I've been reading Dr. John Dominic Crossan's God and Empire.  Normally I don't like it when religion scholars do theology.  The study of textual history and theology parted ways early in the 20^th century and they are now two separate disciples with their own methods, their own reading lists, and their own degree programs.  Textual historians are not members of the clergy or trained theologians (unless they also happen to have degrees from a seminary or have a second degree specifically in theology...)   Textual historians are not in the business of telling churches what to do:  we have never revised a line of any tradition's Faith and Practices or suggested changing any clause of the creed.

(We wish the churches would be gracious enough to return the courtesy.)

We exist, our work may bother people — but anyone who carefully reads about the revolution that founded their nation's current government may learn things about the personalities or politics of that era that trouble them, also.  Does that change the government as it's now practiced?  If enough time has passed and those same personages are not currently the government, probably not.

Jesus may or may not have taught, as John the Baptist did, that the End was near.  New Testament scholars have argued for more than a hundred years over whether he did or not ... but each branch of Christianity has long since made up its mind about how to teach about the End to its congregants.  If some scholar were to announce tomorrow that the debate had been settled one way or the other, I can't think of a church today that would scurry to revise itself.  2,000 years have passed, every church has its own history and its own ways of thinking, preaching, and interpretation — historians are not trying to change that, if were were that interested in how this or that branch of Christianity operated we would have taken the much shorter degree required to be a member of the clergy.  (Or we would become very active in whatever role our tradition allows laypeople ... I know many religion scholars who are members of a religion,  but when they go to worship, it is for the same reasons as everyone else.  I can't think of one who has vociferously involved themselves in reforming their own tradition's practices, work, or scripture based on anyone's academic conclusion.)

I don't mean that the work of historians is irrelevant, I just mean that those who append every scholar's statement with an imaginary, "And I mean you (insert tradition here)" have the wrong idea.

So I feel uneasy when I read Dr. Elaine Pagels' "Salon" interview and she answered questions about her personal beliefs and about contemporary religion, in general.  I feel nervous at the recent Biblical Archaeology Review article where four scholars talk about their religious views.  Belief (and unbelief) are deeply personal things, often shaped before any future scholar set foot in their degree program - and I think no religion scholar wishes anyone to take their personal views as some kind of professional endorsement for a particular spiritual perspective.  It's part of our unstated professional code not to proselytize - and not to tear down — any religion.  It's our job to be neutral, to make room for talk about religion that does not automatically become a firefight.

So Crossan's book also makes me uneasy.  I've read the past several of his books (I've liked most of them) and I think he understands being a colonized people better than most in the field of Historical Jesus Studies.  Despite my qualms, his book reminds me of Walter Wink's work, or Hans Jonas' - it is one of those deeply personal works of scholarship that seems to have felt something deeply true in its subject.  We all strive for historical empathy, but these books succeed in a breath-catchingly accurate ways, they capture a spirit about the time that usually only months of reading primary sources (often in the original language) can give.

For example, there's a ... something ... about Manichaeism.  A personality?  An ethos?  Knowing enough about it so Klimkeit's Gnosis on the Silk Road doesn't sound like gibberish is a start, is the point where I started to pick up on it - but now every Manichaean primary source I read has that same 'personality' to it ... the same way the people I know have dominant personality traits (being a trickster, being fussy and exacting, being warm and open, etc.)  Now when I read the Dead Sea Scrolls, they also have a personality, an 'aura'; Manichaean sources do; certain Church Fathers do (of course they do, they're individuals)  - but it's very hard to pin that sense down or convey it.  I can say "That sounds Dead-Sea-Scrolly" and then I usually have to spend 20 minutes groping for why some non-Qumran text reminds me of the DSS.

Crossan conveys that sense about Historical Jesus Studies, and he says insightful things about life under Roman rule (which aren't easy to get at since most of our sources are people who were part of Roman rule...), and he's said fresh things (which I nearly hadn't thought possible) about the century-old scholarly argument on whether Jesus taught apocalypticism or not.  (These old, intractable arguments usually exasperate (and bore)*  me and I try to avoid them unless I'm liberally assured the author has something new to say.)

*Try being exasperated and bored - it's a difficult combination that has the length of boredom and the restlessness of pique.  As I said, I try to avoid it....