John P. Meier - Böcker

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 power, but a marginal Jew.

This book is the second volume in John Meier's masterful trilogy on the life of Jesus. In it he continues his quest for the answer to the greatest  puzzle of modern religious scholarship: Who was  Jesus? To answer this Meier imagines the following  scenario: "Suppose that a Catholic, a  Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic were locked up in the  bowels of the Harvard Divinity School library... and  not allowed to emerge until they had hammered out  a consensus document on who Jesus of Nazareth was  and what he intended...". A Marginal  Jew is what Meier thinks that document  would reveal. Volume one concluded with Jesus  approaching adulthood. Now, in this volume, Meier  focuses on the Jesus of our memory and the development  of his ministry. To begin, Meier identifies  Jesus's mentor, the one person who had the greatest  single influence on him, John the Baptist. All of the  Baptist's fiery talk about the end of time had a  powerful effect on the young Jesus and the  formulation of his key symbol of the coming of the  "kingdom of God." And, finally, we are given a  full investigation of one of the most striking  manifestations of Jesus's message: Jesus's practice  of exorcisms, hearings, and other miracles. In all,  Meier brings to life the story of a man, Jesus,  who by his life and teaching gradually made himself  marginal even to the marginal society that was  first century Palestine.

A leading scholar of the historical Jesus clarifies and illuminates Jesus’ teachings on Jewish lawJohn Meier’s previous volumes in the acclaimed series A Marginal Jew are founded upon the notion that while solid historical information about Jesus is quite limited, people of different faiths can nevertheless arrive at a consensus on fundamental historical facts of his life. In this eagerly anticipated fourth volume in the series, Meier approaches a fresh topic—the teachings of the historical Jesus concerning Mosaic Law and morality—with the same rigor, thoroughness, accuracy, and insightfulness on display in his earlier works.After correcting misconceptions about Mosaic Law in Jesus’ time, this volume addresses the teachings of Jesus on major legal topics like divorce, oaths, the Sabbath, purity rules, and the various love commandments in the Gospels. What emerges from Meier’s research is a profile of a complicated first-century Palestinian Jew who, far from seeking to abolish the Law, was deeply engaged in debates about its observance. Only by embracing this portrait of the historical Jesus grappling with questions of the Torah do we avoid the common mistake of constructing Christian moral theology under the guise of studying “Jesus and the Law,” the author concludes.

Since the late nineteenth century, New Testament scholars have operated on the belief that most, if not all, of the narrative parables in the Synoptic Gospels can be attributed to the historical Jesus. This book challenges that consensus and argues instead that only four parables—those of the Mustard Seed, the Evil Tenants, the Talents, and the Great Supper—can be attributed to the historical Jesus with fair certitude. In this eagerly anticipated fifth volume of A Marginal Jew, John Meier approaches this controversial subject with the same rigor and insight that garnered his earlier volumes praise from such publications as the New York Times and Christianity Today. This seminal volume pushes forward his masterful body of work in his ongoing quest for the historical Jesus.

"John Meier is widely recognized as an authority, and one welcomes his commentary . . .Meier's book is especially rich in showing how Matthew reinterprets the Gospel in the context of his own church and its problems."America