"The Life of the Historical Jesus:
Who was Jesus?
What did Jesus really say?
Why did Jesus say it?"

MARC Pavilion ~ University Park
Florida International University
Thursday, November 9, 2006, 11:00 AM

John Dominic Crossan, the world’s foremost scholar of the New Testament, says that Jesus was, first and foremost, a peasant resisting the imperial aggression of Rome.

That controversial contention has led this former priest and DePaul university professor to the authorship of eighteen books, countless articles, and so many television and documentary appearances that his is one of the most recognized scholarly faces in the West. Among his most well-known books are national bestsellers The Historical Jesus (1991), Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994), Who Killed Jesus (1995), and The Birth of Christianity (1998).

Come hear this outstanding scholar discuss why he has written, “The last chapters of the gospels . . . taken literally, factually, and historically trivialize Christianity and brutalize Judaism. That acceptation has created in Christianity a lethal deceit that sours its soul, hardens its heart, and savages its spirit. . . . Christianity often asserts that its faith is based on fact not interpretation, history not myth, actual event not supreme fiction. I find that assertion internally corrosive and externally offensive. And because I am myself a Christian, I have a responsibility to do something about it.”

This lecture is presented in partnership with:

The Department of Religious Studies
The Judaic Studies Program
The Center for Spirituality
The Religious Studies Graduate Students Association