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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Celebrity biographer and former monk Donald Spoto (author of Diana: The Last Year) applies his impressive research skills to the life of Jesus. From the get go, Spoto makes it clear that he's willing to upend many of the dominant beliefs about Jesus. For example, Spoto asserts that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not the little town of Bethlehem. (Matthew and Luke apparently placed their accounts of the birth in Bethlehem, the home of King David, in order to substantiate the belief that Jesus descended from the line of David.) And so it goes, with Spoto stating that the virginal conception should not be literally interpreted, that there is no evidence of an unusually bright star around the time of Jesus' birth, and that Jesus was not an only child, but in fact the eldest of seven.
Celebrity biographer and former monk Donald Spoto (author of Diana: The Last Year) applies his impressive research skills to the life of Jesus. From the get go, Spoto makes it clear that he's willing to upend many of the dominant beliefs about Jesus. For example, Spoto asserts that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not the little town of Bethlehem. (Matthew and Luke apparently placed their accounts of the birth in Bethlehem, the home of King David, in order to substantiate the belief that Jesus descended from the line of David.) And so it goes, with Spoto stating that the virginal conception should not be literally interpreted, that there is no evidence of an unusually bright star around the time of Jesus' birth, and that Jesus was not an only child, but in fact the eldest of seven.
Fortunately, Spoto maintains a respectful and pensive tone throughout--a welcome departure from the tawdry details of some of his celebrity biographies. Spoto uses his investigative talents to reveal the meaning as much as the historical facts of Jesus' life and afterlife. At its core, The Hidden Life of Jesus is a Christian's personal quest and resulting theory into the ultimate meaning and enduring impact of Jesus of Nazareth. --Gail Hudson
From Publishers Weekly
Spoto, author of Diana: The Last Year, turns his considerable storytelling skills to the life of the one person who can clearly claim greater celebrity than the departed princess: Jesus. Calling Jesus the "man nobody knows," Spoto offers a chronicle that moves from Jesus's birth to his death and resurrection. Although Spoto relies on the chronology of the Gospels for the structure of his book, he cannily weaves literary criticism, historical research and theological scholarship into his story of the life and work of one of history's most enduring figures. Along the way, Spoto contends that the Gospel writers were great propagandists more concerned with using Jesus's life to assert their own agendas than with revealing the historical details of that life in order to hide the real Jesus from his followers (e.g., Spoto reads Matthew's story of Jesus's birth in Bethlehem as an effort to connect Jesus with King David in the minds of his audience). Spoto also argues that the virgin birth of Jesus can't be understood literally, that though anti-Semitism pervades the New Testament it is not part of God's revealed truth and that "Jesus was viewed both during and after his lifetime as an exorcist and a healer... not merely a teacher of ethical maxims or a preacher of religious truths." Spoto's biography, written with impressive clarity and pace, is as much a record of the his own spiritual search to find the hidden Jesus of his own life as it is a search for the hidden Jesus of Christianity.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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