The Life of Jesus (Great Minds Series)

The Life of Jesus (Great Minds Series)
by Ernest Renan

The Life of Jesus (Great Minds Series)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Ernest Renan
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1991-12-03
ISBN: 0879757043
Number of pages: 237
Publisher: Prometheus Books

Book Reviews of The Life of Jesus (Great Minds Series)

Book Review: Jesus: an extraordinary man!
Summary: 5 Stars

Renan was thrown out of the "Collège de France" for having written that Jesus was an extraordinary man. He is THE, or at least one of the most important founders of the secular interpretation of Jesus, amazingly derived essentially from John's Gospel rather than from the Synoptics. His book is an important landmark to have, if not on our bookshelves, at least in our memories. For the happy few, it's easier as always to read in the original French rather than the translated version. Writing styles have also considerably changed since the romantic literature era. And many ideas and discoveries have been made since Renan's mid-nineteenth century days and he would have loved all the material disclosed a hundred years later by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi library as well as all the archaeology related in the "Bible Unearthed". The book may seem a bit outdated today, but what insight and intellectual courage!

Aware of many unresolved problems, Renan prophesized that the correct interpretation of the bible would come from a layman using a critical approach and is devoid of any desire to destroy the dogma or to protect it. If we follow his recommendations, we have to look for someone who wants to discover the real meaning (I'm sure that the Jesus of the Gospels is just as alien to Church readings as to scholarly revisions) of these ancient texts and who is neither a Christian apologist nor an already convinced atheist. Who will square the circle?

Summary of The Life of Jesus (Great Minds Series)

In this classic work, renowned rationalist and scholar of religion Ernest Renan is the first biographer of Jesus to present him as entirely human. Renan describes Jesus as a popular religious leader and self-proclaimed Messiah who increasingly advocated the overthrow of Roman rule and the establishment of a theocracy. To support his apocalyptic vision, Renan's Jesus was not above using trickery and deception, as in the raising of Lazarus. The impression left by Jesus on his disciples was so profound that they began to proclaim his Resurrection and presence among them shortly after his death. Even conceding Christ's historicity, it is still seriously debated by modern biblical scholars whether a reliable life of Jesus can be gleaned from the gospels. For this very reason, the questions raised by Renan a century ago about the facts surrounding Jesus' life and the authorship of the gospels are still far from settled. "The Life of Jesus" has provoked both controversy and praise since its publication in 1863.

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