Description: Jesus and Menachem places Jesus (Jeshua) in the
historical context of the Roman occupation of Judea Second Temple
period The fictional character of Menachem is introduced to deepen
and clarify the relationship between Jesus, the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, the Zealots, and Rome. In a1949 review in Commentary
magazine, this book is compared favorably to The Nazarene by Sholem
Asch. Menachem fights the Romans at the side of the Zealot
Ben-Necher, killing them as he murmurs "thou shalt not kill." He
loves Jesus, but does not believe in him as Jesus would have him
believe. He is not a Pharisee, and yet cannot be against the
Pharisees. When Pontius Pilate offers the Jews a choice between
Barabbas the "robber" and Jesus the "negator of God," he refuses to
choose, for Barabbas is not a robber but a Zealot, and Jesus not a
negator of God but perhaps a Messiah. Van Praag has painted
Palestine with a simplicity, containing nothing unnecessary or
barbarous, with a palpable mellowness which can be touched,
inhaled, heard on every page. Endorsements: "This is an engaging,
psycho-spiritual story of the life of Yeshua (Jesus). It is set in
the realistic and sensitive narrative of everyday life in Palestine
during late Second Temple Judaism. The dramatic quality of this
work depicts the heightened spiritual awareness of a thoroughly
Jewish Jesus, in keeping with the witness of the New Testament,
while underplaying the hysteria of rampant apocalypticism in many
of the forms of Judaism at that time, evident, for example, in the
Dead Sea Scrolls. The storyline unfolds believably and draws the
reader into page-turning identification with the main characters. .
. .Van Praag's characterization of the main figures in the story is
vivid, and one quickly gets the impression of being exposed to
truth and reality, rather than just a staged drama." --J. Harold
Ellens, author of Honest Faith for Our Time: Truth-Telling about
the Bible, the Creed, and the Church About the Contributor(s):
Siegfried Emanuel van Praag was a prolific Dutch Jewish writer of
over sixty books. The rise of Nazism considerably impacted his life
and provoked a consequent preoccupation with Jewish culture and
identity--specifically Dutch Jewish culture and the newly formed
country of Israel. Lewis C. Kaplan was a Chicago-born historian,
writer, and published translator with a gift for languages
(including Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Yiddish) and an interest
in Jewish history and biblical Israel.
General
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