The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton Readings in Religions Book 31) by Amy-Jill Levine (PDF)

Description

The Historical Jesus in Context is a landmark collection that places the gospel narratives in their full literary, social, and archaeological context. More than twenty-five internationally recognized experts offer new translations and descriptions of a broad range of texts that shed new light on the Jesus of history, including pagan prayers and private inscriptions, miracle tales and martyrdoms, parables and fables, divorce decrees and imperial propaganda. The translated materials–from Christian, Coptic, and Jewish as well as Greek, Roman, and Egyptian texts–extend beyond single phrases to encompass the full context, thus allowing readers to locate Jesus in a broader cultural setting than is usually made available. This book demonstrates that only by knowing the world in which Jesus lived and taught can we fully understand him, his message, and the spread of the Gospel. Gathering in one place material that was previously available only in disparate sources, this formidable book provides innovative insight into matters no less grand than first-century Jewish and Gentile life, the composition of the Gospels, and Jesus himself.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This review is for non-academics. If you’ve read the popular books on the historical Jesus, such as those by Ehrman and Fredriksen, and you’re OK with reading academic texts as recreation — which isn’t such a stretch if you’re into this particular subject — then don’t miss this book.Seriously, if you’re genuinely interested in the topic, and you know the groundwork, this book is a perfect next step.Keep in mind, it’s not a single book, it’s a collection of articles regarding a bunch of specific subtopics, so there’s no cohesive take-away or thesis here. But what you’ll learn is astonishing, from the results of recent archaeology in 1st century Galilean digs, to descriptions of Jerusalem and the Temple, to what we can learn about the gospels from ancient Greek schoolbooks, how the Aramaic word for “father” was used and what that tells us about Jewish texts, and so forth.There’s a lot of low-information baloney about Jesus out there right now. So it’s good to see a well-documented book like this being published. I wish there were more like it.

⭐This is not a stand-alone book. It is avowedly an anthology of new translations of two dozen or so non-canonical texts or textual clusters intended to place the hisotircal Jesus of the Gospel narratives in “their full literary, social, and archaeological contexts.” Because of the editorially limited scope, the anthology necessarily doesn’t include the whole documentary story. I don’t see anything that makes this book more integrated than an anthology of selected sources. Prof. Levine’s forty-page introduction to the search for the historical Jesus provides a general historical framework. But each documentary chapter seems to stand on it own. What some readers will want is a parallel textbook tying the anthologized documents to framework. That said, the volume abounds in latent insights to the writings to be discovered and integrated by a diligent reader who brings his own framework to the book.

⭐This book took a long time to get to any interesting point and is perhaps more scholar oriented? But this book is more about digging up artifacts from the time of Jesus than a significant work on Jesus himself.

⭐As a Christian and adult Christian education teacher at my church, I am always interested in learning more about the language, setting and culture of the times the events in the Bible took place. I believe that understanding how the first hearers would have reacted and understood what was going on makes it at least as, if not more, relevant to understanding it in today’s culture. This book sheds light on this kind of understanding. Dr Levine, as an orthodox Jewess, brings new meaning to the stories of the 1st century AD (or CE if you want to be politically correct). Sometimes the fact that Jesus was a Jew gets lost in modern thinking. This brings it back in a straightforward, easy to read way, that gives enlightenment to those who would seek a deeper understanding of Jesus in their lives.

⭐Scholarly and readable research findings and essays on the social and political time frame of his life. Reading this kind of information and learning the influences that impacted the attitudes and behaviors of those in the world around Jesus helps me to move away from the “magic and mystery” that has resulted in so much abuse of what we refer to as religion. I’ve realized I don’t need that to maintain my spirituality.

⭐This book is excellent for anyone who is interested in the historical life of Jesus. I found it very informative and enlightening.

⭐Mostly used the introduction.

⭐An important book by a prolific writer and a very pertinent topic.

⭐Excellent Essays

⭐Es una compilación de investigaciónes sobre el funcionamiento de le la religión y Roma en tiempos de Cristo

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