Is Jesus inconsistent, or does Matthew have an agenda? Crossan, like most interpreters, says that Matthew 23 reflects not Jesus' own teaching but a conflict that emerged decades after Jesus' career.

A moment's reflection will tell you that the standard Sunday school answer to the question "Why was Jesus crucified?" would have made little sense to those directly involved in the event itself.

Faith may have invoked divine justice but experience repeatedly contradicted it. From where, then, did that expectation of a world ruled by a fair and equitable distribution of its resources come?

By Ron Csillag Religion News Service (RNS) John Dominic Crossan is arguably the world's foremost scholar of the historical Jesus. Twenty-five years a...