<b>John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Crossan's methodology -
Crossan says that his method analyzes the problem on three levels; anthropological, historical and literary. That is true. Further, he insists that these "cooperate fully and equally to achieve an effective synthesis, thus demanding equal sophistication on all three levels at the same time." He says, "the discipline of this book is to work primarily with plurally attested complexes from the primary stratus of the Jesus tradition." The scope of his program clearly has scholarly merit, and sets him apart from his peers in historical Jesus research. But I think there are some areas where his execution of the program falls short of the promise.
(1) <b>He treats all prospective "gospels" on an equal basis, apparently disregarding traditional canonical lines of demarcation.</b> His primary concern is establishing a probable genetic lineage of Jesus' sayings. Crossan appears to believe that God doesn't have an interest or a direct hand in the way we get scripture. This may make sense for naturalists or deists even, but not for theists.
(2) He uses an analytical concept called the "complex" for analyzing and organizing ancient texts into their basic units of meaning. The difficulty is that isolation of these complexes is an intensively hermeneutical process with huge potential for disagreement. Are these complexes based on events, or on themes? And, to what extent do these "complexes" conflate similar but distinct accounts?
(3) Crossan uses the familiar phenomenon of geologic stratification as a metaphor to explain his approach to establishing chronological layers within the literature. He presumes Scripture is naturally generated and so looks to establish pathways to explain how the text came to be transmitted. But if we expand on that metaphor, how does one interpret a petrified tree that passes through all of the strata? It forces one to reassess his assumptions. Specifically, what happens to our stratigraphic continuum when there is clear evidence that early documents depend on supposedly later documents? Such anomalies could leave Crossan standing in mid-air.
(4) Central to Crossan's method is his assessment of attestation. This is his metric for credibility. But Crossan admits that determination of the degree of attestation is in many cases a scholarly best guess. In this, Crossan appears not to allow himself to be guided or influenced by any theological notion that certain New Testament writers are inspired. He employs an editorial process he calls "bracketing singularities." In this, accounts of Jesus' sayings and actions lacking in plural attestation are called `singularities' and they are not considered admissible in reconstructing the historical Jesus. This leaves us without the virgin birth, the sermon on the mount, the Lord's prayer, the last supper or the empty tomb. This is Crossan's razor and it cuts deep, leaving roughly half of the New Testament on the editing room floor. This is a problem.
Assessment -
<b>
First, this book is very unbalanced, focusing almost exclusively on the historical and anthropological contexts, as if knowing the background of a subject tells the whole story. To echo the words of a friend, `Reading Crossan's Historical Jesus, I can't help feeling like I'm searching for something that isn't there. It is like looking at a master painter's portrait of Christ in which the image of the Master has been carefully extracted from its artistic context leaving a mere shadow of an outline, until all that remains is context without subject.'</b>
Second, the methodology Crossan describes may be considered adequate as a component of a naturalist or deist epistemology. But it fails in a universe of sparse observers where "singularities" are important. What Crossan's method lacks is a criterion for assessing the credibility of singly attested scripture passages. I'm no historian, but I suspect that the bulk of ancient history would succumb to Crossan's razor.
Finally, the bigger question that these considerations raise for me is this, `Is this truly sophistication, or is it merely sophistry?'
My assessment is that it is truly unfortunate for all of us that Crossan has chosen to employ his considerably noteworthy talents in the service of a lesser god than the Jesus of history.
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John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Crossan's methodology -
Crossan says that his method analyzes the problem on three levels; anthropological, historical and literary. That is true. Further, he insists that these "cooperate fully and equally to achieve an effective synthesis, thus demanding equal sophistication on all three levels at the same time." He says, "the discipline of this book is to work primarily with plurally attested complexes from the primary stratus of the Jesus tradition." The scope of his program clearly has scholarly merit, and sets him apart from his peers in historical Jesus research. But I think there are some areas where his execution of the program falls short of the promise.
(1) <b>He treats all prospective "gospels" on an equal basis, apparently disregarding traditional canonical lines of demarcation.</b> His primary concern is establishing a probable genetic lineage of Jesus' sayings. Crossan appears to believe that God doesn't have an interest or a direct hand in the way we get scripture. This may make sense for naturalists or deists even, but not for theists.
(2) He uses an analytical concept called the "complex" for analyzing and organizing ancient texts into their basic units of meaning. The difficulty is that isolation of these complexes is an intensively hermeneutical process with huge potential for disagreement. Are these complexes based on events, or on themes? And, to what extent do these "complexes" conflate similar but distinct accounts?
(3) Crossan uses the familiar phenomenon of geologic stratification as a metaphor to explain his approach to establishing chronological layers within the literature. He presumes Scripture is naturally generated and so looks to establish pathways to explain how the text came to be transmitted. But if we expand on that metaphor, how does one interpret a petrified tree that passes through all of the strata? It forces one to reassess his assumptions. Specifically, what happens to our stratigraphic continuum when there is clear evidence that early documents depend on supposedly later documents? Such anomalies could leave Crossan standing in mid-air.
(4) Central to Crossan's method is his assessment of attestation. This is his metric for credibility. But Crossan admits that determination of the degree of attestation is in many cases a scholarly best guess. In this, Crossan appears not to allow himself to be guided or influenced by any theological notion that certain New Testament writers are inspired. He employs an editorial process he calls "bracketing singularities." In this, accounts of Jesus' sayings and actions lacking in plural attestation are called `singularities' and they are not considered admissible in reconstructing the historical Jesus. This leaves us without the virgin birth, the sermon on the mount, the Lord's prayer, the last supper or the empty tomb. This is Crossan's razor and it cuts deep, leaving roughly half of the New Testament on the editing room floor. This is a problem.
Assessment -
<b>
First, this book is very unbalanced, focusing almost exclusively on the historical and anthropological contexts, as if knowing the background of a subject tells the whole story. To echo the words of a friend, `Reading Crossan's Historical Jesus, I can't help feeling like I'm searching for something that isn't there. It is like looking at a master painter's portrait of Christ in which the image of the Master has been carefully extracted from its artistic context leaving a mere shadow of an outline, until all that remains is context without subject.'</b>
Second, the methodology Crossan describes may be considered adequate as a component of a naturalist or deist epistemology. But it fails in a universe of sparse observers where "singularities" are important. What Crossan's method lacks is a criterion for assessing the credibility of singly attested scripture passages. I'm no historian, but I suspect that the bulk of ancient history would succumb to Crossan's razor.
Finally, the bigger question that these considerations raise for me is this, `Is this truly sophistication, or is it merely sophistry?'
My assessment is that it is truly unfortunate for all of us that Crossan has chosen to employ his considerably noteworthy talents in the service of a lesser god than the Jesus of history.
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