Jesus of Nazareth
by Pope Benedict XVI
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Book Reviews of Jesus of Nazareth
Book Review: A MAJOR THEOLOGICAL EVENT: "JESUS OF NAZARETH" BY THE POPE.
Summary: 5 Stars
Five INSPIRATIONAL Stars! Pope Benedict XVI has brought decades of scholarly examinations of and meditations on Jesus Christ to fruition with this incredible book. Under his pen, the Catholic faith opens like a flower which can be clearly understood by any Christian. This book is not written from the standpoint of 'Papal Infallibility' or in concert with "the magisterium", but is "an expression of my personal search for the face of the Lord", says the Pope.
This is volume one, with the Pope giving a detailed examination of the periods from the Baptism of the Lord to Peter's confession of faith and the Transfiguration: His public ministry. At last, we have Jesus Christ as the Pope sees Him and explains Him to us! What a wonderful gift to the world from the new Pontiff ! And you may encounter some fascinating insights and lower order revelations herein that you may never have heard before. This book shows the pontiff not as someone closed off in his own world as sometimes rumored, but a person who is scripturally grounded, widely-read, intellectually astute and agile. He quotes the Bible continuously, uses tradition, as well as other theological sources and authors. Working with both the historical Jesus, as well as the biblical Jesus, the Pope informs us that we can't have one viewpoint of Jesus without the other and the historical Jesus is very crucial to the faith, actually underpining our faith. Without the historical viewpoint, he says, the faith would become something other than what we have.
The Pope's initial consideration of the figure of Jesus begins with a discussion of Moses and the limitations of his very close relationship with God. Then he gets right to the main point: Jesus as the Son "lives before the face of God" and "in the most intimate unity with the Father". And, Benedict says, we who walk with Jesus are in communion with God the Father because of it. That is the capstone of everything a believer needs as a jumping off point to becoming a believer of Christ. The rest, from the genealogical breakdown of the "three groups of fourteen generations", the true meaning and place of Israel for the rest of us believers, the emergence of the Trinitarian God, 'refuting' the Baptism event as an "evocational experience" where Jesus suddenly realizes who He is, the true meaning of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, why He was tempted, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, the Synoptic Gospels and John's Gospel, are all beautifully examined and explained. And it does not end as a book drawing summary conclusions, but as a volume, with more to come. This is an essential book for all Catholics and a great resource for all who believe in Jesus. It's a wonderful read by a man who was the Church's leading theologian before he became Pope. My Highest Recommendation! Five EXCELLENT Stars!!
(This review is based on an unabridged digital download in secure eReader format. Save a tree, download your books.)
Book Review: The New Humanity
Summary: 4 Stars
In the forward to "Jesus of Nazareth", Pope Benedict writes: "The book is intended to help believing Christians `who today have been made insecure by scientific research and critical discussion...'". So this book was written for me. For over forty years I've been struggling.
In the second paragraph of the forward, Benedict states very simply and very clearly the problem posed for Christianity by modern scholarship. He writes: "The gap between the 'historical Jesus' and the "Christ of faith' grew wider and the two visibly fell apart. But what can faith in Jesus as the Christ possibly mean, in Jesus as the Son of the living God, if the man Jesus was so completely different from the picture that the Evangelists pointed of him and that the Church, on the evidence of the Gospels, takes as the basis of her preaching?"
Many modern scholar make a very sharp distinction between the man Jesus--the Jesus of history- -and the Jesus of faith. For many of them Jesus in the New Testament is mostly a fabrication by his early followers. The task they set for themselves as scholars was to discover the Jesus of History, whom they assumed to be the real Jesus. These scholars, with their critical examination of the New Testament and other early documents, raised many questions. Their conclusion were highly speculative.
In this book, Benedict faces the problem directly. He writes: "This is the point at issue. Was Jesus in reality a liberal rabbi--a forerunner of Christian liberalism? Is the Christ of faith, and therefore the whole faith of the Church, just one big mistake?" (p. 107) Benedict answers these questions by strongly affirming that the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith are the same. He asserts: "The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of the Synoptics is one and the same: the true `historical' Jesus." (p. 111). He strongly insists that the historical Jesus is always at the center of the Gospels. His arguments are convincing.
Upon my first reading, I was disappointed in this book. I felt that Benedict showed me a Jesus who was a theological abstraction. But then, with further study and reflection, I was won over. Benedict showed me the face of the Jesus of history that was really inseparable from the Jesus of faith. He showed me a human being, Jesus, who was personally aware of a mysterious identification between himself--between his humanity--and the Great Mystery. He concludes by speaking of Jesus as a vision of the "new humanity" that comes from God.
Benedict's words would have meant more to me if he were not Pope. His conclusions make sense to me but, because of his position, I'm not sure of his impartiality. As Pope he is the "defender of the faith." But in this book he is inviting dialogue. Let's see how the scholars respond.
Book Review: Emanuel - God with us
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book with great expectation and a little trepidation.
It is a good book and a good translation. I wondered how much the translation reflects the understanding of the author.
This book is not for recreational reading because it can be deeply theological in its way, althought many parts became recreational as I went along. I got a particular satisfaction from his teasing out how Bread and Wine have a particular relevance for human life and that the presence of God exists therein as it does in all other matter. It is wise to have a Bible handy although the notes and glossary are quite extensive.
The author clearly has a really deep understanding of Jesus and I suspect he has the little flame that he wrote about elsewhere when he said (and I paraphrase from memory) 'when you come in contact with Jesus you will burn, not with a destructive burning but that contact can light a little flame in you'. He says the the historical Jesus is most important to us otherwise we are left with an insipid, vapid figure like an unreachable icon. The Jesus he depicts walks and talks and lives with us.
His explanation of Christianity as not being a religion of the last days (Escatology) but a faith in the presence of Jesus (Yaweh) in our lives and how that faith brings salvation. He follows up this with the analysis of the Lord's Prayer.. 'Thy Kingdom come' really means that the kingdom or the presence of (God) Jesus should come to each one of us now in the present time. It is not a looking forward to a worldly kingdom that some people thought should be established on earth later.
The section on the sermon on the mount is extensive and leaves one with food for thought and a new look at what Jesus was saying. His Biblical scholarship is outstanding and he is willing to look at the scriptures in the light of all the new thought that is available from recent scholarship. The scriptures should be taken as a whole and New Testament and Old merge into a great round plan and message for our salvation. He says we can experience this by reading and re-reading.
He expands the Gospels and how they relate to each other and in what way the Gospel of John difers from the others. He even tackles the difficult topic of the authorship of John's Gospel.
The last section on the Transfiguration is more dificult and I will have to read it again. He spends a lot of time proving the primacy of Peter and the establishment of the Church.
As the Pope says that anyone is at liberty to disagree with him, so Im sure people may disagree with me and everyone id welcome to do just that.
Book Review: An Excellent First Volume in Christology
Summary: 5 Stars
This text encompasses much of the thought of Pope Benedict XVI and serves as an excellent text for the study of this brilliant theologian. The book is not an exhaustive consideration of all historical or theological considerations about the character of Christ, his person and message. Instead, the Pope means to highlight the points of unity in the message of Christ and how that relates to humanity's response to the visible face of God. Much of the work is visibly influenced by the writer's former experiences of both Nazi Germany as well as Marxism in Europe. Throughout each section, one may be tempted to assert that Pope Benedict has little care for any social interpretation of the Gospel. It doesn't take much to realize that the hopes of singularly-human establishment of a perfect order played its devastating visage out in his life enough to prove to him the need to view the Gospel as an encounter of God in visible form and not as a call to human social action.
Nonetheless, the text's combined method of theological discourse as well as scriptural exegesis bridges this fact, which often has given many people difficulty with the works of Pope Benedict (and in his days as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger). Through each "practical" section on subjects like the parables, the Lord's Prayer, and the beatitudes, Pope Benedict creates a singular whole between Christ's message and his person. This is of course not the complete end of the story, leaving the Gospel as a remote past, or an individual experience. Although only briefly hinted throughout this text, the Pope's thought has always extended the experience of Christ to the encounter of the faith community of the Church.
This little gem is, like all of the works of this brilliant theologian, a veritable call to understand the true nature of Christianity. For Benedict true religion, by its very nature, must transcend the boundaries of political action and progress. If anything, all action is secondary to an encounter with the Truth. This text furthers that dialogue, realizing that the true message of the Gospel is the encounter of Truth in the person of Christ. It reorients the question of "following the Gospel" from the often-held framework of "following the precepts of Christ" to the more true framework of "becoming more like (and united to) Christ."
Book Review: A Reasoned and Prayerful Reflection
Summary: 5 Stars
JESUS OF NAZARETH is the first book written by Pope Benedict XVI since he assumed the title. It is not a historical or biographical work, but rather a theological reflection on who Jesus was and is: his teachings, ministry and essence as the Son of God, whose paschal sacrifice won for us our redemption. It is the first of several planned books and is both clearly and eloquently written.
Beginning with an initial reflection on the Mystery of Jesus, Pope Benedict reflects upon different aspects of Jesus in each chapter:
1) The Baptism of Jesus
2) The Temptation of Jesus
3) The Gospel of the Kingdom of God
4) The Sermon on the Mount
5) The Lord's Prayer
6) The Disciples
7) The Message of the Parables
8) The Principal Images of John's Gospel
9) Two Milestones in Jesus' Way: Peter's Confession and the Transfiguration
10) Jesus Declares His Identity
All of the reflections, which stand alone and can be read thematically or sequentially, are well done. The two chapters that I found to be exceptional were those on "The Disciples" and "The Message of the Parables." One caveat: While the book is beautifully written, it is best not to read it in short bits; rather one should devote time in a quiet space for proper reflection upon at least one chapter in its entirety.
With respect to other reviews, it appears that there are those who are reviewing the "man" rather than the book itself. As head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict is unwavering in his assertion that the Catholic Church represents the fullness of Christianity - this is clear from his other writings and proclamations. While that should be expected, it is also important to note that Benedict has been, and continues to be, an ardent advocate for religious freedom. These two concepts are not incompatible. Still others argue that he is not using the John Dominic Crossan model as shown in "The Historical Jesus . . ." (in itself a fine work). This is true! The books are written for entirely different purposes.
JESUS OF NAZARETH is a fine resource for both study and reflective prayer. It is not the definitive work on Jesus: that description is reserved to the Sacred Scriptures. However, it is a marvelous brief study of the essence of Jesus.