Notes and Quotes on Reed & Crossan

John Dominic Crossan & Jonathan L. Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2001).

‘A major debate among contemporary scholars concerns wether the historical Jesus was an apocalyptic or nonapocalyptic figure. Quite often the disagreements gets nowhere, as both sides fail in any detailed analysis of those twin options. If he was apocalyptic, what distinctions and options are necessary to understand his apocalypticism? For example, was his God’s solution to evil the extermination or conversion of evil-doers? And were believers to wait passively or participate actively in that process? If he was nonapocalyptic, what, apart from that negation, was the content of the Kingdom of God? Our general hope in this book is to get beyond that impasse by insisting on the continuum in basic content from a covenantal through an eschatological to an apocalyptic Kingdom of God. Our specific hope in this conclusion is to locate Jesus and the kingdom of God movement more accurately among those first-century apocalypticists and/or protesters.’ (pp. 214-15).

Jerusalem Temple: ‘it was both the house of God and the seat of collaboration. It was both magnificent shrine and impressive fortress.’ (p. 243).

‘The parting of the ways arose because, for most other Jews, that Christian Jewish claim was incredible. The inclusion of pagans and the devastation by pagans were irreconcilable.’ (p. 324)