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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
bobbeach's review against another edition
5.0
If you are going to read any book about Jesus, this is the one at present. Informative and with a thorough discussion of the details. You might disagree with aspects, e.g datings. And where you do it is well worth going to his earlier books "Jesus and Judaism" and "Studying the Synoptic Gospels" for a more detailed and comprehensive analysis of the arguments and literature. Whether a believer or not - essential.
brennanaphone's review against another edition
5.0
Dry and scholarly but full of the most interesting information, and therefore both fascinating and strangely not combative.
This guy can tell you that Jesus was most certainly not conceived by a virgin (a story that was likely made up to cover for the fact that in the synoptic gospels he's called "Jesus, son of Mary" rather than "Jesus, son of Joseph") and yet there's not a flicker of zealous argument or the whiff of scandalous statements. He's not trying to argue with anyone. He's just presenting the facts. In fact, if we used this as our go-to source on Christ, we would have a super interesting dominant religion in this country.
A professional, in-depth, academic piece.
This guy can tell you that Jesus was most certainly not conceived by a virgin (a story that was likely made up to cover for the fact that in the synoptic gospels he's called "Jesus, son of Mary" rather than "Jesus, son of Joseph") and yet there's not a flicker of zealous argument or the whiff of scandalous statements. He's not trying to argue with anyone. He's just presenting the facts. In fact, if we used this as our go-to source on Christ, we would have a super interesting dominant religion in this country.
A professional, in-depth, academic piece.
p_t_b's review against another edition
3.0
i mostly bought this because i wanted to buy something at verbatim books in san diego (definitely worth a browse if you are in SD) and i thought this might be useful for this thing i have been trying to write. i was hoping for more like, social historical context of mr. christ, but this was kind of cool despite a lot of necessary disclaimers that there really isn't too much concrete to know about jesus the guy (even though i want him to say like, jesus was short and bald and smelled like freshly baked bread or something to that effect). anyway: this is good history, humanely written, especially good in puzzling out what stuff in the gospels is especially forced (the moses echos, etc). but not sure it's necessary unless you are a christology superfan.
vegantrav's review against another edition
5.0
random thoughts:
-for Sanders, Jesus was (and this is not surprising to anyone who has read his other works on Jesus and Paul) very much a faithful, observant Jew; I largely agree; the conflicts with the Pharisees seem, when actually read in context, fairly minor in and of themselves, though the gospel writers tend to exaggerate the conflicts (probably due in large part to the fact that, at the time that the gospels were written, there was a substantial rift between rabbinic Judaism, which was the successor of the Pharisees, and Christianity); I think that the consensus of most modern scholars is that Jesus certainly lived and died as a practicing, observant Jew
-like Schweitzer before him, Sanders sees Jesus largely as an apocalyptic prophet; here again, I think Sanders is on the mark; the oldest parts of the New Testament (Paul's letters, Q, and Mark) all give clear indications that Jesus thought that the kingdom was coming soon, and Jesus, according to Sanders (and, I think, a fairly plain reading of the text) saw himself as pivotal to ushering in the kingdom
-Sanders spends much time discussing Jesus's major teaching in Mark: the kingdom of God, but Sanders is hard pressed to say exactly what Jesus meant by this term; he admits that the sayings on this matter are just not clear; his skepticism, I believe, is quite warranted; at times, it appears that the kingdom is a place here and now on earth where humans can live a new life in relationship to God the father; at other times, it seems that the kingdom is something that has not yet come (though it is coming soon) and which will bring about a new rule of the justice of God; many of the kingdom saying are enigmatic or are in parable form and open to a wide variety of translations, so I very much respect Sanders's reticence in this matter
-Sanders never once mentions Q, and I think he gives rather short shrift to the Q material: he does not really analyze any of the ethical teachings from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew)/Plain (Luke) other than a brief discussion about Jesus's prohibition of divorce; similarly, many of the Q parables (and a few of the stand alone Lukan parables) are completely passed over by Sanders; as a result, the ethics of Jesus are not really examined in any great detail; I think that this results in a Jesus who is almost completely an apocalyptic prophet (and I don't disagree that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet) and not much of a teacher of ethics which, if the Q material really does go back to the historical Jesus (and I think most scholars believe that it does, and I am inclined to agree), then ethics were, along with his apocalypticism, a key element of his message
-the preceding thoughts notwithstanding, Sanders does have an excellent discussion of exactly who the "sinners" were that Jesus saw himself as called to preach to: sinners were not people who merely had sinned but not yet offered the proper sacrifices and been cleansed; rather, Sanders argues, sinners were those who lived outside the law: they were the tax collectors and prostitutes and lepers, those with whom most Jews would not associate; Sanders argues that Jesus envisions bringing these people into the kingdom which he proclaims, and what is really radical is that Jesus invites these people in without demanding that they observe any of the cultic rites of purification; instead, according to Sanders, Jesus grants these people admittance to the kingdom solely on the basis of Jesus's own authority; this Sanders sees as unique; this is something that Sanders believes really sets Jesus apart from all the other prophets and reformers of his time; while I am much attracted to this idea of Jesus and while I fully grant that such a view of Jesus is certainly possible, I don't think that the textual evidence is that strong: there are just not enough references to "sinners" as a general category to ascertain just who is and who is not a sinner and exactly what qualifies one as a sinner, but I do agree that Jesus saw a primary part of his mission as bringing sinners into the kingdom
-Sanders assessment of passion week is excellent scholarship; he shows why and how Jesus was executed: Jesus's disruption of the temple was an acted parable, showing that the temple was going to be destroyed; Sanders argues that we can take the text here quite frankly: Jesus was not himself threatening (as some witnesses claimed) to destroy the temple himself, but he did believe that the temple was going to be destroyed by God; nevertheless, Caiaphas, who had as one of his main duties maintaining peace and order in Jerusalem, perceived Jesus as threatening the temple and as someone who could possibly instigate a riot, which could result in negative repercussions from the Romans, so Caiaphas arrested Jesus; because Caiaphas did not have the authority to execute Jesus, he handed him over to Pilate; Sanders argues that Pilate did not hesitate to execute Jesus; the gospels' attempts to exonerate Pilate appear to be attempts to make Christianity more palatable to its Roman rulers, and Pilate, as we know from other sources, was a brutal ruler who executed many Jews with little provocation; here again, I find myself agreeing completely with Sanders; I think that Sanders's portrayal of Jesus's arrest, trial (such it was: it was probably little more than a reading of the charges against Jesus and the passing of his death sentence), and execution is as close to historically accurate as can be
-Sanders has a few comments about the resurrection accounts; he states that the accounts are so confused (Jesus appears to different people in different places and in different time sequences) among the gospels and Paul's account that it is impossible to do draw any substantive conclusions from textual analysis; Sanders also focuses on the fact that all of the appearances seem to indicate clearly that this was not merely a resuscitation of Jesus's body: for example, if Jesus had been simply raised from the dead in his same physical body, why did some of his followers have trouble recognizing him, and why could he appear and disappear and pass through walls, which a physical body could not do, and why does Paul equate his own experience of the resurrection (clearly a visionary experience) as being equal to that of Peter and the other disciples (if Paul's experience was a visionary experience and it was like that of Peter and the other disciples, wouldn't that mean that their experiences were also visionary?)? Sanders, ever the careful historian, refuses to speculate on what the exact nature of the resurrection experiences were, but it is clear that he does not believe that it was simply the physical resuscitation of Jesus’s corpse
-all in all, this is a very careful historical and textual analysis; it lacks the depth of sociological, cultural, and political analysis that one finds in say, JD Crossan, but it is still a rather thorough and, I think, excellent analysis, and Sanders avoids the all too common and all too often referenced (and yet I am referencing it again) problem of seeking to paint a picture of the historical Jesus and finding, in the end, that one has actually painted, in large part, a picture of oneself
-Sanders's Jesus is a failed apocalyptic prophet: his prophecies about the coming the kingdom did not come true, but Jesus also sought to widen the circle of who was a part of the Jewish community to include the sinners; Jesus, convinced that he was God's viceroy (Sanders's term), went to Jerusalem and began to act to try to bring about the coming of the kingdom by his actions at the temple; Jesus thought that even if he died, he would be vindicated, and the kingdom would come; Jesus was wrong, and so Jesus is, ultimately, in my reading of Sanders and in my own personal opinion, a tragic figure
-for Sanders, Jesus was (and this is not surprising to anyone who has read his other works on Jesus and Paul) very much a faithful, observant Jew; I largely agree; the conflicts with the Pharisees seem, when actually read in context, fairly minor in and of themselves, though the gospel writers tend to exaggerate the conflicts (probably due in large part to the fact that, at the time that the gospels were written, there was a substantial rift between rabbinic Judaism, which was the successor of the Pharisees, and Christianity); I think that the consensus of most modern scholars is that Jesus certainly lived and died as a practicing, observant Jew
-like Schweitzer before him, Sanders sees Jesus largely as an apocalyptic prophet; here again, I think Sanders is on the mark; the oldest parts of the New Testament (Paul's letters, Q, and Mark) all give clear indications that Jesus thought that the kingdom was coming soon, and Jesus, according to Sanders (and, I think, a fairly plain reading of the text) saw himself as pivotal to ushering in the kingdom
-Sanders spends much time discussing Jesus's major teaching in Mark: the kingdom of God, but Sanders is hard pressed to say exactly what Jesus meant by this term; he admits that the sayings on this matter are just not clear; his skepticism, I believe, is quite warranted; at times, it appears that the kingdom is a place here and now on earth where humans can live a new life in relationship to God the father; at other times, it seems that the kingdom is something that has not yet come (though it is coming soon) and which will bring about a new rule of the justice of God; many of the kingdom saying are enigmatic or are in parable form and open to a wide variety of translations, so I very much respect Sanders's reticence in this matter
-Sanders never once mentions Q, and I think he gives rather short shrift to the Q material: he does not really analyze any of the ethical teachings from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew)/Plain (Luke) other than a brief discussion about Jesus's prohibition of divorce; similarly, many of the Q parables (and a few of the stand alone Lukan parables) are completely passed over by Sanders; as a result, the ethics of Jesus are not really examined in any great detail; I think that this results in a Jesus who is almost completely an apocalyptic prophet (and I don't disagree that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet) and not much of a teacher of ethics which, if the Q material really does go back to the historical Jesus (and I think most scholars believe that it does, and I am inclined to agree), then ethics were, along with his apocalypticism, a key element of his message
-the preceding thoughts notwithstanding, Sanders does have an excellent discussion of exactly who the "sinners" were that Jesus saw himself as called to preach to: sinners were not people who merely had sinned but not yet offered the proper sacrifices and been cleansed; rather, Sanders argues, sinners were those who lived outside the law: they were the tax collectors and prostitutes and lepers, those with whom most Jews would not associate; Sanders argues that Jesus envisions bringing these people into the kingdom which he proclaims, and what is really radical is that Jesus invites these people in without demanding that they observe any of the cultic rites of purification; instead, according to Sanders, Jesus grants these people admittance to the kingdom solely on the basis of Jesus's own authority; this Sanders sees as unique; this is something that Sanders believes really sets Jesus apart from all the other prophets and reformers of his time; while I am much attracted to this idea of Jesus and while I fully grant that such a view of Jesus is certainly possible, I don't think that the textual evidence is that strong: there are just not enough references to "sinners" as a general category to ascertain just who is and who is not a sinner and exactly what qualifies one as a sinner, but I do agree that Jesus saw a primary part of his mission as bringing sinners into the kingdom
-Sanders assessment of passion week is excellent scholarship; he shows why and how Jesus was executed: Jesus's disruption of the temple was an acted parable, showing that the temple was going to be destroyed; Sanders argues that we can take the text here quite frankly: Jesus was not himself threatening (as some witnesses claimed) to destroy the temple himself, but he did believe that the temple was going to be destroyed by God; nevertheless, Caiaphas, who had as one of his main duties maintaining peace and order in Jerusalem, perceived Jesus as threatening the temple and as someone who could possibly instigate a riot, which could result in negative repercussions from the Romans, so Caiaphas arrested Jesus; because Caiaphas did not have the authority to execute Jesus, he handed him over to Pilate; Sanders argues that Pilate did not hesitate to execute Jesus; the gospels' attempts to exonerate Pilate appear to be attempts to make Christianity more palatable to its Roman rulers, and Pilate, as we know from other sources, was a brutal ruler who executed many Jews with little provocation; here again, I find myself agreeing completely with Sanders; I think that Sanders's portrayal of Jesus's arrest, trial (such it was: it was probably little more than a reading of the charges against Jesus and the passing of his death sentence), and execution is as close to historically accurate as can be
-Sanders has a few comments about the resurrection accounts; he states that the accounts are so confused (Jesus appears to different people in different places and in different time sequences) among the gospels and Paul's account that it is impossible to do draw any substantive conclusions from textual analysis; Sanders also focuses on the fact that all of the appearances seem to indicate clearly that this was not merely a resuscitation of Jesus's body: for example, if Jesus had been simply raised from the dead in his same physical body, why did some of his followers have trouble recognizing him, and why could he appear and disappear and pass through walls, which a physical body could not do, and why does Paul equate his own experience of the resurrection (clearly a visionary experience) as being equal to that of Peter and the other disciples (if Paul's experience was a visionary experience and it was like that of Peter and the other disciples, wouldn't that mean that their experiences were also visionary?)? Sanders, ever the careful historian, refuses to speculate on what the exact nature of the resurrection experiences were, but it is clear that he does not believe that it was simply the physical resuscitation of Jesus’s corpse
-all in all, this is a very careful historical and textual analysis; it lacks the depth of sociological, cultural, and political analysis that one finds in say, JD Crossan, but it is still a rather thorough and, I think, excellent analysis, and Sanders avoids the all too common and all too often referenced (and yet I am referencing it again) problem of seeking to paint a picture of the historical Jesus and finding, in the end, that one has actually painted, in large part, a picture of oneself
-Sanders's Jesus is a failed apocalyptic prophet: his prophecies about the coming the kingdom did not come true, but Jesus also sought to widen the circle of who was a part of the Jewish community to include the sinners; Jesus, convinced that he was God's viceroy (Sanders's term), went to Jerusalem and began to act to try to bring about the coming of the kingdom by his actions at the temple; Jesus thought that even if he died, he would be vindicated, and the kingdom would come; Jesus was wrong, and so Jesus is, ultimately, in my reading of Sanders and in my own personal opinion, a tragic figure
muhavipi's review against another edition
4.0
A very good resource for basic theology on the Christ.
jroberts1995's review against another edition
4.0
Despite the title, I found E.P. Sanders' strongest chapters to be those exploring the religious, cultural and political context of the New Testament. The author's ability to present comparatively obscure chapters from antiquity to a general audience is no trivial feat. The book loses some of its fluidity as Sanders enters the territory of academic dispute regarding topics such as Jesus' miracles and the Kingdom of God, but anyone who intends to develop their understanding of Christianity would be wise to proceed with The Historical Figure of Jesus.