{"id":263345,"date":"2026-07-14T14:31:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/how-to-read-the-bible-and-still-be-a-christian-john-dominic-crossan\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:31:17","slug":"how-to-read-the-bible-and-still-be-a-christian-john-dominic-crossan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/how-to-read-the-bible-and-still-be-a-christian-john-dominic-crossan\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Read The Bible And Still Be A Christian – John Dominic Crossan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThe People of the Holy Ones of the Most High\u201d ONE PRELIMINARY POINT OF matrix is needed for what follows. Around the early seventh century BCE, Hesiod\u2019s Works and Days divided human history into five successive, and declining, eras: the Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron Ages. But was it not possible to imagine a better world, even a perfect cosmos, in which that vision of inevitable decline was changed, reversed, transformed?<\/p>\n

In the 170s BCE\u2014that is, in the decade before Daniel was composed\u2014 the Roman historian Aemilius Sura, as recorded by Velleius Paterculus\u2019s Compendium of Roman History, said that \u201cthe Assyrians were the first of all races to hold world power, then the Medes, and after them the Persians, and then the Macedonians. Then . . . the world power passed to the Roman people\u201d (1.6).<\/p>\n

But, of course, Rome as the fifth Kingdom was not just one more of the same. The Roman Empire was the climax and consummation of the past. It was the final Kingdom. It was the last Kingdom. It was the eschatological Kingdom. I turn now to Daniel 7 as my paradigmatic example of those visions in Daniel 7\u201312. But there the fifth or climactic, the last or eschatological Kingdom is not that of Rome but of God.<\/p>\n

I am moving, in other words, into another great biblical tradition\u2014that of God\u2019s final transformation and ultimate transfiguration of an old earth ruled by imperial injustice to a renewed earth ruled by eschatological justice. Daniel saw in his vision \u201cby night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another\u201d (7:2\u20133).<\/p>\n

Here are those four beastlike empires with their representative rulers: 1. The first kingdom is Babylonia or Chaldea (7:4), represented by \u201cNebuchadnezzar\u201d (2:1 through 5:18) and Belshazzar (6:1). 2. The second kingdom is Media (7:5), represented by the very fictional \u201cDarius the Mede\u201d (5:31; 11:1) or \u201cDarius . . . a Mede\u201d (9:1). 3. The third kingdom is Persia (7:6), represented by \u201cCyrus the Persian\u201d (6:28) or \u201cCyrus of Persia\u201d (10:1). 4. The fourth kingdom is Greece (7:7), represented by the never- named Alexander, \u201cKing of Greece\u201d (8:5\u201321) or \u201cPrince of Greece\u201d (10:20) or \u201ca warrior king\u201d (11:3).<\/p>\n

Those first three empires are all \u201clike\u201d feral beasts (lion, bear, leopard), but no such animal is deemed adequate to describe Alexander\u2019s Greece. It is simply \u201cdifferent\u201d in its \u201cdevouring . . .<\/p>\n

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5 Creation and Covenant 6 Blessing and Curse 7 Prophecy and Prayer 8 Wisdom and Kingdom Part IV: Community 9 Israel and the Challenge of Rome 10 Jesus and the Radicality of God 11 Christ and the Normalcy of Civilization 12 Rome and the Challenge of Caesar 13 Paul and the Radicality of Christ 14 Paul and the Normalcy of Empire Epilogue: To Outsoar the Shadow of Our Night Notes Scripture Index Subject Index About the Author Praise Also by John Dominic Crossan Credits Copyright About the Publisher OceanofPDF.com PART I Challenge OceanofPDF.com CHAPTER 1 Ending A HYMN TO A SAVAGE GOD?<\/p>\n

We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart\u2019s grown brutal from the fare. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, \u201cThe Stare\u2019s Nest by My Window\u201d (1922) THIS BOOK\u2019S TITLE\u2014How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian\u2014 imagines some serious tension within the Christian Bible, between being a faithful reader and being a faithful Christian. But how, when, and where I first saw this problem influences how, when, and where I first saw the solution. Here, then, to begin with, are some autobiographical details as full disclosure for what is at stake for me in the problem I propose for you and the solution I offer to you in this book.<\/p>\n

A disclosure is already implicit in my triple name on this book\u2019s cover. \u201cJohn Crossan\u201d is the name on my driver\u2019s license, passport, and TSA pre- check protocols. But in 1950, at the age of sixteen, I entered a thirteenth- century Roman Catholic monastery and became \u201cBrother Dominic.\u201d My new vocation was supposed to wipe out, as it were, my past identity and give me only a future destiny\u2014as in the biblical, so in the monastic tradition.<\/p>\n

Nineteen years later, having finally realized that celibacy was vastly overrated, I left both monastery and priesthood to get married. But even if the rules had changed to allow a married priesthood, I still would have resigned in 1969. What was my problem? My monastic superiors had recognized that five years of Greek and Latin in an Irish boarding school could not be wasted so they decided I should become a professor of biblical studies after ordination in 1957.<\/p>\n

I was not, and did not expect to be, consulted on any of their plans. Under my vow of obedience I did what I was told, but to be honest, I loved their decision. In the Roman Catholic tradition it was required, and wisely so, that a degree in theology should precede any degree in biblical studies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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