David Gowler requested:

> It would help me and the book if listers could
> suggest their own "top seven
> since 1980" with a sentence as to why you picked
> them, with perhaps a couple
> "honorable mentions."

David,

I'm submitting two top-7 lists, the first of which is
modified from my top-10 list which I use in various
discussion groups. But this list reflects my own
particular understanding of HJ (and thus may be too
"idiosyncratic", as you say). So I follow it with
another top-7 list of "most influential" scholars on
the subject (since 1980) -- regardless of how much I
agree or disagree with them -- though I haven't
written any commentary for them.

A. "Best" HJ books:

#1 The Historical Figure of Jesus, by E.P. Sanders,
1993. The top slot goes to Sanders, whose book best
situates Jesus as a Jew of the first century rather
than a Protestant born out of time and place: an
eschatological prophet, obedient to the Torah,
ultimately killed for acting against the temple in his
belief that God would soon destroy it and raise
another in the kingdom of God. Sanders sees most of
the gospel reports of Jesus' conflict with the law as
inventions used to vindicate the later Gentile
mission. To an extent he's probably right. It's hard
to believe that Jesus dispensed with some parts of the
Torah as reported, since the disciples later had to
struggle precisely with these issues; and Paul was
unable to cite Jesus' supposed pronouncements on the
matter (save in the case of divorce). But it's also
hard to believe that all of Jesus' alleged
custom-breaking behavior reflects later development.
In any case, Sanders' book is unquestionably the best
comprehensive portrait of a Judaic Jesus. [Sanders is
a liberal Protestant of the social gospel.]

#2 Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God, by William
Herzog II, 1999. This is a personal favorite of mine,
and the best comprehensive examination of Jesus as the
product of an honor-shame culture in the Jewish
prophetic tradition. (1) As a popular prophet he
attracted crowds with the power to heal and an ability
to outwit opponents in the never-ending game of
challenge-and-riposte. He was a low-life artisan with
no ascribed honor, and so acquired honor precisely by
these means: exorcist-healing and shaming his rivals
with counterquestions, rhetoric, insults, and
scriptural one-upsmanship. (2) As an oracular prophet
he leveled social critiques through the veiled
transcripts of the parables. (3) As a Deuteronomic
prophet he critiqued the Torah while upholding it at
the same time, primarily by playing the debt codes off
the purity codes. Herzog, following Bruce Malina,
explores a different way of understanding Jesus'
eschatology, in what is probably the single most
plausible alternative to apocalypticism. He fails to
convince on this point, but there is some helpful
discussion about the way ancient peasants often
perceived time, in more cyclical than linear terms.
The passion narratives are viewed as significantly
historical against the backdrop of status degradation
rituals. While the Sanhedrin trial could have hardly
been a legal proceeding, it may have been a show
trial, political theater through which Jesus was
degraded into a false prophet, and then afterwards
tortured, humiliated and shamed before watching
crowds. [Herzog is an ordained American Baptist
minister.]

#3 Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet, by Dale C.
Allison, 1998. I often tell people that if there is
one book to read about Jesus, this is it. Allison
develops Schweitzer's eschatological prophet in view
of millenarian movements, outlining 19 characteristics
shared by apocalyptic groups and cargo cults, all of
which happen to fit the Jesus movement like a glove.
Against George Caird and Tom Wright, Allison shows
that Jesus' apocalyptic language, about which he was
wrong, was intended literally. He locates Jesus as an
ascetic (a celibate), a notion many people find as
unattractive as eschatology. Allison concludes: "Jesus
was the millenarian prophet of judgment, the
embodiment of the divine discontent that rolls through
all things; the prophet of consolation and hope who
proclaimed the last would be first, making the best of
a bad situation. But his generation passed away, and
they all tasted death. Like all apocalyptic prophets,
he was wrong; reality took no notice of his
imagination." This is Schweitzer's legacy, and those
who fight it are swimming against the tide. [Allison
is Presbyterian.]

#4 A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, by
John P. Meier, 1991, 1994, 2001, ? This massive
projected 4-volume series is the best reference source
in the field. Meier hypothesizes an "unpapal conclave"
-- consisting of a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and
agnostic -- who must reach a consensus about Jesus, an
even-handed if not exactly ideal way to reconstruct a
figure of the past. For the task at hand, it works,
because this is more a reference tool than an
autonomous work. While Meier advances "his" portrait
of Jesus, it's exceedingly cautious and exhaustively
qualified with footnotes weighing the pros and cons of
rival theories. [Meier is an ordained Roman Catholic
priest.]

#5 Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews, by Paula
Fredriksen, 1999. This is the best account of Jesus'
crucifixion from the Roman point of view. During his
last trip to Jerusalem, in the days between his
triumphal entry and last supper, Jesus fueled alarming
amounts of messianic enthusiasm, during which time
Fredriksen suggests that Jesus stepped up the
apocalypse's timetable from "soon" to "now" --
proclaiming that this passover would be the last
before the kingdom arrived -- with increased amounts
of crowds and pilgrims acclaiming him the messianic
liberator. Pilate finally acted against Jesus to set
an example for the masses and prevent riots. In many
ways this book owes to Sanders' reconstruction of
Jesus the eschatological prophet obedient to Torah (#1
above), but while for Sanders Jesus was killed for
acting against the temple, Fredriksen believes he was
executed because Caiaphas was nervous about Pilate's
itchy trigger-finger when dealing with popular
prophets. [Fredriksen is Jewish.]

6. The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul
Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient
World, by Richard A. Horsley and Neil Asher Silberman,
1997. This book portrays Jesus as much political as
religious, his movement aimed at the restoration of
Israel and traditional Torah values against the
imperial ideology of Rome. Somewhat like Herzog (#3
above), Horsley and Silberman argue that Jesus'
saying, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God
what is God's", was a cryptic way of saying that
everything belonged to God. And Paul was no less
anti-empire: his collection for the poor was a means
of "storming the kingdom", fulfilling the prophecies
of Isaiah which promised God's dramatic intervention
after the Gentiles brought gifts to Jerusalem. While
acknowledging that Jesus was apocalyptic, the authors
suggest that his apocalyptic language was hyperbolic
and the kingdom he looked for was really that of
social revolution. The inverse is more plausible, but
for the most part, this is a plausible story of Jesus
as seen through the eyes of those who mattered most to
him: low-lives at the bottom of Rome's social heap.
[Horsley is Methodist; Silberman is Jewish.]

#7 Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus,
by Donald Akenson, 2000. This book makes the cut as a
strong reminder that the apostle Paul knew more, cared
more, and can tell us more about the historical Jesus
than usually assumed. As a pre-70 writer he provides
in some ways a better window than the gospel writers,
even if we have to read him in slant. Akenson sees a
key to unlocking Jesus in Paul's "imitation of
Christ": his sense of equilibration (not equality)
with his Lord, his mission to the Gentiles being a
simulacrum of Jesus' to the people of Israel. The
contours of Paul's life mirrored those of his savior:
poverty, celibacy, itinerancy. The author even
suggests that Jesus was an off-brand Pharisee like
Paul, skilled as he was in scriptural one-upsmanship,
and in some cases calling for higher demands than what
the Torah required (as in the case of divorce). Both
the Galilean and Diasporan were martyred for breaking
Jerusalem Rules. Jesus' eschatological message wasn't
substantially different from Paul's, even if the
latter had to rework the Gentile scheme. Like most
apocalyptic figures, they had wild ideas, and the
wilder the ideas, the more shrewdly they were able to
justify them by scriptural revision. Even if a
Pharisaic background for Jesus remains doubtful,
Akenson shows that a sharp distinction between Paul's
heavenly Christ and the synoptic earthly Jesus won't
do. [Akenson is a secular Jew.]


B. "Most influential" HJ books (however agreeable or
disagreeable). Sanders gets the top slot again.

1. Sanders
2. Crossan
3. Wright
4. Borg
5. Meier
6. Horsley
7. Witherington

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii@...

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