| What was Crossan sceptical of? | orthodox Christian accounts of Jesus which present Jesus in terms of an all-powerful Son of God removed from the concerns of the world. |
| What else is Crossan sceptical of? | taking the Gospels at face value as they reached their final form only after 30 years from the death of Jesus |
| How does Crossan try to construct historically accurate views of Jesus? | Crossan tries to locate early traditions (30-60CE) from within the Gospels, such as ‘Q’, the shared material between Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of Thomas and other non-canonical writings |
| What do these sources present according to Crossan? | do not present Jesus as having a miraculous birth or a resurrection,
but as a teacher of wisdom with an emphasis on social justice. |
| How was Jesus a social revolutionary? | who tried to build a community without gender or class distinctions (his
open table fellowship, women in leadership, and welcoming outcasts). (Matthew 11:19) |
| What did Crossan think of miraculous healings? | The so-called ‘miracles of healing’ were really social
healings, including those cast out from the centre
of society. |
| Who should Jesus be compared to? | Graeco-Roman cynics who were itinerant teachers |
| What is Crossan's definition of Jesus? | ‘Mediterranean Jewish Peasant’ |
| What is the apocryphal gospels? | A number of writings by early Christians that give account of Jesus and his teachings but are non canonical |
| Why were the apocrypha not included in the bible? | They were considered useful but not divinely inspired |
| From which point must we start our historical study of Jesus? | Jesus was a Jewish prophet announcing the kingdom of God |
| What view did Jesus share? | One of eschatological expectation. The Jews were the chosen people of God and that history was going somewhere. |
| What three areas did cross an use to find this historical Jesus? | Cross cultural anthropology, Jewish and Greco Roman history and literary and textual studies of the New Testament |
| What is Cross cultural anthropology? | What we know about ancient Mediterranean culture, agrarian society, gender relations and colonialisms. This gives meaning to Crossan’s description of of Jesus as Mediterranean |
| What is Jewish and Greco Roman history? | The land where Jesus lived was a colony of the Roman Empire and there are many sources that can be used to find out what life under Roman rule would’ve been like. This gives meaning to Crossan’s interpretation of Jesus as a peasant |
| What is literary and textual studies of the New Testament? | Using the books outside of the canonical New Testament to inform us about Jesus’ life. This gives meaning to Crossan’s interpretation of Jesus as Jewish |
| What is an attestation? | A piece of evidence presented in support of a claim |
| Key quote from Crossan? | “I understand the virginal conception of Jesus to be a confessional statement about Jesus’ status and not a biological statement about Mary’s body” |
| What is Q? | Name is given to sayings common in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark which some scholars believe was a source these gospel writers used |
| What is the significance of the gospel of Thomas? | It’s a collection of sayings of Jesus without the birth or resurrection narratives and is dated to a lot earlier than some of the other books |
| How did Crossan picture Jesus? | As a social revolutionary, he advocated a kingdom lifestyle, he served at an open table, he performed miracles of social healing |
| What does Constantinian Christianity have to do with the original Jesus movement | They experienced the power of Jesus and didn’t need a physical resurrection. However some of his followers strayed far from what Jesus originally wanted by turning his open table meals into a closed table Eucharist and started having clear leaders in the church and figures of authority |
