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pp 199, “John Dominic Crossan’s collection provides readers with a fresh look at the central lessons of Christianity’s great teacher in his depictions of the “historical Jesus … in both his vision and program.” His excellent introduction puts forth the radical thesis that Jesus is best understood as a social reformer, a poor Jew in an occupied country who stressed social equality as much as or more than individual salvation. Attempting to see Christ not through 20th-century eyes but in the social, political, and economic context in which he lived and taught, Crossan points out that for the first 300 years after his crucifixion what was emphasized was not Jesus’ divinity but his concern for communal empowerment. The picture that emerges is of a political and social rebel, a fearless champion to the poor and dispossessed. “