The Gospel of Jesus [Kindle Edition]

James M. Robinson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Like many others throughout history, Robinson thinks he knows what Jesus really preached. But considering his credentials, he just may have a good head start. The former director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, he was the intimately involved in making the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Gnostic gospels became part of the public discourse. He also organized the Internal Q Project that reconstructs the original sayings of Jesus, and it is this analysis in particular that has helped shaped his thesis. According to Robinson, Jesus' original gospel is now obscured by the canonized literature. The message is intense and simple: trust God to look out for you by providing people who will care for you, and listen to him when he calls on you to provide for them. It is a "radical trust in and responsiveness to God" that can make society function as God's kingdom. Much of the important writing takes place in the first couple of chapters, while later chapters (including the complete Q sayings) bolster his theses. Although overly fond of exclamation points, Robinson adds a valuable addition to the Jesus cannon. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

We all know the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but what was the gospel of Jesus? That is, what was the original "good news" the first disciples heard from Jesus? What did Jesus really say that started the dramatic movement in Galilee that grew to become the largest religion in the world?

Jesus's original gospel has been lost from sight, hidden behind the version preferred by the church. We have put him on a pedestal, rather than walked in his footsteps. In The Gospel of Jesus, James M. Robinson, the preeminent expert on the earliest sources of information about Jesus, provides the primary texts in all their unvarnished honesty to get to the true historical message of Jesus -- what Robinson calls "a brittle, upsetting, comforting, challenging gospel." The Gospel of Jesusdraws on a combination of the most ancient and authentic texts to reveal what Jesus really said and to illuminate what he may still have to say to us today.

Robinson addresses such provocative questions as:

• What can we know about Jesus's childhood
• and youth?
• What was his family like?
• What sort of education did he receive?
• How observant a Jew was he?
• What do we know about his sex life?
• What do we know about his relation to Mary Magdalene?
• What was John the Baptist's impact on him?
• What message did Jesus really preach?
• What do we know about his crucifixion?
• Why did his followers believe so fervently in his resurrection?

Drawing on the earliest Gospel, Mark, plus the source for Matthew and Luke, known as "Q," as well as from Jewish sources such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ancient extra-biblical Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, Robinson not only reconstructs the good news Jesus preached and practiced two thousand years ago, but shows how relevant his message still is -- and how we can apply it to our lives today. The Gospel of Jesus offers one of the most authentic and stirring accounts ever written of the message preached by the figure whose followers today number more than two billion.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 215 KB
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FCKCWY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,070 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest Approach, February 6, 2006

By 

CE Durham (US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News (Hardcover)

I thoughourly enjoyed this book. That said, let me also mention my approach to my own Christianity, which is open to other views and honest reflection in addition to the ability to attempt to accept the reality of the times in which Jesus lived. This is Robinson's approach.

If you are of the ilk where you consider anything other than the gospel accounts as beyond the pale or the New Testament without any flaw or agenda from its authors, then this may be a book difficult for your views...I believe this is borne out in at least one other reviewer's review. However, if you can accept to see Jesus in his historical context and accept the reality of his human side as well as the Gospels writers intentions and attitudes for writing their particular Gospels, then you will enjoy this book.

Robininson, in a very readable manner, provides background and a scholarly approach to Jesus in context without getting bogged down in "high-brow" academic writings. Be warned however, that he is honest in his approach to his subject matter as a historian and not as a theologian. If an academic and historical context in which to view the gospels (as well as the elusive "Q Gospel") is to your interest, then you have a book that will suit you fine. If you are the type where anyone attempting to present the humanity of Jesus as a first century Jew without the trappings of theology, then this may not be the book for you.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, January 26, 2006

By 

Kevin D. Huddleston - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News (Hardcover)

What Robinson does in this very accessible book is to boil down a great deal of scholarship into a readable, powerful and fascinating book that will challenge you and change your view of what Jesus really meant when he called people to follow him. Robinson challenges the easy-believism so prominent in Evangelicalism and reveals why following Jesus involves MUCH MORE that just believing things *about* him or "trusting" in him. Excellent!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Author Versus Publisher's Publicist, January 29, 2009

By 

John Howard Reid (Wyong, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News (Hardcover)

Normally I would award five stars to a work so scholarly and challenging. But thanks to the efforts of the publisher's publicist, many readers are going to feel somewhat disappointed. The publicist assures that in this book, Robinson will "address such provocative questions as: "What can we know about Jesus's [sic] childhood and youth? What was his family like? What sort of education did he receive? How observant a Jew was he? What do we know about his sex life? What do we know about his relationship to Mary Magdalene?" The answers for all these questions, except His religious observance or non-observance, seem to be "virtually nothing." True, Robinson does concentrate on an additional question posed by the publicist, namely "What message did Jesus really preach?" In fact, this is the burden of his entire book, and to answer this question, Professor Robinson draws extensively on his reconstruction of "Document Q". This is a controversial if brilliant example of Biblical scholarship. I am 95% in agreement with it, but I know there are other experts who would (a) not rate "Q" so highly and (b) not treat it with the same degree of overwhelming importance as Robinson does. If I have been a little hard on Robinson's magnum opus, thanks to its publicist, you can also blame the publisher for failing to provide an Index, surely a sine qua non for a Biblical thesis such as this.