CROSSAN'S HISTORICAL JESUS

AS HEALER, EXORCIST AND MIRACLE WORKER

PIETERF CRAFFERT

Abstract

No single Jesus profile in the last decade has generated more scholarly
discussion and public interest than that of John Dominic Crossan. It is,
however, not generally emphasised, that in his construction Jesus was also
a healer, exorcist and miracle worker. This study consists of a critical discus-
sion of the evidence, method and interpretive framework employed by Crossan.
From an alternative construction of cross-cultural interpretation by means
of medical anthropology, it is argued that on the basis of Crossan's evidence,
it is impossible to conclude that Jesus was a healer or exorcist. However,
such research provides a framework for appreciating the historicity of the
type of healing, exorcistic and miracle stories ascribed to Jesus.

No single Jesus profile in the last decade has generated more scholarly
discussion and public interest than that of John Dominic Crossan. For
that reason it is an honour to participate in this discussion, and to
engage with one of the leading scholars in this field of research.
As for my own view, historical Jesus research is fundamentally a
historical-anthropological enterprise. The sources not only contain
stories about past events, they contain cultural stories about cultural
events from the past, and unless sufficient attention is paid to bridging
the cultural and historical gaps, misunderstanding is to be expected.
Cross-cultural dialogue is not an option in this research, it is a requisite.
One does not have to agree with or accept the reality value of a story in
order to understand it, appreciate it or engage in dialogue.
The same principle applies to dialogue across scholarly gaps. Dia-
logue is not conducted only with like-minded scholars. It helps when
scholars agree on every point, but that can easily become a monologue.
The challenge is bigger when the differences are greater. I hope that my
interaction with Prof Crossan will carry the signs of the kind of dialogue
that I propose for historical Jesus research: taking one's conversation
partner seriously without necessarily agreeing with everything.
244

1. Crossan's Jesus

In Crossan's reconstruction, the historical Jesus was 'a peasant Jewish

cynic' ( 1991:421 ). Cynics were itinerant preachers, who appealed to the
public in theory and in practice for adopting a lifestyle that resisted
social oppression, materialism and domination. They were completely
self-sufficient, carrying their belongings in a knapsack and living a life
of counter-cultural resistance.'
It is not generally emphasised, however, that in Crossan's construction
Jesus was also a healer, exorcist and miracle worker.2 This is a historical
claim or, if you like, a claim about Jesus as a historical figure. What does
he mean by calling Jesus a healer, exorcist and miracle worker? What evi-
dence does he provide or use for maintaining such a claim? How does
he describe Jesus' performances of these miraculous deeds or, better,
how does he understand Jesus' healings, exorcisms and miraculous deeds
as historical events?
Despite calling Jesus a healer, exorcist and miracle worker, Crossan
finds that no single story in the gospels is about any such event in the
life of Jesus. In fact, besides elaborating on how one author probably
used another when retelling such a story, Crossan does not describe
what could have happened there in the villages of Lower Galilee or what
the social dynamics of such activities were. In other words, none of these
stories (healings, exorcisms and other nature miracles) refer to any histori-
cal event, but were creations of his followers. In Crossan's ( 1994a:20)
own words, 'a large amount of the deeds of Jesus were created within
Exegetical Christianity. They believed in the historical Jesus so much
that they kept creating more and more of him out of biblical type and
prophetic text'.
In order to understand how Crossan arrived at such a position, it is
necessary to understand two aspects of his research: his view on the data
(sources) of historical Jesus research and his interpretive framework for
understanding the data. Although these two might seem to be unre-
lated, on a deeper level they are tightly connected.

2. Crossan's Evidence

For Crossan, a single complex (set of texts) that contains a command to

the disciples 'to heal' plus nine units from the rest of the gospel material
constitutes the original material about Jesus as healer, exorcist or mira-
 245

cle worker. To grasp his reasoning it is necessary to first understand his

method of historical research (in other words, why he identifies certain
texts as original or authentic material).

2.1 An 'Interdisciplz'nary' Method

The best reconstruction of the historical Jesus, Crossan (1998 :149) claims,
is when there is a tight linkage between 'the earliest textual layer of the
text' (emphasis mine) and the 'sharpest image of context'. He calls this
his interdisciplinary method, which utilises insights from archaeology,
anthropology, history, for example. Stage 3 consists of the tightest link-
age between stage 1 (context) and stage 2 (text).
Regarding the text (stage 2), he works with the earliest layer. This is
based on at least two gospel presuppositions that are fundamental to his
work. One is the two-source hypothesis: that Mark was written before
Matthew and Luke; and that the latter used both Mark and another
hypothetical source called Q in scholarly circles (Q is an abbreviation for
the German Quelle [source]). The so-called Q Gospel consists of those
sections in Matthew and Luke where they agree with each other but
differ from Mark (see 1998:109-114). This is probably the most widely
supported viewpoint on the relationship between the synoptic gospels
today. As Crossan points out, it is important to ask which texts a scholar
is using and in what way. In a study with Reed (Crossan & Reed 2001 :12-
13), he explains the importance of this position by means of an example
of witnesses to a motor accident. If a reporter obtained his information
from bystanders and told the next two informants about it and the fourth
obtained his data from the previous three, in a court of law there would
be only 'one not-exactly-an-eyewitness and three sincere echoes'. This
metaphor is important: it matters how many independent witnesses there
are to an event.
The second presupposition is that of a stratified tradition, which is
based on the general wisdom that 'every story and word of Jesus has
been shaped by the eyes and hands of the early church' (Borg 1987:9).
As Crossan (1998 :140) explains:

All the gospel texts, whether inside or outside the canon, combine
together three layers, strata, or voices. There is, as the earliest stratum,
'the voice of Jesus'. There is as the intermediate stratum, 'the anony-
mous voices of the communities talking about Jesus'. There is, as the
latest stratum, 'the voices of their [the gospels'] authors'.
246

In order to follow my argument it is important to keep the above two

aspects distinctly separate. The first is the stratification of texts and the
second the stratification of the tradition.

2.2 Text Stratification and Tradition Stratification

Determining the relative age (stratification) of sources/texts is a matter of

formal moves. For example, as far as the two-source hypothesis goes,
Matthew and Luke made use of material and traditions from other sources
(Mk and Q) that are older than what they have produced. Although it is
not directly relevant to the present argument, Crossan's acceptance of
the common sayings tradition is another example. By comparing the say-
ings in the Gospel of Thomas with those in the Q Gospel, the parallel
material points to a common sayings tradition that was used by both,
and therefore must have been older (see 1998:239-254). Stratification of
the tradition, however, is something different. The identification of the
strata in the tradition (the voice of Jesus, of the community and of the
evangelists) by definition assumes a picture of what could not have been
part of a particular stratum.3 For example, without a picture of what
belongs to the early church or to post-Easter overlay, everything can
belong to the first stratum. This is not the place for a full discussion of
this issue, which, as we all know, is the criterion of dissimilarity or dif-
ference (see Theissen & Merz 1998:115-116; Theissen & Winter 1997:11-
19). My interest is in how Crossan overcomes the difficulties.
Crossan is fully aware, to use the words of Allison (1998 :19), that
coming into textual tradition is not always the same as coming into
being; in other words, early texts do not equal early tradition. For Crossan
(1998:250) says: `The stratification of a writing's composition is not the same
as the stratification of a tradition'.s history' (italics his).4 In concrete terms it
means that even if the Q Gospel were to be excavated today and could
be dated to as early as 30 or 35 CE, it does not necessarily mean we have
original Jesus material (`Jesus' voice').
However, in Crossan's arguments about original Jesus material, a
mixing or identification of text strata and tradition strata takes place. In
other words, despite the above acknowledgement, for Crossan early tex-
tual material equals early or original Jesus material. Material from the first
textual stratum that appears in more than one independent source is
assumed to be original. A lengthy detour through a number of examples
will show that, despite his claim that it is also supported by gospel re-
 247

search (in other words, more than an assumption), that is not entirely
correct.
First, Crossan's (see 1998:97) explicit rejection of Wright's point (that
a hypothesis about Jesus is necessary in order to determine the tradition
strata) is based on the argument that no hypothesis is needed in order to
determine the text strata. But Wright's (see 1996:87) point is not about
strata in the text, but about strata in the tradition.5 Unless it is a priori
accepted that early textual strata also provide `Jesus'voice' (the first stratum
of the tradition), early textual strata do not secure the historical Jesus
(and a hypothesis is needed about what distinguishes these tradition
strata from one another).
The second example comes from Crossan's explanation of his meth-
odology. He (see 1998 :101) clearly states that his methodological focus
is on the earliest stratum or layer of the tradition- in other words, the
'voice of Jesus'. But this remark is made at the end of a paragraph about
the use of sources (Q and Mark), which is only about the textual strata.
The argument is that if it is accepted that later gospels totally absorbed
the earlier ones used as sources, then 'the problem of the historical Jesus
pushes you back and back along the absorptive path to the earliest stratum
of the tradition' (emphasis mine) (Crossan 1 998: 1 0 1 ). This is the case,
of course, if it is assumed that early text strata equals early tradition
strata.
The third example comes from a section titled `Criteria are not method'.
Crossan (1998 :146) very effectively argues against the selective use of the
criteria of authenticity (by Meier) and states that Meier's use of criteria is
not 'methodological enough to discriminate accurately between the vari-
ous layers of the tradition. He ends up honestly unable to combine what
are not only divergent but even opposing strata of the Jesus tradition'
(emphasis mine].' Then Crossan adds: 'Without method, there will be
no self-critical inventory of texts for the historical Jesus level' (emphasis
mine). Not only is the inventory of text in this sentence explicitly linked
to the historical Jesus level ('J esus' voice') but surely an inventory of texts
is not the same as the strata of the tradition?8 Obviously, unless it is
assumed that early text strata equals early tradition strata.
The last example comes from Crossan's (see 1998:149) discussion of
the text component of his method. He states that it is possible to argue
with scholarly discipline and academic integrity what the earliest dis-
cernible stratum of the tradition is. The rest of the paragraph, however,
deals with gospel or text strata. In fact, he claims that this is what two
hundred years of gospel research shows. But surely the gospel research
248

he is referring to is about identifying the sources and strata in the texts

and not in the tradition? Obviously, unless it is assumed that textual
strata equals tradition strata.
What this gospel research shows is that some texts or text segments
are older than others. What has not been argued is that those older
textual units are also older tradition units. In a sense it is superfluous to
have gone through all this, because right at the beginning of his Jesus
book Crossan clearly states that this is his assumption: 'my method pos-
tulates that, at least for the first stratum, everything is original until it is
argued otherwise' (Crossan 1991 :xxxii). What I have shown here is that
wherever he has argued it, it is simply a repetition of that assumption.
What Crossan's methodological discipline also means is that he will
not use material which, according to his method, does not belong to the
early stratum." But that material does not inherently have qualities other
than that used by other scholars. It might be older, but just for that
reason alone it is not necessarily the voice of Jesus.
It should be emphasised that the aim here is not to try to score
points against Crossan by showing that his reconstruction is based on
an assumption. The nature of the evidence and the problem is such that
all Jesus scholars have to make certain assumptions.'O (I will point out
shortly what I think that assumption should be.)

2.3 Conjunction of Text and Context

As stated above, the second leg of Crossan's method is finding the tight-
est link between the identified earliest layer of the text and the sharpest
image of the context. If the text speaks from and to the 'situation of the
20s in Lower Galilee', that is the 'best reconstruction' possible today
(Crossan 1998:149). In my view, Crossan has the principle right, but the
application wrong.
First, what is right. Finding the tightest link between the texts and
the sharpest possible first-century Lower Galilean context is the best
historical Jesus reconstruction that can be hoped for today. What this
principle affirms is that the best possible reconstruction is to be found
in the process between texts and contexts. If such a link can be estab-
lished, say, for the stories about Jesus walking on the sea (see below),
that is as good as historical knowledge about Jesus can be. If the same
can be done with other parts of the tradition, that is what can be known
about Jesus as historical figure. But, then, neither the context nor the
 249

material should be limited in advance on grounds outside the process.

Neither a section of the wider context nor assumed original or authentic
material should exclude certain elements from this process in advance,
because it assumes exactly such a process.
Therefore, what is wrong is that this method is not valid only for
Crossan's inventory of the early textual strata which he assumes to be
original," and the sharpest available context is not only his constructed
context.
Allison (see 1998:36) remarks that most historical Jesus scholars have
probably been using an explanatory model or matrix (context) all along
by means of which the authenticity of traditions has been identified
(and claimed they were the results of using criteria of authenticity). As
argued above, in principle there is no difference between Crossan as-
suming that only the earliest stratum of the text should be tested and
scholars from the third quest wishing to test only the synoptic gospels.
One can even agree with Crossan that in most instances what the
third questers take as hypothesis or context is totally inappropriate. But
so is his 'sharp image of context', which although constructed by means
of Lower Galilean archaeology, Judeo-Roman history and cross-cultural
anthropology (see Crossan 1998:151-235), is still of very limited scope.
Many more aspects of that world are excluded than are included. His
discussion on the possible situation of landless peasants in Lower Galilee
during the first century is very thorough and that may, indeed, account
for some of the gospel texts. But it is virtually useless for understanding
the healing and exorcism stories (or the story of Jesus walking on the
sea). What about all the worldview elements and aspects of the cultural
system that are necessary to understand these elements in the tradition?
Coming to first-century Judaism, Crossan limits his discussion to three
elements of Jewish thought (righteousness, justice and purity) and thereby
excludes as possible context everything about folk religious practices
(such as the role of human beings (holy men) in mediating divine power
in different ways, amulets, curse tablets and other magical rites and an-
cestor veneration and the cult of the dead).
The point is not that Crossan's context is wrong. It is indeed appro-
priate for the small number of texts that he has identified as original
and for understanding the peasant situation in the early twenties in
Lower Galilee. It is just inappropriate for the greatest portion of gospel
material.
What the above principle does say is that such an interpretive process
250

is the best we have to construct an authentic Jesus image. Put differently,

what it says is that finding an authentic picture of Jesus is the product of
a complex interpretive process and is not based on the original material
assumed in advance.' Flushing out material that has been added onto
the tradition along the line can only be done within and internally to
this process. To be sure, what I am suggesting is that this process does
not turn it into authentic or original material but ensures the best
'authentic' image that can be hoped for in the present circumstances.
Too many scholars operating by means of the interpretive principle
above find it impossible to get rid of the positivistic heritage of search-
ing for an authentic kernel.
It should be clear that this argument is not opposed to the idea that
an assumption has to be made. My assumption is that if we can come up
with a description that can account for Jesus' social type, profile and
biography that is well established historically and cross-culturally, fits
the first-century Mediterranean Galilean setting, and can account for
the underlying traits, stories and deeds ascribed to him in his lifetime
and continued to make sense in the life of his followers after his death,
we can be confident it is as good as a historical Jesus image can get. The
difference between this assumption and Crossan's is that this is not arbi-
trarily based on, say, the shortest or the longest or the earliest textual
strata (or simply on the assumption that the synoptic gospels are au-
thentic, as the third questers do), but on the fact that such a picture has
to fit in many places and account for the widest possible database.
Crossan (see 1998:44, 93, 96, 130) strongly emphasises the importance
of presuppositions in historical Jesus research, and I quote: 'Conclu-
sions and decisions about the historical Jesus are built, by everyone, atop
their presuppositions about the gospels .... Wrong presuppositions, wrong
conclusions. Same judgment for me and everyone else' (1998:96).
Perhaps he is right about this after all.

2.4 The Words and Deeds of the Historical Jesu.s

Given the above method, Crossan (see 1991:304; 1998:325) identifies a

single complex only (called 'mission and message') which he not only
considers the most important unit for understanding the historical Je-
sus, but also the evidence that Jesus was a healer, exorcist or miracle
worker. It reads like this: 'Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, nor two
tunics. Whatever house you enter, eat what is set before you; heal the sick
 251

in it (italics mine] and say to them, "The kingdom of God has come
upon you'" .!3
For Crossan, this group of sayings, which merely mentions healing
as part of a command to Jesus' followers, constitutes the indirect evi-
dence that he was a healer, exorcist and miracle worker. This is sup-
ported by nine complexes containing stories about healing, exorcism or
other miracles. 14 (These items will be discussed in more detail in the
next section.)
Although in terms of his methodological rigour (of multiply attested
complexes from the early strata) these nine units are original (the only
original ones), Crossan finds that 'no single healing or exorcism is
securely or fully historical in its present narrative form, although
historical kernels may be discernible in a few instances' (Crossan
1998:302). The obvious first question is whether he found no tight link-
age between these units (stories) and his first-century Galilean context?
Furthermore, in not a single instance are we told what these historical
'kernels' are, or how they were actually identified. One wonders what
kinds of events they were in the life of the historical Jesus. In other
words, what is absent is information about the nature and dynamics of
these kernels in the life of Jesus.
Up to this point the discussion has been about which material Crossan
uses, which should be used, but nothing about what to do with it or how
to use it.

3. Crossan's Interpretative Framework

What does Crossan make of the evidence? What does he mean when he
claims that the historical Jesus was a healer, exorcist and miracle worker?
To my mind, the more serious problem with Crossan's construction is
with the interpretive framework used in each case. Even where he iden-
tifies these nine original complexes that supposedly belong to the voice
of Jesus, they are interpreted in such a way that Jesus did not heal, he did
not exorcise and the nature miracles did not belong to his biography.

3.1 Jesus as Healer

In his understanding of things, even if all the healing stories in the

gospels were to be taken as original, Crossan makes it clear that Jesus
did not heal because he could not cure any disease (except, as Crossan
252

(1998:302, 331 ) emphasises, perhaps 'sometimes indirectly cure disease').

A specific understanding of the illness-disease distinction in medical
anthropology, which functions as interpretive framework, prevents
Crossan from taking any of the healings as actual events in the life of
Jesus.

3.1.1 The Interpretive Framework of Illness and Disease

In several studies he states that medical anthropologists and cross-

cultural studies of indigenous healing make a distinction between curing
disease and healing illness (see Crossan 1998:294). He ( 1994b:82) is quite
explicit about how this distinction should be understood:

I presume that Jesus, who did not and could not cure that disease or
any other one, healed the poor man's illness by refusing to accept the
disease's ritual uncleanness and social ostracization ... By healing the
illness without curing the disease, Jesus acted as an alternative bound-
ary keeper in a way subversive to the established procedures of his
society.

With this Crossan ( 1998:331 ) is also saying what Jesus was doing in
his healing miracles: his healings were merely

... ideological, symbolic, and material resistance to oppression and ex-

ploitation. Such resistance cannot directly cure disease, as vaccines can
destroy viruses or drugs can destroy bacteria, but resistance can heal
both sickness and illness and thus sometimes indirectly cure disease.

It is clear that he thinks the stories are about people with specific
diseases (Jesus 'did not and could not cure that disease or any other
one') and that Jesus could not cure diseases and therefore what he actu-
ally did was offer therapeutic comfort. As Crossan (1991 :336) says, 'for
disease you are better off with the doctor and the dispensary, but for
illness you are better off with the shaman and the shrine'. His example
of Aids confirms this understanding where he refers to the movie Phila-
delphia with Tom Hanks in the leading role: '[T]he movie was not about
the disease, which for Hanks could not be cured, but about illness, for
which healing was possible' (1998:294). "
But why assume those people healed by Jesus suffered from diseases
(which Jesus could not cure)? Because in his view of things, illness is
equated with disease (everybody who is ill also has a disease) and heal-
 253

ing only takes care of the experience of illness (and in most cases leaves
the disease unaffected- obviously, unless a medical practitioner is around
who can also take care of the disease with his/her vaccines or drugs-
thus also cure the patient). The implication is clear: real bodily sickness
is caused by disease and for that you need a medical doctor, and since
Jesus was no medical doctor, he could only take care of their illness.

3.1.2 Perspectives frorrt Medical Anthropology and

Cross-Cultural Interpretation

In my view, Crossan's interpretation of the distinction in medical

anthropology between illness and disease and between curing and
healing is really to short-circuit an important analytical tool. 16 It not
only misconstrues illness, but also understands healing in a very spe-
cific way. What medical anthropology and cross-cultural research show
is that both illness and healing are much more complex than the above
presentation suggests.
There are people who have a disease but who are not ill, and there
are many people who are ill but do not have an identifiable disease.
Research shows that 50 to 70 per cent of patients who visit their family
physician are ill, but have no disease or are complaining without an
ascertainable biological base (see Kleinman, Eisenberg & Good 1978 :251-
252 ; Weiner & Fawzy 1989:23; Brown & Inhorn 1990:190). It is equally
clear that almost 90 per cent of patients who visit traditional healers
have non-life-threatening diseases, self-limiting diseases or conditions
with no biological or organic cause (see Kleinman & Sung 1979:16).
Almost 50 per cent of these fall into the last category, and traditional
healers are extremely efficient in treating these patients. There is no
doubt that such healers are rather ineffective when it comes to life-threat-
ening diseases or injuries. Such patients in any case usually end up on
the mortuary list rather than the patients' list. Each society has its own
causes, explanations and treatments for this (50 to 70 per cent) category
of conditions and one should not make the mistake of thinking that
these people are not really ill."
It is more reasonable to assume that the patients actually healed by
Jesus belonged to the 50 to 70 per cent category of patients who were
sick but had no identifiable disease. Like patients the world over, they
described their experience of the sickness (their illness) in culturally
specific ways (such as demon possession)."
254

There is consequently also a short-circuit on the healing side. Stud-

ies show that not only the 50 to 70% of sickness conditions, but also
biologically based conditions are strongly affected by both the healing
influence of the medical practitioner and the (often) placebo effect of
the medicine. For example:

When preoperative patients received a visit from an anesthesiologist

who emphasised nonmedical means to control postoperative pain, who
expressed concern, and who offered a frank explanation of what pain
to expect, the patients required half as much narcotic and were dis-
charged two days earlier (Brody 1988:150-151 ).

A sympathetic doctor can influence not only 'deterioration' of the

body (going into anaesthesia) but also recovery. Why not an angry neigh-
bour or a traditional healer?

In a recent study of 200 patients with physical complaints but no

identifiable disease, doctors at the University of Southampton in Eng-
land told some patients that no serious disease had been found and
they would soon be well; others heard that the cause of their ailment
was unclear. Two weeks later 64 per cent of the first group had recov-
ered, but only 39 per cent of the second group had recuperated (Brown
1998:72).
In another recent study of more than 2 000 patients, the death rate
was cut by half among patients who took propranolol regularly com-
pared with those who took the medication less regularly. But in the
same study patients who took placebos regularly also had half the death
rate of those who took them less regularly-even though the two groups
of placebo users were similar medically and psychologically (Brown
Q
1998:71 ).19

Studies show that between 35 and 60 per cent of the efficacy of

modern biomedicines for any case can be ascribed to placebo
(Moerman 1991:129). Why would patients recover more quickly when
treated with care by an anaesthesiologist, but not when treated by a tra-
ditional healer? Why would a sugar pill by an oncologist cause loss of
hair but a demon sent by an angry neighbour not cause blindness? Why
can patients live longer after a heart attack because of the regular intake
of placebos, but a traditional healer like Jesus of Nazareth, of whom
high expectations were held and who was accompanied on his journeys
from village to village in Galilee by the stories of his healing power, not
have such an eflect (even if people had a disease)?
The point I am making is rather simple: it is precisely medical
 255

anthropological and cross-cultural studies that show that traditional

healers are effective for most conditions that they treat. Why should it
be different for a traditional healer in first-century Galilee? If this is
anything to go on, Crossan's verdict about Jesus should be changed to
something like this: Jesus probably healed a number of people (most of
them were suffering from the 50 per cent of conditions that did not have
biological or organic causes) and, given the dynamics of the stories and
the reputations that accompany such healers, probably healed most of
the patients who were brought to him.

3.1.3 Crossan's Gospel Evidence: So What is It About ?2

It is difficult to continue the discussion at this point, since I think Crossan

fundamentally misunderstands the insights from medical anthropology. 20
Even if every single story were to be taken as authentic or original (in the
sense that the debate understands it), it is impossible, on the basis of his
framework to take any of the stories as an actual healing event in the life
of Jesus. They are re-interpreted to mean that Jesus acted as an alterna-
tive boundary keeper in providing social comfort to people.
There are only three healing stories that, together with the Beelzebul
controversy, Crossan (1991 :332) takes 'as not only typically but actually
historical'. However, in not one of these 'original' stories in his
inventory does Crossan help us to understand the 'event' in the
life of the historical Jesus or how the historical figure actually oper-
ated. None of these is about an actual healing or what Jesus actually did
or what happened to the patient. What we do find in Crossan's work are
extensive discussions of the tradition history of stories as he sees them,
in other words, explanations of how one text could have used another (if
it used that other text). The only clue he gives is in the following sum-
mary remark: 'But you cannot ignore the healings and the exorcisms,
especially in their socially subversive functions' (1991 :93). But what then
were the things that Jesus actually did? Crossan does not tell us. I
suspect they were the socially subversive functions and the religio-
politically subversiveness (see 1991:324). Despite such claims, there is
not a single event that Crossan finds which belongs in the life of Jesus.
There is no explanation of why and how he healed. One obtains no
impression of the impact of these activities on his life or biography. Let
us look at the individual units.
The first is the healing of a leper." There are many discrepancies
256

among the various texts, most of which can never be solved if the ques-
tion is which one is actually correct? Did Jesus touch the leper or didn't
he? Crossan (see 1991:321-323) describes a possible process through
which the original story developed into the common source which was
used in two opposite directions by the various gospels. This is pure
tradition history, because we hear nothing about the actual event. Did
Jesus actually heal a person who was described by his society as being a
leper, and what actually happened?
The second example is the healing of a paralytic.22 Although for
Crossan a 'single historical event' lies behind these texts, the discussion
is about the tradition process. 'I think, in other words, that the transmis-
sion had moved, already in the common source behind both Mark and
John, from event to process, from curing sickness, to forgiving sins, to
wondering about questions of divine power' (1991 :325). Nothing is said
about the historical event or what could have happened. If the `original'
texts do not contain historical information, on what basis is it claimed
that Jesus was a healer?
As with the previous two examples, the third (healing the blind man)
is mainly a discussion of the way in which Mark and John used the same
source. Crossan takes time to explain that John had difficulty in using
the miracle (he could have left it aside or changed it as they all did?) but
says nothing at all about the 'traditional event' A physical event for one
man becomes a spiritual process for the world (Crossan 1991:326).
Unfortunately, in none of the examples does Crossan explain what
Jesus really did that was experienced as ideological, symbolic and mate-
rial resistance. We are not told what happened in the life of Jesus there
in Galilee and what the cultural dynamics of such a process of instigat-
ing resistance were.

3.2 Jesus as Miracle Worker

In the so-called nature miracles a similar interpretive framework in a

different garb prevents Crossan from taking any of these as referring to
or as historical events in Jesus' lifetime. Put differently, his lack of a
proper cross-cultural framework prevents him from reading these stories
as belonging to a different cultural system.
Let us start with an example of a reading in a proper cross-cultural
framework. When analysing the story of Jesus walking on the sea, Malina
(1999:356) shows that it has 'all the hallmarks of historical verisimilitude
 257

and should be ranked as a historically authentic episode'. He interprets

it as a report of an ASC (alternate state of consciousness] experience23
and shows how such a report fitted into the worldview of the day (where
the sea, like other natural phenomena, was considered to be subject to
non-visible, person-like cosmic forces) and their experience of reality.
Walking on the sea (not the zuater) showed Jesus' place in the hierarchy
of cosmic powers. One does not have to agree with Malina's interpreta-
tion in order to see that he did what anthropologists normally do with
such `weird' or extraordinary stories: he interpreted it within its cultural
system. His details might be wrong (but that is a different debate) but the
principle is sound.
Back to Crossan's ( 1994b:181 ) thesis about the only three (original)
nature miracle stories. The alternatives that Crossan regards as the point
of these stories are 'control over nature' or a symbolic message about
leadership. They were not about episodes in the life of a historical figure
but symbolic messages about leadership.

All Jesus' nature miracles before his death and all the risen apparition
afterwards should be grouped together and analysed in terms of the
authority of this or that .specifzcleader over this or that leadership group
and/or over this or that general community. 24

The story of Jesus' transfiguration, which comes from Mark and was
used by Matthew and Luke, is the result of retrojecting onto the life of
Jesus a story about him being accompanied by two heavenly beings (a
story Mark manipulated in order not to tell about the resurrection (see
Crossan 1991:389).
The symbolic message of the stories of the miraculous catch of fish
(in Lk 5:2-9 and Jn 21: 2-8) is the same: without Jesus, nothing and
with Jesus, everything. The benefactor of the message is Peter, whose
authority is confirmed (see 1994b: 182-183).
This same message is encrypted into the stories about Jesus walking
on the water. In Crossan's (1991 :405) view, this story is a specific way of
putting their belief in and experience of the resurrected Jesus into a
narrative.
Crossan makes it perfectly clear that most of the stories under con-
sideration here have nothing to do withjesus the miraclesworker. As stated
above, the alternative is not to claim they actually happened (because
with God everything is possible), but to adopt a cultural system within
which such stories make sense. Such an alternative does not come easily
258

because it requires cross-cultural and historical research.25

3.3 Jesus the Exorcist

The only report about an exorcism that can be considered original (the
Beelzebul controversy in Mk 3:22-26 par), according to Crossan's method
(see 1991:318), is not a report about an exorcism, but mentions Jesus'
exorcisms in the context of a dispute about his authority or the source of
his power. In whose name is he performing his deeds? In Crossan's view
( 1994b:89), 'there are no examples of independently attested stories about
demonic expulsions' (despite all the references to exorcisms in the
gospels). Therefore, there is no exorcism story that can be used for
describing Jesus' exorcisms.
The only example discussed extensively by Crossan is the Gerasene
demoniac (Mk 5:1-17), which is not 'an actual scene from Jesus' life' but
'was almost certainly created long after Jesus' life' (Crossan 1994b:90,
89). It is a story of an individual being cured, but the point that Crossan
(1991:314) emphasises is the symbolism: 'The demon is both one and
many; is named Legion, that fact and sign of Roman power; is con-
signed to swine; and is cast into the sea.' 'I'his constitutes a symbolic
story about Roman colonialism and the exorcism of Legion is a brief
'performancial summary of every Jewish revolutionary's dream'. This
example is important because in Crossan's (1991:317-318) scheme of
things it serves as a paradigm for Jesus' exorcisms:

In discussing Jesus' exorcisms, therefore, two factors must be kept

always in mind. One is the almost schizoid position of a colonial people
... Another is that colonial exorcisms are at once less and more than
revolution; they are, in fact, individuated symbolic revolution.

The basis of his interpretation of the Gerasene demoniac as the para-

digm for social resistance to colonial oppression is the argument of a
close connection between possession and oppression. For that reason,
he argues that in discussing Jesus' exorcisms the position of a colonial
people should always be kept in mind. Jesus' exorcisms, in so far as they
actually happened, are 'colonial exorcisms' or 'individuated symbolic
revolution' (Crossan 1991 :317-318). This argument inevitably forces the
connection between possession and oppression as if oppression caused
possession.
The Marcan story might well be a literary creation making such a
 259

link, but the question is whether one example should be made the
paradigm for understanding all Jesus' exorcisms. To my mind, Lewis's
(see 1986:23-50) evidence points in a different direction, namely that
in societies where it is accepted as a culturally appropriate or normative
experience and response, possession can be used as an explanatory
principle for a variety of societal and individual problems. What the
examples (by Lewis) show is that possession can be used as a culturally
approved explanation for many different problems, including but not
exclusively for forms of oppression. Therefore, in societies where this
explanatory principle operates freely, people can, indeed, utilise it for a
new experience of colonial oppression (as Crossan's other example from
the former 'Northern Rhodesia' [sic] shows), but that does not mean that
all stories about exorcisms are covert deeds of political protest. Most
demon possession stories in the gospels (and those mentioned by Lewis
and others) have nothing to do with political oppression. One of the
normal cultural mechanisms for dealing with 'invaders' (whether in the
body in the form of sickness or in society in the form of oppression) is
demon possession and should therefore be analysed in its totality. Pos-
session of whatever kind is the mechanism, exorcism is the remedy, and
both are provided by the culture. If Crossan is right in linking Legion
with colonial domination, it is not because all exorcisms should be in-
terpreted in that way, but that even political oppression can be dealt
with by means of the same cultural mechanism. There could thus have
been, and probably were, many other kinds of demonic possessions and
various kinds of exorcism in Jesus' life.

4. Concluding Remarks

Crossan subscribes to a very limited database or inventory of texts and to

a specific interpretive framework for dealing with Jesus as healer, exor-
cist and miracle worker. It is difficult to see how Crossan (or any other
historian), on the basis ofhi.s evidence, can claim that Jesus was a healer,
exorcist and miracle worker- even in terms of his description of Jesus
the healer as social therapist or Jesus the exorcist who did not actually
exorcise demons from possessed people. Furthermore, even if it can be
indicated that all the gospel stories about healings, exorcisms and other
miracles are 'original' (in the sense required by current research), his
specific interpretive framework prevents him from taking any of these as
actual cultural events in Jesus' lifetime.
260

I cannot see why they would have settled for ideological and
symbolic resistance if traditionally agrarian societies like theirs
knew social figures who could actually heal people and exorcise and
control demons and travel to other worlds to provide food and control
spirits and intervene in heavenly affairs and interact with ancestors on a
regular basis. This is what shamans do the world over, for example, and
what they did in the ancient world. About no other figure in antiquity
do we have so many reports about healings, exorcisms and other excep-
tional deeds. There is an excellent match with similar kinds of stories
attributed to shamanic figures today. Instead of looking at cross-cultural
research on such figures and arguing how the cultural mechanisms worked
in the Israelite tradition of the first century, historical Jesus research is
trying to find ways of saying why Jesus could not have done any of the
things the sources say he did (that is, when read from a modern point of
view). The more we know, the more we see, and perhaps we do not see,
because we do not know enough.
From my perspective one of the disconcerting aspects of current his-
torical Jesus research (especially that claiming to be interdisciplinary) is
that quotations from anthropological and other cross-cultural research
are used freely without noticing what anthropologists are doing. The
tide against the ethnocentric treatment of others ('the primitives') turned
several decades ago. Anthropologists no longer take a story about a
shamanic trip as a literal trip by a soul, but take it seriously by means of
cross-cultural interpretation (one such method is the use of the cross-
cultural model of ASCs). No anthropologist takes literally the stories
about shamans who are responsible for the catch of fish or the provision
of game, as people who went out there to herd the fish or animals. But
anthropologists do take them seriously within the cultural system with
its own dynamics and customs. Nowadays no anthropologist will under-
stand shamanic journeys or ancestral interventions or traditional healings
as mythological stories, argue about the (im)possibility of such `events',
or treat them as mere stories of their imagination (created to tell some-
thing significant about the figure). It is realised today that every such
story exists within a particular cultural system and that such systems
represent different reality systems (see Craffert 2001 ).
Such interdisciplinary research forces us to rethink what we under-
stand by 'event'. If anthropologists were to interpret similar stories about
such a figure in a traditional society, they would realise that the 'events'
were 'cultural events'. Even the day after an exorcism or a healing or
some other ASC experience (such as an encounter with ancestors), there
 261

would be more than one story (or a story with elements from different
participants)-most of which could not have been tape-recorded or video-
recorded (many of the stories are of such a nature that they cannot be
videotaped or photographed-unless taking pictures of people in an
alternate state of consciousness is sufficient evidence). Even if today we
understand, for example, the visitation by an ancestor as such an event
by means of the cross-cultural model of ASCs, it remains an 'event' that
can have a serious and profound effect on the life of an individual or a
community. In South Africa there is the well-known story ofNongqawuse,
who convinced the Xhosa people to destroy all their cattle and crops in
1856. A visitation by ancestors had convinced her that whites and en-
emies would be blown into the sea if they were to follow the orders. Even
if the 'event' can be understood today as a typical ASC experience, that
is not all there was to it, because it had severe societal implications when
an estimated 30 000 people starved to death (see Benyon 1986:162).
Therefore we also have to look at the cultural dynamics of such 'events'.
Terms such as 'events could be seen', 'memorised' and 'recalled' need
rethinking in many instances. Perhaps we are reading many of these
stories for something they were never intended to be and that they can-
not be, that is, as stories within our view of reality.
Therefore, even ifwe can link stories in the various gospel sources, it
is futile to ask what actually happened or which is correct. I take them as
cultural versions of a cultural event that, to begin with, was not of the
type that could have been videotaped. Even if, say, an exorcism could be
videotaped, the reports afterwards (the exorcism story) would contain
many elements that a videotape cannot capture (such as the patient's
claim that he heard the demon say certain things or that he saw
something, or elements added by the bystanders or the exorcist).
Historical interpretation of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be of
the nature of listing everything he said and did, but in the first instance
of understanding the stories within their cultural setting. Unless we start
there, we are bound to conduct an investigation about something that
did not exist.
An interdisciplinary approach also forces us to rethink
'historiography' as an interpretive and cross-cultural enterprise. Find-
ing the best possible links between the sharpest constructed elements of
context (as Crossan has done so well for the peasant situation in Lower
Galilee) and the material is as good as it gets. With the existing material
it is impossible to say whether Jesus healed ten lepers, two blind and
three deaf persons, or where he did it and when. The sensibilities for
262

this cultural context and the nature of interpretive historiography create

the insight that understanding a historical figure is not only possible on
the basis of authentic material. What is possible, however, is to construct
an authentic picture of a figure who operated within a world different
from our own, to understand the cultural dynamics ofwhat people expe-
rienced with such a figure around, and to realise that we do not have to
think about those stories in terms ofwhether they happened as described.
Our task as historical Jesus scholars becomes that of cross-cultural
dialogue.

Department of New Testament PIETERF CRAFFERT

University of South Africa
PO Box 392, Pretoria, 0003
Republic of South Africa
Email: [email protected]

'Crossan finds in Jesus sending out missionaries a close parallel to urban

cynicism: as rural itinerants they were to 'rebuild peasant society from the
grass roots up' ( 1994b:118) and they were to do that on the basis of open
commensality. 'Here is the heart of the original Jesus movement, a shared
egalitarianism of spiritual (healing) and material (eating) resources,' he states
( 1994b:107). In his view, a Jewish peasant cynic is not an ancient social type
but a modern scholarly construct (see 1998:334).
2He ( 1994b:177) states, for example, that throughout his life, Jesus per-
formed healings and exorcisms for ordinary people-a point confirmed by his
claim that Jesus was a well-known healer, exorcist and miracle worker (1991 :311,
347). Elsewhere he (1998:302) claims that 'Jesus was both healer and exorcist,
and his followers considered those actions miracles'. Crossan (1994b:93)
emphasises that 'Jesus was not just a teacher or a preacher in purely
intellectual terms, not just part of the history of ideas ... If all he had done was
talk about the Kingdom, Lower Galilee would probably have greeted him with
a great big peasant yawn.'
3This is what Wright (see 1996:87) means when talking about a historical
hypothesis about Jesus which must already be presupposed in order to decide
about strata in the tradition (the different 'voices'). The Jesus Seminar (see
Funk, Hoover and The Jesus Seminar 1993:25) illustrates the same point in
one of their rules for sorting out Jesus-words: only sayings that can be traced
to the oral period between 30 and 50 CE can possibly have originated with
Jesus. The yardstick for deciding is that words which can be demonstrated as
having first been formulated by the gospel writers are then eliminated. But
knowing what could have been formulated by the early church presupposes a
knowledge of what could not belong to Jesus and vice versa. In both instances
a picture of what could or could not have been part of his life (or of the early
church) must be presupposed.
 263

Crossan (1991:xxxii), for example, also states: 'Chronologically most

close does not, of course, mean historically most accurate ... a unit from the
fourth stratum could be more original than one from the first stratum'.
51tshould be noted that I am not taking sides with Wright in this debate,
but am trying to analyse Crossan's argument. As will become clear below, I do
not think a debate about 'original or authentic material' is necessary.
6Allison ( 1998:19) also politely remarks that Crossan's stratigraphical
method `might mislead one into supposing that there is a correlation between
the date when a document appeared and the age of the traditions preserved in
that document'.
'It should be remembered that for those on the Schweitzerstrasse the
criteria of authenticity are not used to determine sources and tradition history
but to weed out the post-Easter overlay.
8'J D Crossans Kombination van Alter- und Unabhdnglgkettsargument
ware demnach zundchst kein Echtheitskriterium im strenge Sinne, wohl aber
ein Mittel zur Einschatzung des Quellenwerts einer Überlieferung und kann
daruber hinaus negativ als Unechtheitskriterium eingesetzt werden' (Theissen
and Winter 1997:15).
9Crossan (1991 :xxxiii) agrees that in theory a unit found in the third
stratum might be original, but he would not consider that, because it falls
outside the internal discipline of his method.
lofor example, most scholars in the third quest assume that the synoptic
gospels, once pruned of all the post-Easter additions by means of their criteria
of authenticity, give them access to the historical Jesus (see Sanders 1993:61;
Wright 1996:xvi; Theissen & Merz 1998:61).
"In a reformulation of the criteria of authenticity in what is called the
'plausibility of context' (Kontextplausibilitiit) and the 'plausibility of influence'
(Wirkiingsplausibiliwt)Theissen and Merz ( 1998:11 )take two criteria together
as 'a historical criterion of plausibility: what is plausible in the Jewish context
and makes the rise of Christianity understandable may be historical' (see also
Theissen & Winter 1997:215-217). The principle is the same: material that
has a tight fit with the context can be considered authentic. This by the way, is
also the principle followed by scholars in the third quest. You start with a
hypothesis (which is based, among others, on historical reconstruction) and
material that can be verified against that hypothesis (context) is taken to be
authentic.
'2Elsewhere I (Craffert 2001) have argued for a cable-like interpretive
process that claims that historical knowledge about Jesus is not based on a
linear, chain-like process (these units of authentic material (small snippets or
the synoptic gospels) plus this sharp context provide the historical Jesus). The
validity of the construction-an authentic historical and cultural image of
Jesus- rests on the persuasive power of an integrated interpretive cable-
like process and not on individual elements. An 'authentic' construction is the
result of a complex interplay between a variety of fibres of the cable which
include the texts, context and Jesus' social type.
13 Found,for example, in Gos Thom 14:4; Lk 10: 1, 4-11 = Mt 10:7, 10b,
264

12-14; Mk 6:7-13 = Mt 10:1, 8-10a, 11 = Lk 9:1-6.

'40f the thirty-two items in his miracle inventory, only nine have multiple
attestation and therefore, according to his methodological discipline, may be
considered original (see 1991:320). One is the Beelzebul controversy (Mk 3:
22-27; Lk 11:14-15, 17-18 par) which, strictly speaking, is not an exorcism
story. Three are nature miracles, which, as will be shown, in his view, are actu-
ally credal statements about ecclesiastical authority. They are: Jesus walking on
the sea: Jn 6:16-21; Mk 6:45-52 = Mt 14:22-27; Mk 4:35-41 = Mt 8:18,
23-27 = Lk 8:22-25; the feeding of the multitudes: Jn 6:1-15; Mk 6:33-44 =
Mt 9:36, 14:13b-21 = Lk 9:11-17; Mk 8:1-10 = Mt 15:32-39; Lk 24:13-33,
35; and what Crossan calls Fishing for humans: Mk 1:16 20 = Mt 4:18-22, Lk
5:4-1 l, Jn 21:1-8. Since this latter complex comes from the second stratum,
the other miracle story from the first stratum, which Crossan does not discuss,
will be considered (Jesus' transfiguration: Mk 9:2-10 = Mt 17:1-9 = Lk 9 :28-
36). Of the remaining five, three are seen as events that were transformed in
the tradition to convey some kind of process. The other two are described as
processes creating events. Although 'event' for Crossan (1991:320) is the
'actual and historical cure of an afllicted individual as a moment in time', it is
clear that he does not consider them stories about actual curings but as healings
or interventions in the social world. Process refers to a `wider socioreligious
phenomenon that is symbolized in and by such an individual happening. But
just as event can give rise to process so process can give rise to event'.
15 Thisis indeed a case (although very limited) about the complexity of
sickness experiences. Obtaining support and finding meaning in the face of a
fatal sickness can indeed be seen as a healing experience. But to make that the
paradigm for what traditional healers are doing is missing the point.
16 Notonly has this distinction been criticised for its ethnocentric applica-
tions (where hearing is a replacement for primitive medicine and curing for bio-
medicine)but it has also been used in ways different from what Crossan implies
(see Hahn 1984; Craffert 1997).
"The list of 'culture-bound syndromes' is almost endless. Research shows
that the prevalence of even something as serious as cancer is determined by
cultural factors (see Dubos 1977:37-38). Why would someone with anorexia
nervosa or hypertension be considered seriously sick, but not someone with
demon possession in another cultural system?
Whatever the cause of sickness, it is always culturally and individually
constructed by the patient as illness (see Kleinman, Eisenberg & Good
1978:252).
11It is not self-evident that modern medicines
always work for the reason
that they are used. Some studies, including one by the US Office of Technological
Assessment, suggest that only about 20 per cent of modem remedies in common
use have been scientifically proven to be effective (see Brown 1998:68).
z°A
simple test would be to apply his understanding of the illness-disease
distinction to stories in medical anthropology about traditional healers and to
argue the same case for other traditional healers. The whole field of medical
anthropology in protesting against this and the development of the so-called
 265

integrative model of health, disease and illness (see eg Weiner & Fawzy 1989)
is an attempt to move away from such understandings.
2'Eg in Mark 1:40-45 par and in the Egerton Gospel lr35-47.
22 in Mk 2:1-12
Eg and,Jn 5:1-7, 14.
23Not
only are such experiences common to most people on the planet
today, but they were fairly common in biblical times. In fact, biblical people
lived in a culture that accepted and experienced what is called polyphasic con-
sciousness : many more states of consciousness (such as dreams or visions)
were taken as real and were often experienced. Such cultures also provide the
rituals and prescriptions for the how, when and who of these experiences
(Laughlin, McManus & d'Aquili 1990:155). A pattern of monophasic
consciousness refers to the enculturation of people in Western cul-
tures that gives dominance to ego-consciousness. Within such a culture 'the
only 'real world' experienced is that unfolding in the sensorium during the
'normal' waking phase ... and is thus the only phase appropriate to the accrual
of information about self and world' (Laughlin, McManus & d'Aquili 1990:155).
24Although they belong to the first stratum in his judgment they are of a
specific nature: processes dramatically or symbolically incarnated in events
(see 1991:434): they are 'actually credal statements about ecclesiastical au-
thority, although they all have as their background ,Jesus' resurrectional vic-
tory over death' (1991:404).
25For a culturally sensitive reading of the transfiguration narratives, see
Pilch's (1995) study.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALLISON, D C 1998. Jesus of Nazareth: millenarian prophet. Minneapolis: Fortress.

BENYON, 1986.
J Die Britse kolonies. In Cameron, T. Nuwe geskiedenisvan Suid
Afrika in woord en beeld. Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau.
BORG,M J1987.Jesus a new vision: spirit, culture, and the life of discipleship.San
Francisco: Harper & Row.
BRODY,H 1988. The symbolic power of the modern personal physician: The
placebo response under challenge. The Journal of Drug Issues 18(2):149-
161.
BROWN,P J, & INHORN.MC 1990. Disease, ecology, and human behavior. In
Johnson, T M & Sargent, C F (eds). Medical anthropology:contemporarytheory
and method. New York: Praeger.
BROWN, W A 1998. The placebo effect. ScientificAmerican, January:68-73.
CRAFFERT, P F 1997. Opposing world-views: The border guards between tradi-
tional and biomedical health care practices. SouthAfrican Journal of Ethnology
20(1):1-9.
CRAFFERT, P F 2001. Historical anthropological Jesus research: the status of
authentic pictures beyond authentic material. International Context Group
Meeting. Pretoria.
CROSSAN,DJ 1991. The historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant.
San Francisco: Harper.
266

CROSSAN,Dj 1994a. The historical Jesus in earliest Christianity. In Carlson, J &

Ludwig, R A (eds).Jesus and faith: a conversation on the work of John Dominic,
Crossan. New York: Orbis.
CROSSAN,DJ 1994b. Jesus: a revolutionary biography. San Francisco: Harper.
CROSSAN,DJ 1998. The birth of Christianity:discoveringwhat happened in the years
immediatelyafter the execution of Jesus. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.
CROSSAN, D, J & REED, JL 2001. Excavating Jesus: beneath the stones, behind the
texts. San Francisco: Harper.
DUBOS,R 1977. Determinants of health and disease. In Landy, D (ed). Culture,
disease, and healing: studies in medical anthropology. New York: Macmillan.
FUNK,R W, HOOVER, R WANDTHE JESUS SEMINAR.1993. The five gospels:the search
for the authentic words of jesus. New York: Macmillan.
HAHN,R A 1984. Rethinking 'illness' and 'disease'. Contributionsto Asian Studies
18:1-23.
KLEINMAN, A & SUNG,L H (eds) 1979. Why do indigenous practitioners success-
fully heal? Social Scienceand Medicine 130:7-26.
KI.EINMAN, A, EISENBERG, L & GOOD,B. 1978. Culture, illness, and care: clinical
lessons from anthropologic and cross-cultural research. Annals of Internal
Medicine 88:251-58.
LAUGHLIN, C D, MCMANLIS,&J D'AQUILI,E G 1990. Brain, symbol& experience:
towards a neurophenomenologyof human consciousness.Boston: Shambhala.
LEWIS,I M 1986. Religion in context: cults and charisma. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
MALINA, B J 1999. Assessing the historicity of Jesus' walking on the sea: insights
from cross-cultural social psychology. In Chilton, B & Evans, C A. Authen-
ticating the activities of Jesus.Leiden: Brill.
MOERMAN, D E 1991. Physiology and symbols: the anthropological implica-
tions of the placebo effect. In Romanucci-Ross, L, Moerman, D E & Tancredi,
T R (eds). The anthropology of medicine:from culture to method (second edi-
tion). New York: Bergin & Garvey.
PILCH, j j 1995. The transfiguration of Jesus: an experience of alternate reality.
In Esler, P F (ed). Modelling early Christianity: social-scientificstudies of theNew
Testamentin its context. London: Routledge.
SANDERS, E P 1993. The historicalfigure of Jesus.London: Penguin.
THEISSEN, G & MERZ,A 1998. The historical Jesus: acomprehensiveguide. London:
SCM.
THEISSEN,G & WINTER,D 1997. Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung: Vom
Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht.
WEINER,H & FAWZY, I F 1989. An integrative model of health, disease, and
illness. In Cheren, S (ed). Psychosomaticmedicine:theory,physiology,and prac-
tice. Volume 1. Madison: International Universities Press.
WRIGHT,T N 1996. Jesus and the victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress.