Life of Jesus

Rating:
Summary: Read this book if you want to understand Catholicism.
Review: This is a life of Jesus as told through the eyes of a Japenese man. It is without doubt the most sensitive account of the life of Jesus. The influence of Japanese culture and their concepts of God being understanding goes a long way to help the reader see Jesus in all His humanity and divinity at the same time. By reading this book you learn what being Catholic is all supposed to be about. This reader wants to read other works by Shusaku Endo

Rating:
Summary: The man - not the God
Review: This is one of the best works ever published on the life of the Jewish rabbi named Jesus. Shusaku Endo brings him to us devoid of our usual inclinations and prejudices. Which of us, having been to church, can forget those pictures of Jesus in which he appears almost Scandinavian or a slightly rumpled European? With an Eastern perspective, Endo can - in many ways - render a more balanced and more authentic saga.

This book is NOT about Christ, the supernatural being who was developed in the decades and centuries afterward. This is, ultiamtely, a very human story of a man, his life and times. Endo himself asks the question that so many recent critics and observers have pondered. Consider, the various books in the New Testament were written decades after the death of Jesus by people who never saw him. They were composed not as historical documents but as religious aids for the faithful. Knowing all this, how can we ever know the historical Jesus?

Endo asks the question then goes on to give this remarkable story of a remarkable life. No deep theology or arguing about the nature of God or the mystery of the Trinity - just a simple moving story of a life.

Rating:
Summary: The man - not the God
Review: This is one of the best works ever published on the life of the Jewish rabbi named Jesus. Shusaku Endo brings him to us devoid of our usual inclinations and prejudices. Which of us, having been to church, can forget those pictures of Jesus in which he appears almost Scandinavian or a slightly rumpled European? With an Eastern perspective, Endo can - in many ways - render a more balanced and more authentic saga.

This book is NOT about Christ, the supernatural being who was developed in the decades and centuries afterward. This is, ultiamtely, a very human story of a man, his life and times. Endo himself asks the question that so many recent critics and observers have pondered. Consider, the various books in the New Testament were written decades after the death of Jesus by people who never saw him. They were composed not as historical documents but as religious aids for the faithful. Knowing all this, how can we ever know the historical Jesus?

Endo asks the question then goes on to give this remarkable story of a remarkable life. No deep theology or arguing about the nature of God or the mystery of the Trinity - just a simple moving story of a life.