Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $11.62 You Save: $14.38 (55%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.88 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Jesus of Nazareth
Book Review: An Evenhanded Pope
Summary: 4 Stars
I am not a Catholic, or even a "religious" person, but I am a philosopher with an abiding interest in ancient cultures, including Biblical history, archaeology, and Christology. I have been pleasantly surprised to find this elucidation by Pope Benedict to be not only straighforward and accessible, but also receptive to and willing to consider other viewpoints from scholars and critical thinkers outside of the Catholic tradition. He cites to Jewish historians, non-Catholic exegetes, and even some non-religious philosophers, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but always seeming to be intellectually honest and with a multi-dimensional perspective. This is good reading for anyone who shares my unique interests.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: An antidote against defamation, among other things...
Summary: 5 Stars
When Cardinal Ratzinger was elevated to St. Peter's chair, the media predicted he would usher an age of Catholic intolerance since, as Prefect for the Congregation of the doctrine of the Faith, he purportedly was Torquemada's successor. They also dug up that he had been in the Hitler Youth (as was obligatory of all German male teenagers of his time) and predicted a wave of Catholic Antisemitism. Benedict XVI will never get a deserved apology for the smears, but the rest of us at least can gloat at how his book proved the slanderers wrong.
His candid reflections betray a deeply sentimental man who simply loves Jesus above anything else, not a fire-breathing ayatollah damning those who don't conform with his views. And I have not came across a better book to illuminate the Jewish context of Jesus' life. Moreover, the chapter discussing of Neusner's "A Rabbi talks with Jesus" leaves no doubt as to how much Benedict XVI respects, no, cherishes Judaism.
So, if for example, you want to understand what Jesus REALLY meant when he spoke of relieving our burdens in Mt 11:28-30 or the profound significance of Peter's comment about the tents at the Transfiguration in Mt 17:4, you simply cannot pass this book up. And while your understanding of the Gospels deepens as you read "Jesus of Nazareth", you will also be truly glad of getting to know our Pope.
Book Review: Another Great Book By Benedict XVI
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent essays on the life of Jesus especially the chapter that references A Rabbi Talks with Jesus by Jacob Neusner, which I highly recommend. Benedict XVI's book on Jesus convincingly repudiates the postmodern view of Jesus as only a great moral teacher. The reader will be dazzled by the Pope's insights into Jesus as the Son of God, written in clear, convincing prose.Book Review: Answering the question of who the REAL Jesus is...
Summary: 4 Stars
In a world where critical 'theologians', novelists and various sundry people come up with new ways to 'downgrade' Jesus into something else, the Pope in the foreword asks this question:
Since the 1950's '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 that the picture that the Evangelists painted of him and that the Church, on the evidence of the Gospels, takes as the basis of her preaching?'
This book is really an answer to that question, a defense of the biblical view of Jesus. The answer is given in a somewhat scholarly manner. However since many of the attaks on Jesus come from scholars, there is no other way to go about it.
That being said, this is not the kind of book, that someone who has no interest in some level of theology would find an easy read. Some patience is required. Again, if you are one of those types who by grace, has never been bothered by attacks of theological mavericks, you are blessed and may not need to read a book like this. However, some of us have never recieved that kind of grace, and every now and then need a book like this to help the intellectual side of our faith. If you are new to the Pope's books read the book 'God and the World' It is long, but is basically a set of interview questions that the Pope while still a Cardinal, answered in a very enagaging, simple language that is very easy to read. Some of the questions in that book are provoking like 'Was Jesus a Catholic?' 'Why should all of mankind be held responsible for original sin? Is God male or female? etc However Ratzinger answers them thoughtfully and with kindness and grace.