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Mealand's inquiries
(1) Everyone has probably been grading thousands of exams, reading
hundreds of papers, and trying to get ten dissertations through the
mill before graduation time. Henceforth, we have no excuse.
(2) I read a couple of reviews of Crossan's book -- I think in the
NY Times and maybe in the Globe. More interesting was the interview
he made with Bill Moyers, one which I taped (VCR) and played to a
class. [Correction: Interviewer was Christopher Lydon, a very sharp
political and social critic who until recently was on Boston PBS-TV.
Usually a keen interviewer.]
To my amazement, the class was turned off by Lydon's insistent
questioning as though from the viewpoint of a naive believer,
especially focussing on the Resurrection. I thought they would
be distressed by Crossan's wonderful Irish bluntness, but they
loved him!
I confess I haven't yet read the book; nor had I planned to, thinking
it would be another rehash of the same old stuff. But hearing
him talk about it, I suspect it will be a real zinger, and will
be reading it as soon as I finish my seminar on Abraham Lincoln
this summer. Much of the sociological work on the Bible in recent
years has either been Marxist or boring (some even both); he
sounded as though he would be neither. A REALLY peasant Jesus
speaking to a peasant society and attacking a systemically evel
evil political and economic structure seems to be his focus.
--Edward Hobbs (not really peasant, not really evil)