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Courtesy of John Dominic Crossan

Squinting in the sunlight, 16-year-old John Crossan stands proudly on the September day in 1950 that he first took the monastic vows in Banbury, Ireland, and was invested in the Servite Order; he was ordained seven years later. In 1969, Crossan would forsake the priesthood but not the Roman Catholic Church—and not biblical scholarship. Over the last 30 years, Crossan has gained fame (and not a little notoriety) trying to reconstruct the life of Jesus. Now, in his autobiography, Crossan reconstructs his own life story—from why he became a priest to why he left the priesthood, embracing a world where he felt free to discuss his ideas.