In previous years, in other courses, I have assigned the whole of Maccoby's Revolution In Judaea or Brandon's Jesus and the Zealots. Both are fascinating books!
This year, in order to get a broader overview of the field of research into the origins of Christianity, we will just read this short summary of the major features of Maccoby's and of Brandon's arguments. This will prepare us to understand some of the issues involved in serious contemporary research on the origins of Christianity. It will also illustrate some prinicples of research and epistemology that are important for discovering the truth about anything.
Please read "Jesus and the Jewish Resistance", a very abridged (shortened) summary of the some of the main lines of argument of Maccoby's book.
Then read "Sicarri Actions Against Rome," a similarly abbreviated summary of some of Brandon's book.
For your HW assignment, please print out and bring to class the PDF versions.
The reason is this: everybody will have the same page numbers in their printed-out texts. That's what PDF does. If you use the web edition, we'll have different pages, since different web browsers are set to different size type faces and margins.
Your writing assignment is this:
How do these accounts of the 'historical Jesus' differ from whatever account you have learned?
Write 300-400 words, demonstrating a thorough understanding of both articles.
Email it to me and to your group.