The Historical Jesus

by John Dominic Crossan

What follows now depends on my earlier and much more complete study on the origins of the passion and resurrection narratives (1988a). I proposed that, first of all, Jesus’ closest followers knew nothing more about the passion than the fact of the crucifixion, that they had fled and later had no available witnesses for its details, and that they were concerned, in any case, with far more serious matters, such as whether that death negated all that Jesus had said and done, all that they had accepted and believed. Second, what followed in one very literate and highly sophisticated stream of tradition was an intense search of the Scriptures, similar to that at Qumran. It discovered verses and images each of which could be applied to the passion as a whole but not, of course, to its individual details, for no such details existed in their memories. Third, those individual scriptural connections and specific prophetic fulfillments could be organized into a coherent and sequential story. But, for this, some overarching form, shape, pattern, or genre had to be conceived or adopted. Finally, once such a narrative had been achieved, its historicity could be improved by more accurate verisimilitude and refined by more precise detail. The process developed, in other words, over these primary steps. First, the historical passion, composed of minimal knowledge, was known only in the general terms recorded by, say, Josephus or Tacitus. Next, the prophetic passion, composed of multiple a...