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Summary: Removes Stale Tradition and Reveals Scriptural Truth!
Review: Yancey has a fine reputation as a Christian author, and this work adds to his credentials. The theme of this book is not simply Jesus Christ, but how the true Jesus of the Scriptures contrasts the traditional Jesus of history. Yancey weaves his own thoughts and experiences throughout this volume, a feature that makes his presentation even more appealing.The author begins by describing the traditional Jesus, the Jesus he thought he knew. He then turns to the Bible and begins to unfold the authentic account of this historical God-Man. He describes in detail who Jesus was, why He came, and what He left behind Him. Yancey's words strike home to Christians, speaking prophetically to them and challenging them to follow anew the radical call of their Lord. I have read several of Yancey's books, and have yet to be disappointed. This volume is well worth the money and the time required for reading. For a refreshing, Biblical presentation of the life of Jesus Christ and its centrality to the Christian faith, buy this book!
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Summary: Meeting Jesus would now seem Humanly possible.
Review: Jesus walked the earth nearly two thousand years ago, and we all see Him through different eyes. Phillip Yancey has allowed me to see Jesus as someone you could have walked up to and shook His hand and talked to Him as simply another human being. With humor, but more realistic views than usually offered through Sunday school ideals, Yancey somehow broke those childhood views and matured insight of a Jesus who might be considered a radical of today. The Romans wanted to rid Him and did, yet in doing so they helped His coming to be God, Christianity today as we know it. If you're looking for an answer that will seal all curiosities, good luck after reading millions of books. But if you are out to readjust your thinking, or better clear up a few misunderstandings as I am, this is a very highly recommened reading. After reading this book, I went to bed praying to a God whom I can talk to on a very human level. The title speaks very true to itself. Once you read it, you'll understand the "Saturday" portion between death and resurection and find it a nice day to be in, exciting.
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Summary: The Quest for the Pseudo-Historical Jesus
Review: This book is basically what the quest for the historical Jesus looks like when done by a non-scholar within the bounds of evangelical Christianity. I think Yancey is genuinely interested in discovering what Jesus was really like, but there are some lines he won't cross to find out. Yancey does manage to clear away a lot of the pious rubble that typically hides Jesus, but in the end he still comes away with a very Christian Jesus (i.e. not Jewish). Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking Yancey to go the route of the Jesus Seminar, but if you want to really explore who Jesus was, consider N.T. Wright instead of Yancey as a guide. Beyond that it seems like Yancey runs out of things to say about two thirds of the way through the book and rather than quit he keeps rehashing the same song and dance. "I would have expected the Son of God to assert his power, but Jesus came in weakness." This is certainly true, and very important. But you can only say it so many ways.
Rating: 
Summary: It's honest, inspiring, and easy-read
Review: In The Jesus I Never Knew, Yancey starts his search with the approach of ¡§Christology from above¡¨, i.e., ¡§from the confession of Jesus¡¦ Sonship to an understanding of His historical human life.¡¨ But his christological quest is more than an affirmation of Jesus¡¦ deity. Yancey¡¦s purpose of the book is to see the implications of the Christology of the church in a believer¡¦s day-to-day living. Our view of God decides our Christian commitment to His kingdom. Although Yancey avoids the theological terms as Logos or Word, the christological truth of Jesus¡¦ divine-human nature is well perceived. In Yancey¡¦s descriptions, Jesus is a sinless friend of sinners, the God-Man, a portrait of God the wounded healer, and the lover. ¡§In Jesus, God found a way of relating to human beings that did not involve fear,¡¨ claims Yancey. On the other hand, to affirm the humanity of Jesus is to emphasize His fellowship with humankind. In Gospels, Yancey finds Jesus as a passionate, controversial, sometimes jarring rabbi, who ¡§constantly pushes them (these serious seekers) toward a deeper level of commitment.¡¨ I agree with Yancey that we all have failed miserably the high ideals of the gospel when we look inside to the kingdom of God that is within us, but fortunately, Christ himself also dwells there. Yancey, therefore, proclaims: ¡§The story of Jesus is the story of a celebration... Not the least of Jesus¡¦ accomplishments is that he made us somehow lovable to God.¡¨ With searing honesty, Yancey also admits his own tendency to doubt and his impatience with God. Although Yancey¡¦s vision is westernized, he surely has grasped the essential questions in history most believers have in mind. I come from Taiwan where the church comprises about two percent of the population. As ¡§the Force in Star Wars¡¨ mentioned in Yancey¡¦s writing, Chinese people traditionally accept the concept of a universal logos that the wicked ones eventually get punished and the ones pure in heart rewarded. Unfortunately, the ambiguity toward the ontology of the unknown logos contributes to either polytheism or agnosticism. Under the narrow-minded nationalism, it is difficult for majority Chinese to accept God in a white male western image, needless to say, the Christ as, in Yancey¡¦s word, a ¡§underdog¡¨. I guess an almighty, benevolent and frightening God might do a much better job to introduce Himself. The choice, however, is presented as all history has had to decide about the cross. Yancey describes Jesus so correctly: ¡§He surrendered his greatest advantage: the power to compel belief.¡¨ Jesus fully understands that power will force obedience, but only love summons love. As Yancey explains, ¡§Goodness cannot be imposed externally, from the top down; it must grow internally, from the bottom up.¡¨ Hence, it is decisive whether to look at Jesus¡¦ powerlessness as an example of God¡¦s impotence or as proof of God¡¦s love. This notion is the key to understand Christianity and the touchstone of the faith, because God¡¦s kingdom is a different kind of kingdom solely based on God¡¦s grace and forgiveness. Miracles, for this reason, are not the absolute proofs of Jesus¡¦ deity. Jesus is to confer on us a new kingdom of ¡§service and humility,¡¨ as Yancey claims.
God expects not a faith without action but a holistic transform from every believer. Jesus, thus, taught his disciples, ¡§if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.¡¨ (Mt.16:24) However, we often face the temptation of an easier way, as our Lord in flesh did. The paradox arose when I think of Jesus ¡§in the Yancey¡¦s way¡¨ ¡V a guy who never established any single church, organization, or school during his three preaching years died lonely on the cross. He even did not intend to originate a new religion, whereas, his last words were: ¡§it is finished.¡¨(Jn 19:3) What is accomplished is beyond the world¡¦s standard of ¡§accomplishment¡¨: it is to communicate God¡¦s reconciling love to sinners. And the mission is now given us to continue.
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Summary: Meeting God Incarnate
Review: A century ago, a German theologian advised a friend to sell all he had and buy the works of the great British Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. While that is still excellent advice, there is another writer whose works you would do well to passionately collect. Philip Yancey's goal in this book was a simple one. He wanted to meet God's Son as He really was, not as this or that theologian or church interpreted Him. Yancey wanted to walk the paths of Israel with Jesus, to get to know Him, to listen to His words, to see how the people of that time reacted to Him and to wonder how he himself might have reacted to the life and teachings of Jesus. Yancey succeeds wonderfully. This book is filled with pithy and profound observations that will have you meditating very hard. I don't agree with all of his conclusions but I think Yancey has done as good a job of introducing the reader to Jesus Christ as any modern writer I've ever read, certainly far more meaningfully than celebrated religious skeptics, some of them claiming to be Christian, who presume to believe they know what Jesus "really said" or "really meant." And Yancey is a wonderful writer. I tend to jump around when I read, now reading this book and now that one, depending on my interests of the moment. But this book held my undivided attention for two days straight. I made a point of making time to read this, something I rarely ever do. Buy this right now.
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Summary: a book for believers and not sceptics
Review: For all of you out there who have complained that this book is not theological enough or that Yancey assumes in his book that scripture is accurate, this book was written to teach Christians. It was not written to be some kind of theological proof for non-believers. There are other books that were written for that purpose. "Letters from a Sceptic" is a good one. In the teachings in his book Yancey speaks from a background belief that scripture is inerrantly true. All that he learned about Jesus he took from the gospels and from Jewish history. If you're looking for a book that prooves that Jesus existed, try searching the topic on google. This book was written for believers to teach them something they had never thought about before. For too long have we entertained the sunday school version of Jesus. Phillip Yancy is attempting to dispell this myth and show us the real Jesus. I recommend this book to Christians seeking to know more about Jesus. It is a real eye opener.
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Summary: Thought triggering! One can certainly learn more about Jesus
Review: As promised by the book title, the author tried to deliver something "insightful" about Jesus to anybody who might even had read the whole New Testament several times. In my opinion, he did the job very well, no matter whether one agrees with his relatively liberal perspective manifest in his later and more well known book "What's so amazing about grace?" or not. Though I think "What's" is even better, I do recommend this to any christian who wants to know more about Christ our Savior. Below please find some copy and paste for your reference. Hope you like them. The temptation in the desert reveals a profound difference between God's power and Satan's power. Satan has the power to coerce, to dazzle, to force obedience, to destroy....God's power, in contrast, is internal and noncoercive....As every parent and every lover knows, love can be rendered powerless if the beloved chooses to spurn it. pg76 Jesus did not mechanically follow a list of "Things I gotta do today,", and I doubt he would have appreciated our modern emphasis on punctuality and precise scheduling. He attended wedding feasts that lasted for days. He let himself get distracted by nobody he came across...Two of his most impressive miracles (raising of Lazarus and Jairus's daughter) took place because he arrived too late...Jesus was "the man for others,..He kept himself free - free for the other person. pg 89 As a child, I saw the miracles as guarantees of personal safety.....According to tradition, the eleven disciples who sruvived Judas all died martyrs' deaths...Faith is not an insurance policy...but rather give a secure base from which to face their consequences. pg 181 Jesus' healings are not supernatura miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly natural things in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded. pg 183 When I ask a stranger, "What is an evangelical Christian?" I get an answer something like this, " Some who supports family values and opposes homosexual rights and abortion." This trend troubles me because the gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform....Jesus did not say, "All men will know you are my disciples ..if you just pass laws, suppress immorality, and restore decency to family and government," but rather "...if you love one another." pg 247
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Summary: Passionate, yet off-base
Review: Why does Christianity, alone among the world's great religions, feel compelled to prove itself by non-theological means? Why is there such an emphatic search for such items as Noah's Ark or the Walls of Jericho or the tomb of Jesus? Islam, Buddhism, Judaism nor Hinduism does this and one must at some time ask why. And why the obsession with "discovering Jesus"? This book is an attempt by the author to find the "real" Jesus. One would think that after 2,000 years of worshiping the man, he would be well known but the interest is greater today than ever. The Jesus Seminar with its scholars, archeologists, sociologists, linguists and historians have been trying to do the same thing for years. The problem here is that the author uses the New Testament as the basis for his studies. In one way that is entirely logical - they are the only writings that exist about Jesus. But one must assume that they are not only theologically but historically accurate in order to reach Yancey's conclusions. That means assuming that they were written for the purpose of history rather than theology and that has pretty well been discounted. It's like debating a skeptic by quoting Scripture. We have a review of Christianity's past along with all the requisite apologies. Then for some reason we veer into the subject of AIDS and world hunger, etc... But the heart of the matter is what Yancey perceives as the "real" Jesus as found in the New Testament words attributed to him. It should be noted that "Jesus Christ" is not a proper name and many of our ideas about him evolved slowly, emerging only after pitched battles between different groups. Christianity almost remained a small, Orthodox, Jewish sect that believed that Jeshua was a very human Messiah who had come to set up an Earthly Kingdom and would return soon.
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Summary: Good Food For Thought
Review: This book was great food for thought, and I wished that I could buy copies for all of my friends. Philip Yancy takes an indept look at Jesus's life here on earth and analyse the person Jesus in his ministry,and work for the kingdom. He asks us several times to pause and think.....suggesting that we could possible agree or disagree with certain characteristics written into the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He also speaks to some degree of the Jewish faith, and how it was applied at that time. It was a good read and I encourage all Christian readers to check it out some time.
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Summary: You will know Jesus better
Review: Philip Yancey's book The Jesus I Never Knew reminds me of the chorus of a contemporary worship song, "I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus." The Jesus I Never Knew is all about Jesus. Yancey writes not as a mere scholar penning a textbook about Jesus; although his scholastic competence outweighs all but a few Christian writers I have read, he writes as if he were leading a small group discussion about his hero Jesus. For each topic concerning Jesus that he addresses, Yancey stimulates the reader by drawing from personal stories and insights, quotes from historians, philosophers and other Christian writers. He asks provoking questions that aim at the heart of our Christianity. The reader cannot avoid examining his or her own relationship to Jesus. Yancey's tone is genuine and informal, never condescending or too theological. The impression I had while reading the book is that Yancey truly wants to know Jesus and wants to reader to know Jesus even more. The Jesus I Never Knew is divided into three sections: "Who He Was," "Why He Came," and "What He Left Behind." Within each of these sections are three to six chapters. Each chapter covers particular stages, events, accomplishments, sacrifices or lessons of Jesus. The book never dwells on a peripheral subject or tangent; from cover to cover, Yancey centers his attention on Jesus. In the opening chapter of the book, "The Jesus I thought I knew," Yancey confesses that he tends to write as a means of confronting his own doubts. The doubt he confronts through this book is whether the Jesus he worships and imagines is in fact the true Jesus or a distorted image of Jesus created by a combination of heretical religious doctrines, cultural idiosyncrasies, and self-serving opinion. The reader cannot help but to confront the same issue, and it is a question all Christians should ask from time to time-perhaps everyday: "Is the Jesus I know the true Jesus?" The uniqueness of The Jesus I Never Knew is due at least partially to Yancey's background as a professional journalist. He currently serves as editor-at-large for Christianity Today magazine. He delves into the life of Jesus as an investigating journalist searching to uncover clues showing the truth. In doing so, he expands upon the accounts of Jesus' life found in the gospels and offers perspectives stemming from the times in which Jesus lived and the people around him in relation to his words and deeds. Due to Yancey's prominence in Christian writing and speaking, he possesses a keen awareness of the trends in Christian churches today regarding views of Jesus. He challenges some of the attitudes of today's Christians in an attempt to realign the reader with the true Jesus of the gospels and his teachings.
In the book's last chapter, "The Difference He Makes," Yancey conveys the essence of the book, The story of Jesus is the story of a celebration, a story of love. It involves pain and disappointment, yes, for God as well as for us. But Jesus embodies the promise of a God who will go to any length to win us back. Not the least of Jesus' accomplishments is that he made us somehow lovable to God (269). Yancey's book will help you fall more in love with Jesus. It reminds me that Jesus is exactly who I want my Lord to be. If you enjoy reading "The Jesus I Never Knew," you may want to consider reading other books Yancey has written especially the award-winning "What is So Amazing About Grace."
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