Rating: 
Summary: One crooked Jew's sorry attempt
Review: I read this book and couple more books of this author. It is the same theme and same goal. I wish if he had read bible honestly once without throwing his crooked ideas.
This is another master plan like "Davinci's code" to discredit Jesus and christianity, hoping to defend Judaism. Author is a descredit to honest Jews too.
Rating: 
Summary: Five-star translation; one-star scholarship
Review: I really like Stephen Mitchell's translations (and I mean _translations_, not the texts he has occasionally tried to assemble using _other_ people's translations from languages he doesn't read). He has an uncanny skill for "listening" his way into a text and saying what it "wants" to say in clear, simple, English poetry/prose. Which means I think well of the positive portions of his translations of Genesis, the Psalms, the book of Job, and (in this book) the Christian New Testament.I also like parts of his commentary. Here, too, he is remarkably adept at adducing pertinent parallels among at least the mystical strands of various religions and "wisdom traditions." More often than not, I find his lucid comments useful and even enlightening (and, incidentally, less far from, or at least less irreconcilable with, the religious "mainstream" than he sometimes thinks they are). But boy, when it comes to scholarship . . . In the present volume Mitchell isn't content to rely on mainstream "liberal Christian" scholars like E.P. Sanders. No, he further relies on the risible "scholarship" of the "Jesus Seminar" and uses their remarkable voting-with-balls scheme as an illustration of _consensus_ among New Testament scholars. (It's not an illustration of consensus even within the "Jesus Seminar" itself.) And as though _that_ weren't enough, he even makes use of Jane Schaberg's _The Illegitimacy of Jesus_ (which argues, based on a couple of shreds of text, that Jesus must have been a mamzer). This is par for the course with Mitchell. His translation of _Genesis_ is chopped to bits because he relies on the JEDP "documentary hypothesis" and thinks he can tell (via Buddhist spiritual insight, one supposes) which portions of the text are spiritually worthwhile and which are not. Never mind that no two commentators have ever divided the texts in just the same way and that the hypothesis itself has been pretty well decimated by, e.g., Umberto Cassuto among others. Ditto his translations of Job (in which he omits the entire speech by Elihu) and the Psalms (in which he does a nice job with many of them but manages to turn all the "complaining" Psalms into expressions of spiritual acquiescence simply by omitting and rephrasing everything he finds insufficiently transparent). What he leaves _in_ is usually worth reading. But good heavens, how much he leaves out! In the present volume what is left out is why in the world anyone would ever have executed such a harmless Bu-Ju sage. Aside from a brief comment to the effect that it would have been dangerous to teach "the truth" in occupied Jerusalem, we are left altogether in the dark as to why this enlightened fellow could possibly have posed a threat to Roman rule. Also omitted is any consideration of even the possibility that Jesus's resurrection was a historical event. My word, Rabbi Pinchas Lapide devoted an entire book to elaborating the view that it probably _was_ historical even though he disagreed with Christianity about its precise significance. And even people who _don't_ think it was historical should be worried by Mitchell's repeated denigration of the "insight" of Peter, Paul, et alia, and his insistence that anybody who believes in a literal resurrection is the spiritual equivalent of a thumbsucker -- in contrast, say, to the more spiritually advanced Ralph Waldo Emerson and Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom are quoted here at some length. On the other hand, he does do a decent job of placing some of Jesus's teachings in their historical Jewish context. And he remarks trenchantly that Jesus is "prototypically Jewish" in making "righteousness seem like the most beautiful thing in the world." This, I think, is just right. (And I can't fault him for wanting everybody to read E.P. Sanders's _Jesus and Judaism_, which really is a great book.) Read carefully and critically, then. This _is_ a good book on the whole; I've owned it since it was published and I still rather like a great deal of it. But watch out for Mitchell's tendency to substitute his own rather New-Agey "spiritual insight" for sound scholarship.
Rating:
Summary: For the Non-Christian
Review: I wish Mitchell began this book with more autobiographical material. He spent many years halfway around the world finding spiritual truths in Zen Buddhism. How could he not find Western Christianity lacking? I found the most perceptive insights speculate on Jesus' psychology as an "illegitamate" child. Perhaps the local community knew Joseph was not Jesus' biological father. Whether or not you believe in a miraculous conception, one has to wonder whether Jesus was perceived by his peers to be of legitimate birth. How this would have fueled his anger against the Roman occupation! There has been some speculation by non-believers that Jesus was son of a Roman soldier. Was Jesus rage personal as well as righteous? Not for devout Christians.
Rating: 
Summary: SIMPLE YET PROFOUND
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone seeking spiritual truth. Mitchell has done a wonderful job of research to find the inconsistencies in other works, including the bible. What remains are not versions of the truth written by those with a personal agenda, but the simple message of the Christ: The Kingdom is Within. Why dogmatic religions don't get this is still beyond my comprehension. Perhaps it's to keep people living in fear of suffering an eternal inferno, or to keep the religious hierarchy alive. But when the man called Jesus embodied the Christ his point was clear: don't follow me, but your own wisdom, for you have the Christ within as well.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of time
Review: I write this as a seeker, not as a dreaded fundamentalist or, God forbid, a Catholic, as another reviewer has noted. Why is Mitchell's book so popular that it has even been made into a television program? He has done nothing but select passages from here and there in the Gospels to illustrate that Jesus was quite the teacher. This leaves the reader at the mercy of the author's editing. For example, right at the beginning, we see Jesus baptized by John. Mitchell then omits the incredible result of that baptism, the real stuff of the passage. The reader asks what he has been "taught" by Mitchell's truncated version. The New Testament itself provides the answer!
Rating:
Summary: the "gospel" according to Stephen Mitchell
Review: I'm not exactly sure which "jesus" this "Gospel" is supposed to be according to, but if you really desire to deny everything the son of God died and was raised back to life for, and ignore His own testimony as to who He is- "I am the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the father but through Me"- Than by all means buy this book! Maybe you can ask Jesus what he thinks of it when you stand before Him in Judgement for the sins you deny. Or maybe you could acknowledge your sins and be justified by faith in the real Jesus Christ- "Be earnest therefore and repent! Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me"-Jesus.
Rating:
Summary: Creditable reappraisal of previously unquestionable sources
Review: Impressive dissection of previously unquestionable authority. Mitchell depicts the texts that have evidently been 'modified' over time by the orthodox Church. Unfortunately, after having recently read the astounding "The Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years" by Richard G. Patton, all other offerings around the man we know as Jesus, fall into the 'Also Ran' category. Despite this, Mitchell has delivered an authoritative account of how manipulated the texts we now see have become over the Millenia.
Rating: 
Summary: good book
Review: Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is something you can achieve while you are living on this earth, not simply a reward that you get after you die "for being good," and for "believing." People who say this book is no good are the types of people who never think about anything for themselves and just believe what they are told because it is the safest thing to do. In fact they are jealous of those who can articulate their own opinions as well as Mitchell does. I strongly question the mind of a person who uses words like "blasphemy" to criticize the honest inquiry of others; I feel they need to grow up and reach a more adult stage of spiritual understanding. By the way, for the guy from Moreno, California, "son of Mary" is accurately translated from Aramaic as "illegitimate son of Mary"...
Rating:
Summary: Mitchell has restored my interest in the gospels.
Review: Many thanks to Mitchell for restoring my interest and faith in the gospels. His comprehensive introduction and commentary following his rendition of the good news was very helpful to making up my own mind as to what message God was sending us in the person of Jesus. I recognize the love God was communicating in Mitchell's book. A must read for all truth seekers!
Rating:
Summary: Should be "The Gospel According to Stephen Mitchell"
Review: Mitchell attempts to rewrite the Gospels by picking and choosing the passages out of the Bible that he feels are true
and discarding those he thinks are fable. The problem is that he has no historical basis for any of this. To quote
him, his method of rewriting the Gospels is such that he chose "only those passages that seem to [him] authentic
accounts of Jesus' sayings". Passages that "seem" true? I, too, could rewrite any book and make it say exactly
what I want. What if I were to rewrite the constitution, the Bill of Rights, the law books of the state of California?
He tries to say that there is no historical basis for most of the Bible, but he makes arguments that have no historical
basis themselves. He himself even says that his rewritten gospel is not based on proof, only probabilities and
feelings (Page 7). I have a hard time trying to accept his account of Mary's infidelity to Joseph. (...) This goes against the immaculate conception, one of the most
basic and holy tenets of the Christian faith. He says that the Kingdom of God is not a place but a state of mind that
exists in people who follow his watered-down version of the teachings of Jesus. Again, not true. The Kingdom of
God is a real place, a place that believers go to when they die...a place that will someday be established here on
Earth. He negates all titles attributed to Jesus in the Bible (Savior, Redeemer, Son of Man), all places where Jesus
is opposed by the Pharisees, and calls the resurrection a fairy tale. He virtually disregards the accounts of
eyewitnesses such as Matthew and John, calling them deceivers and liars. He misinterprets scripture to make Jesus
into a crazy man who hated his mother and was estranged from the rest of his family. Utter blasphemy. Though Mitchell probably attempts to do something that in his mind will help others, he falls WAY short of this.
In fact, he will eventually hurt others by leading them astray...taking them down with him. I believe that God can do anything. This includes preserving his messages of the Holy Bible through centuries of
war, weather, and biases. When people say that the Bible has been utterly corrupted and misinterpreted, they are
in effect saying that God is powerless to preserve His word and His tenets throughout the years. Revelation 22:19 specifically warns about rewriting the Bible. "If anyone takes away from the words of the book of
this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this
book." Stephen Mitchell boldly spits on this passage. In writing about Paul, Mitchell says "He didn't understand Jesus at all. He wasn't even interested in Jesus; just in
his own idea of the Christ." Sadly, Mr. Mitchell, I believe you are speaking of yourself in this passage. (...)
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