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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