Saturday, December 24, 2005

JESUS by A.N. Wilson

I just finished this book on Jesus today. Lots of surprises!
The focus of the book was on finding the Jesus of History as opposed to the Jesus of Faith within the Gospels. That turns out to be a little more difficult than it might appear. The two seem very different.
Wilson's take is that it is hard to find much we can be sure is the historic Jesus in the Gospels, but there are some hints. He takes these in combination with what is known about the culture and politics of the time and comes up with many interesting and plausible speculations.
An example that I found particularly intriguing is the assertion that the High Priest's servant present at the arrest of Jesus who had his ear cut off was none other than the Apostle Paul when he was called Saul. Sounds a little strange, but Wilson does have some evidence to support this.
One thing that Wilson talked about seems to capture where we end up in some respects in searching for the historic Jesus in this book. In the Fourth Gospel (John), Pilate asks Jesus, "What is truth?" Jesus does not answer.
I noticed that in this same Gospel Jesus says that no one asked him "Where are you going?" or in a certain ancient tongue, "Quo vadis?" Maybe this is an avenue for Wilson to look down in further study.
The book is not recommended for fundamentalists who are senstive about their faith, but Wilson is respectful in his writing. Give it a try otherwise.

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