John Dominic Crossan
Crossan
In certain circles, John Dominic Crossan is vilified as an agent of the devil. A founder of The Jesus Seminar, his efforts at textual criticism, particularly of the Gospels, have drawn fire from the fundamentalist elements of American Christianity while revealing the historical Jesus as an iconoclast and preacher of a social gospel.
In an upcoming edition of New Albany Now, we’ll be talking to Crossan about his writings and his views. Joining me will be a coterie of local pastors who will be able to engage the theologian at a higher (and one hopes more interesting) level than could I. I’ll be sure to clue you in when our broadcast schedule is firm.
In the meantime, as our panel prepares for this opportunity, I thought I’d share what research I’ve gathered about the Rev. Crossan.
I’m a bookseller, so his published books will be the anchor for this discussion. What I can tell you from personal experience is that his books sell well. They are invariably provocative, appealing to co-religionists of the intellectual strain. As a refugee from a captured denomination that has historically looked with suspicion on anything that could arguably be called “intellectual,” I’ve found Crossan’s writings to be most stimulating.
[As an aside, I'm a strong believer that there is no such thing as a dangerous book. There is no idea that is as dangerous as ignorance. ® I believe this particularly strongly when it comes to matters of faith. Christian believers are by Peter to "always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you..." It is simply impossible to learn what you believe unless you measure it against what others believe.]
From Crossan’s official Web site: John Dominic Crossan was born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, in 1934. He was educated in Ireland and the United States, received a Doctorate of Divinity from Maynooth College, Ireland, in 1959, and did post-doctoral research at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome from 195 to 1961 and at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem from 1965 to 1967. He was a member of a thirteenth-century Roman Catholic order, the Servites (Ordo Servorum Mariae) from 1950 to 1969 and an ordained priest fro 1957 to 1969. He joined DePaul University, Chicago, in 1969 and remained there until 1995. He is now Professor Emeritus in its Department of Religious Studies.
He was Co-Chair of the Jesus Seminar from 1985 to 1996 as it met in twice-annual meetings to debate the historicity of the life of Jesus in the gospels. He was Chair of the Parables Seminar in 1972-76, Editor of Semeia. An Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism in 1980-86, and Chair of the Historical Jesus Section in 1993-1998, within the Society of Biblical Literature, an international scholarly association for biblical study based in the United States.
He has received awards for scholarly excellence from the American Academy of Religion in 1989, DePaul University in 1991 and 1995, and an honorary doctorate from Stetson University, DeLand, FL, in 2003.
In the last forty years he has written twenty-three books on the historical Jesus, earliest Christianity, and the historical Paul. Five of them have been national religious bestsellers for a combined total of twenty-four months. The scholarly core of his work is the trilogy from The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991) through The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (1998), to In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom, co-authored with the archaeologist Jonathan L. Reed (2004). His latest book, God & Empire, Jesus Against Rome Then and Now, was published by HarperSanFrancisco in March 2007. His work has also been translated into eleven foreign languages, including Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.
He and Marcus Borg are co-authoring a series of books of which two have already been published: The Last Week: A Day by Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) and The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About the Birth of Jesus (HarperOne, 2007).
He has lectured to lay and scholarly audiences across the United States as well as in Ireland and England, Scandinavia and Finland, Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, and South Africa. He has been interviewed on 200 radio stations, including four times on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. He has also been interviewed on television networks such as ABC’s PrimeTime, Peter Jennings Reporting, and Nightline, CBS’ Early Show and 48 Hours, NBC’s Dateline, and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, and on cable programs such as A&E, History, Discovery, and the National Geographic Channel.
To put Crossan’s beliefs in a nutshell is unfair, but it is fair to say that he believes that the historical Jesus was a nonviolent revolutionary whose teachings about distributive justice do not rely on a claim of divinity; that the canonical Gospels are not, and weren’t intended to be historical documents; that many earlier documents from the early CE offer greater insights into the historical truth of Jesus; and that Jesus, though he may have been executed (probably for treason), he not only was not bodily resurrected but that his body was extremely unlikely to have even been entombed.
God and Empire
Crossan’s latest book, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now, surveys the Bible from Genesis to Apocalypse, or the Book of Revelation, and discovers a hopeful message that cannot be ignored in these turbulent times. The first-century Pax Romana, Crossan points out, was in fact a “peace” won through violent military action. Jesus preached a different kind of peace—a peace that surpasses all understanding—and a kingdom not of Caesar but of God.
The Romans executed Jesus because he preached this Kingdom of God, a kingdom based on peace and justice, over the empire of Rome, which ruled by violence and force. For Jesus and Paul, Crossan explains, peace cannot be won the Roman way, through military victory, but only through justice and fair and equal treatment of all people.
Confirmed members of our panel include: Rev. Polk Culpepper, pastor of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and Rev. John Manzo, pastor of St. Mark’s UCC Church, both in New Albany.
Crossan will be lecturing in Louisville on Nov. 7-8. Tune in to New Albany Now for more details.
Wow! I will be sure to listen.
I am reading some of Crosan’s books. As I read him, I can’t understand whay he still believes in a God. I am a bedraggled refugee from the “Holy” Roman Catholic Church, now a proud Atheist. I am well read in the Bible and the history of the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church. I regard the Bible as the worst book of fiction ever written. All it is is a poor plagiarism of Egyptian Astrotheology.
Crossan is a tremendous scholar. It doesn’t surprise me that he still believes in God — many believers struggle to reconcile faith with fact. Crossan’s position is that the Gospels were never intended to be historical accounts. They’re about theology, not journalism. I’m not a Christian, but I find Crossan’s approach compelling. It is always good to learn more, to question, and to challenge ourselves. In Judaism, we have a tradition of l’hakshot, or hard questioning. We’re meant to think about what we believe, not to accept dogma unquestioningly. Scholars like Crossan and Elaine Pagels help us to do just that.