Like its predecessors, this volume is demanding but essential reading for anyone interested in the ever-fascinating,...
The latest installment (the third of a promised four) of priest-professor Meier’s monumental inquiry into the historical Jesus of Nazareth (Volume II: Mentor, Message, and Miracles, 1994, etc.).
Meier (New Testament/Notre Dame) steps back a bit to look at Jesus’ ministry in the context of his relationship with his followers and with the groups that competed with him. As before, Meier seeks a historical reconstruction that excludes faith commitments. (He recalls here his fantasy of four historians, a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic, “locked up in the bowels of the Harvard Divinity School library . . . until they have hammered out a consensus document on Jesus of Nazareth.”) And as before, he examines the historical core of the traditions about Jesus and his milieu with objectivity, precision, sound judgment, and massive learning. Here, Meier portrays a Jesus movement with an incipient, concentric structure, from the crowds around him to the disciples called and instructed by him to the Twelve whom he sent on a symbolic mission to all Israel, and a set of distinctive practices: baptism, the Lord’s Prayer, open-table fellowship with “toll collectors and sinners.” Meier's painstaking analysis of the extant traditions about the other religious groups in first-century Palestine—Pharisees and Sadducees, Essenes and Samaritans—illuminates Jesus’ teachings on matters like the resurrection of the dead and the inclusiveness of his movement, as well as his sense of his own remarkable charismatic authority. The result is a very Jewish Jesus, a figure quite different from the Hellenized Cynic or wisdom teacher of much recent historical-Jesus speculation. Although it won't make tabloid headlines the way more fanciful books in its field sometimes do, and it may prove frustrating for those looking for theological meat among the historical bones, Meier's massive enterprise is one of the most ambitious and exciting in modern Biblical scholarship.
Like its predecessors, this volume is demanding but essential reading for anyone interested in the ever-fascinating, never-ending quest for the historical Jesus.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-46993-4
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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