The Birth of Christianity : Discovering What Happened In the Years Immediately After the Execution Of Jesus

Rating:
Summary: 26 chapters capturing the dark years of early Christianity
Review: I am always delighted to see someone write about the "historical Jesus" who actually knows something about history!! (i.e. not proposing that Jesus was a dinosaur or a mushroom or what have you) And to him, that would mean, "History is the past reconstructed interactively by the present through argued evidence in public discourse."... i like this guy.. Alert! This is not a terse introductory work on early Christianity. It is VERY thorough and scholarly, well researched in every aspect. What I like about Crossan (judging by this, I haven't read his other books yet!!) is that though I might not always agree with him, he atleast has a methodology, be it anthropological, archaeological, etc. used to corroborate his argument. True or not, he is always supported by research sources and in this book uses "cross-cultural anthropology." Though to any fundamentalist I speculate he would seem heretical in his 'butchering' of the gospels ( he was co-director of the Jesus Seminar who only deemed 18% of the words attributed to Jesus authentic if I remember correctly ) he is respected by me as a reputable scholar. And he did spent 20 years of his life as a monk in a Roman Catholic medieval order--he knows his gospel. And I suggest that you familarize yourself with the gospels prior to reading his work as well...in preparation to do ALOT of comparing. Since the book is so deep, I would bet that if this topic is not of your deep interest, you may likely not finish it. That's not to say its boring or no good, I'm glad I read it. The only reason I emphasize this is because it took me a decent diuturnity to fully complete its near 600 page content. However even Crossan assents that Qumran was inhabited by Essene sectarians, who were the possessors of the Dead Sea Scrolls library. (I don't know but after reading Golb's book I can't see how anyone still grasps this theory) Other topics include his theory by which he is somewhat known, a hypothetical document, 'The Cross Gospel,' (along with the Gospel of Peter's relation to the Passion-resurrection narration) which some but not the majority of other scholars advocate, & it still certainly remains possible. One thing he does NOT do is theological apologetics. Instead, as I said before, he merely develops his methods and draws his conclusions from those. I think his epilogue was a great way to end the book (even though I didn't quite fully agree w/ what he had to say), and actually a bit unexpected. In conclusion, there's not much bad that I can say about this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good but haven't we heard most of it before
Review: I enjoy Crossan's excellent works on the historical Jesus - or rather the attempts to find such a person. But he has become somewhat redundant, seemingly raising arguments or reviewing ideas introduced in previous works.

Crossan continues to look for something he admits he cannot find - historical evidence for the person of Jesus and the early Jewish followers who first believed in him. Since there is no concrete evidence (the Gospels are not historical) he attempts to reconstruct an original view from two sources:
(1) the social and anthropological conditions of the time and (2) the events and institutions that emerged from this hidden time. It's is as if there were a nuclear holocaust and 1000 years lated one investigates the origins of flight by studying first the science of the early 20th century and then the wreckage of air craft from the 22nd century. Some conclusions can be reached using these methods. Communion can be seen as an evolution of an ancient Seder meal to a commemorative dinner to a lusty community meal before it was institutionalized into a sacrament reserved for the Church.

The work is difficult at spots - Crossan can be relentlessly tiring at time. Perhaps the saddest thing about his unending toil on this project is that so few will be affected by what he says or discovers or conjectures. Most will blindly "go with faith" without considering the foundations upon which it rests. And Crossan, who still somehwo calls himself a "Christian", will continue plodding onward.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for the theologian, scholar...
Review: I purchased this book with great expectations. The title and the author's credentials and reviews led me to believe I was ready, indeed eager to tackle it. I am a lay-reader, with a keen interest in the historical Jesus and the historicity of Christianity, especially as research reflects and illuminates my faith.

While I commend Crossan for his scholarship, I feel strongly that he needs to edit and refine his material for the lay-reader. Much of these book is a dialogue between the author and his scholarly colleagues in theological circles, especially the Jesus Seminar. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with such a dialogue, but the book shouldn't be marketed for the general public, except possibly as a reference source.

The author needs to compare his writing and editorial style to recent books by Dr. Marcus Borg.

Terms, historical personalities and theological works need to be clearly defined, with plenty of transition review between sections and chapters.

Crossan deserves a wide audience, especially among lay-persons.

This book is simply too advanced, and belongs primarily theology collections.

Rating:
Summary: A Marvelous handbook to discover the nature of your God
Review: John Dominic Crossan, the leading contemporary scholar on the Historical Jesus, brings the disciplines of anthropology, history and archeology to bear in reconstructing life in the decades of the 30's and 40's AD. One intriguing thesis of the book is that the Christianity of the disciples may have been quite different from that handed down to us by Paul.

Exploring that thesis, Crossan stimulates the reader to rethink one's ideas on history and Christianity. Along the way, he challenges modern intellect by bringing into play current images and words like reconstruction and interactivity. Crosssan compares the process of reconstructing history with looking down a well at your reflection. When you see your reflection, you cannot know the character of the water in the well, you must disturb it to do so. Disturbing the surface of the water distorts ones reflection. So the process of historical reconstruction goes on, using current science and knowledge to reconstruct the past and drawing from ancient interaction, lessons that increase our understanding of the human condition. As a Real Estate professional, I especially identified with Crossans description of the convergence of the Roman culture that treated land as an exploitable commodity with first century Judaism that looked at land as a Gift from God. As a recent visitor to Israel, I witnessed to current manifestations of the same forces. Crossan's description of Roman commercialism and it's effect on Jewish peasants in the area of the Galilee in the early first century was, for me, a fascinating and illuminating experience.

From a firm, multi-discipline foundation, Crossan examines the Q Gospel, The Gospel of Thomas and the synoptic Gospels. He concludes that pre Paulian Christianity was more "Jewish." He emphatically denies that the God of the Old Testament was a God of anger and vengeance while the God of the New Testament was a god of love and mercy. Rather the first Christians experienced Yahweh as a God of justice and compassion. This complex, erudite exercise in reconstruction left me with more questions than answers, but with a commitment to learn more.

When you look down your well of faith and see there a perfect reflection of yourself, it is time to stir the water. The Birth of Christianity is a marvelous handbook to help discover what lies below the surface; the nature of your God and the depth of your commitment.

Rating:
Summary: Tough read, but good
Review: This book can be seen as a companion volume to Crossan's earlier work, "The Historical Jesus". This book seeks to reconstruct the pre-textual Christianity; the time when Christianity was a loose knit group with no central doctrine. He attempts this through a very exhaustive examination of how oral traditions function and reconstruction (based on the earliest texts) of what these groups might have appeared. I think Burton Mack did a better and more inclusive (not to mention shorter) job of describing Early Christians in his book "Who Wrote the New Testament". For one Crossan seems to be still clinging to the idea of reconstructing the historical Jesus rather that the historical first Christians. Though this book is certainly enlightening I was not entirely converted to Crossan's conclusions. The part of this book that is fascinating and definitely worth while is the preliminary research Crossan describes. Crossan takes examples of oral histories from both the ancient and the modern world and describes how they work, why they work, and how sometimes they don't work exactly the way one believes. The section "does memory really remember" was especially absorbing.
In conclusion, if you are seeking a book on what earliest Christianity was like this one might be a little too slanted; however, if you want to learn a lot about how oral traditions function and eventually become text, I would highly recommend this book.