J D Crossan's construct of Jesus' "Jewishness" : a critical assessment

Abstract

The article focuses on J D Crossan's reconstruction of the historical Jesus and the content he assigns to Jesus' "Jewishness". Guided by Crossan's own work and the insights of ethnicity theory, the continuities and discontinuities between Crossan's Jesus and traditional "Judaism" are investigated. It is argued that there is very little that connects Crossan's Jesus with traditional "Jewish" ethnic identity. In the process it is also argued that Crossan provides no comprehensive analytical framework within which it can be explained what kind of "Jew" Jesus was.