jesus and other intra-Jewish movements. Readers of e.g. Ed Sanders's magisterial _Jesus and Judaism_ or Hyam Maccoby's trenchant _Revolution in Judea_ might come away with the impression that there just weren't any important differences between Jesus and the Pharisees. Casey argues to the contrary that there were very serious points of contention between them, notably on the issues of purity and Sabbath observance. For another, Casey recognizes that many elements of Jesus's career do have a firmer foundation in Second Temple Judaism than is sometimes acknowledged. I am thinking here particularly though not exclusively of Casey's claim that Jesus probably did view his death as a propitiation that would in some way turn away the divine wrath. Casey also does a nice job sorting through later New Testament Christology. His overarching aim seems to be to locate the point at which such Christology finally and irrevocably departed from Judaism altogether -- and he locates this point in the gospel of John, the apparent claim of Jesus's alleged deity being, Casey say, "_inherently_ unJewish" [p. 176]. (Casey, as he further explains in a later book, thinks the Johannine gospel's apparent claims on this point were in part intended as non- or anti-Judaic "identity markers" for a Gentile community. I think Casey's claims here are overstated, and readers looking for an alternative view may want to examine Ellis Rivkin's _What Crucified Jesus?_) Casey's Harnackian conclusion is a familiar one to readers of this literature: Christianity would profit by shifting away from the religion _about_ Jesus toward the religion _of_ Jesus. Since the religion of Jesus was Judaism, it is unfortunately not as clear as one might wish precisely what Christians are supposed to do. Nevertheless Casey's closing remark is pointed and apt: "If churches as organizations must insist on false belief we can always leave them, and follow from outside their orbit those aspects of the teaching of Jesus which we judge relevant to our lives 2,000 years later" [p. 178]. In this sense, despite some deep disagreements on certain points, Casey's work nicely complements that of Geza Vermes. As Vermes has recently covered some of the same Christological-development ground in _The Changing Faces of Jesus_, readers interested in the project of reclaiming Jesus as a Jew of his own time and place may wish to consult Casey as well.
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