Biblical scholar Vermes sets off in search of the historical
Jesus..In an attempt to interpret the New Testament within the
context of contemporary Jewish civilization, the author
systematically analyzes the Gospel of St. John, the Epistles of St.
Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, the Synoptic Gospels, and religious
trends in ancient Palestine. St. John and St. Paul, the main
masterminds of early Christian doctrine, considered Christ the
ultimate mouthpiece of God, and their accounts focus on his death
and resurrection. Christ is likewise depicted as more divine than
human in the Acts of the Apostles, and he does not really appear in
human guise until we meet him in the three Synoptic Gospels.
Written between a.d. 70 and 100, the Gospels of St. Mark, St.
Matthew, and St. Luke are the earliest canonical writings of the
Christian tradition. Composed in the form of a biographical sketch,
these Gospels address the historical character of Jesus, an
itinerant Galilean preacher deeply linked to his Jewish
surroundings. It is noteworthy that the earliest of the three - the
Gospel of St. Mark - recounts almost no miracles at all, suggesting
that the miraculous accounts of Christ's superhuman power were
introduced later to substantiate the claim of his godlike
authority. Vermes painstakingly points out the numerous
contradictions within the corpus of texts under consideration,
while also indicating that many of the described events were highly
unlikely in a country still governed by Jewish law. (For example,
an interrogation by the high priest on the eve of Passover would
have been most implausible, in view of the prohibition against
court hearings on festival days.) The author sees the New Testament
as a kind of exercise in translation, rendering an
Aramaic-speaking, Jewish-thinking Jesus into the language and
mentality of Greco-Roman culture..Although revisionist studies of
the life of Christ are as old as Renan (and not much changed since
then), this is a credible portrait all the same.. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this authoritative and thought-provoking work, Geza Vermes transforms our understanding of Jesus. Taking a fresh approach which gives an equal voice to both New Testament and non-biblical Jewish writings, he explores the differing portrayals of Jesus that have defined two millennia of Christian belief and speculation. Beginning with the most recent gospel, the Gospel of John, Vermes takes us back in time to reveal the historical figure of Jesus hidden beneath the oldest gospels, revealing how and why a charismatic Palestinian holy man was elevated into the divine figure of Christ.
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