Claudine Church

The Communitarian Gospel According to Jesus Claudine Church

This book seeks an answer to the question: What on earth was Jesus trying to do? He expended a great deal of effort to teach his disciples and send them out with a definite message to his people. What message? What goal did Jesus strive to accomplish? Employing her academic training in sociology and history, the author examines the cultural fluidity, class antagonisms, and religious ferment of the first century of the Common Era. The sociological contexts of early first-century Judaism and early first- century Palestine, particularly during the turbulent prefecture of Pontius Pilate, delineate Jesus' mission with a little more clarity than a purely theological view can offer. Whatever Jesus taught, it must have made sense, first of all, to his loyal circle of early disciples; also to his audiences in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. A lot of people were in the market for his ideas, for he attracted crowds wherever his preached. Clearly, Jesus was a man with a mission. Determined, resolute and purposeful, Jesus dedicated his life to fulfilling that mission. And it is the mission that reveals the man.