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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > The historical Jesus
Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests.He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64. This controversial version of Christ's life is not the product of a mind which wants to debunk Christianity. Barbara Thiering is a theologian and a biblical scholar. But after over twenty years of close study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospels she has developed a revolutionary new theory which, while upholding the fundamental faith of Christianity, challenges many of its most ingrained supernaturalist beliefs. Jesus the Man will undoubtedly upset and even outrage those for whom Christianity is immutable and unchallengeable. But for many who have found the rituals of the contemporary church too steeped in medieval thinking, it will provide new insights into Christianity in the context of the modern world.
"The Torah doesn't speak of Jesus at all!" "This verse has absolutely nothing to do with your Jesus. It's not even a messianic prophecy." "As for the real messianic prophecies, Jesus fulfilled none of them." Using the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic texts, and the New Testament, Michael Brown provides thorough answers to nearly forty objections regarding Jesus as the Messiah. This third installment of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus looks specifically at questions raised about messianic prophecies in Isaiah, Daniel, Psalms, Haggai, and Zechariah. It's an invaluable resource for seekers and for anyone wanting to point students of the Torah to Jesus. "Michael Brown has established himself as the foremost messianic apologist in the world. This volume deals with that most vital and controversial area of messianic prophecy objections: Is Jesus really the promised Messiah? All three volumes exhibit Dr. Brown's unique contributions to Jewish missions: biblical accuracy, Jewish sensitivity, and personal compassion." Dr. Barry R. Leventhal, academic dean and professor, Southern Evangelical Seminary "Brown's answers to objections are carefully thought out, honest, and well researched. His work provides a useful model on how to do apologetics for all who are interested in articulating and defending the Christian faith." Craig Keener, professor of New Testament, Eastern Seminary "Michael Brown's thinking is incisive and to the point. His ability to explain so that anyone can understand is amazing." Moishe Rosen, founder, Jews for Jesus
Raised in a traditional Jewish family, international television
host Jonathan Bernis was taught from a young age that "Jews
don't--and can't --believe in Jesus." Yet in his study of the
Bible, including the Torah, he found overwhelming evidence that
Jesus of Nazareth really was the Jewish Messiah.
The follow-up to the author's highly successful The Things He Carried, this book takes the post-resurrection sayings of Jesus as starting-points and uses the same reflection format. The meaning and significance of the resurrection, how it was first communicated and how it is communicated to us today, are explored by piecing together these sayings of Jesus. However, the content may not quite be what we imagine. Following the resurrection, we would expect the triumphant 'I have risen from the dead'. Yet Jesus' statements are so different, so apparently innocuous, that they are often overlooked. The Christian faith stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus; without it, says St Paul, we are to be most pitied. In this revelatory book of surprising reflections, Stephen Cottrell's retelling of the Easter story encourages us to slow down and hear it properly - perhaps for the very first time.
For a generation after his death his surviving associates preserved good traditions about the message of Jesus. Then disaster struck: it began to be believed that he was risen, exalted to heaven, and soon to return to establish his kingdom on earth. A cult of Jesus' person and fictitious lives of him quickly followed, and the surviving traditions of his actual teaching became totally blurred - as they still are.Since then, nobody has ventured to assess Jesus seriously, as a thinker. But today, as the supernatural beliefs fade, and better reconstructions of his teaching have become available, Don Cupitt thinks we can at least question Jesus from the standpoint of philosophy. Just how original and important is he? What is the status of his ideas: was he a religious figure at all, and why did he arouse such fierce antagonism? The Jesus who emerges from this enquiry is an astonishing figure, and much bigger than the insipid Christ of popular faith. Don Cupitt is a philosopher of religion and the author of over 40 books. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
'And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen?'- William Blake. The many traditions and legends of Jesus' travels to Britain are deeply impressed into our culture, thanks particularly to the famous allusion by William Blake. These tales tell that, while still a boy, Jesus accompanied his uncle Joseph of Arimathea - an importer of metals - on expeditions to Cornwall to engage in the tin trade. Later, it is said, Jesus made additional trips in which he visited the location of the Druid's school of learning, Glastonbury.These are charming and romantic stories, but do they have any historical foundation. Using the work of fellow researchers as his starting point, Glyn Lewis studies the locations that Jesus is said to have visited - from Cornwall to Somerset - and produces some striking evidence, presented here in combination with his own fine photography and some useful maps. Lewis' original research is combined with broad and insightful analysis of the exisiting material, making a convincing case for Jesus indeed having walked 'upon England's mountains green'.
In this new presentation of the Gospels, Terry Eagleton makes a powerful and provocative argument for Jesus Christ as a social, political and moral radical, a friend of anti-imperialists, outcasts and marginals, a champion of the poor, the sick and immigrants, and as an opponent of the rich, religious hierarchs, and hypocrites everywhere--in other words, as a figure akin to revolutionaries like Robespierre, Marx, and Che Guevara.
Christ's seven last words from the cross have long been a source of reflection, challenge, and soul-searching. These simple statements contain the full range of human emotions and divine self-revelation: grief, compassion, despair, forgiveness, physical need, the promise of redemption. In many ways they embody the core of the gospel. In this brief book one of today's most noted church persons and preachers confronts the reader with the seven last word's claim on her or his life. Written with the clarity, depth, and insight that are Will Willimon's trademark, this book offers afresh the challenge and grace of the message of the Crucified One.
This dynamic, challenging, and transforming vision of Christian theology, presented in a systematic manner, invites readers to approach the mystery of Christ in the same way that the first disciples of Jesus Christ learned theology. Although the disciples had denied and abandoned the Crucified One, they came to realize, through the reading of Scriptures and the breaking of bread, that Jesus had given himself up for the life of the world, transforming death into life, darkness into light, and flesh into word. Beginning with the Passion narratives, Fr Behr examines how we search the scriptures to encounter Christ and thereby realize that we were created for this encounter, thus opening a profound perspective on creation, the fall, sin, and salvation history. He further explains how Christ is born in those who are born again in the Church, their "Virgin Mother," so that they become truly human, after the stature of Christ, and continue the incarnation of the Word by glorifying God in their bodies.
Jesus: a first-century Jew from Galilee, a small and remote province of the Roman Empire. No other person has had such a profound and far-reaching influence on world history. But what, historically, can we know about him? And what are we to make of the kaleidoscope of beliefs and images that people have since built up around him? Those are the two essential questions investigated by J. L. Houlden in this absorbing account of the key historical, theological and cultural issues surrounding the enigmatic figure of Jesus. Written primarily for the enquiring lay person, this is a book that will engage the interest of believer and non-believer alike. It will also provide a clear and concise introduction fr anyone studying the origins and evolution of Christianity as a major world religion.
Stephen Oliver highlights four texts that provide the necessary basics for those beginning the journey of discipleship: Jesus' Summary of the Law, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed and the Beatitudes. The importance of these 'guiding stars' as a resource for individuals, for local churches and for chaplains serving many different communities has been highlighted by the recent dramatic rise in the number of courses introducing Christianity to a wider world. But these texts are not only helpful to the newly converted, for discipleship and is a process, not a single event. They continue to give shape content and direction to what we learn and how we grow. They help us to think carefully about what we believe and to pray deeply about the meaning and practice of the Christian faith. As such, these guiding stars are eternal and invaluable aids towards enriching our relationship with God.
One of the most precious relics of the Catholic Church, the Shroud of Turin, is still believed by many to be the cloth that covered Jesus Christ in the tomb. When displayed to the public, the shroud becomes an international tourist attraction with interest heightening it to an eighth Wonder of the World. Yet scientists, led by famed microanaylist Dr. Walter McCrone, have proved the shroud to be a fake, a medieval painting that can be easily duplicated today using the simplest of materials. The painstaking investigation that led McCrone to this historic discovery is recounted here in Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin, one of only two books to scientifically, and fully, discount the shroud story. Upon close examination, even leading members of the Catholic Church had to agree with McCrone's findings, which gained international attention when featured on the A&E Television Network. Told in fascinating detail, with all the intrigue of a good mystery novel, McCrone's memoir is a lasting contribution to shroud study, one that occupied more than twenty years of the author's life.
Marvin Meyer is one of the leading experts on the secret gospels Gospel of Thomas, Secret Gospel of Mark, and others who has changed forever how we read the canonical gospels and understand early Christianity. In this new collection of his work, Meyer looks at these revolutionary texts in original and illuminating ways. He writes, for example, about the naked youths in the villa of the Mysteries. On the walls of a villa in Pompeii, a famous mural depicts a naked male reading from a scroll, a look of wonder on his face. A naked youth again appears in the Gospel of Mark, abandoning his garment and fleeing naked when apprehended during Jesus' arrest. A similar youth appears in the Secret Gospel of Mark. These youths, Meyer proposes, serve as an image of religious initiation, candidates for the mysteries of Dionysus or of Christ. This is one of the many aspects of the secret gospels that Meyer examines with expert insight and creativity. Topics range from gender and infancy stories to discipleship and the relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to Islamic literature. Meyer's spellbinding readings of these materials offer fresh understandings of the canonical gospels. Marvin Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, California. He is author of The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels and The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, and co-editor of Jesus Then and Now (Trinity Press International).
This illuminating exploration of how and why Christianity became so radically disconnected from the Jesus of history provides suggestions for returning the true Jesus of Nazareth to the center of Christian faith.>
After 2000 years, much activity still surrounds the person of Jesus. Scholars, film makers, novelists, artists, Christians, humanists, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and many others have opinions about who Jesus was, as well as on the reliability of the source documents. Writers from inside and from outside the Christian tradition express pessimism about our ability to know very much for sure about Jesus. Others argue that Jesus never existed. Others are optimistic about our ability to reconstruct Jesus' life but paint very different pictures of him. Debate surrounds which sources may be used, why Jesus died, whether he ever intended to depart from Judaism. Paul's role also emerges as controversial. Some turn to alternative documents, or interpretive tools, to decipher the texts. A celibate Jesus, a married Jesus, a rebel Jesus, a Gnostic Jesus, a failed Jesus, a black Jesus, a feminist Jesus, are amongst the many images on offer. This study, which looks at traditional and at alternative sources, traces both the quest of the historical Jesus within the Christian tradition and encounters between the Jesus story and the world beyond the Church. The author asks what agendas, assumptions, human needs do all these writers take to their studies of Jesus? The book analyzes a range of insider and outsider images of Jesus, some popular, some scholarly, some hotly debated. Writers discussed include Marcus Borg, the Dalai Lama, Abraham Geiger, the Jesus Seminar, Barbara Thiering, Vivekananda, and Tom Wright. The book should be of equal interest to students and to general readers.
In June 2000, five internationally renowned biblical scholars and one equally well known systematic theologian traveled to Israel with 60 non-academic pilgrims to share their insights on the Jesus of history and the meaning of the "historians' Jesus" for Christian faith. The result is a book that provides a succinct summary of what is currently known about Jesus and his times-his setting in Galilee, his relationship to the Qumran community, his sense of mission as an eschatological prophet and miracle worker, and, finally, the mechanics of how the memories of Jesus's words and deeds circulated among his followers and were passed on in oral performance to be enshrined eventually in the written Synoptic tradition. The book concludes with reflections by Elizabeth Johnson on the relevance of such scholarship for contemporary Christian faith. Rather than a challenge to faith, she sees it as a gift.
This book presents the explosive theory that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion, travelled across what was then known as Asia, took up residence in Kashmir, India, married, had children and lived to the ripe old age of 120 years. Thirty illustrations include original-language documents (Sanskrit, Tibetan, Persian) -- with accompanying English translations -- that clearly record the sojourn of Jesus Christ all throughout Asia/India. The book studies five branches of humanity that are involved in an intense struggle over the identity of Jesus Christ, and compares their perspectives. Those branches are: revisionist Christian scholars, traditional Christianity, Eastern religions and philosophies, the world of Islam, and atheists, agnostics and secular humanists. Also examined are the philosophical issues surrounding the subject of a post-crucifixion life of Jesus. It offers an intense and fascinating comparison between Eastern religion and philosophy on the one hand, and Western Christianity on the other. This thorough examination is perhaps as engaging, if not more so, as the actual documents that detail the travels of Jesus to Kashmir after the crucifixion.
Recent books about Jesus and early Christianity can be divided into two kinds: those that examine the life and work of the historical Jesus prior to his death and those that reconstruct events between JesusGCO death and the writings of the first Gospels. SawickiGCOs provocative book challenges the results of both kinds of research by using both archaeology and anthropology to situate Jesus clearly in his Galilean cultural context. Sawicki contests recent portraits of Jesus as a Mediterranean peasant, a Cynic sage, or the convener of a fellowship of equals. In addition, she calls into question readings of ancient Galilee that emphasize it as a society marked simply by economic stratification or by an GC honor-shameGCY sociology. Rather, she discovers the Galilean JesusGCO indigenous cultural idiom in its material structures for the negotiation of kinship, the management of labor, the distribution of commodities, and the construction of gender. SawickiGCOs book is the first to balance classical urban archaeology against the more recent archaeology of villages and of local and regional commerce. It frames current issues in Jesus research in terms that can guide both ongoing village excavations in Israel and responsible exegesis of the Gospels in church and academy. Marianne Sawicki is the author of Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices. For: Seminarians; graduate students; biblical archaeologists
What motivated Jesus to pursue the cross? What inner strength kept His feet on the path before him? Time and tradition muted the Church's knowledge of the passions that burned in Jesus' heart, but if we want to-if we dare to-we can still seek those same passions that enflamed the Son of God and changed the world forever
Within the environment of the Judaism of his day, Jesus practiced a unique understanding of purity grounded in his eschatological vision of how God was acting to gather his people. But Jesus practice was not only a matter of getting people to see God in the same way as he did. He also acted directly to put his own view of purity into effect, declaring clean what earlier had been considered unclean. This was already a concern in the ministry of John the baptizer, and it is apparent now that Jesus too was moved by the prospect of the purification of all Israel. The politics of Herod Antipas within Imperial Rome had made John s program appear seditious, and Jesus needed to be aware of this. In addition, John had conceived of God as preparing a pure people by means of immersion, but Jesus saw the people of his Galilee already pure and ready for the disclosure of a kingdom they could already celebrate. This is what caused Jesus to stop baptizing people as he had once done as John s disciple and to begin a dedicated ministry of healing based on his awareness of the Spirit within him, an awareness that emerges as a major concern of this book. A final portion of the book studies how baptism within the earliest church emerged as a celebration of the Spirit of God. "An innovative perception of how a rite of purity might be understood when set over against its manifold historical contexts: religious, sociological, historical, political, and anthropological." Scot McKnight, North Park University Bruce Chilton, New Testament and Judaic scholar, is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
The author examines the New Testament treatment of the resurrection and reviews the Habermas-Flew debate on the pros and cons of an actual physical resurrection of Jesus. Jack Kent offers his own psychological theories and explanations, and opposes the arguments of the theologians Kung, Spong and others. Much of his research is based upon the studies of modern psychiatry and its findings on hallucinations caused by bereavement, which the author relates movingly to the grief and bereavement experiences of people in various walks of life. This book aims to do much to explain the origin of the Resurrection myth.
Originally published in 1984, this extraordinary work has until now been available only in an expensive library edition. The present edition has been completely updated and redesigned, and includes an extended new introduction by Marcus Borg that relates the book's central arguments to subsequent Jesus scholarship. A foreword by N.T. Wright characterizes the book as one of the foundational works in the ""third quest"" for the historical Jesus. In the book, Marcus Borg argues that conflict between a politics of holiness and a politics of compassion, and their implications for Israel, resides at the center of Jesus' activity and teaching. He emphasizes several features that have since become central to Jesus scholarship: the importance of Jesus' inclusive meal practice, a non-apocalyptic paradigm for understanding Jesus, and Jesus as a social prophet and boundary-breaker. Marcus J. Borg is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University. He is the author of nine books, including Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, also published by Trinity Press.
This work is a presentation of the truth of Jesus Christ from the viewpoint of liberation - from Jesus's options for the poor, his confrontation with the powerful and the persecution and death this brought him. Building and expanding on his previous works, Jon Sobrino develops a Christology that shows how to meet the mystery of God, all God "Father" and call this Jesus "the Christ".
Since the beginnings of Christianity, veneration for the Virgin Mary, mother of God, has played a fundamental role in the confession of the Christian faith. This fully illustrated new book explores the history of Marian devotion and its significance today. Its perspective is that of Vatican II, and it is addressed to Orthodox. Anglicans and Protestants as well as to Roman Catholics. Companions to this volume are: How to Read the Old Testament, How to Read the New Testament, How to Read Church History Vols 1 & 2, How to Read the World: Creation in Evolution, How to Understand Marriage, How to Understand the Creed, How to Understand the Liturgy, How to Understand Islam, How to Understand God, How to Understand the Sacraments, How to Read the Church Fathers, How to Read the Apocalypse. In preparation: How to Understand the Eucharist, How to Read the Prophets. Jacques Bur was a theological expert at Vatican II; he has taught in many seminaries and universities and now works in Papeete, New Guinea. The cover shows Titian's Assumption (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frani, Venice)
How did the controversy between Jesus and the scribal elite begin? We know that it ended on a cross, but what put Jesus on the radar of established religious and political leaders in the first place? Chris Keith argues that an answer to these questions must go beyond typical explanations such as Jesus's alternative views on Torah or his miracle working and consider his status as a teacher. Keith examines Jesus' own likely educational background, and situates Jesus within his first-century context, showing readers that some of the tensions between Jesus and the scribal authorities may have originated in Jesus' own lack of formal education. Keith builds on his earlier work on Jesus' literacy and uses insights from memory theory and ancient media studies to consider how Jesus' actions and teachings may have specifically been seen to challenge an elitist scribal culture. |
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