Book Reviewed: After Jesus Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements by Erin Vearncombe et al.

Reflections of the first two hundred years of Christianism by Jesus Seminar During the first two centuries following the death of Jesus, Christianism and the New Testament did not exist as we know today. In fact, the Christian movement began from disciples of Jesus who tried to make sense of what they had experienced with him and what will happen to his ministry. There were splinter groups who followed other spiritual leaders like John the Baptist. There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became a religious doctrine. The gnostic Christians had varied and diverse opinions about parables, crucifixion, and resurrection. Some of the earliest followers of Jesus were apocalyptic Jews. According to the Book of Acts, there were two groups; those who observed laws of Torah, and others welcomed gentiles without imposing any restrictions of Jewish laws. The authors of this book are the new breed of scholars of well-known Jesus Seminar and Westar Institute which was founded in 1985 by the late Biblical scholar Robert W. Funk and other leading academics of his time. In this book, this young breed of authors tries to continue the great tradition of unbiased scholarship in the historical evaluation of canonized gospels, gnostic gospels, Acts and Pauline Epistles. One of the questions addressed by the authors is the understandings of sexuality, family values, gender & gender fluidity. The authors observe that there was a resurgence of morality and new world order after Jesus Christ. Histories, traditions, and legends are discussed and debated in ways that I have not read in apocrypha or other history books of ancient Israel. They claim that followers of Jesus resisted the Roman Empire in defiance by practicing gender fluidity and flexibility; and lived with chosen non-traditional families. There were diverse races, beliefs and they believed that dying for a specific cause was a noble idea. The authors cite First Corinthians for the ambiguities about gender within early Jesus associations, and Gospel of Matthew is interpreted as an experiment with family. The earlier books by the Jesus Seminar were scholarly, highly readable, and extensively annotated with historical facts. They embarked on a new translation and assessment of the gospels including Gospel of Thomas. In pursuit of the historical Jesus, they used their collective expertise to determine the authenticity of more than fifteen hundred sayings attributed to him. However, the narratives in this book contrast the work of earlier scholars, and one chapter does not connect well with the next. The authors have overworked themselves as new breed of “woke” academics to cancel the existing culture. As you read this book you realize that they strenuously argue that gender fluidity and non-traditional families were common in ancient Israel. This does not reflect well on Jesus Seminar that worked fearlessly to challenge the dominance of Christian church. This book invents things that didn’t exist. At this rate one would like to question, what next for Jesus Seminar? Jesus was a gay guy?