Select Works of John Dominic Crossan (8 vols.)

When John Dominic Crossan’s book, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus, was published in 1973, many heralded it as a major development in research both on the parables and on the historical Jesus. This was due not only to its sophisticated use of historical, literary, and philosophical disciplines but also to the sensitive way in which they were combined and to the novel insights that resulted when this combination was focused on individual parables.

Cliffs of Fall continues the study initiated by In Parables, bringing Crossan’s work up to date conceptually, philosophically, and exegetically. Crossan makes the Parable of the Sower the touchstone text throughout his work.

In this work, John Dominic Crossan argues that the Passion and resurrection in the four gospels are radical revisions of an earlier gospel account. Crossan boldly builds the case that the apocryphal Gospel of Peter—discovered in the grave of a Christian monk in Egypt circa 1886—contains the earliest version of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He describes how the authors of the four Gospels revised the early account of how their revision predominated as Roman authority grew. Lacking in the revision, he suggests, is the very heart of the earlier Passion: its depiction of Jesus’ death as the consummation of Israel’s pain and the resurrection as the vindication of Israel’s faith.

Here John Dominic Crossan offers the core of his life’s work: a concise and astonishing presentation of the authentic teachings and earliest images of Jesus. Crossan’s fresh translations of Jesus’ teaching show Jesus to be a teacher whose radical message that all are equal before God is as timely today as it was 2,000 years ago. Crossan argues that pre-Constantinian Christian renderings of Jesus demonstrate that he was remembered by the first Christians not as God, but as a revolutionary healer and leader.

An imaginative and illuminating study, Finding Is the First Act places historical thinking in creative tension with literary appreciation. John Dominic Crossan examines the structures of Jesus’ parable of the hidden treasure (Matthew 13:44), mapping its paths (finding, acting, buying) in view of other treasure stories in Jewish and world folklore. Startling differences emerge in the plot options Jesus presents. These point to a new understanding of the directive to give up everything for the Kingdom of God.

The four canonical gospels have long been set as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This book is about four other gospels: the Gospel of Thomas, the Secret Gospel of Mark; the Gospel of Peter, and Egerton Papyrus 2. These four other gospels have generally been regarded as mere digests or collages of the canonical gospels. John Dominic Crossan argues that these four hold many independent, earlier traditions than the canonical gospels. Crossan does not propose a new or alternative canon, but reveals the many ways these discarded texts might shed light on the canonical gospels.

Jesus was perhaps the greatest aphorist of all time. But his aphorisms—a major part of his teachings—have been largely overlooked by biblical scholars. John Dominic Crossan offers the first comprehensive analysis of Jesus’ aphorisms as an area of study distinct from, but equal in importance to, the parables and dialogues.

The heart of Crossan’s work is his discussion of over 130 aphorisms of Jesus pulled from the canonical gospels, as well as the Gospel of Thomas, and the Apostolic Fathers. Crossan offers an original method for identifying, organizing, and correlating these sayings and discusses the particular benefits of aphorism as opposed to teachings embodied in the narrative or dialogue forms.

In Raid on the Articulate, John Dominic Crossan juxtaposes the sayings and parables of Jesus with the works of modern Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges to reveal fresh interpretations. Emphasizing both biblical and literary materials, Crossan presents a unique literary aspect of Jesus’ teaching that provides a new perspective on New Testament texts and forms.

Sayings Parallels is a workbook for the study of the Jesus tradition. The same saying often appears in different sources, genres, and versions within the Jesus tradition. This phenomenon has implications even for those cases where there are no parallels and the unit appears in only one instance. John Dominic Crossan attempts to present the data as neutrally as possible, facilitating discussion of factual diversity rather than to promoting a specific interpretation of its presence.