Young Jesus: Restoring the "Lost Years" of a Social Activist and Religious Dissident Book

A very interesting "historical Jesus" concept

Isbouts, like John Dominic Crossan, whom he cites as an important influence, tries to ground the adult Jesus in a childhood and young adulthood in multicultural, heavily Gentile Galilee.

Cognizant of historical scholarship, he starts by assuming Jesus was an illegitimate child, or was perceived as such, "overshadowings" by the Holy Spirit aside. From there, he shows how Jewish peasant farmers in Galilee, under Herodean rule, were getting squeezed ever more by taxes, such that more and more were either becoming "serfs" on landed estates, or day labor on Herodean construction projects, whether it was Herod the Great or Antipas in charge.

From this, Isbouts postulates a Jesus who followed John the Baptist for a year or so, then eventually set up shop on his own. Not apocalyptic like John, nonetheless, we are shown a Jesus who became more and more disgusted with most aspects of Sadducean priestly leadership in cahoots with the House of Herod, tnen, with Roman procurators after the exile of Archilaus.

Eventually, isbouts has him going to Jerusalem for Passover to confront the priestly establishment. However, Jesus did not see himself as the messiah, did not expect to die, and did not see that his death, if it happened, would be salvific, Isbouts continues.

However, his showdown with the moneychangers upset his applecart a bit. Isbouts places this not at the start of what Christians now call Holy Week, but on the day of Maundy Thursday. Unable to escape Jerusalem for Bethany because of the hubbub, he has to celebrate the Passover in town. He then goes to Gethsemane, not a quiet garden at this time of year, but swarmed with camping-out Passover observants with no other place to stay. Judas is needed to find Jesus in this crowd and he's arrested.

Isbouts says Jesus wouldn't have worried up to this point. He would have expected a regular trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin, and, with the support of Pharisees there, an acquittal on any priestly charges.

Of course, that's not what actually happened... Isbouts goes with the Gospels in presuming a stacked kangaroo court, a hand-off to Pilate, and no involvement by Antipas.

And, so, he is crucified.

Isbouts, even for people familiar with critical scholarship, does good not only with the speculation, but in debunking things like the romantic-bathetic Gethsemane.

But, not all is right. I believe no such person as Judas existed, due to Mark misunderstanding what Paul wrote about Jesus' arrest, in I Corinthians.

Paul's passage can be translated as, "On the night Jesus was betrayed," OR, "on the night Jesus was arrested." I believe the second is correct, and there was no "betrayer" known by Paul. Based on a misreading (I think the author of Mark was in Rome, with Latin as his first language, Greek as his second), a "betrayer" entered the picture; based on passages from Psalms 110 and elsewhere, Mark started fleshing out this betrayer.

So, if the priests didn't have a spy, and they were worried about crowd reaction, how did they capture Jesus? Back to the drawing board, Mr. Isbouts, and if you can succeed, then your book gets a fiffth star in revised edition.