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"The truth may make you free, but it may also make a lot of other people extremely annoyed." - A Long Way From Tipperary, Prologue.
"... there is a supreme difference between actual and delusional stories. And it is necessary to decide which is which. History matters. And history is possible because its absence is intolerable.
History is not the same as story. Even if all history is story, not all story is history. Imagine this purely hypothetical case. In the courtroom, faced with a man accused of double murder, the defense and prosecution tell very different stories. In one the man is a murderer who must be condemned. In the other he is an innocent who has been framed. Both attorneys are highly competent and entertaining storytellers, but only one of the two stories they share in that courtroom is history. The other is mistake, fiction, invention, lie. At the end, when the man walks out of the courtroom, he is either a freed murderer or a framed innocent. He cannot be both. Maybe we will never know for sure which version is history-story and which is story-story. But we know that only one version is correct. And our decency, morality, and humanity demand that we never say it is all relative, perspective, hype, spin, or that, since we cannot know for sure, it does not matter at all." - The Birth of Christianity, Chapter 2.
Overview edit
Bibliography
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(2009)
The First Paul
-
(2007)
The First Christmas
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(2007)
God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now
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(2004)
In Search of Paul : How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom
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(2001)
Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts: Revised and Updated
Personal edit
- Legal name: John Dominic Crossan
- Birthdate: 1934 (age 78)
- Birthplace: Nenagh, Tipperary, Ireland
- Nationality: Irish-American
- Gender: Male
- Official Website: http://www.johndcrossan.com/
- Genres: Historical Jesus, religion, Christianity, Bible, history
Unbound edit
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On Truth:
"The truth may make you free, but it may also make a lot of other people extremely annoyed." - A Long Way From Tipperary, Prologue.
On History and Story:
"... there is a supreme difference between actual and delusional stories. And it is necessary to decide which is which. History matters. And history is possible because its absence is intolerable.
History is not the same as story. Even if all history is story, not all story is history. Imagine this purely hypothetical case. In the courtroom, faced with a man accused of double murder, the defense and prosecution tell very different stories. In one the man is a murderer who must be condemned. In the other he is an innocent who has been framed. Both attorneys are highly competent and entertaining storytellers, but only one of the two stories they share in that courtroom is history. The other is mistake, fiction, invention, lie. At the end, when the man walks out of the courtroom, he is either a freed murderer or a framed innocent. He cannot be both. Maybe we will never know for sure which version is history-story and which is story-story. But we know that only one version is correct. And our decency, morality, and humanity demand that we never say it is all relative, perspective, hype, spin, or that, since we cannot know for sure, it does not matter at all." - The Birth of Christianity, Chapter 2.
