![]() ![]() "I wasn't ready for the positive stuff at all," he said. Rather, he has been hearing from people struggling with their beliefs. They are not the angry missives from biblical literalists he had expected. Crossan said that on his desk he kept a stack of readers' letters. "I think it's just part of the tremendous revival in interest in spiritual matters in this country," he said.ĭr. The Trinity Institute's director, Frederic Burnham, said that he did not know how many people had tuned in but that he had chanced upon one group of more than 150 people viewing the event on a television in a hotel ballroom. The event's sponsors, HarperCollins and the Trinity Institute, an organization based in New York that runs education programs for members of the clergy, arranged a live broadcast via satellite to 74 colleges, churches and libraries across the country. Mack of Claremont Graduate School in California, met for a "Jesus summit," a wide-ranging discussion, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Borg and another biblical scholar, Burton L. But it has sold more than 50,000 copies in hardback since it was published in 1991, he said.ĭavid Lull, the executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature, an international association of biblical scholars, said, "The public is voting with their dollars for biblical scholarship." Crossan said he had written the book with a narrow academic audience in mind. "We have new materials, we have new methods, and we have a new approach in that we want to go public, too," said John Dominic Crossan, a professor of biblical studies at DePaul University in Chicago who wrote "The Historical Jesus" (HarperCollins). But some have argued that his teachings responded to rising social tensions. How much that affected Jesus' activities is debated by scholars. The new findings have indicated that the region around lower Galilee was becoming more urbanized in the first century than previously thought. Excavations at the ruins of Sepphoris, a city near Nazareth, and other sites in Galilee have provided insights into the social and economic life of Jewish communities there. ![]() Four years ago in Jerusalem, archeologists uncovered an ossuary, or box for bones, marked with the family name of Caiaphas, the high priest who in the Gospels questioned Jesus before the Roman authorities crucified him. Borg are offering stand at some distance from the Christ of the creeds Jesus is variously described as an enlightened person, like the Buddha, who was also a mystic and healer a peasant who was a social revolutionary, or an apocalyptic prophet who saw himself in the mold of the Old Testament prophet Elijah.Īnd the scholars offering these divergent images are a far more diverse group than in previous quests: Catholics, Protestants and Jews, many working in secular institutions, and increasingly interested in archeologists' findings.Ī few recent discoveries have seemed to come tantalizingly close to Jesus himself. The portraits of Jesus that scholars like Dr. "Biblical scholarship, and Jesus scholarship in particular, provides a new way of seeing this material." "For them, their childhood understanding of Jesus and the Bible at some point stopped working, but their religious interest remains," he said. Borg, who lectures frequently about the historical Jesus to adult groups, said he had encountered many people who were seriously wrestling with basic beliefs. ![]() In this climate, scholarly works on the historical Jesus have found an audience among those most inclined to probe issues of faith, even if it means tackling hundreds of pages of densely argued text.ĭr. For two or three years in the United States, a nation where old denominational loyalties have faded, popular enthusiasm has been surging around ancient spiritual topics, lifting books on angels, prayer and life after death high onto the best-seller lists. "I think, in common with a lot of commentators on our culture, there's a rebirth of religious interest."Īmong academics, research into Jesus is being spurred by the enthusiasm of a new generation of scholars, drawing on information from archeological discoveries in and around Israel, including recent excavations of cities and villages in Galilee, where Jesus preached.īut the interest of the larger public is another matter. Borg, a professor of religion and culture at Oregon State University and a leading figure among the new generation of Jesus scholars. "I'm just amazed at the appetite there is for this," said Marcus J. ![]()
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