John Shuck begins a five-part series on Revisioning Christianity. How did Christianity triumph? Was it a hoax? Is it unbelievable? Does it yet have a message to inspire peace and justice?  My five guests include Bart Ehrman, author of the newly released, The Triumph of Christianity: How A Forbidden Religion Swept the World, John Shelby Spong, author of the newly released, Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today, David Skrbina, author of the newly released, The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World for Two Thousand Years, Angela Yarber, creator of the Holy Women Icons Project, and starting us off, John Dominic Crossan, who with his wife, Sarah Sexton Crossan have just released Resurrecting Easter: How the West Lost and the East Kept the Original Easter Vision.
Professor John Dominic Crossan is regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time. He is the author of 30 or so books including his hugely influential, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. This is the third time Professor Crossan has been on Progressive Spirit. Previously on this show we discussed his books, The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus became fiction about Jesus, and How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation.
In this episode, we discuss how the vision of Easter as depicted in the Eastern iconography of Anastasis "rising up" symbolizes non-violent resistance to empire.Re