Over the next few days (which may be a couple of weeks) I would like to have fun reading: Pieter F. Craffert, The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective , Cascade Books, Eugene, 2008. The idea to cover certain aspects of the figure of Jesus (exorcisms, healings, revelations) through the trans-cultural model of the shaman is not new, in fact I think that has already been "cleared" in the Italian publishing a contribution (now I can not remember exactly who - perhaps John Pilch?) in the volume edited by W. Stegemann - BJ Malina - G. Theissen, The new historical Jesus , Paideia, 2006. The monograph Craffert should, however, I believe, be the fullest expression to date of this interpretative.
In fact, I'm tempted to say that an important step in this direction had already done more than twenty years ago, Marcus J. Borg (see Jesus: A New Vision. Spirit, Culture and the Life of Discipleship , Harper San Francisco, San Francisco, 1987), which he played - in turn connected to the thesis of G. Vermes on charismatic Galilean - Jesus as a Spirit person "who is in touch with the beneficial power" of the other realm, "and can mediarne experience to others, particularly through the development of a" wisdom subversive, "which heads a precise political practice" inclusiveness "(and anti-nationalist or anti-zealot, a characterization that it will be less in more recent work of Borg in 2007).
But even without having read the book, I've got to understand that Craffert with his work means to distance themselves from all Jesus Questers in general (including Borg and the Jesus Seminar), all "guilty" to his eyes adhere to the sterile "authenticity paradigm" and Traditionsgeschichte.
And this is already one of the big question marks with which I come near to the book: Why oppose anthropological approach and historical-critical approach? From this point of view, seem at first glance, shared some findings that Craffert moves his colleague Andries Van Aard ( http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/7431/1/ VanAarde_Anthropological% 282008% 29.pdf ), which, to be precise - we appreciate the work Craffert - feels that the integration, rather than either / or between the two aprrocci.
And another big question mark mi si è profilato innanzi sfogliando (molto, troppo, velocemente) le pagine di The Life of a Galilean Shaman , là dove Craffert si sofferma sui due aspetti centrali del "messaggio" di Gesù - il regno di Dio e il Figlio dell'uomo - , argomentando che essi, una volta considerati all'interno del modello di quella specifica figura sociale che è lo sciamano, cessano di essere concetti o simboli che fanno riferimento ad "entità esterne" e oggettivabili (il Figlio dell'uomo come essere celeste e il regno di Dio come realtà realizzabile), e diventano, in qualche modo, semplici espressioni, culturalmente determinate, dell'esperienza visionaria del divino vissuta dallo sciamano.
In poche parole, The second big question with which I come near to the book of Craffert is: if the kingdom of God is not merely a linguistic coding of a mystical experience, how is it that our shaman Jesus ends his life on a cross as a political rebel?
We'll see if the read end to confirm, or to respond to clear (such as sore places) these points of my original question.
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