Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God

by Jack Miles

Book Overview

With the same passionate scholarship and analytical audacity he brought to the character of God, Jack Miles now approaches the literary and theological enigma of Jesus. In so doing, he tells the story... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375400141
• ISBN13: 9780375400148
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Saint Jack's Passion: the Gospels as literature

By Miles' own admission, his approach is strictly literary and he has even coined the term "theography" to more properly describe his approach. Miles attempted in his first book to view the character of God in the Tanakh (the Jewish version of the Old Testament, which is in a different order than in the Bible that Christians use) as one would view a character in any literary work. God goes through doubt, conflict, remorse, even depression in Miles' reading of the Jewish scriptures, ending in an uneasy peace and a centuries-long silence. It is almost as if God is trying to figure out what the hell he's going to do next.In the "sequel," Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God, God breaks his silence. God had promised his chosen nation, Israel, that he would return them to their homeland out of exile and demolish their enemies with glorious military victory. This was the currency of the day for gods, and Jehovah was not one to be one-upped. However, the crisis in the title deals with the fact that God does not keep his promise. Being the creator of the universe, one does not suspect that he can not keep it, so the only other option is that he chooses not to. Indeed, a Nazi-equivalent holocaust will soon strike his people and his nation. God not only will go back on his promise--he will do so in spades. But why? The answer to this question is to be found in reading the whole book, and a synopsis cannot do it justice, but in a phrase: he has thought of a better way.God comes to earth, in the form of a baby, turning his sublime Self into the ridiculous humiliation of an infant being born with all that blood and pain, entering the world to the smell of manger droppings -- the Lord of Hosts, completely dependent on the world just to stay alive. And it is just that dependence that is the point God (and Miles) is trying to make. God doesn't just want to kick military butt for his people, he wants to win a greater victory--he wants to conquer Satan, which means he wants to conquer pain, sorrow, shame and, ultimately, death itself. God wants to identify with his people by becoming a person. And not only that, he wants to suffer the most horrific, humiliating death imaginable so that he can relate to all of his children, not just Israel.Miles does Christians an immense favor by starting his book with the reminder that the Crucifixion is supposed to be one of the most disgusting scenes imaginable. While it has been sanitized in most popular religious artwork (even to the point of calling the day we commemorate it "Good" Friday), the truth of the matter is that God is butchered like a lamb who, unlike a lamb, walks into his death with full knowledge of what is happening to him. The French subtitle of the work is "The Suicide of the Son of God" drawing attention to what some recent French theologians in an Appendix call Suicide Theology. The purpose again is to shock, not for the sake of shocking, but to re-create what the disciples must have been going through to s

Literary criticism of the Bible at its best!

Jack Miles, author of the Pulitzer Prize - winning *God -a Biogaphy* has written an excellent literary analysis of Christ in the New Testament. What is the "crisis" referred to in the title? The crisis is that God has not delivered his Chosen People from 500 years of oppression. How does God solve this problem? Answer: God/Christ commits sacred suicide. This is Miles' provocative conclusion from his stirictly literary analysis the Christian Bible. How does Miles arrive at the conclusion? You, dear reader, should read the book in order to appreciate how he develops his plot and arrives at his conclusion. And believe me, there is a plot!A caution is in order. Miles writes and studies Christ from a strictly literary point of view. He is not interested in the historical Jesus. If one reads this only to learn about the fundamentalist Jesus, the traditional Christian Jesus, or the historical Jesus, then this book will not satisfy! If on the other hand, you want to experience a great Biblical reading adventure, then buy and read this book!I also would recommend that a reader, who is unfamiliar with literary critism and postmodernism, study and read Miles' appendices. "Appendix I" deals with the biblical canon and "Appendix II" deals with the history of critcal analysis of the Bible (e.g. historical criticism, canonical criticism, literary critcism)and how to appreciate the Bible as art. I did not always agree with the author, but I enjoyed how he told the story of Christ. As a postmodern Christian, I will not privilege my reading over his.Have fun reading *Christ: a Crisis in the Life of God*!

Another Pulitzer??

Pulitzer prize winning author Jack Miles, who wrote "God: A Biography", has finished in this work what he started in the other: a biographical analysis of God that developes both his character and characteristics throughout the writings of the old and new testaments. Written from a literary critic's perspective, Miles makes its clear from the beginning that his is not a historical or theological exegesis---something some reviewers have been in error to have expected. As such, Miles freely allows his character to to go where the literature of the bible takes him and to evolve plotwise from expectant creator, to general and ogre, to finally a loving father..The outstanding contribution of Mile's book is the way it traces God's role from Israel's defender, to Israel's punisher, to finally the impotent (in this world) suffering servant who crucifies himself just before the entire country is about to be crucified along with him in the 70 AD and 135 AD rebellions against Rome. One can clearly see the changing motifs of the biblical writers as promise after promise in the bible fails to materialize and they are forced to literarily justify these failings in order to protect the integrity of their god. In the end, God's power is shifted to the next world and away from this one, in much the same way that Paul's theology shifted the second coming from this world to the next when it became obvious that it wasnt going to happen within his lifetime (read 1st Cor, 7:29). Miles, true to his committment to not render historical or theological conclusions, never explicitly says this, but it is obvious to anyone carefully reading the text.I highly recommend this book for the reasons stated above, and would add that works such as Mile's go far towards the prospect of clarifying humanity's relationship with what Freud called the "hysteria" that humans feel when they, unlike any other animal on the planet (to our present knowledge), comprehend that their own life has an end..

Well-written heresy

Miles' book attempts to interpret the Gospels through formal literary criticism. Rather than attaching historical study to the Gospels' message, Miles treats Jesus and his message purely through the text, and comes to a startling conclusion -- that Jesus' death was necessary because God failed to deliver on God's promise to the Israelites, and needed a way to triumph on a metaphysical level.Whether or not one agrees with Miles' premise, he writes brilliantly and understandably. Recent Biblical scholarship gets bogged down in dry-as-dust unintelligible "academicese." Miles understands the principles of clear and succint writing while still advancing complicated theories. I recommend this one for anyone seeking to stretch their understanding of what we have received as Scripture, as well as those interested in literature and how it relates to the Bible. Like him or not, read Miles to get your brain working.