Rating: 
Summary: JESUS FOR ADULTS
Review: Until I read this book, no author has ever caused me to like Jesus very much, much less love him. No one has ever made him seem real before. Bruce Chilton makes him a real person, and in doing so makes him lovable, but not in the conventional, saccharine way to which we are so accustomed. It's more the way you feel toward a hungry, homeless youngster living on the edge and just barely surviving.Jesus was the black sheep of his family. He didn't get lost when his family took him to the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. He ran away from home, and he never returned for the next six years. Chilton shows us how the psychological and emotional trauma of his "early years" created the adult he eventually became. To my knowledge, no one has ever attempted a reconstruction of this sort before. Chilton explains how the experiences of his early life influenced the development of his thinking, explaining how and why Jesus came to believe and later to teach the things he did. In this respect, Chilton has, as he claims, composed the first ever biography of Jesus. Chilton respects the integrity and intent of the Gospels in a way that few modern scholars seem capable of doing. Although not traditional, he clearly resists the fashion of the moment, and charts his own unique course. Speculation it may well be, but hardly idle. Granted, it is a reconstruction, as are all accounts of the life and times of Jesus including the Gospels. Chilton doubts that Jesus' itinerant lifestyle ever allowed him to marry. (See the convincing arguments to the contrary that John Shelby Spong, former Anglican Archbishop of Newark now on the faculty at Harvard, offers on this topic in chapter thirteen of his recent book Born Of A Woman.) The Gospel writers themselves, given their cultural biases regarding women, saw no reason to raise the issue of Jesus' marital status. Chilton does make the point however that Jesus most certainly did have a significant other in his life (see pages 144-47 and 249-50). Chilton also speculates, as I have long believed, that Jesus displayed bi-polar tendencies (see pages 104 & 94-95). If so, this would certainly help to explain his personal magnetism. Right or wrong, and I think he gets more of the story right than not, Chilton's book Rabbi Jesus makes for some mighty fascinating reading. His explanation of the origin and meaning of the Eucharist (pp. 250-54) is particularly compelling, not to mention enlightening.
Rating: 
Summary: A Jesus of his own making
Review: What one would have assumed by the title and subtitle was something on the order of the hebraic and jewish foundation of the teachings of Jesus- something I have spent much time studying. This was not such an attempt. A clear attempt to rewrite the gospels as a clever mask for the "real" Jesus as Chilton sees Him- a lazy, illiterate, drunkard who learns new age meditation from John the Baptist during His silent years and later uses and teaches these methods until His untimely death. His virgin birth is questioned and His "obvious" ..relationship with Mary Magdalene is snickered at. This is hardly a work of scholarship, but it serves the purpose of showing how one's own unusual spirituality can be inserted into history, resulting into a Jesus that suits your taste. He is certainly not the first to do it, nor the last. Read this only if you have a solid understanding of what you already know of Jesus and His Jewishness- but be ready to throw out the authors suppositions and conclusions for which he gives no support.
Rating: 
Summary: Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Exercise In Egomania
Review: Whether one is a "believer" or not, you can't read two pages in this book without realizing how misleading its title is. There is nothing "biographical" in the slightest about this book, unless we re-define the term to mean the imaginative projections of a man who clearly regards the Gospels as little more than laughable fairy tales, and who has thus decided to invent his own laughable fairy tale to replace them with. That author Chilton could suggest his book is an intimate biography is, as I mentioned in the title of my review, only evidence of some kind of bizarre and embarrassing egomania. The protagonist of Chilton's fantasy novel is the product of an illicit sexual liason between an obscure carpenter and his simple-minded fiance, Mary. This ... son is so [messed] up, Chilton teaches us, he comes to believe he is the Jewish Meshiach, or Messiah. Chilton not only describes this madman in all kinds of scenes in the finest detail, he even reads Jesus's mind at various points. As if anticipating the natural questions about his mindreading powers 2000 years later, Chilton solemnly informs us that he speaks many ancient languages and that he has studied the N.T. for a long time. If you happen to be one of those people that thinks St. John, for example, might have been on to something in his testimony of Jesus, I don't think you're going to take kindly to this book. If you are someone who regards Jesus merely as an important historical figure, you won't find a whole lot of value in here either, since as I said it consists largely of the author's speculations. There are plenty of other serious resources that will give you far more background on Jewish life 2000 years ago than this will. For those interested in reading thought-provoking, not necessarily orthodox discussions of Jesus's life, I recommend Jesus: An Unconventional Biography by Jacques Duquesne, translated by Catherine Spencer and published by Triumph, which is ten times what this book should have been. Still laughing at this book...
Rating:
Summary: A little bit of fact and a lot of fiction
Review: You can call this work "scholarly" only in the loosest sense. As Mr. Chilton admits in his foreword, "Some readers have had problems with my speaking of specific deeds, words, thoughts, and emotions in those settings. Of course, no source gives us a literal record: what Jesus did and said at any particular time will always be a matter of inference." Once you read this book, it becomes obvious why readers have problems with it. Most people who are drawn to read this book are seekers-of-truth who already have at least a basic knowledge of Christianity and/or Judaism and are looking to gain more insight and deepen their studies. The picture painted by Chilton of Jesus being an over-weight, street begging, illiterate, and emotionally traumatized man is in contridiction of factual historical documents such as "The Report of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, Concerning Jesus Christ Our Lord" found on file in the ancient library of Rome. (There are other documents as well.) While Chilton points out that Jesus was an 'outcast' due to the circumstances of his conception, he down plays the real issue; the fact that Jesus taught against the talmudic scribes and pharisees (see Matthew 23). The talmud consisted of so many unnecessary and burdensome laws that it made the word of God of none effect. (For a deeper study on that subject read: Judaism's Strange Gods by Michael Hoffman II) Quoting him again, he states, "Each position I take is a conscious choice among scholarly options." That being the case, I strongly recommend that those who are in search of Truth consider the other "scholarly options". While this book does make for interesting reading, you must ask yourself if you want to be entertained by the imagination of the author, or do you want to spend your time pursuing real scholarly works.
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