Jesus: A New Understanding of God's Son Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Father Joseph Girzone is an incredibly effective writer. He is elegant with words and his style is moving and humane. I had previously read only one of his books, The Trinity. I am now going to go back and read his popular fiction.
This volume is something between a parallel Gospel account and a narrative constructed on such a plan. It is not always the best scholarship on Jesus but it reads so well, and engages the reader in such a profoundly personal way, that it should not be missed by Christians and non-Christians alike. I know of no other book quite like it. The author's purpose is to enter into Jesus' heart and mind as he understands the four different accounts we have from the Four Gospel authors.
These chapters were originally given as oral talks over the course of three and a half years. Girzone's goal is to have readers enter into a deeper understanding of Jesus, not into a highly technical Christological debate. He succeeds marvelously. Non-Catholic readers will disagree at a few points but he treats these matters with grace and care. I found myself loving the mother of our Lord far more after reading Girzone's account of Mary's relationship with Jesus and I am an evangelical Protestant. He may fill in some blanks with a vivid imagination at a few points but I believe he is warranted to make such suggestions based upon the overall account that we do have of the life of Lord.
There is much here that some readers will quibble about but the book is important for one great reason: it introduces ordinary readers, and long time students of the Bible like me, to the human Jesus in a fresh and immensely helpful way. I loved it.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Jesus: A New Understanding of God's Son

Drawing on a lifetime of study and reflection, the author of the Joshua series presents his long-awaited, revelatory, and deeply personal work on Jesus.In his immensely popular Joshua novels, Joseph Girzone depicted Jesus in the modern-day world, using compelling fiction to elucidate Jesus' message and teachings. Now Girzone provides a powerful new perspective on Jesus. Based on scripture and written in Girzone's lively, non-doctrinal style, it brings the theology that animates his fiction into vibrant focus. Girzone combines the gospel accounts of Jesus' life, personal anecdotes, tales from the Bible, and stories he has gathered from people around the world to create an uncommon and profoundly inspiring portrait. He writes with candor and grace about the revelations that shape his beliefs and the mysteries that continue to intrigue him. The definitive statement of Girzone's views on Jesus' mission on earth and its meaning for today's readers, Jesus is Girzone's magnum opus.

Get 33% OFF

Click here for more information about Jesus: A New Understanding of God's Son

Read More...

Memoirs of Pontius Pilate: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Although it is a work of fiction, "Memoirs of Pontius Pilate" comes close to deserving a place in the history section. Much of this well-researched book is devoted to Pilate's own biography of Jesus; nevertheless, there is enough supplementary material here to leave the reader a bit more knowledgeable on the history of Roman Palestine.
Mills' Pilate begins with an introductory discussion about the Jewish people (written from a perspective that feels authentically Roman). The rest of the book traces the life of Jesus from the Nativity to the Crucifixion, after which the exiled former procurator adds his own views on the events that he had just described. Throughout the work Pilate remains sufficiently sceptical of the miracles and odd "coincidences" that his spies report to him, but the reader soon realises that this Roman is at least open to the possibility that the "strange carpenter" may actually be who he says he is.
A word of caution, though: readers who insist on seeing a cruel, heartless tyrant of a governor in this book will be sorely disappointed. Though the historical Pontius Pilatus may have been a man who truly deserves the wicked reputation he is cursed with today, would he have written about himself that way? In all certainty he would have described actions we now see as barbaric within the context of his own culture and upbringing; that is, he would have said that he was simply "doing his job" when he mowed down the Samartians on Mount Gerizim and threatened to hack a crown of Jews to death in Caesarea. Out of his love for Rome, his loyalty to Caesar and perhaps even his own strange form of concern for the well-being of the Jewish people, he did what he felt he had to do.
I am no relativist. From the very little that we know about Pilate, there is no doubt that he was -- to put it bluntly -- a very bad man. But it would be ridiculous to assume that he would have seen himself as anything other than a devoted public servant who tried to do his duty well.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Memoirs of Pontius Pilate: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Click here for more information about Memoirs of Pontius Pilate: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Read More...

What He Said: The Words of Christ in the Four Gospels Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I never set out to read the Bible before. Perhaps the only extended passages I ever read were the Christmas and Easter stories (and, OK, those were read to me). But I've always been curious about the essence of Christianity -- what did Jesus do and say? Well, that's only addressed in the New Testament and there only in bits and pieces.
I'd heard of other presentations of Jesus' words called out from the rest of the Bible's text and had even asked for the King James Bible for my birthday once, where Jesus' words are in color. But WHAT HE SAID is so much better -- it's just the four Gospels and keeps Jesus' quotes in order and context. I am enjoying it very much and recommend it to others curious about the faith.

Click Here to see more reviews about: What He Said: The Words of Christ in the Four Gospels

Click here for more information about What He Said: The Words of Christ in the Four Gospels

Read More...

Jesus the Misunderstood Jew: What the New Testament Really Says about the Man from Nazareth Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Raised as a Christian who recently became a Jew by Choice and is teaching a Religious Belief and Disbelief course,I couldn't put this book down. The book happens to support a view I find personally intriguing. But I never realized that the New Testament did too.
The power of Kupor's approach is in using the most official Christian sources to make his Jewish case--Jesus exhorting Jews to become more spiritual and devout as Jews, following their Jewish precepts. At most the discrepancy ebtween de facto Jewish practice and his teachings created a new Jewish sect, similar to the Essenes but also less rigidly orthodox. Christianity, by contrast with either sects, was more likely started by Paul (Saul of Tarsus)who never met Jesus and radically altered Jesus's teachings.
Christians arguing against Kupor's case--say fundamentalists relying on a literal biblical interpretation--would have no leg but his to stand on. But unlike them, he uses the literal meaning of the Bible when it was written, not reinterpreted later. This is as literal as one can get. Those arguing from Church doctrine against a Jewish Jesus would also be recruiting Kupor's own position. He squares his New Testament reading with the Church's. And those relying on faith, aided by these two sources, would find themselves as faithfully Jewish as Kupor shows Yeshua to be. There is hardly a more powerful way to convince critics than to argue to them on their own grounds.
What Kupor challenges is the proprietary right Christians feel over Jesus, defining him based simply on the idea that they like him so much and claim him as their own. It's as if saying his name (in the wrong language) and repeating his citations from the Torah is enough to make them Yeshuans. It's unclear they are even Christian since `they say yes to God, but do not do his will.' Only the evangelicals, as far as I can see, spend a significant part of each year in full-time service to the poor. And `by their deeds will you know them.'
According to Kupor's Jewish Jesus,we must love God with our whole heart our whole soul and our whole strength and love our neighbor as ourself. These are the two greatest commandments. But who actually lives by these precepts among either the Christians (bad Jews) and the Jews (also bad Jews). Not only does Kupor offer a new account of Jesus--the Christian account of Jesus as a Jew, but an account of Christians' would-be Judaism.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Jesus the Misunderstood Jew: What the New Testament Really Says about the Man from Nazareth


"We must understand that some of the early Christians [in the decades after Jesus' death] saw the message of Jesus largely within the context of Judaism. Indeed, Christianity might have remained as a sect within Judaism ... In this initial stage there was little or no thought of any dividing line between Christianity and Judaism."—The Catholic Study Bible (written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, ruling body of the American Roman Catholic Church)
*****
When the world's largest Christian denomination acknowledges that early "Christianity" was merely a sect of the Jewish religion—both during Jesus' life and for years thereafter—isn't it time to reexamine what the New Testament really says about the Man from Nazareth?

The Roman Catholic Church monopolized the New Testament for over fourteen hundred years, forbidding laypeople from reading or interpreting it. Although this monopoly was shattered by the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, knowledge about Jesus' first-century world was too sparse for anyone to understand the New Testament in its proper context. Today, we know more about Jesus' times than ever before. Yet Christian religious leaders have been reluctant to disseminate these new insights—largely because they reveal that Jesus was a Jewish prophet who insisted on adherence to traditional Judaism. In Jesus the Misunderstood Jew: What the New Testament Really Says About the Man from Nazareth, Dr. Robert Kupor illuminates the New Testament in a way that allows both Christians and Jews to understand this seminal document in a startling new light. Jesus the Misunderstood Jew will surprise and enlighten you.

Click here for more information about Jesus the Misunderstood Jew: What the New Testament Really Says about the Man from Nazareth

Read More...

The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)"Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. It was the beginning of the week of Passover." From the East came a peasant procession with Jesus of Nazareth riding on a donkey and cheered by his followers. From the West came the Roman governor of Idumea, Pontius Pilate, who had come up from Caesarea Maritima. That the two processions occurred on the same day is not recorded in the Bible and, in fact, the two processions may not have happened on the same day. However the Roman governor did travel from Caesarea Maritima for festivals such as Passover. Most of all, for Mark, the procession of Jesus was clearly counter to the procession of Pilate.

The inevitable confrontation may be described as the "domination system" which had developed in Jerusalem. Borg and Crossan explain that domination system is a shorthand for political oppression, economic exploitation, and religious legitimation. Jerusalem had become a society where only a few ruled, the monarch, the nobility, and the wealthy. A high percentage of the society's wealth came from agriculture. Structures of laws of land ownership, taxation, and indenture of labor, put between a half and two-thirds of all of the wealth into the coffers of the few. In ancient societies, these structures were legitimized by religious language: the monarch ruled by divine right and the social order was the will of God.

The day after Jesus made his procession into Jerusalem, he drove the moneychangers from the Temple and aroused the severe wrath of the temple priests. The next day, Tuesday, was a day of challenges. Jesus returns to Jerusalem. As he is walking Jesus is challenged by the chief priests, scribes, and elders who want to know the authority he has for committing his prophetic act in the Temple. Jesus parries and asks about the authority of John the Baptist. Most readers know the story and know that the priests lose face. If that were not enough Jesus counterchallenges with the parable about the vineyard. Borg and Crossan emphasize that the priests et al realize that that parable was spoken against them.

So was Jesus destined for execution? From the point of view of the will of God, Borg and Crossan maintain an emphatic negative response: "It is never the will of God that a righteous man be crucified." Judas did not
*have* to betray Jesus. The Temple priests did not *have* to seek execution. (There is a similar story in Josephus of another who preached against the Temple. Interestingly this other man was only flogged.)
Rather it was the inevitability of the domination system that sent Jesus to death. Borg and Crossan wonder what it was about Jesus and his followers that so provoked the authorities.

Certainly the death of Jesus stunned his followers. Borg and Crossan find various ways for the followers of Jesus to come to grips with this within the New Testament and in subsequent centuries. For example, many Christians believe that the real reason (substitutionary atonement) for the death of Jesus was best explained by St Anselm in 1097. But how soon did the followers of Jesus try to begin to explain his death as an atonement? Have a look at 1 John 2.2 and 4.10.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem


Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus's crucifixion.

Using the gospel of Mark as their guide, Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first entry, that of Roman governor Pontius Pilate leading Roman soldiers into the city, symbolized military strength. The second heralded a new kind of moral hero who was praised by the people as he rode in on a humble donkey. The Jesus introduced by Borg and Crossan is this new moral hero, a more dangerous Jesus than the one enshrined in the church's traditional teachings.

The Last Week depicts Jesus giving up his life to protest power without justice and to condemn the rich who lack concern for the poor. In this vein, at the end of the week Jesus marches up Calvary, offering himself as a model for others to do the same when they are confronted by similar issues. Informed, challenged, and inspired, we not only meet the historical Jesus, but meet a new Jesus who engages us and invites us to follow him.

Get 20% OFF

Click here for more information about The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem

Read More...

The Gospel According to Jesus: A New Translation and Guide to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Stephen Mitchell does something almost unforgivable in this book by stripping core tenets of the Christian faith from his "translation" of the New Testament. Something strange happens, though: God's truth shines through anyway. The author parses and paraphrases, and leaves out virtually the entire Gospel, but the reader can tell what he's aiming for.
This is not, as I see it, an attempt to rewrite the Gospel or translate the Gospel, but rather an attempt to show particular facets in an enlightening way. The reason the gross omissions are forgivable is that he takes parts of Jesus' teachings and makes them shine far more brightly than before. The parable of the Prodigal Son, in particular, receives the attention that it should. Mitchell might have problems with what he considers the more "mythological" aspects of Christianity, but his writing demonstrates a real understanding of the concepts of grace, forgiveness, and divine providence. Yes, a lot of this is because these are the facets of Christianity that dovetail with his Zen philosophy and training, but this remains the strength of the book.
What every reader should realize about this work, though, is that it cannot be considered a definitive translation of the Gospel. It is neither scholarly nor historical. Rather, it is poetic and interpretive, and the author prefers to present the gist of the text, particularly where a precise translation doesn't translate context or connotations. Obviously, the problem with this is that the author's subjective judgments can and do get in the way.
The main reason that I give this book four stars rather than three is that the author is explicitly honest about his motives and intentions, and those parts of the Gospel he chooses to translate are helpful both to unbelievers who are trying to understand Christianity and to believers as extensions to traditional Bible study.
Finally, while the whole book is technically blasphemy, it helped me return to my faith after a long hiatus. Make of that what you will.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Gospel According to Jesus: A New Translation and Guide to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers

A dazzling presentation of the life and teachings of Jesus by the eminent scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell.

Get 21% OFF

Click here for more information about The Gospel According to Jesus: A New Translation and Guide to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers

Read More...