Just a few selected quotes from John Dominic Crossan’s Who Is Jesus?
“Do I personally believe in an afterlife? No, but to be honest, I do not find it a particularly important question one way or the other.”
“Moreover, an atonement theology that says God sacrifices his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their sins might make some Christians love Jesus, but it is an obscene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse, and may infect our imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us.”
“Traditionally, Christians have said, ‘See how Christ’s passion ws foretold by the prophets.” Actually, it was the other way around. The Hebrew prophets did not predict the events of Jesus’ last week; rather, many of those Christian stories were created to fit the ancient prophecies in order to show that Jesus, despite his execution, was still and always held in the hands of God.”
“In terms of divine consistency, I do not think that anyone, anywhere, at any time, including Jesus, brings dead people back to life.”
