A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, Vol. 1

By John P. Meier

Book Overview

In this definitive book on the real, historical Jesus, one of our foremost biblical scholars meticulously sifts the evidence of 2,000 years to portray neither a rural magician nor a figure of obvious... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385264259
• ISBN13: 9780385264259
• Release Date: November 1991
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 1.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.6" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Jesus of History, A Critical, Scholarly Examination

Why even bother trying to learn about the historical Jesus? Why try where so many others have given up or gotten bogged down in disagreement? In his great, academic book, Fr. John Meier recalls Plato: "The unexamined life is not worth living." For the Christian, some things are sacred, but nothing about Yeshu the "marginal" Jew is forbidden in a proper historical examination. And Fr. Meier does just that in this, the first of three volumes. Was Jesus an illegitimate child? Could he read? Did he have brothers and sisters? Why was he "marginal"? What was his early life like? The scarcity of the evidence can at first be discouraging, but Fr. Meier takes us through the centuries of scholarship and the best available modern evidence to paint us a picture of the young son of Mary and Joseph. Faithless and faithful alike may be unhappy with Meier's conclusions, but his arguments are well-researched and presented. You can read the text and skip the chapter endnotes for a decent academic presentation, or you can delve into the notes and branch off into the cutting edge discussion on the Jesus of history. Most interesting to me was the fact that the book bears the Imprimatur of Bp. Sheridan, but does not have the Nihil Obstat, or the approval of the Church's censor office. Normally the two go together. Fr. Meier's message may not be popular among modern Christians, Catholic or otherwise, but he's not been censured either. It's a testimony the the impeccability of his scholarship and the validity of his message: The historical Jesus is not the Jesus of faith. He is also not the "real" Jesus, irrecoverable now after 2000 years. He is simply the Jesus that we can recover from "purely historical sources and arguments."

Excellent, if you survive the Methodology

He begins what was at the time a 2 volume book (now up to 4) with a lot on Methodology, which actually helps to describe the work of the Jesus Seminar and modern christological and New Testament thought & research. Most people I know found that section A Drag.However, once he actually launches into the birth narratives and begins talking about Jesus, what happened, when, and why, it's as fascinating as a detective story, and as hard to put down.This book is for intelligent readers with open minds; those who believe God wrote the Bible and it has been handed exactly as God intended should keep looking.

excellent

This book maintains solid research and well thought out arguements, while being fun reading. Of all the modern books on the historical Jesus, this is both the most scholarly and best written. My only criticism is that which has already been mentioned: you have to read the text in the chapters and again in the endnotes (which are at least as long as the chapters) to get the full value.