Who's Who in the Age of Jesus [Hardcover]

Geza Vermes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2005

The books of the "New Testament" are some of the most extraordinary documents ever created - brilliant, vivid works central to the lives of many millions of readers over the centuries. Yet, the picture they give of Jesus' world is a very partial one. Written thirty to eighty years after the events they describe and with very specific doctrinal aims they addressed a Greek-speaking audience when Christianity was at its most precarious. Geza Vermes, one of the world's foremost biblical scholars, is uniquely positioned to guide the reader through the many conundrums presented by the New Testament."Who's Who in the Age of Jesus" is an ambitious and enjoyable attempt to sift through all the sources for the period to create biographies of the major (and some fascinating minor) figures from Jesus' era. The book allows readers to understand a Jewish, Roman and Hellenistic world crowded with explosive, mutually antagonistic groups - a world which would give rise both to a new Judaism and ultimately to Christianity.From detailed, convincing portraits of Jesus, John, the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, Herod and other key "New Testament" figures to the Jewish and Roman leaders like Hillel, Caiaphas, Augustus, Vespasian and Titus, hardly or not at all mentioned in the Gospels or the "Acts of the Apostles", Geza Vermes' illustrated "Who's Who" will throw much fresh light on the age of Jesus and provoke innumerable arguments and discussions.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Geza Vermes was born in Hungary in 1924. From 1957 to 1991 he taught in at the Universities of Newcastle and Oxford. Professor Vermes is the author of The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (1997), The Changing Faces of Jesus (2000), The Authentic Gospel of Jesus (2003) and The Passion (2005). He lives near Oxford.

From AudioFile

This fine work will be highly appealing to readers interested in the history of the Bible or the early church, but will be less appealing to others--despite Patrick Lawlors clear and focused delivery. Lawlor handles both the authors prose style and the works many foreign names and terms smoothly. The difficulty comes from the structure of the presentation. As a reference that recounts the biographies of key figures surrounding the life of Jesus--in alphabetical order--this book is fascinating, but overwhelming. It is impossible to select the figure whose life one hears, and the very cross-referencing that would make it useful for reference makes it repetitive for listening. G.T.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press (November 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140515658
• ISBN-13: 978-0140515657
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,948,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great resource, January 10, 2008

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Who's Who in the Age of Jesus (Paperback)

Author and scholar Geza Vermes was born to Jewish parents in Hungary, who converted to Roman Catholicism. He became a priest, and later an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He later left the Catholic Church, but is now known for his studies on the historical Jesus and the relationship of Jesus and the early church to the Jewish milieu from which they sprang.

In this fascinating book, the author gives a Who's Who in the ancient Roman and Israelite worlds, showing them from Biblical and extra-Biblical sources in a more full light. For example, what do you know about the High Priests who appear briefly in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles? If you want to know more, pick up this book and see what their contemporaries had to say about them.

Overall, I found this book to be a mixed bag. The author does cast a wide net in finding information about the various people who appear (often briefly) in the Bible, giving a lot of truly relevant information on them. My problem with this book, though, is that the author fairly consistently considers the Bible to be an inferior source to just about all others.

I mean, who would be interested in this book? Someone who is deeply committed to a faith in Jesus Christ, and wants to know more. However, such a reader will not be pleased to have the Bible criticized as a source.

But, that said, I think that this book is a great resource, one that is sure to expand any reader's understanding of who the people were in the early Church, both insiders and outsiders.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention the great timeline that begins the book. It does a great job of putting Jesus and the early Church within its historic framework!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid historical context, December 5, 2007

By 

Stratiotes Doxha Theon "2 Thes 2:15" (Richmond, Missouri) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Who's Who in the Age of Jesus (Hardcover)

An intriguing and entertaining historical study in the form of brief biographical sketches that can easily be digested straight through or as a reference. Very well done and based on solid historical research. This is not the revisionist polemic aimed at discrediting the Christian faith but a serious historical study that conveys accurately the middle east at the time of Jesus. It makes for an enjoyable and informative study that places the New Testament in historical context like few other works.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Missing information about Jesus..., October 21, 2009

By 

Rick Sheridan "AudioColumn.com" (Xenia, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who's Who in the Age of Jesus (Kindle Edition)

Believe it or not, the New Testament gospels do not provide much information about Jesus, and this audio helps to provide more background detail. Included are portraits of John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Jesus and other key individuals of that era. From [...]