 | | |
| Jesus of Nazareth | 
 enlarge | Author: Pope Benedict Xvi
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $7.74
You Save: $17.21 (69%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $7.74
Avg. Customer Rating:  (153 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2683
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0385523416
Dewey Decimal Number: 232.901
EAN: 9780385523417
ASIN: 0385523416
Publication Date: May 15, 2007
Release Date: May 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 151-153 of 153 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 A MUST READ FOR EVERYONE May 18, 2007
17 out of 32 found this review helpful
OUTSTANDING BOOK!!!! A MUST READ. POPE BENEDICT XVI DOES IT AGAIN, A TRULY WORK ABOUT GOD !!!!!
A MAJOR THEOLOGICAL EVENT: "JESUS OF NAZARETH" BY THE POPE. May 16, 2007
164 out of 177 found this review helpful
Five INSPIRATIONAL Stars! Pope Benedict XVI has brought decades of scholarly examinations of and meditations on Jesus Christ to fruition with this incredible book. Under his pen, the Catholic faith opens like a flower which can be clearly understood by any Christian. This book is not written from the standpoint of 'Papal Infallibility' or in concert with "the magisterium", but is "an expression of my personal search for the face of the Lord", says the Pope.
This is volume one, with the Pope giving a detailed examination of the periods from the Baptism of the Lord to Peter's confession of faith and the Transfiguration: His public ministry. At last, we have Jesus Christ as the Pope sees Him and explains Him to us! What a wonderful gift to the world from the new Pontiff ! And you may encounter some fascinating insights and lower order revelations herein that you may never have heard before. This book shows the pontiff not as someone closed off in his own world as sometimes rumored, but a person who is scripturally grounded, widely-read, intellectually astute and agile. He quotes the Bible continuously, uses tradition, as well as other theological sources and authors. Working with both the historical Jesus, as well as the biblical Jesus, the Pope informs us that we can't have one viewpoint of Jesus without the other and the historical Jesus is very crucial to the faith, actually underpining our faith. Without the historical viewpoint, he says, the faith would become something other than what we have.
The Pope's initial consideration of the figure of Jesus begins with a discussion of Moses and the limitations of his very close relationship with God. Then he gets right to the main point: Jesus as the Son "lives before the face of God" and "in the most intimate unity with the Father". And, Benedict says, we who walk with Jesus are in communion with God the Father because of it. That is the capstone of everything a believer needs as a jumping off point to becoming a believer of Christ. The rest, from the genealogical breakdown of the "three groups of fourteen generations", the true meaning and place of Israel for the rest of us believers, the emergence of the Trinitarian God, 'refuting' the Baptism event as an "evocational experience" where Jesus suddenly realizes who He is, the true meaning of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, why He was tempted, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, the Synoptic Gospels and John's Gospel, are all beautifully examined and explained. And it does not end as a book drawing summary conclusions, but as a volume, with more to come. This is an essential book for all Catholics and a great resource for all who believe in Jesus. It's a wonderful read by a man who was the Church's leading theologian before he became Pope. My Highest Recommendation! Five EXCELLENT Stars!!
(This review is based on an unabridged digital download in secure eReader format. Save a tree, download your books.)
Rediscover Jesus of Nazareth May 15, 2007
389 out of 406 found this review helpful
A few months ago someone asked me what book I would recommend that they give to their adult children who no longer practiced the faith, without hesitation I named this book as the one. At the time I had only read some excerpts available online from Germany and Italy. It was an act of faith then, now that I have the book I know that my recommendation was justified.
This is a great book, magisterial (even though the pope doesn't want it thought of in that way). It is not just another book about Jesus, it a revolutionary book about Jesus...in that it recaptures why people have had their lives changed by their belief in Jesus for over 2,000 years.
What makes this book so special? It is like a modern Summa (those who know St. Thomas Aquinas will understand me here) in that it answers modern questions of doubt, skepticism and even inquiry on not only who Jesus is, but why Jesus is the most important person anyone has ever or can ever know.
The pope's methodology is to take a scene from the Bible, like the Lord's baptism and then to draw on that scene from the entire Bible, to show what modern scholarship has done to help us to understand the historical context of the scene, tell us how the early Church fathers interpreted the scene, how would it have been viewed in Judaism (he uses the reflections of a Rabbi when discussing the Sermon on the Mount) and then to give the reader the meaning of this event for them. Along the way he answers questions to the many objections modern people bring to their encounter with Jesus.
As someone who has studied theology for a number of years and been exposed to every screwball theology out there, I found this book to be a corrective lens to refocus and correct my vision of who Jesus is and what following him means. What impresses me (and I'm not easily impressed) is that the Pope takes on the "screwball (my term, not his)" theologies in such a way as to making them seem silly (although he is incredibly charitable in his approach).
This book will have a great effect on renewing the Church and centering it on an image of Christ that is Biblical and credible, erasing years of poor and faulty preaching and teaching.
If you are not Catholic, but a Christian you will love this book too. In fact I predict you will be come a big fan of Joseph Ratzinger and will want to read his many published works to encounter someone rooted in Scripture and conversant with modern attacks on it. If you are a non Christian I think you will find in the book an excellent introduction to what Christians believe about the God-man from Nazareth. To all you parents out there who sent your kids to Catholic schools and now wish they would practice their faith, give them this book and reintroduce them to Jesus of Nazareth.
Once you've read this, you'll want to check out the Pope's take on the Apostles, in an excellent follow-up to this book:
The Apostles: The Origin of the Church and Their Co-Workers
I am the author of The How-To Book of the Mass: Everything You Need to Know but No One Ever Taught You
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |