LIFE Jesus: Who Do You Say That I Am?

by LIFE

LIFE Books managing editor, Robert Sullivan, has twice been awarded the Wilbur Award for best religion feature in a national magazine and has authored LIFE's New York Times best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II. He brings to this book his expertise on the subject of Christianity a long with text informed by the world's great scholars, theologians and religious figures.

Jesus emerged from nowhere to become, in his short life-perhaps as few as 32 years-a thinker, teacher and preacher whose words and deeds would change the world and become the foundation for the world's largest religion. But the biography as outlined in the New Testament and apocryphal writings only tells us so much. LIFE's editors go, in words and pictures, in search of Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son who would one day influence all. The great photographer Denis Waugh once made a thorough, colorful and moving pictorial pilgrimage to the Holy Land exclusively for LIFE, and those images will anchor our quest. We will travel, as well, to the Vatican, to the missions of Africa, to the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco-to all that has risen in Jesus, name. In the book's final section, we will look at Christianity today: Its still vastly influential place in our tumultuous world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Spirituality

112 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Life was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, Life was a wide-ranging weekly general interest magazine known for the quality of its photography.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a pretty good book up till pages 49-50. It has a nice hard cover with dust jacket, it's printed on glossy paper with useful maps, as well as photos of the places Jesus would have lived and travelled, along with various artistic interpretations. It was refreshing to find a book published these days that's been proof-/copyread. And it starts out providing a clear, immersive study of Jesus's life & milieu, comparing and aligning the canonical Gospels (KJV), the Dead Sea Scrolls, historical records & geography from Christian, Jewish & scholarly POVs, reverently augmenting the Gospels to help readers reach own conclusions.

And then on page 49, enter "noted Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan" giving his uncredentialed personal opinion that Jesus "empowered" his disciples, during his ministry, to go out and be just like Him; in fact, Crossan's not even "keen on 'disciples' because in Greek it means a student of a teacher ... I would prefer to talk about Jesus's 'companions' because that's what the message is, as I understand it. 'I do not have a monopoly on the Kingdom of God. Go and do likewise.'" WHAT???! He would "[i]prefer[/i] to talk about" the disciples as companions? As Jesus's equals??? What is his source for saying this? Not the Bible! In John 14:6, Jesus tells his disciples, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Where in the Bible does it call Jesus's followers "companions" and put them on an equal footing with Him? In John 3:2, Nicodemus addresses him as "Rabbi," which means "teacher," and Jesus doesn't correct him. Jesus was the teacher, right up until the end of his time on earth. So why base an entire chapter on what this so-called "Bible scholar" would LIKE to think? Why don't they collect OPINIONS on Jesus from Wiccans and Hindus and atheists too while they're at it?

I tried to keep going, but by page 68, I had learned nothing more of interest and put it back on the shelf with the map marked as a reference. Nice pictures and map, but the text is just a familiar summary of the Gospels peppered with baseless, unsourced opinions that contradict the Bible without explanation.

[Susan Marrier · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this special-edition life of Jesus, the editors have done a mostly excellent job of bringing in respected Biblical scholars and beautiful illustrations, both historic and contemporary. What emerges is an engaging picture of a remarkable man whose life and ideas, quite radical at the time, changed lives and changed the course of history. It's a mostly very good overview for believers and non-believers alike. My quibbles, which brought my rating down, are 1) some inaccuracies, such as the magi arriving at the manger, 2) the use of the archaic and sometimes inaccurate King James version of the Bible, 3) the capitalization of pronouns referring to Jesus, 4) the interchanging of the name "Jesus" with the title "Christ", and 5), several pages in the middle which seem to promote the editor's bias of Jesus as divine, when this account purports to be the story of the man Jesus.

[Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to any of my friends, believing or non believing, as an introduction to the Christian tradition.

[Judy Freidhof · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring book for the Lenten season.