Jesus of Nazareth

by Günther Bornkamm

Hailed as "an event in the intellectual history of our time," Gunther Bornkamm's Jesus of Nazareth marked a turning point in modern understanding of the Gospels and the elusive figure who stands behind them. While Bornkamm admits, with Albert Schweitzer and others, that it remains impossible to write a "biography" of Jesus, he shows in this book that it is possible to arrive at a reliable understanding of Jesus' thought and teaching and to achieve a historically sound picture of the sort of person Jesus was, as well as what he was trying to accomplish. Reissued here with an insightful foreword by Helmut Kioester, Bornkamm's study is one of those rare books that appeal to both the trained theologian and the inquiring layperson. Writing with clarity and care, he encourages the reader to explore further as he expands our understanding of Jesus and his message for humanity.

Genres: Religion, Christianity, Biography, Theology

262 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Günther Bornkamm (1905 – 1990) was a German New Testament scholar and author.

He was the father of fellow scholar and author Aleida Assmann.

Reviews

[Ray LaManna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last book in my Lenten reading... a classic of scholarship which I first read 50 years ago.

[Bob Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

More has been written about Jesus Christ in the last 50 years than has been written about Him in the past 1900 years combined. With all of these books, there are no doubt some that should be skipped entirely, those that can be, and those that are a must read. Which one is this?

Gunther Bornkamm's Jesus of Nazareth is by no means a 'must read.' This does not mean it is a bad book or one that shouldn't be read. Overall, it is a pretty good book with some good insights. But if you have your choice, stick with N.T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God or James Dunn's Remembering Jesus.

Bornkamm is an unapologetic critical scholar and we shouldn't expect anything less from Rudolph Bultmann's student. Bornkamm rightly assesses that we cannot, nor we should not attempt a 'biography' of Jesus Christ. But this does not mean that we cannot know anything about Jesus' life and ministry.

Bornkamm is a form critic and seeks to gain the historical knowledge behind the gospel text. As such, he abandons much in the way of traditional theology (again, we are not to be surprised by this). By getting at the historical knowledge, Bornkamm seeks insight into the true Jesus and his meaning for today.

Bornkamm is at his best when he is engaging the biblical text. His treatment of the Jesus' idea of the present and futureness of the Kingdom is helpful in pointing out the mistakes of past exegetes. Rather than rehashing the main arguments, he shows how there is a great deal of tension within the text itself and then goes on to provide a possible solution.

Readers beware, the writing in this book is heavily technical and can be laborious to deal with. This is not a book for the beach, but more for the study. The reader will have to pay serious attention to the work, as even the author warns in his introduction.

This book is great for seminary students, theologians, or pastors who have nothing better to do.

Overall, the read is worth it, but is not for everybody.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Subsequent scholarship in a 'new historicist' vein makes Bornkamm's fairly unironical approach to retrieving an historical image of Jesus (from what he readily admits are thoroughly theologized images in the Synoptic Gospels) look fairly dated to me. Still, Bornkamm's Existentialist-influenced argument that encountering Jesus was a momentous event in which "life, world and the existence of every individual, now stand in the sudden flash of light of the coming God, in the light of his reality and presence" (p. 63) mostly steers clear of claiming too much for historical knowledge. (Alas, he does repeatedly claim that Jesus stands in sharp contrast to any and every Jewish precedent.)

[Leonardo]

Bornkamm es el padre del Redaction criticism, de acuerdo a https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studie...

[Georg Sagittarius · Rating 4 out of 5]

S/P/St-Register! Z.T. schlimme Un- & Fehlkenntnisse! CHRISTI (GOTTES) AUTOBIOGRAPHIEN: Jakob Lorber: GEJ 11 Bd!, 3TiT, Jugend Jesu! M Kahir!