What do you think?
Rate this book
عیسا
Historical analysis of Jesus by a professor of the history of Christianity at the Sorbonne which concludes that we can't conclude much about the man or his teachings based "upon nothing save textual sources."
"Professor Guignebert opens up to us a hitherto unknown world--one where 'Jesus was born among Jews on Jewish soil, & his message was for Jews alone...Jews 1st carried it into Greek soil, where an extraordinary success awaited it...already influenced & prepared for its reception by Jewish propaganda.'"--from dust jacket back flap
"There is no book of recent years which will give the interested layman a more comprehensive account of what has been written & said about the life of Jesus & a fairer estimate of conflicting evidence. On the whole his own position is strongly influenced by the eschatological emphasis which was introduced into New Testament criticism by Albert Schweitzer."--Reinhold Niebuhr
"Professor Guignebert opens up to us a hitherto unknown world--one where 'Jesus was born among Jews on Jewish soil, & his message was for Jews alone...Jews 1st carried it into Greek soil, where an extraordinary success awaited it...already influenced & prepared for its reception by Jewish propaganda.'"--from dust jacket back flap
"There is no book of recent years which will give the interested layman a more comprehensive account of what has been written & said about the life of Jesus & a fairer estimate of conflicting evidence. On the whole his own position is strongly influenced by the eschatological emphasis which was introduced into New Testament criticism by Albert Schweitzer."--Reinhold Niebuhr
680 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1932
1 person is currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Charles Guignebert
64 books12 followersGuignebert was born in the Val-de-Marne. Despite his secular upbringing he became interested in the history of Christianity.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 11, 2021
میخوام دلیل دادن 4 ستاره به این کتاب رو بگم و تو دلم نمونه. یکی اینکه جناب رستگار انصافا ترجمه خوبی از این شاهکار گنیبر انجام دادند و نکته مهمش اینکه درک و استنباط کلی که از کتاب میگیری اینه که اگه با دید تاریخی به قضیه بعثت عیسا و بقیه ماجراهاش نگاه کنی سرآخر متوجه میشی که تقریبا هیچ اطلاعی از زندگیش نداری و خیلی تاریک و مبهم هست. این مطلب رو خود نویسنده در مقدمه کتابش هم گفته . اولش فکر کردم داره تعارف میکنه بعدا که کل کتاب رو خوندم با نویسنده اش همنظر شدم. راستی یه نکته دیگه: این واقعیت باعث میشه قدر پیغمبر نازنینمون رو بیشتر بدونیم و کتابش رو که هیچ بنی بشری دخل و تصرفی توش نکرده رو عمیقتر و نقادانه و ایمانانه تر بخونیم.
June 29, 2025
A SKEPTICAL, BUT STILL VALUABLE DETAILED STUDY OF THE LIFE OF JESUS
Charles Guignebert (1867 - 1939) was a professor of Church history at the Sorbonne. He wrote this book in 1935, although it was not translated into English until 1956. Guignebert is quite skeptical about our ability to reconstruct the details of the life of Jesus; he writes, "We know nothing at all of the personality of Jesus, scarcely anything of the facts of his life, little as to his teaching, and can only speculate as to his career." Nevertheless, Guignebert is not a propounder of the "Jesus Myth" theory, but he simply examines the evidence from the gospels themselves with a skeptical eye.
Comparing the fourth gospel to the Synoptics, he writes, "the Jesus of John seems quite a different person from the one implied by the Synoptic tradition. He is in every way different---his character, his behavior, his consistently harsh attitude towards the Jews, and the tone of his discourses, which are solemn and lofty exhortations never understood by his hearers, and full of profound meditations on the eternal Christ instead of the familiar teachings about the coming Kingdom and the conditions of entrance to it." Concerning the objection of Jesus' opponents in John 7:40-42, "But can the Christ come out of Galilee?"
Guignebert writes, "The fact that the writer of the gospel does not refute the objection by declaring that Jesus WAS born at Bethlehem and descended from David, proves that he did not think either of these things to be true." When the soldier reported pierced Jesus' side during the crucifixion, Guignebert suggests, "The Fourth Gospel alone, with a symbolic purpose in mind, has described the soldier's spear piercing the side of the Crucified, whence there flows both the Eucharistic blood and the baptismal water."
Concerning the recording of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, "it is obvious that nobody took notes, and that it would have been impossible to remember from merely hearing them the 107 verses of the discourse of Matthew, or even the 30 verses of that of Luke."
About the miracles reported in the gospels, he says, "Finally, it is upon the validity of the gospel evidence that our judgment depends, on the historicity of the facts which they offer as miraculous, not upon their true nature. Unfortunately, there is little hope of this validity being much greater in the case of the miraculous events than in that of the others, and the most superficial examination of the texts proves, in fact, that it is not. We discover, for instance, that each of the Synoptists relates impressive miracles which are not mentioned by the others, so that each has taken just what suited him from tradition or legend."
With regard to the apocalyptic notion of Jesus as the "Son of Man" in Daniel 7, he says, "If we consider the verses of Daniel and their context by themselves, the supposition that their author intended to refer to the Messiah seems very improbable. In all the rest of the book there is no further mention of the Messiah supposed to be indicated by them, and it is difficult to explain the introduction of such a personage if he was to play no further part of the author's scheme. On the other hand, it is hard to see why Daniel's 'son of man' should not mean simply 'a man,' as the expression does elsewhere; why the passage should not signify an apparition in the form of a human being..."
Concerning the divergence between John and the Synoptics about the order and chronology of events of Jesus' last week, he suggests, "In all probability the Gospel writer was only concerned with the religious aspect of this sequence of events in time. Bearing this in mind, it is easy to explain the insuperable divergence which appears between the Synoptic chronological scheme of the events of the Passion and the Johannine scheme, while admitting that the former is lacking in clearness and coherence."
Concerning Jesus' agony at Gethsemane, he writes, "That the incident was dramatized after the event, and was even, in the main, entirely imaginary, there can be no doubt, for who could have seen, heard, and reported it, when the only ones who might have witnessed the scene were asleep?"
With regard to Jesus' anguished cry from the cross ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"), Guignebert says, "It is useless to point out that the anguished breathing of the sufferer from the first moment of crucifixion renders the utterance of a loud cry after several hours quite improbable, because with the Evangelists we are outside the sphere of historical reality."
He concludes his study on the non-optimistic note, "The Last Things which Jesus expected did not happen. The Kingdom which he announced did not appear and the prophet died on the cross instead of contemplating the expected Miracle from the hill of Zion. He must then have been mistaken ... Jesus' dream ... ended in failure."
Guignebert's book, though dated, is still of considerable interest to those interested in the historical Jesus.
Charles Guignebert (1867 - 1939) was a professor of Church history at the Sorbonne. He wrote this book in 1935, although it was not translated into English until 1956. Guignebert is quite skeptical about our ability to reconstruct the details of the life of Jesus; he writes, "We know nothing at all of the personality of Jesus, scarcely anything of the facts of his life, little as to his teaching, and can only speculate as to his career." Nevertheless, Guignebert is not a propounder of the "Jesus Myth" theory, but he simply examines the evidence from the gospels themselves with a skeptical eye.
Comparing the fourth gospel to the Synoptics, he writes, "the Jesus of John seems quite a different person from the one implied by the Synoptic tradition. He is in every way different---his character, his behavior, his consistently harsh attitude towards the Jews, and the tone of his discourses, which are solemn and lofty exhortations never understood by his hearers, and full of profound meditations on the eternal Christ instead of the familiar teachings about the coming Kingdom and the conditions of entrance to it." Concerning the objection of Jesus' opponents in John 7:40-42, "But can the Christ come out of Galilee?"
Guignebert writes, "The fact that the writer of the gospel does not refute the objection by declaring that Jesus WAS born at Bethlehem and descended from David, proves that he did not think either of these things to be true." When the soldier reported pierced Jesus' side during the crucifixion, Guignebert suggests, "The Fourth Gospel alone, with a symbolic purpose in mind, has described the soldier's spear piercing the side of the Crucified, whence there flows both the Eucharistic blood and the baptismal water."
Concerning the recording of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, "it is obvious that nobody took notes, and that it would have been impossible to remember from merely hearing them the 107 verses of the discourse of Matthew, or even the 30 verses of that of Luke."
About the miracles reported in the gospels, he says, "Finally, it is upon the validity of the gospel evidence that our judgment depends, on the historicity of the facts which they offer as miraculous, not upon their true nature. Unfortunately, there is little hope of this validity being much greater in the case of the miraculous events than in that of the others, and the most superficial examination of the texts proves, in fact, that it is not. We discover, for instance, that each of the Synoptists relates impressive miracles which are not mentioned by the others, so that each has taken just what suited him from tradition or legend."
With regard to the apocalyptic notion of Jesus as the "Son of Man" in Daniel 7, he says, "If we consider the verses of Daniel and their context by themselves, the supposition that their author intended to refer to the Messiah seems very improbable. In all the rest of the book there is no further mention of the Messiah supposed to be indicated by them, and it is difficult to explain the introduction of such a personage if he was to play no further part of the author's scheme. On the other hand, it is hard to see why Daniel's 'son of man' should not mean simply 'a man,' as the expression does elsewhere; why the passage should not signify an apparition in the form of a human being..."
Concerning the divergence between John and the Synoptics about the order and chronology of events of Jesus' last week, he suggests, "In all probability the Gospel writer was only concerned with the religious aspect of this sequence of events in time. Bearing this in mind, it is easy to explain the insuperable divergence which appears between the Synoptic chronological scheme of the events of the Passion and the Johannine scheme, while admitting that the former is lacking in clearness and coherence."
Concerning Jesus' agony at Gethsemane, he writes, "That the incident was dramatized after the event, and was even, in the main, entirely imaginary, there can be no doubt, for who could have seen, heard, and reported it, when the only ones who might have witnessed the scene were asleep?"
With regard to Jesus' anguished cry from the cross ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"), Guignebert says, "It is useless to point out that the anguished breathing of the sufferer from the first moment of crucifixion renders the utterance of a loud cry after several hours quite improbable, because with the Evangelists we are outside the sphere of historical reality."
He concludes his study on the non-optimistic note, "The Last Things which Jesus expected did not happen. The Kingdom which he announced did not appear and the prophet died on the cross instead of contemplating the expected Miracle from the hill of Zion. He must then have been mistaken ... Jesus' dream ... ended in failure."
Guignebert's book, though dated, is still of considerable interest to those interested in the historical Jesus.
September 7, 2014
The Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago's extreme north side had at least six used bookstores when I moved back here after seminary studies in New York in 1978. Now, sadly, there is only one: Armadillo's Pillow on Sheridan Road, just south of Pratt. I picked this up at about that time at the store that used to be on Morse, just west of the Red Line El station there, but didn't read it until over ten years had passed.
University Books, like my own Ares Press, specialized in keeping scholarly works which have passed their copyright protections in print. The emphasis of the publisher was on religion and the esoteric ranging into the occult. However, this book, part of a trilogy, is on the orthodox end of that spectrum, its author a respected French scholar and his opinions well within the mainstream. I read it just after reading Crossan's Historical Jesus, a much more controversial work in that its author makes bold claims for what one can say about Jesus with some confidence.
University Books, like my own Ares Press, specialized in keeping scholarly works which have passed their copyright protections in print. The emphasis of the publisher was on religion and the esoteric ranging into the occult. However, this book, part of a trilogy, is on the orthodox end of that spectrum, its author a respected French scholar and his opinions well within the mainstream. I read it just after reading Crossan's Historical Jesus, a much more controversial work in that its author makes bold claims for what one can say about Jesus with some confidence.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews