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With My Own Eyes
Bo Giertz wrote this book drawing upon the exegetical insights that he received from his mentor Anton Fridrichsen before, during and after his trip to Palestine in the early 1930's.
The book is a third-person retelling of the gospels that brings into account various Old Testament references and the contemporary interpretations of those passages by the Jews of Jesus' day as well as contemporary events throughout the Roman Empire, but most especially those directly affecting the Jewish people of Israel at the time, so that the gospel stories take on new life and meaning for the reader. It's both a harmonization of the gospels, and a commentary on them, but much richer.
The perspectives change depending on the episode. Sometimes the perspective is from that of a disciple, sometimes from that of a person being healed or a bystander observing. The Christmas story is told from the perspective of Shepherds, the Crucifixion scene dwells on the perspective of Simon of Cyrene.
The book is a third-person retelling of the gospels that brings into account various Old Testament references and the contemporary interpretations of those passages by the Jews of Jesus' day as well as contemporary events throughout the Roman Empire, but most especially those directly affecting the Jewish people of Israel at the time, so that the gospel stories take on new life and meaning for the reader. It's both a harmonization of the gospels, and a commentary on them, but much richer.
The perspectives change depending on the episode. Sometimes the perspective is from that of a disciple, sometimes from that of a person being healed or a bystander observing. The Christmas story is told from the perspective of Shepherds, the Crucifixion scene dwells on the perspective of Simon of Cyrene.
314 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 25, 2017
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131 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 25, 2017
One of the blessings of having four Gospels instead of one is that each Evangelist gives us a unique perspective on the same story. Where Mark is brief, Luke uses more ink. Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke follow a similar outline of narrative events, John blazes his own path, incorporating longer dialogues and speeches. Each writer enriches and expands the story in his own way.
What Bo Giertz has done in With My Own Eyes is offer us another perspective. Not another Gospel, of course, nor merely a harmonization of the four we have, but a retelling of the story of Jesus through the eyes of a disciple, a bystander, or sick person being healed. Giertz whisks us away from our 21st century homes and offices to plant our feet on 1st century Israelite soil. We see what those first disciples saw, smell what they smelled, hear the rumors they heard. We get inside their heads, rehearse their traditions, feel their fears. He has a way of lending so much color and depth to the narrative that we are swept into it. He opens up the Gospel story in a way that I've never seen done before.
Bror Erickson, in translating this book, has given to the church a treasure of immense worth. Giertz continues to be a voice we need to hear in the church today. And, thanks to this book, we will.
What Bo Giertz has done in With My Own Eyes is offer us another perspective. Not another Gospel, of course, nor merely a harmonization of the four we have, but a retelling of the story of Jesus through the eyes of a disciple, a bystander, or sick person being healed. Giertz whisks us away from our 21st century homes and offices to plant our feet on 1st century Israelite soil. We see what those first disciples saw, smell what they smelled, hear the rumors they heard. We get inside their heads, rehearse their traditions, feel their fears. He has a way of lending so much color and depth to the narrative that we are swept into it. He opens up the Gospel story in a way that I've never seen done before.
Bror Erickson, in translating this book, has given to the church a treasure of immense worth. Giertz continues to be a voice we need to hear in the church today. And, thanks to this book, we will.
August 28, 2020
Every time I set this book down, I struggled mightily to pick it back up. I have a hard time enjoying retellings of the gospels without spending too much time wondering whether each and every liberty taken rings true. Why not just get the story straight from the source? Did the Holy Spirit not do a good enough job inspiring the Biblical authors?
However, this book does work very well as a devotional reflection on the gospels. Bo Giertz wants you to get a sense of the place of Palestine. He wants you to consider that humanity hasn't really changed all that much throughout history, and the Cure to what ails it certainly hasn't. This book is just as pertinent today as it was when it first came out in 1949.
It is tempting to turn the people mentioned in the Bible into caricatures, but Pastor Giertz wants you to remember that they were real people who experienced real things. Eyewitnesses to something truly remarkable, yet remarkably true. He has beautifully expressed good and true things.
Speaking of beautiful, I really like the cover jacket art, and this book looks goodlaying around my house on my bookshelf.
"It was so comforting to know that the task that lay before them was absolutely ridiculous. For just this reason, they had only one thing to do: to obey that which was commanded of them, to speak that which had been given them, and to blindly trust in help from him who had defeated death. And he was with them. Every day. Until the end of the age."
However, this book does work very well as a devotional reflection on the gospels. Bo Giertz wants you to get a sense of the place of Palestine. He wants you to consider that humanity hasn't really changed all that much throughout history, and the Cure to what ails it certainly hasn't. This book is just as pertinent today as it was when it first came out in 1949.
It is tempting to turn the people mentioned in the Bible into caricatures, but Pastor Giertz wants you to remember that they were real people who experienced real things. Eyewitnesses to something truly remarkable, yet remarkably true. He has beautifully expressed good and true things.
Speaking of beautiful, I really like the cover jacket art, and this book looks good
"It was so comforting to know that the task that lay before them was absolutely ridiculous. For just this reason, they had only one thing to do: to obey that which was commanded of them, to speak that which had been given them, and to blindly trust in help from him who had defeated death. And he was with them. Every day. Until the end of the age."
July 19, 2019
With many books like this, the author goes too far in adding narrative to the story that is way too imaginative. Giertz doesn't do that but sticks very closely to the actually Gospels and only adds lots of descriptive details and significantly adds the thought of people throughout the story. It helped me to try to imagine what all these people were thinking and not just the events themselves. The passion and resurrection were the highlight of the book with the emotional impact of these events on the disciples so evident that it brought me to tears. I feel like I was there with them. Great read!
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May 1, 2018It is said that making a trip to the Holy Land allows a person to read the Bible in color instead of just black and white. Giertz tells the accounts through the likes of Peter and James, allowing readers to see the sights, hear the sounds, and take in the smells of the days when Jesus walked the dusty villages of Israel. By telling the narrative through the voice of the Sanhedrin's scribe at the trial of Jesus, readers get to journey along with the people who interacted with Jesus to discover his identity and work.
This book works well as a devotional. I would highly recommend it!
This book works well as a devotional. I would highly recommend it!
February 15, 2018
I'm going to give 5 stars to everything Giertz has written, but this book is a really lovely retelling of the narrative of the Gospels. It is good to have this newer translation in print, as copies of the older translation are getting harder to find. I enjoyed my read.
July 18, 2022
This is one of the richest commentaries on the Gospels, only it is presented in a novel like form. This is staying on my exegetical shelf.
June 19, 2024
What an incredibly written book!! Part historical and geographical detail, part devotional, Giertz’s faithful, thoughtful retelling of the gospel narrative brings vivid color to the stories of Jesus’ earthly ministry. With roughly 40 short stories, each told from varying perspectives, this would make a fabulous devotional read during the season of Lent. There’s such a warmth to the humanity of each narrative, as though the author’s only goal is to bring each reader directly into the pages of the Bible, and remind us all: “This life, this sacrificial death, these promises, this LOVE… it’s all for YOU!”
November 4, 2018
We take nothing away from the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. This book does a nice job of laying out in a devotional and expansive way the Gospel narrative. Its's a phenomenal book by a orthodox and faithful pastor, Bo Giertz, to be read along side of the Bible. I would highly recommend it.
August 6, 2021
The last chapters especially are just beautifully done. It's eye-opening to read a fictionalized account of the gospels. Like the show The Chosen, it helps you to see things differently, and even to understand them better. The makers of The Chosen should read this book for inspiration.
December 12, 2020
More than enjoyable and informative. I felt like I was transported through time and space to witness stories of the Bible first hand.
January 18, 2022
Be sure and read the description of this book first, for background on what Bo Giertz achieved in these brief Life of Christ vignettes and how he came to create them.
As often told, Giertz started out as an atheist.
Even if you are very familiar with the life of Christ, I strongly recommend this book for reading, even devotional reflection. In many of the stories, Giertz catches a detail or explains well known events in a fresh way. I'm currently a fan of the film project, The Chosen, which uses a lot of imaginative background to make the words of Christ and the events of His life pop with vividness. Giertz achieves some of the same impact, but with a lot less creation of fictional background. His insight into how Jesus' brothers may have felt about Him is a brilliant understanding of the facts that the New Testament gives us about Jesus' family.
I'd like to try reading the stories instead of listening to them. The narrator (beautiful voice) and the third person narrative felt kind of dreamy as each story unfolded. Although the details were important, I would catch my mind wandering because of this dreaminess.
As often told, Giertz started out as an atheist.
Even if you are very familiar with the life of Christ, I strongly recommend this book for reading, even devotional reflection. In many of the stories, Giertz catches a detail or explains well known events in a fresh way. I'm currently a fan of the film project, The Chosen, which uses a lot of imaginative background to make the words of Christ and the events of His life pop with vividness. Giertz achieves some of the same impact, but with a lot less creation of fictional background. His insight into how Jesus' brothers may have felt about Him is a brilliant understanding of the facts that the New Testament gives us about Jesus' family.
I'd like to try reading the stories instead of listening to them. The narrator (beautiful voice) and the third person narrative felt kind of dreamy as each story unfolded. Although the details were important, I would catch my mind wandering because of this dreaminess.
October 21, 2017
Thank you, Bror, for translating this and then recommending it! Excellent read and wonderful confirmation of the true message of the gospels.
August 17, 2017
"The cup stood empty before him on the table."
Those words. A simple sentence. Here on this page it is unremarkable. But in its context, this line is as stunning as it is short. The wonder, the dread, the emptiness, the impending terror, the uncertainty, the confusion, the nagging sense that something significant is happening in Christ's last meal with his disciples captured in a literary image embossed on the reader's mental canvas.
Bo Giertz brings the reader into the room with Christ and his disciples in "With My Own Eyes", available now in an updated English translation by Lutheran pastor Bror Erickson. Part devotional, part commentary, part exegesis, part historical fiction, and part sermon, "With My Own Eyes" is a series of 40 snapshots of Christ's life chronicled from the eye-witness perspective of a silent participant in the events of Christ's life as it comes to us from the gospel writers.
Erickson's labor to make "With My Own Eyes" available in accessible English couldn't be more timely. Giertz's approach to the text is a refreshing change from the white noise from years of evangelicals scouring the pages of Scripture for timeless truths.
Moralism is a blight in the American pulpit. No denomination, no association, no church size, no theological strain is immune. It's everywhere, every Sunday morning. In our pulpits, life coaches give us valuable lessons to navigate the complexities of life using Bible stories to inspire us to be our better selves.
Moralism is fueled by a narcissistic need to glean life principles from the Bible as if it is an ancient IKEA manual meant to give us the instructions necessary to build good, moral lives as we live the American dream. Such an approach to the text is aided and abetted by the American pulpit, with pulpiteers who've long been taught that the best way to provide instructions of the Authoritative Life Guide is to bridge the text from the 1st century to the 21st century audience by finding some universal principle in the story that is relevant to our felt needs.
Building that kind of bridge in the sermon highlights one of the major homiletical problems in the pulpit today: abstraction from the original setting. Such a practice breeds moralism. The text becomes whatever we want it to be. Even those who believe they are allowing the text to shape them too often interpret it and preach it in ways that are foreign to the original author and his congregation.
In "With My Own Eyes", Giertz confronts our moralism and shatters it. No, not by giving us a new 12-step approach to reading the Bible. He demonstrates for us. Giertz inverts the bridge, taking the audience back into the 1st century and placing us into the events of the text. After all, this is our drama, this is our story, this is our storyline as a redeemed people.
You see, the reader isn't simply a silent participant. In giving firsthand accounts of events in Christ's life, Giertz invites the reader to participate with the original actors in the stories. From the shepherds on a Bethlehem hillside, to the tax collector Matthew's home, to the meal in that upper room, Giertz unpacks the text in a way that compels see ourselves in the story with our destiny tied to the One who at the center of the drama on the stage. "With My Own Eyes" provides the sermonizer with a homiletical (even hermeneutical) model to emulate.
These 40 glimpses place the reader into the sights, sounds, and smells of the drama. In them, we see Jesus, we hear Jesus, we "feel" Jesus who is the living Gospel to us and for us. We are participants living in the grand drama of redemptive history needing Christ to be who He is for us in these snapshots. "With My Own Eyes" provides the sermonizer with homiletical (even hermeneutical) model to emulate.
No longer an abstract moral principle, Christ gives himself to us. This doesn't mean Giertz has inscribed Holy Writ. But he does challenge us to return to the gospels and read them and interpret them as Christ for us in our brokenness and shame and desperate need for Him to be Him.
When Christ died, we died. When Christ arose, we arose. This is our confession. This is also our story, unfolding on the pages of Scripture. Christ's story is our story. The drama of redemptive history has not been revealed to provide us with moral lessons. It gives us life. It is here that we feed on Christ. Thus, "With My Own Eyes" is inviting us to the feast. Giertz challenges us anew to read, to hear, and to comprehend the Gospel story as our own.
"The cup stood empty before him on the table."
See the cup. See the Savior. With your own eyes.
Chad Richard Bresson
Bo Giertz, "With My Own Eyes" (translated by Bror Erickson) will be available August 25, 2017.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Own-Eyes-Bo...
Bo Giertz (8/31/05-7/12/98) was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, and novelist from Sweden. Giertz's "Hammer of God" was a bestseller and has been translated into numerous languages.
Those words. A simple sentence. Here on this page it is unremarkable. But in its context, this line is as stunning as it is short. The wonder, the dread, the emptiness, the impending terror, the uncertainty, the confusion, the nagging sense that something significant is happening in Christ's last meal with his disciples captured in a literary image embossed on the reader's mental canvas.
Bo Giertz brings the reader into the room with Christ and his disciples in "With My Own Eyes", available now in an updated English translation by Lutheran pastor Bror Erickson. Part devotional, part commentary, part exegesis, part historical fiction, and part sermon, "With My Own Eyes" is a series of 40 snapshots of Christ's life chronicled from the eye-witness perspective of a silent participant in the events of Christ's life as it comes to us from the gospel writers.
Erickson's labor to make "With My Own Eyes" available in accessible English couldn't be more timely. Giertz's approach to the text is a refreshing change from the white noise from years of evangelicals scouring the pages of Scripture for timeless truths.
Moralism is a blight in the American pulpit. No denomination, no association, no church size, no theological strain is immune. It's everywhere, every Sunday morning. In our pulpits, life coaches give us valuable lessons to navigate the complexities of life using Bible stories to inspire us to be our better selves.
Moralism is fueled by a narcissistic need to glean life principles from the Bible as if it is an ancient IKEA manual meant to give us the instructions necessary to build good, moral lives as we live the American dream. Such an approach to the text is aided and abetted by the American pulpit, with pulpiteers who've long been taught that the best way to provide instructions of the Authoritative Life Guide is to bridge the text from the 1st century to the 21st century audience by finding some universal principle in the story that is relevant to our felt needs.
Building that kind of bridge in the sermon highlights one of the major homiletical problems in the pulpit today: abstraction from the original setting. Such a practice breeds moralism. The text becomes whatever we want it to be. Even those who believe they are allowing the text to shape them too often interpret it and preach it in ways that are foreign to the original author and his congregation.
In "With My Own Eyes", Giertz confronts our moralism and shatters it. No, not by giving us a new 12-step approach to reading the Bible. He demonstrates for us. Giertz inverts the bridge, taking the audience back into the 1st century and placing us into the events of the text. After all, this is our drama, this is our story, this is our storyline as a redeemed people.
You see, the reader isn't simply a silent participant. In giving firsthand accounts of events in Christ's life, Giertz invites the reader to participate with the original actors in the stories. From the shepherds on a Bethlehem hillside, to the tax collector Matthew's home, to the meal in that upper room, Giertz unpacks the text in a way that compels see ourselves in the story with our destiny tied to the One who at the center of the drama on the stage. "With My Own Eyes" provides the sermonizer with a homiletical (even hermeneutical) model to emulate.
These 40 glimpses place the reader into the sights, sounds, and smells of the drama. In them, we see Jesus, we hear Jesus, we "feel" Jesus who is the living Gospel to us and for us. We are participants living in the grand drama of redemptive history needing Christ to be who He is for us in these snapshots. "With My Own Eyes" provides the sermonizer with homiletical (even hermeneutical) model to emulate.
No longer an abstract moral principle, Christ gives himself to us. This doesn't mean Giertz has inscribed Holy Writ. But he does challenge us to return to the gospels and read them and interpret them as Christ for us in our brokenness and shame and desperate need for Him to be Him.
When Christ died, we died. When Christ arose, we arose. This is our confession. This is also our story, unfolding on the pages of Scripture. Christ's story is our story. The drama of redemptive history has not been revealed to provide us with moral lessons. It gives us life. It is here that we feed on Christ. Thus, "With My Own Eyes" is inviting us to the feast. Giertz challenges us anew to read, to hear, and to comprehend the Gospel story as our own.
"The cup stood empty before him on the table."
See the cup. See the Savior. With your own eyes.
Chad Richard Bresson
Bo Giertz, "With My Own Eyes" (translated by Bror Erickson) will be available August 25, 2017.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Own-Eyes-Bo...
Bo Giertz (8/31/05-7/12/98) was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, and novelist from Sweden. Giertz's "Hammer of God" was a bestseller and has been translated into numerous languages.
January 24, 2018
Wonderful imaginative word pictures that take you inside the heads of participants in some of the wonderful events in Jesus' life. These events come alive and set you in the midst of those events. Some neat insights and some things might make you think. But you probably won't read those stories the same way again. This would make an ideal Lenten devotional. This is a wonderful, enjoyable book - another one that you don't want to end!
January 7, 2022
I might give this 4.5 stars if that were an option. I always feel a certain level of awkwardness reading books of this type that re-envision bible stories from different perspectives. However, this is the best book of this type that I've read. Certain moments are presented in especially powerful ways. I would trust your instinct regarding if a book of this type is something you are interested in reading, or if you would rather skip it and simply read the Bible.
February 6, 2020
A well-written, theologically insightful telling of the story of Jesus' ministry, death and resurrection as seen by those around him (particularly Peter.)
January 15, 2024
Im sure it's great but I just didn't like it
Dkm
Dkm
January 1, 2024
I didn’t feel like I could rate this one because it was so different from what I had assumed it would be. I had wanted it to be like a written documentary of what Jerusalem was like when Jesus lived there, but it was just the Bible stories told with added details and emotion from the characters. I appreciate the feel of having them told as a real story lived by real human beings…but it just wasn’t what I had expected.
February 24, 2018
Beautiful!
I enjoyed this so much, this was a savor read for me. I always enjoy Good Friday, but, the writing of the Passion story, had me in tears. The writing of the resurrection was just astounding. I highly recommend this book.
I enjoyed this so much, this was a savor read for me. I always enjoy Good Friday, but, the writing of the Passion story, had me in tears. The writing of the resurrection was just astounding. I highly recommend this book.
November 17, 2015
En tankevækkende samling af øjebliksbilleder om de mennesker der så Jesus med deres egne øjne, og de livsomvæltende tanker sådanne møder satte gang i.
April 17, 2020
Det känns som om man var där asså.
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