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 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.
[You may also be interested in reading "Sicarri Actions Against Rome," a similarly abbreviated summary of some of S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots. This is not required. If you do want to read it, here is a PDF version.]
For your HW assignment, please print out and bring to class the PDF version.
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 doe this account of the 'historical Jesus' differ from whatever account you have learned?
Write 300-400 words, demonstrating a thorough understanding of the article.
Email it to me. (You don't have a group yet. When you get one, you'll be emailing your HW to me and to your group).
Please bring a printed out copy of your own HW assignment to class with you, together with printed out copies of both readings.
Do this every day, for every assignment.