Rating: 
Summary: Heavily Researched, Technical, and, ultimately, Uninspiring
Review: Meier has attempted to add context to the early life of Jesus through information derived from the Gospels, the writings of Josephus and Tacitus, early Christian leaders, and surviving Jewish texts. He also attempts to establish approximate dates for Jesus' birth, mission, and death. A substantial amount of background information regarding peasant life in Galilee, Judea, Greece, and Rome allows the author draw general conclusions regarding the topics of virgin birth, illegitimate birth, place of birth, family members, occupation, perspective, and personality.Although the reading is at times fascinating, Meier ultimately drowns the reader in a sea of detail. Most of these details do not progress Meier's argument regarding the specific topic being addressed. In speaking of detail, I am not even including the footnotes, which comprise between 30% and 40% of the book. However, Meier is excellent in distinguishing the various perspectives of the Gospel writers and the messages they attempt to deliver. Having said this, I look forward to reading Volume 2 of the series. With the Gospels focused primarily on the last three years of Jesus' life, Meier has much more biblical information to analyze, compare, and contemplate. My favorite "historical Jesus" book remains "Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography" by Bruce Chilton. Chilton is willing to draw more daring and insightful conclusions than Meier, who seems content with a more cautious, traditional approach (maybe as a result of his Catholic background and faith).
Rating:
Summary: The minority brief
Review: Quoting Meier: "This book grapples with one of the greatest puzzles of modern religious scholarship, the historical Jesus. As I will explain at length in Chapter 1, by the "historical Jesus" I mean the Jesus whom we can recover, recapture, or reconstruct by using the scientific tools of modern historical research." In paragraph 2, he outlines his technique for adjudicating the 'scientific evidence': "I often use the fantasy of the 'unpapal conclave.' Suppose that a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic - all honest historians cognizant of 1st century religious movements - were locked up ... and not allowed to emerge until they had hammered out a consensus document on who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he intended in his own time and place."
Unfortunately, the 'conclave' is entirely in his imagination and he never elaborates on 'the scientific tools of modern historical research'.
With respect to the conclave, it is useful to put 'A Marginal Jew' in context. It was released to the public on Nov, 1, 1991. It is safe to assume the above was written down sometime in the late 80s. A few years earlier (1985), the 'fantasy conclave' had actually been realized. That conclave, now known as the Jesus Seminar, was several hundred scholars and they worked for several years on the project Meier outlines. Given the size of the Jesus Seminar, it is certain Meier knew of its activities.
In other words, Meier's 'unpapal conference' was actually taking place and Meier chose not to engage it directly. This book should be seen as a 'minority brief.' Of course, the Jesus Seminar is often vilified, so 'minority' or 'majority' is a matter of debate. He got his brief out 2 years before the Jesus Seminar's 'The Five Gospels', but an adequate rebuttal (if one can be made) will require another author.
While Meier alludes to 'scientific historigrahy', he doesn't inform the reader on the subject. By ignoring this, he makes a major mistake. The 'majority report' issued by the Jesus Seminar relies almost entirely upon textual deconstruction, the process of deducing hidden meaning via unexpected juxtaposition of a given textual record. While debatable as a science, no one can deny the computer has given us the ability to statistically analyze text for word usage patterns far exceeding anything available to pre 20th century scholars. This 'modern science' is use to great effect by the Jesus Seminar, but Meier seems incapable of dealing with it.
Faced with the juggernaut of the non-fantasy conclave's computerized textual deconstruction, Meier falls back upon traditional historiographic methods. He cites earlier publications and his favorite scholars. On an objective level, Meier cannot make a dent in the Jesus Seminar claims. In the end, Meier is relying on 'old fashion' textual decomposition. His arguments fall flat for all but the reader already confirmed in his opinion.
With this in mind, what does Meier argue? Let me outline this by describing the difference between the Jesus Seminar and Meier understandings of 'The Gospel of Thomas'. The methodology of the Jesus Seminar follows the process outlined on page one of 'A Marginal Jew'. Using textual decomposition to cross compare every 'Jesus quote' in the 4 Canonic gospels and Thomas with one another, they report the results of a 'vote on the Jesus quote' by the conclave. The results of these votes show a majority of scholars believe Thomas includes authentic and unique Jesus quotes.
In contrast, Meier argues that Thomas can be dismissed from consideration for the following reasons:
A. Thomas is heretical, so we cannot trust the redactor to preserve 'true' Jesus quotes.
B. Some scholars have concluded a few Jesus quotes in Thomas are derivations from Luke and Matthew, so we have no evidence the Thomas Jesus quotes are 'original'.
C. It would bore the reader review 1st/2nd century Jewish and non-canonic texts, A and B above are adequate.
The first argument can be construed to be the point of the book and I doubt it can be used to justify use or disuse of possible evidence. The second has been entirely undermined by the Jesus Seminar. The third may be boring, but represents the only logical research path. For example, if Thomas is held to contain independent Jesus quotes,
1. Why don't we have more copies of it?
2. Who bore the 'Thomas' tradition from apostolic times to its burial in the Nag Hammadi jar?
Rating: 
Summary: A superb introduction to the series!
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the quest for the historical Jesus. This book is an introduction to Meier's series: A Marginal Jew. Meier's methodology is clear and well thought out. Meier takes the historical methodology formulated in the first chapters of the book and then applies them to the early life of Jesus (to set the reader up for Volume 2 which deals with Jesus' public ministry). Meier also examines the sources that historians deal with when constructing the historical Jesus. I'd give this book more than 5 stars if I could.
Rating:
Summary: A superb introduction to the series
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in the quest for the historical Jesus. This book is an introduction to Meier's series: A Marginal Jew. Meier's methodology is clear and well thought out. Meier takes the historical methodology formulated in the first chapters of the book and then applies them to the early life of Jesus (to set the reader up for Volume 2 which deals with Jesus' public ministry). Meier also examines the sources that historians deal with when constructing the historical Jesus. I'd give this book more than 5 stars if I could.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpieces of scholarship
Review: This book is a pleasure to read. Meier is such an extraodinary guide to what we know about (or figure out about) the historical Jesus. So when do we get volume III?
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: This book maintains solid research and well thought out arguements, while being fun reading. Of all the modern books on the historical Jesus, this is both the most scholarly and best written. My only criticism is that which has already been mentioned: you have to read the text in the chapters and again in the endnotes (which are at least as long as the chapters) to get the full value.
Rating:
Summary: What secular history says about this 1st century jew.
Review: This is an objective attempt to develop what secular history has to say about Jesus, the man who lived at the start of the first century. Because the writer is a scholarly man of christian faith he is keenly aware of the need to take great care not to taint the project with his own faith based predispositions. He does this well. He explores historical documents other than those traditionally accepted by the Christian Theo/Political powers. Not to say he does this irreverently but with the obvious motivation of sincere conscientious study of a very delicate subject. Another thing he does well, considering he is one of the foremost Catholic scholars in the world, is write to the common man as well as the scholar. I am a common man. I am not a scholar. I was drawn to this book by a desire to understand my faith tradition more fully. I now do. I will follow Tom Meirs series. This was Vol 1. and I will obtain Vol. 2 as well as Vol. 3 when it is released! .
Rating:
Summary: A superb introduction to the series!
Review: This study inaugurates a new series that seeks to examine various topics (e.g., anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, theology) as they relate to the Bible. The series is intended for the general reader as well as for scholars. Here, Meier (New Testament studies, Catholic Univ. of America) adopts a two-tier approach: he delineates up-to-date research on the Jesus of history with discussions geared toward well-read general readers, and in his extensive notes he discusses technical matters of interest to doctoral students and scholars. Meier explains issues of method, definitions and sources, and then turns to the birth, years of development, and cultural background of Jesus. He distinguishes between ``what I know about Jesus by research and what I hold by faith.'' His study is a necessary purchase for academic libraries.
Rating: 
Summary: The best sober, non-partisan text on the historical Jesus
Review: Unlike other hyped up works on the "historical Jesus", Meier's series makes no sensationalistic theses. Instead, it soberly weighs the available evidence and reaches measured, tentative conclusions after a detailed review of the background of biblical scholarship. Although this is not a best-seller formula, it does make for what is perhaps the best introduction available to historical Jesus scholarship. Perhaps its one weak point is that so much material is considered of interest to specialists and relegated to footnotes, that the reader finds himself going through each chapter twice: once in the body of the text, and once in the endnotes
Rating:
Summary: The Best of A Certain Style of Scholarship on Jesus
Review: When this volume was first written it was intended to be the first of three under the rubric "A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus". Eleven years on, and two more volumes later, we find that John Meier hasn't finished yet and there is now to be a fourth volume. In this volume it all started out so professionally. Meier introduced us to his "unpapal conclave", a metaphorical, rather than actual, group consisting of a Jew, a Catholic, a Protestant and an Agnostic who, for the purposes of Meier's literary fiction, were going to try and come to some consensus on what we could say with historical-critical reasonability about Jesus. I repeat at this point for those who have not understood this: there is no real group; it is Meier's fiction that his study would be what these, in theory, would be able to agree upon about the historical Jesus if they were to meet and discuss such matters in a historical context. This book then splits into two parts, one detailing the background questions necessary to a discussion of the historical Jesus (sources and methods and the like) and the other detailing Jesus' own boyhood, socio-political background and familial status. Also included here is a chronology of Jesus' life. Meier's work here is extremely thorough. One intention of the book is to have copious endnotes which, it is suggested, are for serious scholars and doctoral students but which need not necessarily burden the general reader. Thus, the book can, in theory, be read on two levels. One wonders, though, who Meier is kidding. When one sees a reference to a note who is going to ignore it? Surely simple curiousity would make the reader go looking for the note? But back to Meier's "unpapal conclave". I'm not the first person to have a problem with it (for a problem with it I have). This study is MEIER'S work. It is not a consensus in any sense whatsoever (as perusal of the scholarly literature since its publication would attest). I actually think that the "unpapal conclave" spreads a nasty shadow across both this volume and those which follow it, not least because it is so unnecessary. Meier could have claimed to be writing a reasonable historical consensus document without pretending, for pretending he is, that such a group might putatively reach such conclusions. There simply are plenty of Jews, Protestants, Catholics and Agnostics who would never agree with Meier's findings or even his choices of reasonable sources and methods. Meier's reliance on this metaphor blights an otherwise thorough and professional and, here's the irony, largely reliable book. So that's one star gone. But you should certainly buy this book. It is the first volume of our era's standard work on the historical Jesus.
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