Jesus of Israel: Finding Christ in the Old Testament

by Fr. Richard Veras, Fr. Peter John Cameron O.P. (Foreword)

Jesus did not come from nowhere! He was long awaited by a people who were educated…to expect God's presence in the messiness of their own history.—From the Introduction

Not only was Jesus a Jew, his coming was foreshadowed in stories from Genesis to the prophets. Father Richard Veras invites us to enter a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the doors of familiar and not-so-familiar incidents in the Old Testament.

Ever wonder, for example, why God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Even more, why Abraham was willing to do it? Puzzled as to why there are two creation accounts in Genesis? What's the problem with being a Samaritan? And what does any of this have to do with Jesus and our life in him?

The author explores these and other issues with one goal in mind: to "aid the reader to come to a deeper certainty about Jesus Christ."

"This book makes the Word of God accessible to the young and, in fact, to anyone who wishes to look at the Bible with the eyes of a faith in touch with the grace of the Jewish people. The insights are quite valuable, but the real attractiveness of the book is the faith that it inspires through a simple, straightforward and imaginative reading of the Sacred Text." —Father Francis Martin, John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C.

Genres: Religion

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2007

Reviews

[Wanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am about half-way through this book and I've learned quite a bit! Its a very easy read, but yet gives me things to think about. I especially loved the chapter where parallels are drawn between the OT Joseph and the NT Jesus. Very interesting!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review coming. Best book I've ever read on this subject. I'm putting it on my Kindle and giving away several copies this Christmas!

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read that points out the reading of the Old Testament through the lens of the Paschal Mystery shows us how God prepared mankind for his Son.

[Richard Grebenc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this book because I thought it would be a survey of prefigurements of Jesus in the Old Testament. While it certainly does talk about some of the types of Christ in the Old Testament (as found in Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, and Elisha who get the most treatment), I found this to be much more useful for contemplation rather than as a theological or historical text (it is accessible to any interested reader in high school or older). The two or three reflection questions at the end of each chapter emphasize application to the reader's life today. Since it was not what I expected, I was tempted to put it down more than once early on. I'm glad I did not. Some of the insights the author provides are thought provoking and the typology he proposes is not always obvious but it is often profound (e.g., the baker and cupbearer in the Joseph story in light of Jesus on the cross and Elijah and Elisha as Christ and the disciples at the Ascension). Along the way, a short but comprehensive overview of the history of the Chosen People is provided. Short chapters allow this book to be dipped into when one has a few minutes here or there, but one could spend hours contemplating the depths of Scripture as presented here.

[Lapsed Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. I was looking for a book that connected Jesus to Old Testament prophecies or other OT literature. This one did so in a less dry, more conversational, just generally more readable style than I expected, perhaps even sometimes humorous if my memory is correct two years later. It's not that dry, formal writing on such topics can't provide valuable information, but they don't tend to provide it in such a memorable manner to people who are not scrutinizing the works for scholarly reasons.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this in my prayer group. The people in the group are in many different places in their faith journey. This text was simple enough for the beginners to grasp, but offered insights to the members who had been praying and studying the faith the longest. We found the questions at the end of the chapters less helpful than hoped for, but the chapters themselves gave us so much to discuss that we didn't really need to use them.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book about the references to Jesus in the Hebrew scriptures. If you had been with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, this is what you would have heard him say.