Customer Reviews

Jesus Through Jewish Eyes: Rabbis and Scholars Engage an Ancient Brother in a New Conversation

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I am one of the contributors to the book so my opinion is probably biased. Be that as it may, I still think it is a good book. What you think of it will probably depend on what your expectations were before reading it.

This book is largely a book of perspectives. While many of the authors have excellent scholarly credentials (I'm one of the few that don't) as should be clear from the title, the purpose of this book is to present the subject from a particular perspective, namely the perspective of Jews.

As with many investigative endeavors, your preconceived notions can frequently influence your conclusions. While I like to think that my perspective is fairly objective, I am sure that who I am as a person has influenced my conclusions about Jesus. When it comes to rather fuzzy topics such as the historical Jesus, you can be sure that we generally find the Jesus that suits our needs or perspectives.

So, don't buy this book thinking you are going to find definitive answers to the question, "Who was Jesus?" However, if you are like me and like hearing different perspectives on a subject then I think you will find the book interesting. Yes, some authors repeat the same theories that have been around for some time. Yes, all authors are subject to their own biases. But who isn't? I still enjoyed reading the many essays of my co-authors just as I enjoyed reading works by those with radically different perspectives than my own.

I was fascinated by this well written collection of essays about Jesus. Some of the rabbis who wrote these articles are courageously concessionary in the things that they write about Jesus.

Another writer sees Jesus as not greater than Moses and the Prophets, but as being a failed messiah, one who desired to bring in the messianic age, but couldn't. This same writer also suggests that Jesus may be considered as a figure who helped to prepare the way for the world to worship the one true God, and who helped to pave the way for the coming of the Davidic Messiah.

Others see him as a Jewish sage who needs to be reclaimed and restudied by Jews in order to understand the Christian mindset, and yes, to a certain degree, their own Judaism.

One writer even suggests that the issue of Jesus' messiahship remains unresolved.

There is also a great essay by Lance Flitter, where he shares that he never thought much about Jesus until he started dating a Christian woman. He comes to the conclusion that whatever else one may say about the historical Jesus, one thing that comes through clearly is that Jesus was Jewish and that one of His priorities was teaching equality amongst God's people.

Some of the writers are adament that Jesus is not the Messiah, but for the most part, I was very impressed with the openness in these essays. Get this book.

I came across this book in searching for reading material for a discussion group "Jesus from a Jewish Perspective" that I plan to lead within a Jewish congregation this Fall. What a find! This is the perfect book for my use, but almost anyone, Jewish, Christian, or otherwise, would benefit from reading it, provided they do so with an open mind, willing to at least temporarily put aside their preconceptions of Jesus.

The fact that the different contributors often have conflicting views of Jesus is a real plus since, as a number of them point out, it is impossible to clearly see Jesus through the haze of 2,000 years, particularly given the lack of written accounts during his life and the agendas that most writers brought to the task once it was undertaken. The contributors' different viewpoints help one to synthesize a more complete picture and, in my case, added some interesting new possibilities that I hadn't considered before.

One of the things that struck me about this book, and which I feel is sorely needed in the world, is the obvious respect that two, often opposed groups demonstrate for each other. The Preface makes it clear that Maryknoll (the publisher) highly values the views of these Jewish scholars and they, in turn, show tremendous respect for Christian beliefs.

Viewed from the perspective of my youth of fifty years ago this book is a miracle. In that pre-Vatican II environment, I and many of my friends were routinely beaten up as Christ killers. We returned the compliment by holding a highly derisive view of Christianity and Jesus. The idea that Catholics and Jews could show this level of respect, even admiration, for each other's religions was unthinkable. Thank you Maryknoll, Beatrice Bruteau (the editor), and all the contributors. While the lion has not yet lain down with the lamb, I feel I have witnessed the beating of some swords of my youth into the ploughshares of today. May tomorrow's harvest be bountiful.

This book was a reading assignment for a joint class taught by a Professor from my Protestant Divinity School and a Rabbi from a nearby Rabbinic School. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It is not a particularly long book, and was a fairly quick read for me. It consists of a collection of essays from Jewish scholars and secular writers. Each essay focuses on how the writer sees and experiences the historical Jesus, whom Christians revere as the Christ, the Son of God.

This book was eye-opening for me. I felt I had a good grasp of the basics of the Jewish faith, history and society, and there is nothing in this book that contradicts what I thought I knew. What is new is how this book illuminates and deepens my own faith. Yet, I learned a great deal about my own faith - not only by seeing how Jews view it, but also by how many of the essayists in this volume use techniques and tools that are more or less unknown to the average Christian in their evaluations of what Jesus means to them.

The book does alot to help us see how Jewish Jesus really is. It gave me a new perspective on his teachings, which we see through the authors' eyes: as stories squarely within the realm of what we now know as the rabinnic tradition. A tradition where multiple layers of meaning are excavated from the original text in ways that are both surprising and enriching.

Many of the essays also help us understand how painful being Jewish was to many of the authors, and helps us better appreciate how "obvious" assumptions we make as Christians,a nd which we believe to be relatively benign and unthreaening, may not be seen by others in the same light.

An excellent book, and one I strongly recommend for any Christian seeking to gain a better understanding of Modern Judaism, and the challenges that Jews face, and have faces for millenia, in struggling to maintain their existence and traditions as a small cultural and religious minority living within cultures that are at best insensitive (if not outright antagonistic) to their presence.

Despite it's wonderful insights, and although most of the essays are excellent, there are one or two that just don't make the grade. Not that I feel any antagonism towards those particlar authors, but raher that they did not seem to fully appreciate the purpose of the book, and/or perhaps did not have the depth of thought or knowledge to write an essay as illuminating or thought-provoking as those of their peers. Even so, these are minor blemishes. I'll rate the book at 4 stars: well worth taking the time to read despite some minor disappointments in the quality and depth of a couple of the essays.

Editor Beatrice Bruteau is a Catholic, with an abiding interest in Vedanta, Teilhard de Chardin, and "spiritual evolution."

This collection contains 19 fairly brief essays (plus an introductory poem, "A Jew Writing about Jesus the Jew") from a variety of Jewish thinkers (fourteen of them rabbis); perhaps the biggest "names" are Michael Lerner (editor of TIKKUN) and Lewis D. Solomon (author of books such as The Jewish Tradition and Choices at the End of Life: A New Judaic Approach to Illness and Dying, Jewish Spirituality : Revitalizing Judaism for the Twenty-First Century, and The Jewish Book of Living and Dying).

The collection is subdivided into categories of, "Historical and Theological Views," "Appraisals and Interpretations," "Personal Views," and "The Conversation Continues." Michael J. Cook's historical essay, "Evolving Jewish Views of Jesus" is an excellent overview.

Here are a few representative excerpts from the book:

"Jesus arrogated to himself the authority to teach outside the framework of Pharisaic authority. The dispute over the observance of the Sabbath is an example."

"It is very difficult to find clear instances of Jesus actually transgressing the Torah. His disciples, not Jesus himself, are accused of disergarding the ritual washing of the hands. This was not a biblical requirement for the laity."

Michael J. Lerner: "A healthy appropriation of the Jewish Jesus will avoid the kind of reverential tones that one sometimes hears from Jews who want to emphasize interreligious dialogue so much that they talk of Jesus as a prophet and healer in order to show Christians that now we can be nice to him.... When we can come to that point, Jesus will regain his rightful place as a respected and sometimes insightful teacher of the Jewish people."

This collection will be of great interest to those interested in Jewish perspectives on Jesus, the historical Jesus, and Jewish-Christian dialogue.