Jesus Books - Page 14

Jesus As a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee

Mark Allan Powell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

a clear explanation of a difficult and complex subject 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 28 people found this review helpful.

Dr. Powell is head of the Historical Jesus section of the SBL. He not only is a New Testament scholar in his own right, he is also a respected colleague and friend of the Jesus Scholars he discusses. He not only has read their works, but he understands their positions from the inside.

In my experience, the study of the Historical Jesus is sometimes characterized by rhetoric, special pleading, and an unfruitful "us" vs. "them" attitude. While Powell is forthright about his own views when this is appropriate, he comes across as
surprisingly objective as he discusses the pros and cons of each position. This is aided by the fact that the Jesus scholars often disagree with each other - so he can just say "Wright would take issue with that", or "Crossan responds to this view
in this way."

Powell's writing style is refreshingly informal at times, and he obviously strives for clarity over the "scholar-speak" so often encountered. At the same time, he is obviously familiar with the technical concepts and not only throws the jargon around
but often explains it.

The book shows unusual restraint - Powell gives the reader room to formulate his/her own conclusions, while providing insight into both the issues and the scholars themselves.

I understand that this book is used in college courses as an introduction to the subject, and I can see why.

_Jesus As a Figure in History_ is a rare contribution: a clear explanation of a difficult and complex subject. I give it a 5.

Editorial Review:

Essential reading for anyone interested in the historical Jesus debate, this volume offers a comprehensive and balanced account of research into the person of Jesus.

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

John Piper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Wonderful book for devotions or group study 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die has almost that many reasons why you should read it. This multi-purpose book grabs your attention from the moment you open it. Quoting from Isaiah 53, John Piper dedicates this book to Jesus Christ. Immediately demanding thought with an introduction that knocks you off your balance and sets you into God's balances, Piper opens his subject by looking at Christ and at Christians' sin, including an apology for the heinous way many Christians have acted through the centuries. His aim is to answer "the most crucial question...Why did Jesus come to die? Not why in the sense of cause, but why in the sense of purpose...What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?" (17)

Each of the fifty reasons covers only 2 or 3 pages. But each of those reasons and their Scripture proofs are guaranteed to make a Christian sweat, apologize, marvel, and pray. You will find familiar and not so familiar reasons herein. Just a few include: To Absorb the Wrath of God; For the Forgiveness of Our Sins; To Bring Us to Faith and Keep Us Faithful; To Heal Us from Moral and Physical Sickness; To Free Us from Slavery; To Give Marriage Its Deepest Meaning; To Free Us from the Fear of Death; To Disarm Rulers and Authorities; To Destroy the Hostility Between Races; and To Show That the Worst Evil Is Meant by God for Good.

Closing materials include a valuable bibliography of books about the historical reliability of the Bible. Prolific Christian author, Piper has poured his heart into this book, using his winsome, straightforward style to once again turn a spotlight on his Lord. Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die is a wonderful book for private devotions, but its uses don't stop there. Among other things it is also a good reference for group study, homilies, and sermons; a fine source for family discussions; a wonderful gift; and a witnessing tool. This is a book I'll keep on my reading stand, to go back to, argue with, and allow it lead me into worship and prayer. - Donna Eggett, Christian Book Previews.com

Editorial Review:

The central issue of Jesus death is not the cause, but the meaning God 's meaning. That is what this book is about. John Piper has gathered from the New Testament fifty reasons. Not fifty causes, but fifty purposes in answer to the most important question that each of us must face: What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament

Bart D. Ehrman

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The victors not only write the history, they also reproduce the texts. In a study that explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, Ehrman examines how early struggles between Christian "heresy" and "orthodoxy" affected the transmission of the documents over which, in part, the debates were waged. His thesis is that proto-orthodox scribes of the second and third centuries occasionally altered their sacred texts for polemical reasons--for example, to oppose adoptionists like the Ebionites, who claimed that Christ was a man but not God, or docetists like Marcion, who claimed that he was God but not a man, or Gnostics like the Ptolemaeans, who claimed that he was two beings, one divine and one human. Ehrman's thorough and incisive analysis makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the social and intellectual history of early Christianity and raises intriguing questions about the relationship of readers to their texts, especially in an age when scribes could transform the documents they reproduced to make them say what they were already thought to mean, effecting thereby the orthodox corruption of Scripture.

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

Bart D. Ehrman

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Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

C.S. Lewis once noted that nowhere do the Gospels say, "Jesus laughed." He's probably laughing now, if he's got access to Bart Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. The title doesn't even hint at the yuks that Ehrman's prose delivers, but from its very first page, Jesus will tickle your funny bone and stimulate your brain. "At last count," Ehrman begins, "there were something like 8 zillion books written about Jesus .... It's not there aren't enough books about Jesus out there. It's that there aren't enough of the right kind of book. Very, very few, in fact. I'd say about one and a half."

The right kind of book, according to Ehrman, is one that portrays Jesus roughly as Albert Schweitzer did, as a first-century Jewish apocalypticist: "This is a shorthand way of saying that Jesus fully expected that the history of the world as we know it (well, as he knew it) was going to come to a screeching halt, that God was soon going to intervene in the affairs of this world, overthrow the forces of evil in a cosmic act of judgment, destroy huge masses of humanity, and abolish existing human political and religious institutions. All this would be a prelude to the arrival of a new order on earth, the Kingdom of God." Ehrman's is a historical-Jesus book, a very smart, humble, and humorous popular summary of Christian and secular evidence of Jesus' life, work, and legacy. He believes that apocalypticism is the true core of Jesus' message, and that comfortable middle-class complacency among scholars, clergy, and laypeople has forged a counterfeit, domesticated, "ethical" Jesus to cover up their befuddlement about his misprediction of the apocalypse. The book will frustrate many readers because it offers no real guidance regarding what one should do with Jesus' apocalypticism. Its project--to prove that Jesus was wrong about the apocalypse--may even appear destructive to some. Yet the argument is convincing enough to induce among careful readers a constructive experience of confusion. Jesus makes readers ask the very question it appears to ignore, in a newly humble way: how, then, should we live? A serious matter, but considering humanity's endless string of wrong answers and infinite capacity for self-delusion, worthy of some good belly laughs, as well. --Michael Joseph Gross

The Words and Works of Jesus Christ: A Study of the Life of Christ

J. Dwight Pentecost, John Danilson

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Solid Work, Poorly Written 3 out of 5 stars.
8 of 13 people found this review helpful.

Pentecost is a true scholar and a good, Bible-believing teacher of the Word. This volume is theologically dependable. He is Premillennial, dispensational, and a good interpreter by my standards.

On the negative side, it is horribly written with constant and relentless quoting of 19th century scholars. Because of this, it contains the horrid and ambiguous Victorian era verbiage (how those people loved to make the simple complicated!) and plagued by the small font of lenghty quotations. He is constantly quoting Edersheim or Geikie. I already have Edersheim and Geikie. I was hoping Pentecost would deliver me from the Victorian era and present a freshly written work in a latter 20th Century straight-forward American style.

As a result, I use this volume only as a last resort.

Editorial Review:

Traces the events of Jesus' life from his birth to his ascension. Frequently cites the best of other works written about Christ. Contains an expanded outline of the life of Christ, historical and geographical background material, indexes, and studies.

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

John Piper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Jesus is Awesome!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

After reading this book I fell in love with Jesus all over again! I was going through a rather discouraging time of my life when I read it, and was letting satan's lies get the best of me, but God used the truths in this book to encourage and strengthen me. The book is not very long, and contains 13 short little chapters, each one focusing on a different aspect of the character of Christ. Jesus is so awesome! He's the Lion and the Lamb, the express radiance of the glory of God, and in fact God himself. Yet despite His position He gave it all up and suffered through shame and reproach and inexpressible anguish on this earth because of our sin. Jesus knows when to be tough and when to be compassionate, and He always has our best interest in mind. He is the source of invincible life and there's nothing that can keep in in the grave! And some day He's going to come back in all of His glory, and faith will be swallowed up by sight. John Piper states all of these truths and many more in such a clear, concise way. This book contains so much scripture, it could almost come straight from the Bible. Each chapter ends with a powerful prayer that really makes you think. This is one book I can wholeheartedly recommend for ANYONE, saved or unsaved, and it ends with a clear gospel presentation. "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ" is definitely my favorite Piper book because it gets beyond all the theological talk and the reasoning and the mumbo jumbo, and you're only left with Jesus, and He is the only thing that matters anyways. His lifechanging power is displayed on every single page of this book. Order two copies, one for yourself and one to give away. And reread it often as a short devotional, it always reminds me of how much Jesus has done for me and how awesome he is, and I go about my day rejoicing!

Editorial Review:

John Piper has written this book in the hope that all will see Jesus for who he really is and will come to enjoy him above all else.

Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times

Paul Barnett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The pathway to understanding the New Testament leads through the vibrant landscape of the first-century Greco-Roman world. The New Testament is rooted in the concrete historical events of that world.In Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity Paul Barnett not only places the New Testament within that world of caesars and Herods, proconsuls and Pharisees, Sadducees and revolutionaries, but argues that the mainspring and driving force of early Christian history is the historical Jesus. We cannot understand the rise of Christianity apart from this Jesus, the messiah of Israel and the spiritual and intellectual impact he had on his immediate followers and those who succeeded them.From his intimate acquaintance with the sources, the evidence and the problems of New Testament history, Barnett offers fresh insights. His telling of the story skillfully avoids the encumbrance of extraneous details and side journeys. From the brith of Jesus to the founding of the messianic community, from the rise of Paul's mission to the Gentiles to the writing of the Gospels, Barnett offers a comprehensive account of the movement that would change the face of world history.Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity is a comprehensive survey of New Testament history that will meet the needs of students and teachers of the New Testament. In its engagment with contemporary scholarship and its emphasis on the propelling role of the historical and risen Jesus in the rise of Christianity, it provides a timely rejoinder to current revisionist exploration of Christian origins.

Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods

Darrell L., Bock

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Interest in the historical Jesus continues to occupy much of today¹s discussion of the Bible. The vexing question is how the Jesus presented in the Gospels relates to the Jesus that actually walked this earth.

Studying the Historical Jesus is an introductory guide to how one might go about answering that question by doing historical inquiry into the material found in the Gospels. Darrell Bock introduces the sources of our knowledge about Jesus, both biblical and extra-biblical. He then surveys the history and culture of the world of Jesus. The final chapters introduce some of the methods used to study the Gospels, including historical, redaction, and narrative criticisms.

Bock, a well respected author, provides an informed evangelical alternative to radical projects like the Jesus Seminar. His audience, however, is not limited only to evangelicals. This book, written for college and seminary courses, offers an informed scholarly approach that takes the Gospels seriously as a source of historical information.

Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?

Robert M. Price

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What do the Gospels really reveal about the historical Jesus?

Scholars have dissected the Gospels and other stories about Jesus for more than a century, attempting to determine their historical accuracy. Many experts today believe that the writings of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John cannot be taken as revelatory. A group of more than 100 scholars called the Jesus Seminar concluded that only about 18 percent of the Gospels is historically correct.

Believing his Jesus Seminar colleagues "too critical," Robert M. Price presents THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF MAN, a balanced yet radically pessimistic new assessment of gospel historicity. While indebted to two centuries of scholarship, Price's latest book charts new territory, illustrating the virtual lack of historical information in the New Testament's Jesus stories. After an excellent introduction to the historical-critical method in language tailored to nonspecialists, Price analyzes sections of the Gospels, separating fact from fiction in all episodes of Jesus' life. Price examines both familiar parables and Jesus' teachings for authenticity, carefully studying miracle stories and drawing surprising conclusions. In addition, Price critically explores whether Jesus preached his Messiahship or predicted his own death as a means to save souls.

Written for a general audience in a refreshing and accessible style, Price's highly informative discussion will interest anyone who has wondered about the origins of Christianity.

American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon

Stephen Prothero

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Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jesus the Black Messiah; Jesus the Jew; Jesus the Hindu sage; Jesus the Haight-Asbury hippie: these Jesuses join the traditional figure of Jesus Christ in American Jesus, which was acclaimed upon publication in hardcover as an altogether fresh exploration of American history--and as the liveliest book about Jesus to appear in English in years.

Our nation's changing images of Jesus, Stephen Prothero contends, are a kind of looking class into the national character. Even as most Christian believers cleave to a traditional faith, other people give Jesus a leading role as folk hero, pitchman, and countercultural icon. And so it has been since the nation's founding--from Thomas Jefferson, who took scissors to his New Testament to sort out true from false Jesus material; to the Jews, Buddhists and Muslims who fit Jesus into their own traditions; to the people who adapt Jesus for stage and screen and the Holy Land theme park. American Jesus is "a lively, illuminating and accessible survey that takes us into unexpected corners of our shared religious heritage" (Dan Cryer, Newsday).