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Hardcover The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus Book

ISBN: 0060616598

ISBN13: 9780060616595

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

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Book Overview

"This book is about the lost years of earliest Christianity, about the 30s and 40s of the first century, about those dark decades immediately after the execution of Jesus...The obscurity of the 30s and 40s can be emphasized by the comparative brilliancy of the 50s. From that later decade we have the letters of Paul...From them, above all else, we receive the temptation to gloss speedily over the 30s or 40s and move swiftly to those better-documented 50s...Before there was Paul the apostle in the early 50s, there was Paul the persecutor in the early 30s. What was there for him to persecute?" -from The Birth of Christianity In this long-awaited companion to his landmark The Historical Jesus, John Dominic Crossan, the world's foremost expert on the historical Jesus, explores the lost years of earliest Christianity, those immediately following the execution of Jesus. He establishes the contextual setting by an interdisciplinary combination of anthropological, historical, and archaeological approaches. He identifies the textual sources by a literary analysis of the earliest discernible layers within our present gospels, both inside and outside the New Testament. Context and text come together to challenge long-standing assumptions about the role of Paul and the meaning of resurrection, and to forge an eloquent and powerful new understanding of the birth of the Christian church. John Dominic Crossan, one of the most influential figures in biblical scholarship, combines innovative scholarship with compelling insight in illuminating the mysteries of the origins of Christianity. Crossan's meticulous research into the anthropological milieu within which Christianity arose, and his study of the emergence of early Christian communities, form the basis for his stunning and original theory. Separating history from theology and redaction, he presents a vivid account of early Christianity's interaction with the world around it, and of the new traditions and communities established as Jesus' companions continued their movement after his death. With ancient traditional Judaism under increasing pressure from both Roman commercial exploitation and Greek cultural domination, the Kingdom-of-God movement of Jesus and his followers establish radical but non-violent resistance in the Lower Galilee of the late 20s. As early Jewish and Greek-influenced schools of thought present competing visions of the nature of the spirit and the flesh, it is the message brought by Jesus during his life that creates the spiritual center of the early church. The Resurrection, while essential to the story of Christ as told through the centuries, is understood in a different light when presented in the setting of a Mediterranean culture in which events such as apparitions by the dead and ecstatic visions were far from unusual. While the eschatological teachings of Paul play a large role in the growth and development of the church, they are seen to follow, rather than define, the moment of its birth. Ground-breaking and brilliantly crafted, The Birth of Christianity is an indispensable addition to our understanding of the origins of the Christian faith. John Dominic Crossan is the author of The Historical Jesus, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Who Killed Jesus?, and Who Is Jesus? He chairs the Historical Jesus section of the Society of Biblical Literature and was codirector of the Jesus Seminar. John Dominic Crossan, the world's foremost expert and best-selling author on the historical Jesus, presents a fascinating and essential inquiry into the rise of Christianity in the years preceding and immediately following the Crucifixion. Crossan's interdisciplinary approach sheds new light on the cultural and theological context in which the Christian church arose, and raises essential questions about the role of St. Paul and the significance of the Resurrection.
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Customer Reviews

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Rated 5 stars
The Definitive Work

Phew! This book is "a whole lot of Crossan." This isn't light reading for the beach...this is heavy-duty scholarship by one of the leading experts in the field of the Jesus Movement. Crossan leaves no stone unturned, and he anticipates his critics (he answers possible objections to his theories throughout the book). And even though it is very thorough and scholarly, Crossan's style is very accessible. One need not be...

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Rated 5 stars
Mountains of Meaning out of Mole-Hills of Text

This book has been roundly criticized by many reviewers on several grounds and with some merit: Style - It doesn't come the point and present a clear story. Also, to much focus on method and assumption. Relevance - It is a lot of scholarly commentary on scholarly commentary. Theology - It ignores the miraculous Jesus. And often enough some flavor of "it threatens my belief, so it cannot be true" masquerading as one of the...

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Rated 5 stars
The book to read if you're into Christian History

John Dominic Crossan will always get tough reviews because he's so controversial. Unlike Bishop Spong who pictures Jesus as someone who looks, acts, and feels just like Bishop Spong, Crossan attempts to piece the scant record together and separate fact from fiction. If you take the Bible at face value, period, then you won't care for this book. If you have a faith that allows certain precepts to be challenged, try it out...

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Rated 5 stars
A Marvelous handbook to discover the nature of your God

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...

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Rated 5 stars
Crossan does it again...

I first encountered John Dominic Crossan through his seminal work, The Historical Jesus - The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant. It was the most enlightening and enjoyable discovery I have made in my readings on the historical Jesus. So, when I came across The Birth of Christianity I was more than a little excited to turn back the cover and that excitement only grew as I began to read. Once again, Professor Crossan evidences...

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