Volume 50, Number 6 · April 10, 2003
Who Was Jesus?
By E.P. Sanders
Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts
by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed
HarperSanFrancisco, 298 pp., $29.95; $19.95 (paper)
In the study of the historical Jesus two of the most important issues, both addressed by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed, are Jesus' surroundings—what first-century Jewish Palestine was like—and his 'type'—Was he prophet, magician, ethicist, sage, social reformer, utopian visionary, or some combination of these? Crossan, a former priest and an emeritus professor of religious studies at DePaul University, is the leading member of the influential group of scholars called the Jesus Seminar and has written numerous publications about Jesus, including especially The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.[1] Reed is a young archaeologist who has recently published a book on Galilee and Jesus.[2] The task they set themselves is an important one: to clarify the setting in which Jesus lived and worked, and to explain him within that context by combining the study of archaeological and other findings with historical analysis of the gospels and other ancient texts.
Review, 4286 words
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