In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images [Hardcover]

Clinton Bennett (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0826449158 | ISBN-13: 978-0826449153 | Publication Date: May 15, 2001

After 2000 years, much activity still surrounds the person of Jesus. Scholars, film makers, novelists, artists, Christians, humanists, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and many others have opinions about who Jesus was, as well as on the reliability of the source documents. Writers from inside and from outside the Christian tradition express pessimism about our ability to know very much for sure about Jesus. Others argue that Jesus never existed. Others are optimistic about our ability to reconstruct Jesus' life but paint very different pictures of him. Debate surrounds which sources may be used, why Jesus died, whether he ever intended to depart from Judaism. Paul's role also emerges as controversial. Some turn to alternative documents, or interpretive tools, to decipher the texts. A celibate Jesus, a married Jesus, a rebel Jesus, a Gnostic Jesus, a failed Jesus, a black Jesus, a feminist Jesus, are amongst the many images on offer. This study, which looks at traditional and at alternative sources, traces both the quest of the historical Jesus within the Christian tradition and encounters between the Jesus story and the world beyond the Church. The author asks what agendas, assumptions, human needs do all these writers take to their studies of Jesus? The book analyzes a range of insider and outsider images of Jesus, some popular, some scholarly, some hotly debated. Writers discussed include Marcus Borg, the Dalai Lama, Abraham Geiger, the Jesus Seminar, Barbara Thiering, Vivekananda, and Tom Wright. The book should be of equal interest to students and to general readers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is an enjoyable read and would be valuable for the general reader interested in a trustworthy presentation of the 'dazzling gallery of Jesus images.'"
--Calvin Mercer, Religious Studies Review, April 2003 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Clinton Bennett teaches Religious Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and at Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (May 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826449158
• ISBN-13: 978-0826449153
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,417,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Clinton Bennett was awarded the PhD in Islamic Studies by Birmingham University in 1990. He also holds the M.Ed. from Oxford and his undergraduate degree in Theology from Manchester University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and of the Royal Anthropological Institute and uses ethnography in his research. He is especially interested in how sensitive but critical issues in Religious Studies can be explored without causing offense to religious insiders. He is a specialist in the study of Islam with a focus on modern Muslim thinkers and movements. An ordained Baptist minister, he has worked as a missionary in Bangladesh, as co-pastor of a multi-racial inner city congregation, on the staff of the British Council of Churches and as a College and University chaplain and teacher. He has written nine books. He has combined academic study of Islam with participation in interfaith dialogue, serving on several World Council of Churches committees. He has advised local mosques, chaired school governing bodies and represented an NGO at the UN. He currently teaches at the State University of New York at New Paltz. His homepage is www.clintonbennett.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Liberal Jesus Anthology, January 30, 2002

By 

peculiar "andrew_eccentric" - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images (Paperback)

Clinton Bennett is clearly both a liberal Christian believer and a pluralist. Here he presents an anthology of images of Jesus, both historical and current, arranged in insider (Christian) and outsider (non-Christian) categories. The book gets to grips with questions of interpretation and image of pictures of Jesus starting from the belief that Jesus is interpretation from the first. Interpretation, for Bennett, leads to plurality, even if only as an empirical fact. He suggests this mandates an attitude of humility towards Jesus in place of a more dogmatic, and unsubstantiatable, certainty.

Bennett is clearly concerned not to sideline what might be described as marginal voices on Jesus. He writes in a consciously inclusive way. Space is given here to black, feminist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, film and fictional images in addition to more traditional ones and ones more related to the study of Jesus as an historical figure (i.e. that which is academically known as the Quest of the Historical Jesus).

The book is clearly aimed at a general readership. It contains a chapter on sources for the life of Jesus which, to a student or scholar of Jesus, would be largely mundane and uninspiring. Yet Bennett explicitly believes that the sources wrote about Jesus what they already believed to be true. If only he could have written more about this. Indeed, the trouble with this anthology, as with others, is that there is plenty of detailing of various images of Jesus but oh so little critique of these images. At one point Bennett remarks that we need to read not only the images of Jesus but the biography of the imager of Jesus. This is more intriguing stuff but Bennett doesn't really interact any further with his interesting suggestion.

Finally Bennett subsumes Jesus, in his image, under the rubric "a liberated and liberating Jesus". Bennett, who was a Christian missionary in a former life, offers us a liberal Jesus who can bring us peace, love and harmony. He writes, "Only when Jesus is Chinese for the Chinese, Indian for the Indians, will he be regarded as truly FOR these contexts". In this he may be right but he does not discuss this theoretically so much as land the belief in our laps without further discussion. This I regard as an oversight and a lack of persuasion on his part. There is also little attention to the Jesus of history as a constraint on pictures of Jesus (whilst the Jesus of history is discussed as a subject in itself). Indeed, a discussion of constraint more generally seems mandated by the subject matter here. Bennett offers us a tantalising and interesting selection of Jesus images, playing on what he remarks as "Christianity's belief in the translatability of the Gospel", but now I'm looking forward to the day when he can present us with a coherent presentation of how the multiplicity, plurality and translatability he presents might be regarded. Legitimate or legitimate? What controls, what should control, how Jesus is viewed? If Bennett's book be a guide, these questions are highly relevant for millions, if not billions of people.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced Survey of academic and faith approaches to Jesus, February 26, 2002

By 

P. Nagy "revreader" (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images (Paperback)

In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (Continuum) gives a survey of the pious and academic inquiries into both the Jesus of Faith and of history and what is involved in seeing Jesus within the lights of many approaches. As an introduction to the study of Jesus this work offers both respect for faith and tradition as well as a critical and fair account of the many images of Jesus emerging from academic study of religious formation and scripture exegesis. In Search of Jesus is a good introduction to the field and is useful as a guide to current literature and major themes of study.