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Why did Jesus happen when and where he happened? Why then?  Why there? Sharpen the question a little.  Why did two popular movements, the baptism movement of John and the Kingdom movement of Jesus, happen in territories ruled by Herod Antipas in the 20s of that first common-era century?  Why not another time?  Why not another place?  Imagine two ways of answering those questions: by stone or text, by ground or gospel, by material remains or scribal remains, by the work of the archaeologist or the work of the exegete.  Imagine, next, every one of those four ... ors replaced by equally emphasised ands.  It is not a case of archaeology or exegesis, but of archaeology and exegesis. p. xvii

The Top Ten Discoveries for Excavating Jesus

This book is about digging for Jesus, digging down archeologically amidst the stones to reconstruct his world and digging down exegetically amidst the texts to reconstruct his life.  It is, above all else, about integrating those twin excavations in order to locate his life in its world, to place his vision and his program in its time and place. Both types of digs involved inspection and identification, reconstruction and interpretation. Especially interpretation.  We know that the stones cannot speak to us without our interpretation. But neither can the texts. p. 1

ARCHEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES

1. The James Ossuary ... November 2002 *[ Now proven to be a hoax]
...
2. The Caiaphas Ossuary
...
3. The Pilate Inscription
...
4. The Crucified man
...
5. The Lake of Tiberius
...
6. Caesarea Maritima and Jerusalem
...
7. Sepphoris and Tiberias
...
8. Masada and Qumran
...
9. Jodefat and Gamla
...
10. Stone Vessels and Ritual Pools    pp. 1-6


EXEGETICAL DISCOVERIES

1. The Dead Sea Scrolls
2. The Nag Hammadi Codices
3. The dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark
4. The dependence of Matthew and Luke on the Q gospel
5. The dependence of John on Mark, Matthew and Luke.
6. The independence of the Gospel of Thomas from the canonical gospels.
7. The common saying tradition in the Q gospel and the Gospel of Thomas
8. The independence of The Teaching (Didache) from the gospels
9. The existence of an independent source in the Gospel of Peter
10. The clash between James and Paul as reflected back on the historical
Jesus.     p. 7

The Layers Of Gospel. ... Gospel layering has several components.  Form criticism establishes the earliest formats used in transmitting the tradition ( a parable, an aphorism, a dialogue, a law, etc.).  Source criticism establishes who is copying from whom.  Redaction criticism builds on such copying to establish the purpose for the copyist's omission, addition, or alteration.  Tradition criticism uses all of the above to establish successive layers of the tradition's development.  .... On the one hand, the farther removed the layers are from the time of Jesus, the more
Christian they become.  Unlike earlier gospel layers, later ones tend to distance from Judaism and "the Jews" (so John) or use Jewish texts and interpretative devices to reinvent Judaism as Christianity (so Matthew). And later archaeological layers commemorating Jesus' life tend to efface signs of his Jewishness in the earlier ones and replace them with features
from Rome or Byzantium.  On the other hand, the farther removed Jesus is from his first-century Galilean context, the more elite and regal he becomes.  Unlike earlier gospel layers, later ones portray him as a leisurely phil;osopher (so John) or a literate  interpreter of scrolls and erudite partner at banquets (so Luke).  And later shrines and churches in Galilee and Jerusalem efface his humble peasant beginnings in archaeological layers and replace them with imperial and monumental architecture.  In Excavating Jesus, we want to return to that earliest layer of both earth and text. pp. 12-15

... the continuity from Jewish Torah to Jewish Jesus is most clearly seen ... in the first century, "the Kingdom" meant simply the Roman Empire. Theirs was the kingdom, the power, and the glory.  When, therefore, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, he chose the one expression most calculated to draw Roman attention to what he was doing.  Not the "people" or the "community" of God but the "Kingdom" of God.  That very phrase was an immediate confrontation with the Kingdom of Rome, which had arrive forcibly with Herod The Great in Judea and Caesarea Maritima in the generation before Jesus and then arrived with Herod Antipas in Lower Galilee at Sepphoris by 4 BCE and at Tiberias by 19-20 CE in the generation of Jesus. .... Pilate got it exactly right, from the point of view of his imperial responsibilities: Jesus and his Kingdom were a threat to Roman law and order, and his Jewish God was a threat to the roman God. ... To accept divine ownership in all its radical implications meant a new creation. ... The Kingdom of God, in other
words, was not just a vision but a program, not just an idea but a lifestyle, not just about heaven hereafter but about earth here and now, and not just about one person but about many others as well. pp. 318-319

In that first century it was absolutely impossible to separate religion and politics and economics.  Coinage, the only mass medium of antiquity, said that Caesar was divi filius, Son of God, and supremus pontifex, the supreme bridge builder between heaven and earth, the high priest of the Roman state religion. p. 320

JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY

The Cities.

Within a few years of Jesus' execution most of the followers of Jesus whose names we know left the rural surroundings and village environs of Galilee to live in Jerusalem. ....

The Pagans.

... The nations, or the Gentiles, meant those great empires that one after another had conquered, oppressed, and persecuted them over half a millennium.  .... What would God do with those evil empires? .... extermination or conversion ... most important, conversion was not to
Judaism but to God ....At Jerusalem, James, Peter, and the others clearly chose that second option since they accepted male pagan converts into the community without circumcision. ... pp. 321-322

The Wars

There was a time when it was easy to expl;ain why "Christianity" broke away from and / or was rejected by "Judaism".  Christians believed Jesus was messiah, Lord, Son of God, and Jews did not.  Those were the reasons.  Or again: Christians refused Sabbath, circumcision, kosher, and Jews did not. Those were the reasons ... They now, however, seem totally anachronistic.
... Christian Jews took ... their place alongside Pharisaic Jews, Sadducean Jews, and Essene Jews, Fourth-Philosophy Jews, Sicarii Jews, and Zealot Jews, as well as many other types, options, visions, and programs.  They were no more and no less than one group disputing against other groups, but within the same politico-religious community, that is, within Judaism and
not against Judaism. pp 322-323


The Parting of the Ways

... Why did all the other Jewish groups slowly but surely reject the Christian Jewish option? ... The Christian Jewish group maintained that pagans and Jews could now live together under God in Christ.  They maintained that belief despite three terrible wars in which pagans looked
exactly like they always had and behaved exactly as they always did.  The parting of the ways arose because, for most other Jews, that Christian Jewish claim was incredible.  The inclusion of pagans and the devastation by pagans was irreconcilable.  pp. 323-324

from John Dominic Crossan & Jonathan L Reed "Excavating Jesus: Beneath the stones, Behind the texts" ( HarperSanFrancisco: 2001).