Jesus: What He Really Said and Did [Paperback]

Stephen Mitchell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

"The book you are about to read is a portrait of one of the most beautiful men who ever lived. He himself would probably not have considered himself beautiful or even special. He would have said that we are all beautiful, we are all special, because -- and he did say this -- we are all children of God. . . ."

"When you're able to look inside yourself deeply, you'll find that the teacher who taught Jesus will teach you."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mitchell taps into the questions of truth and faith so central to adolescence with this adaptation of his 1991 adult book, The Gospel According to Jesus. While his thesis that only some of the stories and only some of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are authentic will certainly engender discussion, readers from various traditions will identify with his doubts and his quests for answers. As a Jewish nine-year-old at a Protestant boarding school, the author recalls in his intimate introduction, he "didn't feel it was right to recite the [Lord's Prayer]," until an influential teacher told him that "the words of Jesus are for all people." This idea threads its way throughout the volume, as Mitchell draws parallels between Jesus and Buddha, Lao-Tzu and Sufi and Zen masters. The author's continuing struggle with biblical accounts of Jesus ("I didn't know if I believed the miracle stories, the walking on water, the loaves and fishes.... What I loved was his kindness and the beauty of his words and feelings") led him to bring modern textual scholarship and his "spiritual intuition" to scrutinizing the Gospels for accuracy. The faithful will be relieved to see The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan touted as "deservedly the most famous and beloved of Jesus' parables"; the story of his death, however, seems somewhat glossed over here, and Mitchell goes so far as to call the Resurrection a "legend." Nevertheless, he treats his audience as intelligent individuals capable of coming to their own conclusions. By discussing his process, he models for readers the tools with which to begin an examination of their own beliefs and encourages seekers along their own paths. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 8-12. Here's a book for teens with a different take on Christianity, boldly stated and without apology to the majority viewpoint. Mitchell, the author of the adult book The Gospel According to Jesus (1991), warns readers that those from traditional backgrounds may find this book "shocking and offensive." What arguments does he feel might disturb? For starters, that Jesus was born and remained a Jew throughout his life. That he never intended to begin a new religion. That Christians believe some things Jesus never would have believed, including that he died for anyone's sins. Drawing on his adult book, Mitchell examines the stories of the Gospels and the words of the New Testament with an eye to separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, attempting to pull Jesus' authentic words from later interpolations. Mitchell, who is a student of religion and a translator of sacred texts, offers an easily understood, thought-provoking journey through the Gospels and backs up his theses with scholarship. There's plenty here for religiously inclined young people to debate, but they may also feel a kinship with Mitchell and his search for religious truth that took several spiritual paths. One caveat: his plug for the self-help work of Byron Katie seems out of place and disingenuous as Mitchell wrote the introduction for her new book. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: HarperTempest (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064490092
• ISBN-13: 978-0064490092
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #566,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Teens > Biographies
  • #78 in Books > Teens > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity

More About the Author

Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice. His many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, Meetings with the Archangel, Gilgamesh, and the forthcoming The Second Book of the Tao. When he is not writing, he likes to ' in no particular order ' think about writing, think about not writing, not think about writing, and not think about not writing. His favorite color is blue, which happens to be the color of his wife's eyes. You can read extensive excerpts from all his books on his website, www.stephenmitchellbooks.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written personal look at Jesus' sayings, April 1, 2006

By 

Dr. James Gardner (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesus: What He Really Said and Did (Paperback)

This is an extremely well written book in which the author, Stephen Mitchell, gives us his account of what be believes Jesus said and how he said it. This is not a scholarly book vis-a-vis Funk's Jesus Seminar edition, nor is it a throw away like Cayce's book of nearly the same name. Instead it is a personal book that flows from Mitchell's experiences in a variety of religions over many years.

The book is really a companion to Mitchell's early book "The Gospel According to Jesus". For people unfamiliar with that book, there is a very good notes section at the back of this book that expands on many of the themes raised in the first part. Unfortuanely as you are reading the first part there are no notations to refer you to the back part, so I suggest you read the back part first. Note to Mitchell - please correct this flaw in subsequent editions.

All in all I think Mitchell's translations capture the authentic Jesus better than I have seen it captured in most popular works (Revised Standard, King James, etc.). He does make a few errors (e.g., Jesus didn't live in Nazareth because Nazareth didn't exist at that time; the Gospels were written about 70 AD when almost all evidence is early 2nd Century) but he equally clears up a few issues that others have interpreted incorrectly (e.g., tekton is not "carpenter" but builder, "Son of Mary" = [...], "Abba" can be translated as "papa").

I agree wholeheartedly with Mitchell's continual reminder that Christianity today "would have been incomprehensible to Jesus."

Scholars will probably not benefit from this book. Nor would it be very beneficial to people looking for the "historical Jesus". But as an introduction to Jesus, especially for young adults, this book would be an excellent addition. Also, for someone who seeks to know what was Jesus like, without all the trappings of footnotes, citations, and references, this is an excellent book.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mitchell's Jesus for teens and young adults, May 31, 2002

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jesus: What He Really Said and Did (Hardcover)

One of the editorial reviews of this book says: "his plug for the self-help work of Byron Katie seems out of place and disingenuous as Mitchell wrote the introduction for her new book." So let's clear that up right away: Stephen Mitchell is married to Byron Katie. His only "plug" for her work is a brief mention of some material available for free on her website, and it's offered as an alternative that some people find more helpful than the meditative techniques Mitchell is discussing at that point in the text. There's nothing disingenuous going on here.

Now on to the book itself.

If you've read Mitchell's _The Gospel According to Jesus_, there won't be many surprises for you here. This book is a stripped-down, somewhat simplified version of that one; the text is part new, part used. The style is intended to be accessible to teenagers and young adults.

Mitchell's translation of the "gospel" is included as well, and it's essentially the same text as before but with some rewriting (mostly paraphrasing). Mitchell admits in his 1991 book that he may have excluded some passages "whose light [he hadn't] been able to see," so the reader may wonder whether he's added anything since that time. Well, not much -- two or three short parables, a paraphrase of a line from the Gospel of the Nazoreans, and a couple of excerpts from the epistle of James. (I think this latter is an excellent choice; I think well of James and there's good reason to think the text is based closely on Jesus's oral teachings.)

What's really new here is Mitchell's introduction, in which he tells us quite a bit about how he came to write a book about Jesus in the first place. This stuff will be of interest not only to the book's ostensible target readership but also to readers of his earlier Jesus book who want to know more about what motivated him. And among other things, he admits candidly that in selecting what he regards as the "authentic" sayings and acts of the historical Jesus, he's deliberately erring on the side of leaving things out rather than including too much.

Despite some disagreements with some of his interpretations (e.g. his downplaying of the political importance of Jesus's teachings), I really like the positive features of his 1991 other book; in fact it was instrumental in getting me re-interested in the world's most famous Jewish spiritual teacher. But in my review of that book (which see), I gave it only three stars because of its questionable scholarship and its attitude of "spiritual one-upmanship" toward believing Christians (of whom, for the record, I am not one, so I'm not speaking here out of personal pique). This new book gets four stars because so much of that stuff has been toned down or omitted altogether.

Oh, some of the problems are still there. The resurrection, for example, is still treated as a "legend" with no explanation about why it can't be regarded as historical. Sure, the gospels' post-resurrection stories can't be reconciled with one another (e.g. did the disciples return to the Galilee or remain in Jerusalem?), but that doesn't mean _nothing_ happened. Jesus's being in some way "raised" doesn't commit anyone to a Christian theological understanding of the event. And if all Mitchell means is that Jesus's corpse didn't just get up and start walking around again -- well, I don't think that's what Christians believe either.

And we're still suggesting that Jesus might have been illegitimate. For the record, folks: under Jewish law, _any_ child born in wedlock is "legitimate," no matter who the biological father is. Sure, if people suspected that Joseph wasn't Jesus's father, there might well have been some unpleasant talk. But that wouldn't make him "illegitimate"; "mamzer" is not the same concept as "bastard," and I (again) wish Mitchell had said so.

But this time around, Mitchell has enough sense not to present his book as suitable for "believers and nonbelievers" (as per the subtitle of his earlier book). In fact he expressly warns Christians that some of them may _not_ want to read this book, which is a nice change (and an indication of why I awarded him that additional star).

This new book is suitable for its intended audience as long as they (or their parents) know what they're getting. And as I said, it will also be of interest to readers who want a little more of the "backstory" for _The Gospel According to Jesus_. If you like Mitchell's work, this one is worth the investment.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars bias, June 10, 2008

By 

Brett Ziegler (PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesus: What He Really Said and Did (Hardcover)

I gave this book a 5 star, to off set the unfair bias against it. It seems that most who have reviewed this book so far are those who lack an open mind. Mitchell, gives a good summary of a realistic Jesus written tword young adults. I lent a copy out to a friend and it has yet to reappear so I am buying an other one so my daughter can give it a read. In closing it is a well written amusing journey of a book about Jesus.