Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts

The authors did an excellent job comparing and contrasting the written words of the Gospel writers, Josephus, and other histories of the times and places where Jesus was born and traveled. It is not always easy to follow the conclusions offered, however, once I was past the first few pages, I was hooked. As an amateur student of the Bible, I found the book provocative and thoughtful.

My God! He has done it again. John Dominic Crossan, not content to bury the Jesus of the Gospels under a mass of spurious manuscripts long ago discredited as historical("The Birth of Christianity") or under his own distorted take on Jewish history from 60 B.C.E. to 60 C.E.("The Historical Jesus"),he now tries to bury him under the archeological digs of the State of Israel (and other monuments of antiquity) supported by nothing but his warped vision of a political Jesus, out of control and destined for political extinction.That is his thesis: that is his delusion, and that is the theme of this whole book (as awkwardly argued as his other books), but in this case, giving the appearance of credibility because of the nature of his "proofs": places, maps, synagogues, houses, villas, stone monuments and, believe or not, the reconstruction of Nazareth, a theatre in Sepphoris, the city of Caesarea Maritima - and so mmany other antiquities you would think that dead stones could talk and that John Dominic Crossan alone could interpret what they say.The book is a ploy to give the impression - which is the thesis of all his books - that the Jesus of the Gospels is a fraud and a fiction - simply because he says so. The fraud and fiction are on his part.Why the Jesus Seminar - of which John Dominlc Crossan is a card-carrying member - would be interested in Jesus of Nazareth is a mystery in itself: a closed corporation of Humanists or Biblical agnostics - - who boast of historical fairness and objectivity in their writings - - when everyone knows they twist history and Biblical documents to their own purposes and have an intense hatred of Jesus and Christianity, or are atheists at heart pretending to have knowledge privy to themselves and the real key to unlocking the meaning of the Bible and of the New testament in particular.This book is of that genre. It is a front for dismantling the Gospels and recreating Biblical history to support its attack on the trustworthiness of the Gospels and on Jesus of Nazareth, as portrayed in the Gospels.The author's total ignorance of Second Temple Judaism, one of the richest and most turbulent periods in Jewish history and the historical figures that dominated the last hundred years of that period, is to say the least, erroneous and infantile. The studies that are emerging in the wake of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the establishment of the State of Israel are beginning to reveal the political complexity and cultural riches of a period whose historical records were lost in the burning of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 A.D. Anything else is idle speculation, except for the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is a dominant and towering figure in the last days of the Second Temple - and the Four Gospels are the only remaining record of the latter days of that historic period.John Dominic Crossan has an ax to grind in this book, and his method is to to use any tactic - textual, literary, and now archeological to erase the figure of Jesus from the history of the period. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished , but he succeeds admirably only in revealing his own motives and his appalling ignorance of a rich and turbulent period that changed the course of human history.Father Clifford StevensBoys Town. Ne braska

In preparing for an upcoming trip to Israel and Palestine, I wanted to understand more about the ancient sites that would help me to connect to what life was like in the times of Jesus and how to read the biblical accounts of his ministry with more insight. "Excavating Jesus" may have lingered more on the details of the archeology for me, but I found the book describing the layers of scriptural writing to be fascinating. The diagrams and pictures that portray what life was like during Jesus' time as well as the political context provided vivid images and more appreciation of why Jesus' path of radical teachings inevitably led to the crucifixion. The book also laid a foundation of historical understanding for why the current political conflicts are so deeply imbedded in the Jewish-Christian-Muslim cultures that go back millenia. I skimmed some of the more obtuse details while my husband, the wannabe archeologist, just devoured them. While he loved all the details, I sought the bigger picture. Both of us were satisfied when we read this book. We are now even more eager for our trip to Palestine.

An interesting combination of archaeology, anthropology and theology. Focusing on the discoveries of archaeological significance in Israel over the last 100 years or so, the book takes the reader through such discoveries as the James ossuary, the Temple Mount, the ruins at Qumran and other sites (notably Ceasaria Maritima, Sepphoris, Nazereth and Capernaum) to compare what archaeology says with what was written - both by contemporary authors (Josephus, Philo, etc) as well as the Biblical accounts to arrive at a picture of first century Judea.John Dominic Crossan has written many books on the subject of the historical Jesus, and this is not going to broach any new insights if you are familiar with his work. However, it will provide the reader with an interesting perspective from a more archaeological point of view, which will be of interest to the non-religious reader in particular.

I was looking for an unbiased description of both archeological and and textual facts for the life of Jesus. Instead it is a fairly good description of archeological evidence of the time of publication (2001) and an assumption by the authors that the gospel writers were writing to make Jesus look good. Non-cannon books such as the Gospel of Thomas or Q Source are given equal status for accuracy as Mark, Luke, etc. No real evidence has ever been found for the “Q Source”, it is simply a construct based upon assumptions about differences between Mathew and Luke. Many assumptions in the book are simply based on probability such as Jesus “couldn’t” have been literate since the likely literacy rate of the Nazareth are was thought to be 3%. Maybe that makes sense if you only assume Jesus was merely a man who had to conform to the expectations of his village. He clearly had more initiative than that even without considering He just might be who He said He was. If you are a believer this book will not help much and is now out of dates anyway.