Customer Reviews

Who Is Jesus?: An Introduction to Christology

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If like me you believe that Christology is at the epicenter of the study of Christian theology, then you cannot do better than Rausch's book as an excellent introduction to this always fascinating subject. Rausch touches all the important topics, from his well-written explanation of the three quests for the historical Jesus to his explanation of the Jesus movement and beyond. The helpful glossary in the book gives straightforward definitions of theological terms such as "eschatology" and "soteriology," a great help for those just beginning to delve into a structured study of Christ.

Rausch is a Jesuit priest. I had the benefit of Jesuit education in both high school and college, and I couldn't help thinking while reading the book that Rausch must be a great teacher, as so many of my Jesuit teachers were, and I admit to being a bit envious of the students fortunate enough to have Rausch as a teacher now. Despite his Catholic pedigree, however, Rausch never favors Catholic interpretation or Catholic biblical scholars over Protestant and Jewish interpretation and scholars. He gives a fair, balanced, and comprehensive survey of Christology, and if he didn't have "S.J." (i.e., Society of Jesus) after his name, the reader would be hard pressed to know that a Catholic priest had authored the book.

In addition to the excellent writing and the logical organization of the book, Rausch provides well chosen cites to his sources. He doesn't overdo the citations--something that can often numb the eyes and stunt the flow of a scholarly text--instead, as one newsprint reviewer of the book has said, Rausch makes the reader eager to explore the sources as the next level of inquiry into Christology.

While the question "Who is Jesus?" can never be answered with certainty or in full, Rausch has provided a very worthwhile introduction to Christology and a very helpful overview of the state of current thought about the subject. Even the seasoned student of theology will know more about Christ after reading this book than he or she knew before.

A renaissance is occurring in Jesus studies. In 2004 almost six hundred books came out on Jesus Christ, and over seventy dealt with Christology (the theological study of the person and deeds of Jesus). People want to know more. There are questions to answer: Was Jesus God incarnate, or was he an eschatological prophet who proclaimed the imminent end of the world (A. Schweitzer), or was he a prophet of social change (G. Theissen), or was he peasant Jewish cynic philosopher (J. D. Crossan)? People want to know.

Thomas Rausch, professor of Catholic Theology at Loyola Marymount University, draws on his background in theology and church history. His writing, though learned, is engaging, interesting and informed. Much of Christianity today presents Jesus as God incarnate, thus sacrificing his humanity in order to deify him. Rausch writes against this... pressing the point, that to understand Jesus is to start with his Jewish/Palestinian heritage and to follow it through Chalcedon (451 AD) and contemporary theology.

For Thomas Rausch one needs not to start not with a Christology "from above", such as the orthodox statement of faith, the `Apostle's Creed'... i.e.: "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord..." Rather one should start with a Christology "from below"; start with history, and critically consider the words and works of the Jesus. He believes that when one learns of the historical Jesus, that is sufficient to reveal Jesus's message, and that message is in itself conductive to faith.

Rausch breaks no new ground, but rather, in a very logical manner puts together the pieces that will helps the reader to understand the Jesus of history and their faith.. Reason alone does not establish faith, but, the act of faith should in itself be reasonable. Highly recommended.

This is, according to the Introduction, a survey of the best of contemporary Christology. Who is Jesus? is an excellent introduction to this field and has both answered many of my questions and caused me to develop new critical questions. The author (a Jesuit priest/scholar) takes into account theologians who use the historical critical method, including evangelicals such as NT Wright and evocative challenges to Logos-based Christology like Roger Haight. It has helped me in my faith journey and realizing that I need to live the Reign of God - now!

I've read a half-dozen or so books that attempt what Fr. Rausch attempts in this book, a solid introduction to scholarship in Christology for graduate students and even the "well-read undergraduate." This one is a major success. It's judicious and fair-minded and avoids the excesses of some of the recent "historical Jesus" books. It's well-organized. Perhaps the greatest success here, though, is Rausch's writing, which is clear and avoids jargon, taking care to explain the jargon which is unavoidable. A very fine text.

I was introduced to this work as a textbook for a graduate course in Christology, but it's not a terribly difficult read even though it covers some pretty dense theology. Rausch provides some excellent historical background and comes at the subject from different perspectives so that it's a pretty good reference work. However, because it challenges the reader to consider somewhat deeper concepts beyond the simple, classical "Christ died for our sins" it may not be appropriate for people who are not already well grounded in their faith. Certainly a fine college level text book, I could see how it might also be used by a small faith group whose members want to challenge themselves to understand more deeply the Jesus of history, and how the church came to understand the meaning of the Incarnation over its first five centuries.

Jesus research and study is tricky business. There are those who are far left and those who are far right. Some are dogmatic and some are lacking clear conclusions. This particular work seems to linger somewhere in the middle. It's basically a decent introduction, although it has certain biases in relation to a few areas of Jesus/new testament studies. Read with a few grains of salt, so to speak, and read in conjunction with a few other works, this book has some good insights and some good reminders of what others have already made known. Peter Walker's little work on Jesus, Jesus in His World, by Inter-varsity press, is terrific as well as Craig Blomberg's Jesus and the Gospels. Also, make sure you don't overlook N.T. Wright's little work, The Original Jesus. These are some of the best, somewhat concise and recent, works on Jesus that are around as far as I'm aware. These works mentioned are a bit better than the one by Rausch, but his work is worth the read nonetheless.

I purchased this book for an online course I was required to take for my teaching job. The book was very helpful in following and completing the assignments. Amazon provided the lowest cost and very quick delivery service. That was extremely important to me so I would not fall behind in the work.