Customer Reviews

Young Jesus: Restoring the "Lost Years" of a Social Activist and Religious Dissident

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Mr Isbouts presents a very compelling view of Jesus.I could not put this book down and read It cover to cover, that Is the kind of book that It Is.He opens up the world of which Jesus grew up In and the conditions which helped to make him Into the man In which he became. It was a brutal system In which the romans and King Herod were choking the very life out of the lower class people. He also shows the Ill treatment Jesus received because of his questionable 'parentage' In his home village.The Jesus presented here Is the opposite of the familar sunday school 'Image' that we all know.
This Is a real fresh and blood Jesus that wanted to changed his world,and this made people uncomfortable.He also presents the roman goverment and their puppet high priest as being the forces that put Jesus to death. This image may make a lot of readers uncomfortable, but this is a book that presents a believable story of Jesus. Highly recomended!

The book is excellent! Mr. Isbouts articulates a similar view of the early years of Jesus that I developed while reading Josephus many years ago. He is more reserved and guarded concerning the virgin birth than I am - I lean more toward the belief that Mary was raped on one of the several raids that occurred in or around Nazareth during this turbulent period. Joseph, already betrothed to Mary and knowing the reason for her being with child, could not bring himself to compound one atrocity with another.

The book is extremely valuable for outlining the concepts of sustenance farming, the economic changes wrought by the Roman occupation and and its impact on Galilee, and the collaboration of the Judean and Galilean elites with Rome that lead to their enrichment at the expense of the populace. He presents the material in a manner that is easier to comprehend than that of Horsely, Crossan, Wright and others. His understanding of Jesus' mission is based heavily on Jeremiah. He does not focus much on Isaiah, but his emphasis is also on Jesus' social mission to the impoverished masses and not on Jesus self-identity or His mission to redeem Israel.

This book is more valuable for understanding the historical setting of first century Galilee and Judea than in developing an understanding of Jesus' later ministry. I wish I had wrote it, but Isbouts is much more qualified and articulate than I would have been. Kudos for the book.

I absolutely love this book. The author includes so many references, it feels like a reference book - which I'll use to look up other topics about that time in history. As a catholic, this perspective challenged many things I was taught to believe growing up, but the information is so compelling and in the end I feel the author respects the positions of christians and non-christians by remaining neutral and doing his best to reconstruct a likely scenario based on his research. He admits more than once that his perspective has been subject to debate yet I never read any defensiveness in his writing, which I appreciate. As someone who doesn't care much for dogmatic pitches, cynical or believers, I simply want access to facts and I'll decide what to believe.

Isbouts, like John Dominic Crossan, whom he cites as an important influence, tries to ground the adult Jesus in a childhood and young adulthood in multicultural, heavily Gentile Galilee.

Cognizant of historical scholarship, he starts by assuming Jesus was an illegitimate child, or was perceived as such, "overshadowings" by the Holy Spirit aside. From there, he shows how Jewish peasant farmers in Galilee, under Herodean rule, were getting squeezed ever more by taxes, such that more and more were either becoming "serfs" on landed estates, or day labor on Herodean construction projects, whether it was Herod the Great or Antipas in charge.

From this, Isbouts postulates a Jesus who followed John the Baptist for a year or so, then eventually set up shop on his own. Not apocalyptic like John, nonetheless, we are shown a Jesus who became more and more disgusted with most aspects of Sadducean priestly leadership in cahoots with the House of Herod, tnen, with Roman procurators after the exile of Archilaus.

Eventually, isbouts has him going to Jerusalem for Passover to confront the priestly establishment. However, Jesus did not see himself as the messiah, did not expect to die, and did not see that his death, if it happened, would be salvific, Isbouts continues.

However, his showdown with the moneychangers upset his applecart a bit. Isbouts places this not at the start of what Christians now call Holy Week, but on the day of Maundy Thursday. Unable to escape Jerusalem for Bethany because of the hubbub, he has to celebrate the Passover in town. He then goes to Gethsemane, not a quiet garden at this time of year, but swarmed with camping-out Passover observants with no other place to stay. Judas is needed to find Jesus in this crowd and he's arrested.

Isbouts says Jesus wouldn't have worried up to this point. He would have expected a regular trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin, and, with the support of Pharisees there, an acquittal on any priestly charges.

Of course, that's not what actually happened... Isbouts goes with the Gospels in presuming a stacked kangaroo court, a hand-off to Pilate, and no involvement by Antipas.

And, so, he is crucified.

Isbouts, even for people familiar with critical scholarship, does good not only with the speculation, but in debunking things like the romantic-bathetic Gethsemane.

But, not all is right. I believe no such person as Judas existed, due to Mark misunderstanding what Paul wrote about Jesus' arrest, in I Corinthians.

Paul's passage can be translated as, "On the night Jesus was betrayed," OR, "on the night Jesus was arrested." I believe the second is correct, and there was no "betrayer" known by Paul. Based on a misreading (I think the author of Mark was in Rome, with Latin as his first language, Greek as his second), a "betrayer" entered the picture; based on passages from Psalms 110 and elsewhere, Mark started fleshing out this betrayer.

So, if the priests didn't have a spy, and they were worried about crowd reaction, how did they capture Jesus? Back to the drawing board, Mr. Isbouts, and if you can succeed, then your book gets a fiffth star in revised edition.

This book gives a multi-disciplinary insight into the life and times of Jesus from youth to adult. It helps fill in the blanks that are not found in the Bible and shares some of his true assets.