Rating: 
Summary: flawed, but still worthy of the highest rating
Review: "Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:18 ) Jesus Christ came to reconcile us with the Father. Through his wounds we are healed. In "The Challenge of Jesus," N.T. Wright does a good job of helping us to try and look at Jesus with our blinders off. Rejecting the thesis of Wrede, and following in the footsteps of Schweitzer, Wright believes that we can learn a good deal about the actual, "Historical" Jesus (my, how that phrase has been abused in the last half-century) through doing the work of history. I praise Wright for attempting this grand task. "The Challenge of Jesus" is a shorter distillation of Wright's larger ongoing work which at the time of my writing consists of two published volumes (The New Testament and the People of God; Jesus and the Victory of God) with the series length now projected at six volumes total. This volume is no doubt aimed at a broader audience than Wright's more scholarly work. Wright attempts to look at Jesus without the lens of a controlling theology. I like this a lot. We should always read the Bible for what it actually says, remembering the context in which they were written, and then build our theology from that foundation. Too often, we make up a theology and then try and fit its square peg into the round hole that the Word of God confronts us with...there is a word for this kind of thing: idolatry. Wright manages to do a fairly good job of interacting with the Bible and history. He does disappoint me on his views of Jesus knowing whether he is God or not...he gives a waffling answer with unsatisfactory support. Wright's Jesus comes out looking a lot like the Jesus of orthodoxy in the things that he did: proclaiming the Kingdom, Dying a sacrificial, atoning, and reconciling death, making clear claims to divinity (in spite of Wright's own weird view on the matter,) and being Bodily Resurrected on a Sunday morning...the startling part of the book is the perspective...Wright solidly locates Jesus and his message within the milieu of second temple Judaism...the results give a whole new spin on the Message of Jesus. For me, this book has strengthened my walk with the Savior. In spite of its flaws, I'm giving this one five stars...it is incredibly thought-provoking. I recommend this book most highly.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Anyone who claims that New Testament is reliable, must admit that Jesus was once a living historical character.
That's why we have to put Jesus' act (what He did and said) in the situation at the time He lived.
Sometimes, I prefer to see Flinstone's car in stone-age.
It's because that's what I heard when I was a child and what I want to hear from my know-everything pastor... Until I read this book.
Before reading this book, I knew that some sermons, that told me that Jesus asked Peter 'if he loves Him' three times to wait for 'Agape' answer, is wrong.
Here, I learn what the original meaning of "repent", "kingdom of heaven", and so on.
My friend suggested 'Victory of God' by the same author and I saw the book has excellent remarks.
But with it's 600 pages, I know that I'll never finish it.
My advise : Read this book but don't hate your preacher afterwards.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I was looking for.
Review: I suppose that everyone reads a book from his or her own particular point of view. What made this book a Godsend for me was that the author understood the concept of the Quest. Believe me, I have snatched up every book about Jesus that I could afford to in the last two years in order to fully know everything about the one whom I confess to follow. This author met a burning desire in my heart by directing me to the real challenge of Jesus - discipleship. I suggest that you read it prayerfully with this book in one hand and the Bible in the other. If it blesses you half as much as it blessed me then it was worth the time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Great new alternative approach to our understanding of Jesus
Review: If you are a committed person of faith and have had enough of Funk and the Jesus Seminar on the left and TV evangelism an the right, this book is for you. Wright carefully exposes the flaws in the assumptions made by the Jesus Seminar while applauding the quest to understand Jesus as he He lived in first century Palestine. The great thing about Wright is that he then goes beyond the scope of the Jesus Seminar to understanding the Challenge of Jesus as it relates to His and our lives today. He indirectly addresses how a TV evangelistic approach is shortsighted and misguided. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great new alternative approach to our understanding of Jesus
Review: If you are a committed person of faith and have had enough of Funk and the Jesus Seminar on the left and TV evangelism an the right, this book is for you. Wright carefully exposes the flaws in the assumptions made by the Jesus Seminar while applauding the quest to understand Jesus as he He lived in first century Palestine. The great thing about Wright is that he then goes beyond the scope of the Jesus Seminar to understanding the Challenge of Jesus as it relates to His and our lives today. He indirectly addresses how a TV evangelistic approach is shortsighted and misguided. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A bold portrait of Jesus drawn from both history and faith.
Review: Is there really anything new to say about Jesus? And if so, could it possibly be true to Scripture and the Christian faith? N. T. Wright, one of the premier scholars investigating the life of Jesus today, thinks we have nothing to fear and much to learn from a historical study of Jesus. The Jesus he unveils has his feet solidly planted in first-century Palestine and yet rings deeply true to the resurrected Christ of Christian belief, worship and experience. This Jesus comes to us as one known and yet unknown, a man with a familiar profile and yet with features we had never noticed. Wright's account of Jesus is sure to grip readers with its clarity and its full accounting of the facts. Wright compels us to rethink our standard images of Jesus so that we will never read the Gospels in the same way again. For those who don't know much about Jesus, this book launches the discovery of a lifetime. For those who do know Jesus, this book unveils exciting new perspectives that clearly echo Jesus' challenge to follow him. For those who have studied nearly everything about Jesus, this book reinvigorates the quest to know Jesus more fully and join in shaping the world as his disciple. N. T. Wright taught New Testament studies for twenty years in Cambridge, McGill and Oxford universities, served as Dean of Lichfield Cathedral and has been appointed as Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey. His full-scale work Jesus and the Victory of God is widely regarded as one of the most significant studies in the contemporary Third Quest of the historical Jesus.
Rating: 
Summary: A fresh look on Scripture
Review: Jacob Aitken
The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is. By N T Wright
N.T. Wright?s aim in this work is to explore the person of Jesus from post-Enlightenment eyes. He addresses the issues from a different stance than the typical liberal or fundamentalist: He affirms that Jesus actually existed but that He (Jesus) saw himself differently than we see Him. Wright says that he has three concerns in this book: historical integrity in talking about Jesus, Christian discipleship that professes to follow Jesus, and empowering Christians with a vision that will transform the world (10-11).
The Challenge of Studying Jesus
In the first chapter Wright discusses the recent history of the ?Quest for the Historical Jesus,? noting that a merely ?supernatural? Jesus?a Jesus that actually lived and was divine in our sense of the word?can easily degenerate into the ?Superman? myth, a myth that is actually a dualistic corruption of Christianity (15). That being said, Wright then critiques liberal scholars for dismissing the Scriptures outright while trying to speak confidently of the most important person of the Scriptures. In this chapter Wright sets the tone for much of the book: ?Christianity, as we shall see, began with the througoughly Jewish belief that world history was focused on a single geographical place and a single moment in time...The living God would defeat evil once and for all and create a new world of justice and peace? (21-22). Wright will take this theme and tie it in with the ?exile-exodus? theme for an early Christian narrative built on a Jewish worldview.
The Challenge of the Kingdom
The challenge of the Kingdom was a challenge that was first given to the nation of Israel. Christians, like the Israelites, were called to be a light to the Gentiles. Israel?s failure to be that light merited its judgment that was played out in the Exile. The message that Jesus preached was, among other things, a repeating of this agenda. Jesus preached his message using symbols and confronting other kingdom agendas: the Herodian compromise, the Zealot revolt, the Qumran pietism. Wright takes a parable dear to many Evangelicals and interprets it through the lens of Exile and Restoration. Instead of the Prodigal Son merely being a message about forgiveness, it was an announcement that the return from Exile was happening through Jesus?s own work (42). In calling His people ?Jesus was calling them to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the Kingdom, His kingdom-agenda?(44).
The Challenge of the Symbols
Jesus?s challenge of the symbols was a challenge to the Jews to let their symbols go. The symbols that the Jews cherished were leading them to destruction. The challenge of the symbols must be seen in light of a political agenda generated by eschatology. Jesus did not reinforce, but challenge the revolutionary zeal (58). The Sabbath. When Jesus picked grain on the sabbath he brought down the Jews question of ?Does He exhibit symbolic action by which a loyal Jew would show gratitude to God?(60). Instead of seeing Herod?s temple as the Incarnation of God to His people, Jesus was the Temple and so, the Incarnation to the Jews.
The Crucified Messiah
Jesus saw himself as the temple consummating what the sacrifical system pointed to. Jesus saved his people from the exile of sin that they were in?he was telling them that the exile had ended. The challenge to the Jews was that they must see him as the new Temple and the new hope for Israel. Clinging to the physical temple would not save them from the Romans. If the Romans crucified the Messiah, the leader of Israel, how much more so would they judge the Jews? Why did Jesus have to die? He had to die to undergo the punishment that would fall on the nation.
Jesus and God
Before answering the question, ?Was Jesus God?? Wright first defines what God is with reference to 1st-Century Judaism: a) God had created the world and b) will come again to vindicate his people. Wright answers in the affirmative and then qualifies it by noting: 1) the Temple was the incatnational reality of the Jews?Jesus was the temple according to the prophecy given to David in Second Samuel. Furthermore, Jesus viewed the Torah as the Word of God administering the ?Shekinah? among his people?Jesus assumed both roles.
The Challenge of Easter
Wright argues for the Resurrection (the full argument is too deep for a book review) by noting that Christiantiy arose as a ?kingdome-movement, a resurrection-movement, and a Messianic-movement.? Wright then employs Paul?s argument for the Resurrection by noting: the Resurrection meant that the Scriptures had been fulfilled, the old-age had passed away, and the Kingdom of God had arrived. If that is so, the Resurrection is the future re-embodiment of the Christian dead and the em-bodiment of the Christian living.
Overall I found the book intriguing. I will never look at the prophets in the same light again. Nevertheless, he did makes some stereotypes of Reformed people that I thought were groundless. He had a powerful conclusion and a practical application.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: N. T. Wright is undoubtedly one of the most important scholars in the field of New Testament Studies today. This book is a shorter, more accessible book of the ideas and research that he fully presents in "Jesus and the Victory of God." Wright's great achievement, in my opinion, is that he takes up the critical questions concerning the historical Jesus (posed by radical skeptics like John Dominic Crossan)...yet he proposes an answer that is at once intellectually credible and yet more faithful to the witness of the Gospels and the testimony of the Christian church. It would be an overstatement to call him a traditional conservative scholar, for he does not shy away from the issues posed by Biblical critics. Yet it is evident that his scholarly endeavor is motivated by a deep, abiding faith that Jesus of Nazareth is the unique revelation of the God of Abraham. This book will offer any serious layperson an enjoyable and challenging read.
Rating:
Summary: The Challenge of Jesus - an attempted summary
Review: N.T. Wright does a good job of putting together a comprehensive challenge to the traditional theory of what Jesus came to earth to accomplish. But he does not come right out and state his theory forthrightly and simply. So I'd like to attempt it for anyone who is trying to decide whether to give his ideas serious consideration.
Here are a few key quotes from the book to back up my synthesis:
Jesus' death "is organically linked with the fate of the nation." His death was "the clearest sign of the fate in store for the nation that had rejected him." Jesus "lost the battle on Israel's behalf." "He was the Messiah who would take that desitny on himself....now as with the prophets of former days they were planning to kill him." And, the forgiveness of sins that Jesus came to bring was not an individual payment of debt as in Anselm's traditional theory, but was the same thing as "the end of exile" for the dispersed Israelites. In other words, the end of exile meant they were forgiven the sins that had resulted in their dispersion.
Wright never summed all of this up for us. But I think he was saying that Jesus was the promised Messiah, (yes, divine), whose mission was to embody the fate of Israel (as did some prophets of old) in the final destruction of OT Temple worship. And he did this as a warning to the Jews not to fight with the weapons of the world, but with love. His message was that in unity with Him by faith they would become the light of the world. This has always been the mission of Israel, but now the method of the mission has changed. The new method is facing and defeating evil by faith in Jesus as God's true image, love, and passive resistance.
This begs the question, what was the mission of the exclusive nation of Israel in OT times? It makes God Himself appear to have changed in character. I would like to know how Wright would answer this question. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best book on historical Jesus to date
Review: Not only does this book have great evangelical and apologetic value, and it is a fascinating read. There is much here to challenge much of what conservative evangelicalism has understood about Jesus' ministry, even his parables. While it has some refutation of Jesus Seminar views, more specific refutations can be found in his other works, so don't get this book for that purpose. The reviewer who complained that the book did not address atonement might re-read the chapters "The Crucified Messiah" and "Jesus & God", because perhaps he missed a major point of those chapters! Wright sees corporate redemption of God's covenant as the atonement. This is a more powerful idea than individual atonement for sin. The reader might also pick up a fuller treatment of Wright's understanding in the book "The Climax of the Covenant". This book, "The Challenge of Jesus", is available on the 'net in its original form -- that of audio lectures, for free, so that if you are not sure you want this book, listen to the audio lectures first (just look for pages dedicated to N.T. Wright).
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