Rating: 
Summary: THE definitive quest for the historical Jesus
Review: A Marginal Jew is an excellent book. Mr. Meier has written it in such a way that a non-biblical expert can read and understand the arguements and conclusions he puts forth. There are extensive footnotes which allow readers to look for more information as well as background discussions he has dealing with other publications. This book is a must for anyone interested in the quest for the historical Jesus
Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: Every once in a while, public attention turns to the person of Jesus of Nazareth. A few years ago, it was the "Jesus Seminar." Lately, Dan Brown's book THE DA VINCI CODE sparked some interest, particularly among the conspiracy minded. The impression that many people have is that the conventional story about Jesus is wrong, and the more established churches don't want you to know it.
What many people haven't been told is that there is a large body of work in recent years which is supportive of the historical accuracy of the Gospels. One such work is John Meier's series A MARGINAL JEW. Meier is a Catholic priest who teaches at Notre Dame. In 1991 he came out with the first volume. It might not be the first book you want to read on the subject, but it's a work that anyone interested in the historical Jesus should tackle. Volume two and three are out, and a fourth and final volume is promised.
Meier's work is nothing if not comprehensive. Volume 1 describes the sources for the life of Jesus, the historicity of those sources, the chronology of Jesus' life, and his background (his family, what languages he spoke, whether he could read, and the like). Meier is particularly good on some of the supposed sources for Jesus' life, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter. As he shows, careful analysis of these documents indicates that they are later than and rely upon the canonical Gospels. Contra people like Crossan, it is highly unlikely that they contain a separate Jesus tradition.
This book is also interesting for a couple of other reasons. First, although the book contains the imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church (indicating it is free from doctrinal error), Meier actually denies the perpetual virginity of Mary and is noncommittal on the virgin birth (both of which are Catholic dogma, or so I thought). Second, Meier disputes the historicity of portions of the Gospels, particularly the infancy narratives. For example, he thinks it unlikely that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Ben Witherington provides a review of Meier's project up to the second volume in THE JESUS QUEST. Witherington reaches more conservative conclusions while using a similar methodology.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, intellectually honest, well written and complete
Review: From the beginning to the end, this book will enthrall those who are attempting to understand Jesus and his times. I could not put the book down until I completed it. For the scholar, it provides abundant resources. The inquisitive readers, like myself, can skip over the footnotes, without losing the intellectual flavor of this brilliant work. It is spellbindingly honest in its analysis. Thank you John Meier for this wonderful work. Book two is equally brilliant. I anxiously await the promised book three.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, if you survive the Methodology
Review: He begins what was at the time a 2 volume book (now up to 4) with a lot on Methodology, which actually helps to describe the work of the Jesus Seminar and modern christological and New Testament thought & research. Most people I know found that section A Drag.
However, once he actually launches into the birth narratives and begins talking about Jesus, what happened, when, and why, it's as fascinating as a detective story, and as hard to put down.
This book is for intelligent readers with open minds; those who believe God wrote the Bible and it has been handed exactly as God intended should keep looking.
Rating:
Summary: Best Historical Jesus Book Yet
Review: I have read many books on the historical Jesus but this is by far the best historical Jesus book yet. It is very well written and contains solid scholarship. I recommend this book to atheists, and especially to Christians of all denominations. I would also recommend the second volume of this series.
Rating:
Summary: Good scholarship, dry delivery
Review: John Meier's "A Marginal Jew" is the leading study of the historical Jesus of our time. Notwithstanding three sizeable volumes the work is still incomplete, but this reputation is clearly well-deserved. The first volume only deals with the basic contours of his life, but it is the most intelligent discussion of these questions available. Meier, a Catholic priest, reminds us that the historical Jesus is not the real Jesus. For a start we have a radical shortage of information of information about all but a few people in classical times, and Jesus is not one of those lucky few. What he has presented is what a spectrum of theologians and historians would conclude about Jesus if they were forced to provide a basic consensus. So Meier starts with the sources for Jesus' life, which basically consists of the Gospels. There is a long, thorough discussion of the reference to Jesus in Josephus, from which Meier agrees with most scholars is mostly genuine, with several obvious Christian interpolations. He then discusses other sources, which reveal a very meagre crop. There is Tacitus' reference to Christians, nothing of value in the Talmud, as well as a thorough deflation of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Thomas consists of sayings, many of which resemble those in the Gospels. But Thomas' sayings are simpler, and many have concluded that they are more primitive and therefore earlier than the canonical gospels. Meier disagrees. He points that one reason Thomas' order of sayings does not resemble the synoptic gospels is because many of them were remembered orally, not because they proceeded them. He also points out one reason Thomas' sayings appear simpler is because the Gnostic concerns of the author/editor has pared away those elements of the original Gospel saying that were too clear or too eschatological for the author's taste. We then get a discussion of the criteria for deciding what comes from Jesus; embarrassment, discontinuity, multiple attestation and providing a motive for Jesus' execution. We then turn to Jesus' actual life himself. We start off with a discussion of his name, and then we have a discussion of the infancy narratives. Notwithstanding the fact that Meier is a Catholic priest, by the time he is finished there is not much left of them, or the doctrine of Jesus' virginal conception. The narratives are inaccurate about precisely those childbirth rituals that Mary, the presumed source, would have to know. Both Matthew and Luke use questionable historical elements (the Massacre of the Innocents in Matthew, unattested to by any other source, the census in Luke that could not have happened at the time Luke gives) and give clearly different routes of Joseph and Mary to and from Nazareth and Bethlehem. Even more disconcerting is Meier's later discussion of Jesus' siblings, of which there were at least four brothers and two sisters. For centuries Catholics, seeking to preserve both the eternal virginity of Joseph and Mary, have sought to argue that the references in the gospels to brothers are really to his cousins. This is based on the idea that Hebrew does not distinguish between the two terms. Of course the gospels were written in Greek, which does distinguish the two. Nor were the authors of the New Testament woodenly translating Jesus' Aramaic into Greek. After all Paul refers to brother(s) of the Lord in both Galatians and Corinthians, where he is writing originally in Greek. Josephus refers to James the brother of Jesus, even though he could and did distinguished between brother and cousin. Moreover statements by Jesus such as "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother," (Matt 12:50) lose their force if the term for sibling is replaced by cousin. The safest assumption is that Jesus' siblings were Mary's children. (It has been argued that they were actually her stepchildren, being Joseph's from a previous marriage. Elsewhere Meier has written while this is not impossible, it is not supported by the gospels--where there is no clear use of the term "stepbrother"--and it is based on a late source, the second century Protoevangelium of James which is patently inaccurate about many Jewish rituals. What is gratuitously asserted can be gratuitously denied.) Was Jesus illegitimate, as some scholars have speculated? No, the simplest explanation for references to Jesus as "Mary's son," was because the speaker wished to assert Jesus' ordinariness by referring to his ordinary parents. Mary was right near by and Joseph was presumably already dead. Was he married? No again, since while it was unusual, it was not unprecedented, as we can see from the examples of Jeremiah, the Essenes and John the Baptist. What language did Jesus speak? Almost certainly Aramaic, says Meier. If a cosmopolitan author like Josephus had trouble with Greek, it is not likely that the Greek of a marginal villager like Jesus was likely to be any better. Archaeological evidence has confirmed this sceptical attitude towards mass hellenization, as helpfully summarized in James Dunn's "Jesus Remembered." Jesus was probably literate and he was probably a layman. When did Jesus die? Most likely on April 7, 30 CE. He was executed on the eve of Passover. Meier is thorough on all matters but he is especially illuminating on why John, the most mystical Gospel is more accurate on this point than the synoptics. For they claim Jesus was executed on Passover. The answer is that the passage on Mark is a later addition, which we can see by comparison with the surrounding passage, and which Luke and Matthew unfortunately copied. Such is the conclusion to Meier's first volume, the beginning of a most scrupulous, scholarly and well-read journey indeed.
Rating:
Summary: The Fascinating Truth
Review: John Meier's "A Marginal Jew" is the leading study of the historical Jesus of our time. Notwithstanding three sizeable volumes the work is still incomplete, but this reputation is clearly well-deserved. The first volume only deals with the basic contours of his life, but it is the most intelligent discussion of these questions available. Meier, a Catholic priest, reminds us that the historical Jesus is not the real Jesus. For a start we have a radical shortage of information of information about all but a few people in classical times, and Jesus is not one of those lucky few. What he has presented is what a spectrum of theologians and historians would conclude about Jesus if they were forced to provide a basic consensus. So Meier starts with the sources for Jesus' life, which basically consists of the Gospels. There is a long, thorough discussion of the reference to Jesus in Josephus, from which Meier agrees with most scholars is mostly genuine, with several obvious Christian interpolations. He then discusses other sources, which reveal a very meagre crop. There is Tacitus' reference to Christians, nothing of value in the Talmud, as well as a thorough deflation of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Thomas consists of sayings, many of which resemble those in the Gospels. But Thomas' sayings are simpler, and many have concluded that they are more primitive and therefore earlier than the canonical gospels. Meier disagrees. He points that one reason Thomas' order of sayings does not resemble the synoptic gospels is because many of them were remembered orally, not because they proceeded them. He also points out one reason Thomas' sayings appear simpler is because the Gnostic concerns of the author/editor has pared away those elements of the original Gospel saying that were too clear or too eschatological for the author's taste. We then get a discussion of the criteria for deciding what comes from Jesus; embarrassment, discontinuity, multiple attestation and providing a motive for Jesus' execution. We then turn to Jesus' actual life himself. We start off with a discussion of his name, and then we have a discussion of the infancy narratives. Notwithstanding the fact that Meier is a Catholic priest, by the time he is finished there is not much left of them, or the doctrine of Jesus' virginal conception. The narratives are inaccurate about precisely those childbirth rituals that Mary, the presumed source, would have to know. Both Matthew and Luke use questionable historical elements (the Massacre of the Innocents in Matthew, unattested to by any other source, the census in Luke that could not have happened at the time Luke gives) and give clearly different routes of Joseph and Mary to and from Nazareth and Bethlehem. Even more disconcerting is Meier's later discussion of Jesus' siblings, of which there were at least four brothers and two sisters. For centuries Catholics, seeking to preserve both the eternal virginity of Joseph and Mary, have sought to argue that the references in the gospels to brothers are really to his cousins. This is based on the idea that Hebrew does not distinguish between the two terms. Of course the gospels were written in Greek, which does distinguish the two. Nor were the authors of the New Testament woodenly translating Jesus' Aramaic into Greek. After all Paul refers to brother(s) of the Lord in both Galatians and Corinthians, where he is writing originally in Greek. Josephus refers to James the brother of Jesus, even though he could and did distinguished between brother and cousin. Moreover statements by Jesus such as "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother," (Matt 12:50) lose their force if the term for sibling is replaced by cousin. The safest assumption is that Jesus' siblings were Mary's children. (It has been argued that they were actually her stepchildren, being Joseph's from a previous marriage. Elsewhere Meier has written while this is not impossible, it is not supported by the gospels--where there is no clear use of the term "stepbrother"--and it is based on a late source, the second century Protoevangelium of James which is patently inaccurate about many Jewish rituals. What is gratuitously asserted can be gratuitously denied.) Was Jesus illegitimate, as some scholars have speculated? No, the simplest explanation for references to Jesus as "Mary's son," was because the speaker wished to assert Jesus' ordinariness by referring to his ordinary parents. Mary was right near by and Joseph was presumably already dead. Was he married? No again, since while it was unusual, it was not unprecedented, as we can see from the examples of Jeremiah, the Essenes and John the Baptist. What language did Jesus speak? Almost certainly Aramaic, says Meier. If a cosmopolitan author like Josephus had trouble with Greek, it is not likely that the Greek of a marginal villager like Jesus was likely to be any better. Archaeological evidence has confirmed this sceptical attitude towards mass hellenization, as helpfully summarized in James Dunn's "Jesus Remembered." Jesus was probably literate and he was probably a layman. When did Jesus die? Most likely on April 7, 30 CE. He was executed on the eve of Passover. Meier is thorough on all matters but he is especially illuminating on why John, the most mystical Gospel is more accurate on this point than the synoptics. For they claim Jesus was executed on Passover. The answer is that the passage on Mark is a later addition, which we can see by comparison with the surrounding passage, and which Luke and Matthew unfortunately copied. Such is the conclusion to Meier's first volume, the beginning of a most scrupulous, scholarly and well-read journey indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Good scholarship, dry delivery
Review: John Meier's 1st book in a series of what is currently at three volumes is a good scholarly look at the Historical roots of Jesus. The scholarship in the book is impeccable. Meier gives an excellent survey and sketch of scholarship on each of the issue he addresses and then ends each point with his personal conclusions. The annotated footnotes problem make up at least a third of the length of the book. The biggest problem I had with this book is the overall delievery of the information, it reads like an encyclopedia. I would say easily that more than half of the book, particularly the first half, drones on and on about topics that really do nothing to advance the subject at hand. It is on this fact that I must first recommend Wright or Witherington over Meier, but at no offense to the scholarship. I'm a history/theology major and I have to read material presented like this all the time, though I can't lay that on a more general reader. This aside though, there are some gems in the book. The introduction and overall set up of the series found in chapter one are very good. His chapter on Josephus is good as well. For me the most interesting chapter in the book is chapter nine that looks at the languages, education and society that Jesus grew up and lived in; an often ignored piece in the history of Jesus. This book is great if one is seriously interested in deep scholarship on Jesus, Meier notes in his introduction that he's really writing it for the college graduate. But unfortunately this is also a huge fault of the book as far as reaching the general reader to whom I recommend Wright or Witherington first.
Rating:
Summary: Meier and THE MARGINAL JEW
Review: John P. Meier, Catholic, theologian, writes a meticulous trilogy on the Historical Jesus in A MARGINAL JEW, Volume I is 432 pages, Volume II is 1118 pages and Vol. III has only just been released. It is a series for those who are doing open-minded research on the true nature of Jesus and should be balanced by reading Sanders, Brown, Vermes, Crossan, Rubenstein, Wilson, (and for fun Ehrman), Spoto, Martin, Fredrickson, Pagel and the Jesus Seminar on the Historical Jesus . The footnotes are voluminous and compelling. It is a must for the budding theologian.
The text is mostly on the cautious side, but there are a few liberal surprizes.
Rating:
Summary: Meier and THE MARGINAL JEW
Review: John P. Meier, Catholic, theologian, writes a meticulous trilogy on the Historical Jesus in A MARGINAL JEW, Volume I is 432 pages, Volume II is 1118 pages and Vol. III has only just been released. It is a series for those who are doing open-minded research on the true nature of Jesus and should be balanced by reading Sanders, Brown, Vermes, Crossan, Rubenstein, Wilson, (and for fun Ehrman), Spoto, Martin, Fredrickson, Pagel and the Jesus Seminar on the Historical Jesus . The footnotes are voluminous and compelling. It is a must for the budding theologian.
The text is mostly on the cautious side, but there are a few liberal surprizes.
|
