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God in Three Classic Scriptures
Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning God: A Biography, Jack Miles offered a highly original approach to the character of the God of the Old Testament, addressing him as a character in a book, a literary charter. In Christ, reading the New Testament but hearing the Old echoing in its every verse, Miles tells the story of the agonising conflict that overtook God when he failed to keep his promise to his people, and the radical change in his character that this failure brought about. Coming after a large number of books pursuing the elusive 'historical Jesus', Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God offers a frankly mythological Christ, delivering a profound and dramatic companion to the story begun in God: A Biography.
377 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2001
50 people are currently reading
630 people want to read
About the author
Jack Miles
40 books77 followersJack Miles (b. 1942) is an American author and winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the MacArthur Fellowship. His work on religion, politics, and culture has appeared in numerous national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
July 17, 2007
This is the "sequel," if you will, to the book "God: A Biography." I actually read this one first, and it really doesn't matter. He briefly lays out his hypotheses from the first book at the beginning of this one. This is again a literary reading of the Bible. It just deals with the New Testament. Or more accurately, the changeover from the Old Testament and the New Testament, and all the contradictions that Jack Miles finds there. In short, his conclusion is that God changed his mind. He realized that he could not keep his promise to the Jews, and so the sacrifice of Christ was in some measure his apology for that. It was also his acknowledgement that things had to change and be different. It has to be, for many reasons that Jack Miles lays out here. It's been awhile since I read it, but many of them are still crystal clear in my mind. God's overpowering, thundering voice of the Old Testament is contradicted by his near silence in the New Testament. The jealous, warlike, angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament all but disappears in the New. Or at least is made much more subtle. Why? That's what Jack Miles answers. I almost don't want to give anything else away because that would detract from the reading experience. It's frankly amazing to think about, and once again left me with more questions than answers.
I'm thinking if you'd read something like this in the first place that you don't mind a little dryness, and that's good. Honestly, I found it very readable and read it in a week. Mostly because I was so fascinated by everything that he's saying. The opening of this one and God: A Biography are not dry at all. The majority of it isn't. There's just some times where he's bringing in a lot of evidence, is all. Which I find interesting, but some people might find a bit hard to push through. But really, it's worth it. If you have any interest in the Bible, this is really worth it.
The only caution I would really give is that you need to have some basic knowledge of the Bible to read it, obviously. The more the better, because Jack Miles was an incredibly learned Jesuit before he left the order. And it shows.
I'm thinking if you'd read something like this in the first place that you don't mind a little dryness, and that's good. Honestly, I found it very readable and read it in a week. Mostly because I was so fascinated by everything that he's saying. The opening of this one and God: A Biography are not dry at all. The majority of it isn't. There's just some times where he's bringing in a lot of evidence, is all. Which I find interesting, but some people might find a bit hard to push through. But really, it's worth it. If you have any interest in the Bible, this is really worth it.
The only caution I would really give is that you need to have some basic knowledge of the Bible to read it, obviously. The more the better, because Jack Miles was an incredibly learned Jesuit before he left the order. And it shows.
April 30, 2012
Disclosure: This review is written by my husband who has a MTh.
Rev. Mr. Daniel Laurita
"Three things in life are highly over rated" an old mentor once told me. Two are home cooking and a Harvard education--the third cannot be shared in a public forum. Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God suffers from both the Harvard education of its author Jack Miles and his home cooked ideas.
I really looked forward to this book. Mr. Miles had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his first book, God: A Biography The lauds that were applied to that work had piqued my curiosity. However, Jack Miles is an ex-Jesuit. An "ex" anything is a red flag that someone has an agenda to unfold. He is also an ex-Catholic, an ex-Scripture scholar, and now an ex-journalist by his own admission.
This professor of humanities begin his "literary reading" of the New Testament by invoking the philosophy of Frederich Nietzsche. Abundantly quoted, we are reminded that, for Nietzsche "Christianity was a victory--a nobler outlook perished of it--Christianity has been the greatest misfortune of mankind so far." The nobler outlook is of course the divinity of man and his quest for power. Recall that Nietzsche's writings were later exploited by the National Socialist Party to advance their agenda.
From this start we are invited to look at the New Testament and consider it as a "stained glass window." Unfortunately the author only sees the dark shadings of the window and not the light that breaks through. Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is in reality a revelation of the crisis of it author.
He puts aside hundreds of years of historical critical analysis of the Scripture, not to mention two millennia of religious tradition and scholarship. His first footnote is, "translations of biblical citations are my own except when otherwise indicated." This in itself allows him to do what he wants with the text. It establishes his self-proclaimed authority disregarding the body of work of various communities of scholars. These communities have given the various English translations are set aside deftly and rarely heard from again. For this author the Scripture is the revelation that God is guilty of abandoning his people and his creation. "The world is a great crime and someone must be made to pay for it," Miles says. Since God is the author of the world He must pay the price. That price is the "suicide" of God through the crucified death of Jesus--God Incarnate. "No one lacks a good reason for suicide," from the poetry of Cesare Pavese is added fodder for Miles.
Keep in mind that Nietzsche died a madman and Pavese died by his own hand. Miles home cooked reading of the New Testament is the end result of reading the Sacred Scripture as literature only. Totally disregarding the vision of faith Jack Miles is lost to his own musings. He reads the poetry of the John’s prologue as narrative and the narrative as historical. He has forgotten that the Scripture is the product of man's encounter with God. It is an attempt to explain the unexplainable "mystery of God."
Professor Miles wants us to accept that God's purpose is to redeem himself rather than to redeem mankind. God has fallen, not man. We are the victims, not of our choice or actions, but of the failure of God. Miles’ epilogue draws us further away from the purpose of Scripture, "To reveal that which is necessary for our salvation" (Dei Verbum , a document produced by the Second Vatican council of the Catholic Church).
He reminds us that in both his books, "god has been taken neither as the object of religious belief nor as a topic in ancient history but as the central character in a work of literature." If you must read this book keep this in mind. Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is more fictional than scholarly, more dark than light, more pedantic than wisdom.
Rev. Mr. Daniel Laurita
"Three things in life are highly over rated" an old mentor once told me. Two are home cooking and a Harvard education--the third cannot be shared in a public forum. Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God suffers from both the Harvard education of its author Jack Miles and his home cooked ideas.
I really looked forward to this book. Mr. Miles had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his first book, God: A Biography The lauds that were applied to that work had piqued my curiosity. However, Jack Miles is an ex-Jesuit. An "ex" anything is a red flag that someone has an agenda to unfold. He is also an ex-Catholic, an ex-Scripture scholar, and now an ex-journalist by his own admission.
This professor of humanities begin his "literary reading" of the New Testament by invoking the philosophy of Frederich Nietzsche. Abundantly quoted, we are reminded that, for Nietzsche "Christianity was a victory--a nobler outlook perished of it--Christianity has been the greatest misfortune of mankind so far." The nobler outlook is of course the divinity of man and his quest for power. Recall that Nietzsche's writings were later exploited by the National Socialist Party to advance their agenda.
From this start we are invited to look at the New Testament and consider it as a "stained glass window." Unfortunately the author only sees the dark shadings of the window and not the light that breaks through. Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is in reality a revelation of the crisis of it author.
He puts aside hundreds of years of historical critical analysis of the Scripture, not to mention two millennia of religious tradition and scholarship. His first footnote is, "translations of biblical citations are my own except when otherwise indicated." This in itself allows him to do what he wants with the text. It establishes his self-proclaimed authority disregarding the body of work of various communities of scholars. These communities have given the various English translations are set aside deftly and rarely heard from again. For this author the Scripture is the revelation that God is guilty of abandoning his people and his creation. "The world is a great crime and someone must be made to pay for it," Miles says. Since God is the author of the world He must pay the price. That price is the "suicide" of God through the crucified death of Jesus--God Incarnate. "No one lacks a good reason for suicide," from the poetry of Cesare Pavese is added fodder for Miles.
Keep in mind that Nietzsche died a madman and Pavese died by his own hand. Miles home cooked reading of the New Testament is the end result of reading the Sacred Scripture as literature only. Totally disregarding the vision of faith Jack Miles is lost to his own musings. He reads the poetry of the John’s prologue as narrative and the narrative as historical. He has forgotten that the Scripture is the product of man's encounter with God. It is an attempt to explain the unexplainable "mystery of God."
Professor Miles wants us to accept that God's purpose is to redeem himself rather than to redeem mankind. God has fallen, not man. We are the victims, not of our choice or actions, but of the failure of God. Miles’ epilogue draws us further away from the purpose of Scripture, "To reveal that which is necessary for our salvation" (Dei Verbum , a document produced by the Second Vatican council of the Catholic Church).
He reminds us that in both his books, "god has been taken neither as the object of religious belief nor as a topic in ancient history but as the central character in a work of literature." If you must read this book keep this in mind. Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is more fictional than scholarly, more dark than light, more pedantic than wisdom.
December 26, 2013
Jack Miles likes big celebrities. Six years ago, he wrote a biography of God. His analysis of the Great Protagonist in the Hebrew Bible won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, he's back. And this time, it's personal.
"Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God" reminds us that the story of Christianity reaches its climax with a lynching, an "improbable and appalling conjunction" of native Jewish ideas.
In the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac, animal sacrifice had dramatically replaced human sacrifice as a demonstration of devotion and repentance. But on Golgotha, the long anticipated son of David, the Messiah, plays the role of the sacrificial animal, the Lamb of God, in a radical revision of prophesy that must have struck early Jewish hearers as "not just outrageous but blasphemous."
This is a provocative study of the Gospels, particularly the book of John, lined with thorny claims that will prick anyone's comfortable sense of "the greatest story ever told."
Miles wants to approach the Bible as a literary critic, looking at it as a single story about God. At the heart of his analysis is the premise that the Gospels describe God when he took human form and allowed himself to be murdered.
In a mingling of orthodox and creative interpretations that light this book, Miles claims that God took this suicidal step for two reasons: (1) to repent for his primal sin, his ruthless curse on Adam and Eve that brought death into the world, and (2) to escape from an embarrassing scandal, his failure to save the Jews from oppression.
As you can see, Miles is an equal-opportunity offender. Textual critics will object to his conflation of the various biblical texts into a single story. Historical critics will point out that particular situations and cultures produced an assortment of myths and histories that cannot be considered as a unified whole. Fundamentalists will start collecting dry sticks.
Miles knows all these objections, but because he knows that answering them would consume his entire book, he addresses them only in the appendix. "The interpretation of the New Testament offered in this book," he claims, "is literary, rather than historical or theological."
But his insistence that Jesus is God in human form seems predetermined by his Jesuit background instead of by literary analysis. Any critic who posits that a character is, in fact, something remarkably different than he appears must not only prove that claim but effectively disarm passages that seem to contradict it. Oddly, Miles admits, "Passages that assert or strongly suggest the divinity of Christ are undeniably less frequent in the New Testament than those asserting or strongly suggesting his humanity. However, the divinity passages tint all the others the way a drop of dye tints a glass of clear water." Imagine insisting that the whale in "Moby Dick" is actually a ghost because, though it seems like a whale most of the time, its elusiveness and its whiteness suggest it's really an apparition.
As Miles sees it, the great crisis in God's life is his inability to save the Jews from Roman genocide. "The Lord, now incarnate as Jesus, knows that the Temple will soon be destroyed, with consequences worse than anything he prophesied through Jeremiah, and that he will not intervene to stop it." Several decades after Jesus' career, in AD 66-70 and 132-135, the Romans brutally quelled Jewish revolts, cutting whole forests to crucify thousands.
To explain the startling shift from an Old Testament God of violence, discrimination, and justice to a New Testament God of submission, forgiveness, and love, Miles speculates on the motive of the anxious Gospel writers, composing in the ashes of Jerusalem: "What the radical reversal in the divine identity implied by the pacifist preaching of Jesus suggests is that a Jewish writer of powerful imagination projected this crisis of faith into the mind of God, transforming it into a crisis of conscience."
In other words, the new covenant of love for all mankind announced by Jesus is a clever rhetorical strategy, a way for God to escape from the burden of all his now vain-sounding boasts in the Old Testament. Since he can't beat his enemies, he announces that he has no enemies. "The covenant had to be changed because God could not keep his terms and because, on the eve of a new national catastrophe for Israel, he chose to stop pretending that he could."
If that sounds cynical, Miles emphasizes that this decision carried extraordinary costs for God, who suffers brutally on the cross in order to dramatize - as only God's death could - the sincerity of his changed heart.
More importantly, this new doctrine of pacifism, acted out by Jesus during his life and death, is far more powerful than it first appears. Miles sees an active, subversive impulse behind Jesus' advice to "turn the other cheek," "go with him twain," and "let him have thy cloak also." Jesus isn't admonishing his followers to be human doormats; he's describing passive resistance, a risky plan for victims to shame their oppressors into reform with "paradoxical hyperagreement."
"In the Gospels," Miles writes, "moral resistance entirely replaces military resistance." The oppression of Rome is replaced by the oppression of sin, and the battlefield moves from physical space to spiritual space. "John distracts his Jewish readers' attention," Miles continues, "from God's traditional obligations and Israel's traditional expectations and redirects it to a new set of obligations and expectations that reflect a profound transformation in the identity of God."
At its best, "Christ" is jarringly provocative, and reading it is a chance to test one's own understanding of God and the Gospels against a daring critic who can provide his own translations of Hebrew and Greek. Miles is particularly brilliant when he traces echoes in the Gospel stories to their Old Testament sources, recovering reverberations that early Christians would have resonated with. Regardless of our agreement or disagreement with him, he prods us to read these familiar stories afresh, with all their original suspense and drama, his analysis serving as an invitation for our own.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1129/p1...
"Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God" reminds us that the story of Christianity reaches its climax with a lynching, an "improbable and appalling conjunction" of native Jewish ideas.
In the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac, animal sacrifice had dramatically replaced human sacrifice as a demonstration of devotion and repentance. But on Golgotha, the long anticipated son of David, the Messiah, plays the role of the sacrificial animal, the Lamb of God, in a radical revision of prophesy that must have struck early Jewish hearers as "not just outrageous but blasphemous."
This is a provocative study of the Gospels, particularly the book of John, lined with thorny claims that will prick anyone's comfortable sense of "the greatest story ever told."
Miles wants to approach the Bible as a literary critic, looking at it as a single story about God. At the heart of his analysis is the premise that the Gospels describe God when he took human form and allowed himself to be murdered.
In a mingling of orthodox and creative interpretations that light this book, Miles claims that God took this suicidal step for two reasons: (1) to repent for his primal sin, his ruthless curse on Adam and Eve that brought death into the world, and (2) to escape from an embarrassing scandal, his failure to save the Jews from oppression.
As you can see, Miles is an equal-opportunity offender. Textual critics will object to his conflation of the various biblical texts into a single story. Historical critics will point out that particular situations and cultures produced an assortment of myths and histories that cannot be considered as a unified whole. Fundamentalists will start collecting dry sticks.
Miles knows all these objections, but because he knows that answering them would consume his entire book, he addresses them only in the appendix. "The interpretation of the New Testament offered in this book," he claims, "is literary, rather than historical or theological."
But his insistence that Jesus is God in human form seems predetermined by his Jesuit background instead of by literary analysis. Any critic who posits that a character is, in fact, something remarkably different than he appears must not only prove that claim but effectively disarm passages that seem to contradict it. Oddly, Miles admits, "Passages that assert or strongly suggest the divinity of Christ are undeniably less frequent in the New Testament than those asserting or strongly suggesting his humanity. However, the divinity passages tint all the others the way a drop of dye tints a glass of clear water." Imagine insisting that the whale in "Moby Dick" is actually a ghost because, though it seems like a whale most of the time, its elusiveness and its whiteness suggest it's really an apparition.
As Miles sees it, the great crisis in God's life is his inability to save the Jews from Roman genocide. "The Lord, now incarnate as Jesus, knows that the Temple will soon be destroyed, with consequences worse than anything he prophesied through Jeremiah, and that he will not intervene to stop it." Several decades after Jesus' career, in AD 66-70 and 132-135, the Romans brutally quelled Jewish revolts, cutting whole forests to crucify thousands.
To explain the startling shift from an Old Testament God of violence, discrimination, and justice to a New Testament God of submission, forgiveness, and love, Miles speculates on the motive of the anxious Gospel writers, composing in the ashes of Jerusalem: "What the radical reversal in the divine identity implied by the pacifist preaching of Jesus suggests is that a Jewish writer of powerful imagination projected this crisis of faith into the mind of God, transforming it into a crisis of conscience."
In other words, the new covenant of love for all mankind announced by Jesus is a clever rhetorical strategy, a way for God to escape from the burden of all his now vain-sounding boasts in the Old Testament. Since he can't beat his enemies, he announces that he has no enemies. "The covenant had to be changed because God could not keep his terms and because, on the eve of a new national catastrophe for Israel, he chose to stop pretending that he could."
If that sounds cynical, Miles emphasizes that this decision carried extraordinary costs for God, who suffers brutally on the cross in order to dramatize - as only God's death could - the sincerity of his changed heart.
More importantly, this new doctrine of pacifism, acted out by Jesus during his life and death, is far more powerful than it first appears. Miles sees an active, subversive impulse behind Jesus' advice to "turn the other cheek," "go with him twain," and "let him have thy cloak also." Jesus isn't admonishing his followers to be human doormats; he's describing passive resistance, a risky plan for victims to shame their oppressors into reform with "paradoxical hyperagreement."
"In the Gospels," Miles writes, "moral resistance entirely replaces military resistance." The oppression of Rome is replaced by the oppression of sin, and the battlefield moves from physical space to spiritual space. "John distracts his Jewish readers' attention," Miles continues, "from God's traditional obligations and Israel's traditional expectations and redirects it to a new set of obligations and expectations that reflect a profound transformation in the identity of God."
At its best, "Christ" is jarringly provocative, and reading it is a chance to test one's own understanding of God and the Gospels against a daring critic who can provide his own translations of Hebrew and Greek. Miles is particularly brilliant when he traces echoes in the Gospel stories to their Old Testament sources, recovering reverberations that early Christians would have resonated with. Regardless of our agreement or disagreement with him, he prods us to read these familiar stories afresh, with all their original suspense and drama, his analysis serving as an invitation for our own.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1129/p1...
July 1, 2023
”The world is a great crime, and someone must be made to pay for it. Mythologically read, the New Testament is the story of how someone, the right someone, does pay for it. The ultimately responsible party accepts his responsibility. And once he has paid the price, who else need be blamed, who else need be punished? The same act that exposes all authority as provisional renders all revenge superfluous.”
I truly think that this is the most metal line you could possibly include in the introduction to your book about jesus. jack miles is just out here on another level.
I truly think that this is the most metal line you could possibly include in the introduction to your book about jesus. jack miles is just out here on another level.
January 10, 2022
This book was a more complex study than I desired. This is not light reading. It is possible to read this as a critique of how the historical Christ made a paradigm shift from the authoritarian and vengeful god of the Old Testament to the loving, merciful god of the New Testament, but this would be a simplified reading. This is a literary study of how the writing of the gospels made the paradigm shift regarding God. It is a detailed study of God as Christ (God Incarnate) and what this means and why - as a literary device - there had to be Christ and a resurrection. This interpretation of the New Testament as literature gives a deeper and more complex meaning to the figure of Christ and his words.
The author provides interesting interpretations of New Testament passages in their relation to Old Testament passages. These are thoughtful revelations keep the paradigm shift within Judaism and add complexity to the meaning of the New Testament. From my reading, the New Testament breaks from the past, but is not separate from the past.
With a hero (who isn’t always understood), betrayal, and redemption, I came away from this book understanding the Gospels as one of the great dramas of literature. The author’s interpretation of the Gospels enhances rather than undermining any theology.
For this reader, the most interesting section was “Interlude: The Roman SHOAH and the Isarmement of God” where the author explores the question “why did God become a Jew and subject ct himself to public execution by the enemy of his chosen people?” The author raises the intriguing idea that Jesus played a part in his own “mythologization” where he, as the messenger, “became the message,” “a provocateur who stimulated others to further provocation.” One of the paradoxes touched also here is the aspect of the “divine warrior” espousing pacifism.
The author provides interesting interpretations of New Testament passages in their relation to Old Testament passages. These are thoughtful revelations keep the paradigm shift within Judaism and add complexity to the meaning of the New Testament. From my reading, the New Testament breaks from the past, but is not separate from the past.
With a hero (who isn’t always understood), betrayal, and redemption, I came away from this book understanding the Gospels as one of the great dramas of literature. The author’s interpretation of the Gospels enhances rather than undermining any theology.
For this reader, the most interesting section was “Interlude: The Roman SHOAH and the Isarmement of God” where the author explores the question “why did God become a Jew and subject ct himself to public execution by the enemy of his chosen people?” The author raises the intriguing idea that Jesus played a part in his own “mythologization” where he, as the messenger, “became the message,” “a provocateur who stimulated others to further provocation.” One of the paradoxes touched also here is the aspect of the “divine warrior” espousing pacifism.
March 11, 2025
I will begin this review by stating that Jack Miles, undoubtedly, is a learned man. It is clear that his knowledge of the biblical text, as well as secular history's interactions with it, are extremely commendable. The essays that he attaches as appendices to these books, which outline precisely his thought process and justification for having written this book, prove as much; that he is well-versed in the scriptures, in sociopolitical context that may be relevant, and even in contemporary commentaries on the scriptures.
However, all of these facts, to me, only serve as proof that his unorthodox babblings were not spouted in ignorance, but in complete pre-meditation.
In this work, Jack is clearly attempting to respond to a world that increasingly has very little interest for the biblical text. He believes that this is because, on the one hand, many are too focused on the historicity of the bible, and that others are focused on resisting it as a document which is used to make "theological impositions".
Responding to these two groups, seeking to gain the approval and draw the attention of secularists to the bible...he decides to desecrate and butcher the text altogether, offering the masses a diluted, and polluted, way to view the text which allows many to read it without having to subscribe to the fundamental assumptions that underly such a text to begin with.
From the epilogue and appendices, I found that his approach could be summarised in the following quotes:
"There is no single necessary or correct way to read the New Testament, as there is no single necessary or correct way to read any great literary classic"
"The biblical rule [...] was not the rule of deference to original intent but the rule of creative reuse"
"Why take so narrowly instrumental an attitude toward a work of the imagination?"
Herein lies the pitfall of this whole book. From Jack's perspective, the entirety of the bible is merely a collation of stories written by men, figments of their imagination, within which different authors, influenced by their own time period and struggles with the idea of God, project their own needs and desires into a fictional text which just so happens to maintain its coherence. To Jack, in this book at least, God is merely a grand character who undergoes His own character development as He learns to rule the universe.
The God Jack writes about is not God. Whoever He may be, He's mutable, subject to the passions, far from omnipotent and, most comically of all, clearly exists within time itself, since the God that Jack describes is one who seems to watch the events of the world unfold in real-time, having no foresight or foreknowledge of future events, because He is constantly changing the game plan and trying to salvage His Creation from the unexpected consequences of His own actions. Funnily enough, the character that Jack describes is not God, but a gigantic toddler with semi-divine power, a Hercules or Zeus of sorts who is in no right worthy of any worship or glorification.
I initially had bookmarked all the heretical claims in this book that come as a result of Jack's rejection of the essential characteristics of God in his reading of the Gospels, but I have neither the time nor the care now to write them, since I already wasted much time in the reading of this book. Suffice to say that among them include a complete denial of the Trinitarian God (claims that the Father is the Son and vice versa), that Original Sin is a fault of God on account of His overreaction to a simple act of disobedience and, thus, that Christ's death and resurrection are an expression of God's repentance towards humanity, that God made promises to Israel about an earthly kingdom which He later "realised" He could not keep, thereby deciding to "rebrand" His identity in the New Testament and, not only this, but that the plan for redemption through His death was only executed under a condition of philosophical duress whereby He had to somehow maintain His relationship with humanity, since "Israel is [only] Israel because of Him, and He is [only] Himself because of Israel".
All of this can be traced back to one simple decision that Jack made when writing this book. He decided to conduct an entire exegesis on the New Testament, referring to little to no other sources. The only times the early church fathers are mentioned, they are entirely misinterpreted; otherwise Jack seems to be getting his information on Christianity from the likes of Nietzsche. In fact, he took his "no external sources" philosophy to such a degree that, at the start of the book, he informs the reader that all biblical translations in the book, unless otherwise stated, are his own.
Whether he did this as an intellectual exercise, or in deluded arrogance, one cannot say, but I have my bets on the latter.
When a book about an ancient text with thousands of years of tradition and interpretation has a testimonial on the front by the "New Statesman" claiming that it is "Startlingly original", one should have noticed the red flags. But it is clear that Jack knew what he was doing, since in the very last lines of his book, under his acknowledgements, he states: "In some similar sense, having never taken an undergraduate course in the New Testament, I am both humbled by and remote from the mighty enterprise that is contemporary New Testament scholarship. Let me then acknowledge its greatness in the round but spare individual scholars from a paternity claim that might be most unwelcome ."
If you've made it this far, I'm sorry that you've had to even learn about this sorry excuse for biblical scholarship, but I've saved you much trouble. Read the fathers, seek the counsel of apostolic tradition, and avoid the likes of Harvard educated ex-Catholics and their misguided Perennialist secularism.
I'll be reading some Augustine to refresh my mind from this fool's babbling.
However, all of these facts, to me, only serve as proof that his unorthodox babblings were not spouted in ignorance, but in complete pre-meditation.
In this work, Jack is clearly attempting to respond to a world that increasingly has very little interest for the biblical text. He believes that this is because, on the one hand, many are too focused on the historicity of the bible, and that others are focused on resisting it as a document which is used to make "theological impositions".
Responding to these two groups, seeking to gain the approval and draw the attention of secularists to the bible...he decides to desecrate and butcher the text altogether, offering the masses a diluted, and polluted, way to view the text which allows many to read it without having to subscribe to the fundamental assumptions that underly such a text to begin with.
From the epilogue and appendices, I found that his approach could be summarised in the following quotes:
"There is no single necessary or correct way to read the New Testament, as there is no single necessary or correct way to read any great literary classic"
"The biblical rule [...] was not the rule of deference to original intent but the rule of creative reuse"
"Why take so narrowly instrumental an attitude toward a work of the imagination?"
Herein lies the pitfall of this whole book. From Jack's perspective, the entirety of the bible is merely a collation of stories written by men, figments of their imagination, within which different authors, influenced by their own time period and struggles with the idea of God, project their own needs and desires into a fictional text which just so happens to maintain its coherence. To Jack, in this book at least, God is merely a grand character who undergoes His own character development as He learns to rule the universe.
The God Jack writes about is not God. Whoever He may be, He's mutable, subject to the passions, far from omnipotent and, most comically of all, clearly exists within time itself, since the God that Jack describes is one who seems to watch the events of the world unfold in real-time, having no foresight or foreknowledge of future events, because He is constantly changing the game plan and trying to salvage His Creation from the unexpected consequences of His own actions. Funnily enough, the character that Jack describes is not God, but a gigantic toddler with semi-divine power, a Hercules or Zeus of sorts who is in no right worthy of any worship or glorification.
I initially had bookmarked all the heretical claims in this book that come as a result of Jack's rejection of the essential characteristics of God in his reading of the Gospels, but I have neither the time nor the care now to write them, since I already wasted much time in the reading of this book. Suffice to say that among them include a complete denial of the Trinitarian God (claims that the Father is the Son and vice versa), that Original Sin is a fault of God on account of His overreaction to a simple act of disobedience and, thus, that Christ's death and resurrection are an expression of God's repentance towards humanity, that God made promises to Israel about an earthly kingdom which He later "realised" He could not keep, thereby deciding to "rebrand" His identity in the New Testament and, not only this, but that the plan for redemption through His death was only executed under a condition of philosophical duress whereby He had to somehow maintain His relationship with humanity, since "Israel is [only] Israel because of Him, and He is [only] Himself because of Israel".
All of this can be traced back to one simple decision that Jack made when writing this book. He decided to conduct an entire exegesis on the New Testament, referring to little to no other sources. The only times the early church fathers are mentioned, they are entirely misinterpreted; otherwise Jack seems to be getting his information on Christianity from the likes of Nietzsche. In fact, he took his "no external sources" philosophy to such a degree that, at the start of the book, he informs the reader that all biblical translations in the book, unless otherwise stated, are his own.
Whether he did this as an intellectual exercise, or in deluded arrogance, one cannot say, but I have my bets on the latter.
When a book about an ancient text with thousands of years of tradition and interpretation has a testimonial on the front by the "New Statesman" claiming that it is "Startlingly original", one should have noticed the red flags. But it is clear that Jack knew what he was doing, since in the very last lines of his book, under his acknowledgements, he states: "In some similar sense, having never taken an undergraduate course in the New Testament, I am both humbled by and remote from the mighty enterprise that is contemporary New Testament scholarship. Let me then acknowledge its greatness in the round but spare individual scholars from a paternity claim that might be most unwelcome ."
If you've made it this far, I'm sorry that you've had to even learn about this sorry excuse for biblical scholarship, but I've saved you much trouble. Read the fathers, seek the counsel of apostolic tradition, and avoid the likes of Harvard educated ex-Catholics and their misguided Perennialist secularism.
I'll be reading some Augustine to refresh my mind from this fool's babbling.
August 22, 2017
In this book Jack Miles does what he did with god in his book God: A Biography on god and the Old Testament for god, focusing on Christ, in the New Testament. He describe the life of god as going through a crisis, involving guilt over how he dealt with his people in the Old Testament. His approach throughout the book is one of literary analysis. In other words he is not interested in the historicalness of the Bible per se, or does he take a theological perspective.
I have a few remarks on parts of the text that I would like to comment on. Page numbers are in brackets [] from the Alfred A. Knopf hardback edition of 2001.
[11] Miles quotes John 12:24: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains but a single grain. Yet if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” (presented in verse in the text) Jesus certainly did not know his biology. If the seed dies, it will not grow into a damn thing. Seeds are inert, but not dead.
[39] I like his metaphorical expression in response to Jesus saying at the Temple “Destroy this Temple.” (his italics) He says, “A lamb who taunts the butcher?”
[124] I could not help thinking in response to the women who “began to bathe his [Jesus] feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. She covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the fragrant oil,” that the woman in the story had a foot fetish. The quoted portion comes from Miles’ quote of the story in Luke 7:36-50.
[310] After describing Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination as a case of Jew on Jew violence he claims “that the Jews did not get along in Jesus’ day any more than they do today.” I do not think Christians get along with Jews all that well either, then or now.
I thought the book was good overall. I like Miles’ literary approach; it allowed me to read the book without having the feeling that I needed to criticize the religious content. I also liked his line that Christ was the way that Yahweh could make amends for his bad behavior in the Old Testament.
If you are interested in a literary approach to the Bible, where the text is used to build a coherent story, you should like this book. If you are looking for a book on the legitimacy of the Bible, you maybe disappointed.
I have a few remarks on parts of the text that I would like to comment on. Page numbers are in brackets [] from the Alfred A. Knopf hardback edition of 2001.
[11] Miles quotes John 12:24: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains but a single grain. Yet if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” (presented in verse in the text) Jesus certainly did not know his biology. If the seed dies, it will not grow into a damn thing. Seeds are inert, but not dead.
[39] I like his metaphorical expression in response to Jesus saying at the Temple “Destroy this Temple.” (his italics) He says, “A lamb who taunts the butcher?”
[124] I could not help thinking in response to the women who “began to bathe his [Jesus] feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. She covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the fragrant oil,” that the woman in the story had a foot fetish. The quoted portion comes from Miles’ quote of the story in Luke 7:36-50.
[310] After describing Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination as a case of Jew on Jew violence he claims “that the Jews did not get along in Jesus’ day any more than they do today.” I do not think Christians get along with Jews all that well either, then or now.
I thought the book was good overall. I like Miles’ literary approach; it allowed me to read the book without having the feeling that I needed to criticize the religious content. I also liked his line that Christ was the way that Yahweh could make amends for his bad behavior in the Old Testament.
If you are interested in a literary approach to the Bible, where the text is used to build a coherent story, you should like this book. If you are looking for a book on the legitimacy of the Bible, you maybe disappointed.
August 20, 2023
I liked this book just as much as the Pulitzer winner that preceded it. And like its predecessor, this work approaches the Bible from a purely literary perspective. This approach doesn’t preclude its own criticism, but it should negate some of the harsher critics who still insist on arguing from a historic or theological basis. Much like was done with the character of God, looking at Christ as a literary character is a worthwhile exercise for the religious and secular alike; it inspires a wide range of contemplative study, revealing powerful thematic elements that may have been less evident or otherwise overlooked. After all, as noted by the author, “an unintended effect is a real effect, which may be welcomed without prejudice to intended effects.”
The most controversial idea that’s being explored is the very heart of the work: the notion that God is experiencing a crisis and must in effect, “change his mind.” He was once the warrior god who saved his people from oppression and ensured militaristic victories, and the coming of a prophesied messiah was expected to fulfill that role as well. In Christ, however, God would now propose new terms for divine intervention. Instead of defeating Caesar as he had once defeated Pharaoh, it would now be the Devil who’s defeated. Instead of ending the oppression of Rome like he once ended bondage to Egypt, it would now be bondage to sin that’s ended. Instead of the conquest of a promised land, the conquest would now be eternal life. Instead of a messiah who would be prophet and king, he would now be God Incarnate.
It’s powerful stuff, and it’s certainly a literary progression that develops from the Old to New Testaments, but I wonder if the literary criticism just as strongly serves to express the same development, not necessarily as a crisis in the character of God - not so much a changing of his mind - but the necessary and intended progression for a constantly failing people. Perhaps the fickleness was not that of the Father, but of his faithless children. It may be less the story of a changing God, and more the story of an evolving, but ever-failing, man. Man who is destined for death, and whose only hope for recourse is in redemption through a loving, self-sacrificing God.
The most controversial idea that’s being explored is the very heart of the work: the notion that God is experiencing a crisis and must in effect, “change his mind.” He was once the warrior god who saved his people from oppression and ensured militaristic victories, and the coming of a prophesied messiah was expected to fulfill that role as well. In Christ, however, God would now propose new terms for divine intervention. Instead of defeating Caesar as he had once defeated Pharaoh, it would now be the Devil who’s defeated. Instead of ending the oppression of Rome like he once ended bondage to Egypt, it would now be bondage to sin that’s ended. Instead of the conquest of a promised land, the conquest would now be eternal life. Instead of a messiah who would be prophet and king, he would now be God Incarnate.
It’s powerful stuff, and it’s certainly a literary progression that develops from the Old to New Testaments, but I wonder if the literary criticism just as strongly serves to express the same development, not necessarily as a crisis in the character of God - not so much a changing of his mind - but the necessary and intended progression for a constantly failing people. Perhaps the fickleness was not that of the Father, but of his faithless children. It may be less the story of a changing God, and more the story of an evolving, but ever-failing, man. Man who is destined for death, and whose only hope for recourse is in redemption through a loving, self-sacrificing God.
October 4, 2017
I’m really not sure what to make of this book and I don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s the stories of the gospel in a narrative format with some (perhaps?) controversial twists. For example, in the story of the talk Jesus has with the Samaritan woman at the water well, the author suggests that there is some provocative wordplay going on that may even have been scandalous in its historical context (a single man talking to married woman).
It seems that the author’s basic thesis is that God had a change of mind (or heart) about how to “save” people. Instead of just saving “his” people by restoring Israel to earthly prominence through battle, he decided to save all people by offering them the Kingdom of Heaven, not of this world, through sacrifice rather than triumph.
In a way, this sidesteps the problem of having to reconcile the “God of the Old Testament” with the “God of the New Testament,” as if they are different entities. The author reframes the problem by taking the position that it’s the same God who underwent a radical change of strategy.
Want to read
January 9, 2011Loved Jack Miles' first book. You know, I really have no idea what's in the New Testament. Is it just Jesus? I don't even know how long it is.
March 17, 2015
The author is a world renowned expert on religion, but this book seemed to me just blather with no point.
February 2, 2020
Another interpretation of biblical text by an old white man. Nothing in it for women.
September 12, 2022
"SUICIDE-BY-EXECUTION TO CLEAN UP HIS MESS"
God is a learn-as-he-goes-along deity. It appears he’s omnipotent except in the thinking department. His many missteps in the Old/Hebrew Testament eventually have the Big Kahuna deciding he needs to cure the world’s afflictions that he also caused. Enter the New Testament. Like Mr. Miles Pulitzer-Prize-winning book ‘God: A Biography,’ my average-thinking brain found ‘Christ’ to be a challenging work to read. I needed to consume large portions of it in one sitting instead of small bits at a time. As the author did with the Old Testament, he analyzes the New Testament as a piece of imaginative literature and not as ancient history of actual events. In other words, the author is explaining the New Testament as art. That was fine with me because I was raised Catholic but have been agnostic for over three decades now. I don’t buy into my gonads will be roasting over the open fires of Hell when I die because I don’t accept a likely fictional God as my Lord and Savior.
Mr. Miles asks probing questions and posits thought-provoking ideas while treating the topic with respect. The author specializes in religion, politics, and culture. ‘Christ’ covers such subjects as the meaning of sacrificing animals such as lambs to expiate sins; the importance of believing in an immortal soul; Jesus’s demeanor during his travels; God taking on a mortal form through his son; Jesus’s sexuality and the biblical contradictions about intercourse; the virgin birth and Jesus being ignorant of who he really was until he reached the age of 12; and how God did a complete 180 by going from the Hebrew/Old Testament “I will smite you and the next four generations of your family” to the New Testament “Whoa, dude, chill. Turn the other cheek, man.” Mr. Miles also explains that the Romans’ harsh treatment of Jews during Jesus’s time was comparable to the Nazi’s actions; how the cultural attitudes about suicide back then are different than today’s mindset; the appeal and justification of religious martyrdom; why the bread signifies the Lord’s body and the wine his blood; the chaos and confusion Jesus created for Romans and Jews by publicly contradicting the Hebrew/Old Testament; why being ridiculed for our religious beliefs is viewed as a badge of honor; and the significance of his crucifixion and rising from the dead. The book’s two appendix chapters are lengthy but interesting. They address the different languages used while creating the Bible and the conflict between approaching the Bible as a historical work to be dissected or simply an influential piece of art.
The author adds some important historical context to help clarify why certain stories are important. One nice thing I found about the book ‘Christ’ compared to the book ‘God’ is the King of Kings is a lot more chill in the New Testament compared to his major bi-polar personality in the Hebrew/Old Testament. While reading the book I kept trying to visualize how present-day people would react to some stranger strutting around saying he was the actual son of God, displaying a handful of limited miracles (Well, raising Lazarus from the dead was a big deal), and contradicting many things the faithful took as unchangeable from the Old/Hebrew Testament. Today’s reactions would very likely mimic what happened back when Jesus was alive. The populace would be confused and wondering if the guy was truly the Messiah, a prophet, a scam artist, possessed by a demon, or his brain was a few figs short of a dozen.
Last year I read Mr. Miles’s ‘God’ and would not have understood ‘Christ’ as well if I had not read his 1996 Pultizer-Prize-winning book beforehand. While both books were interesting, it felt like homework. ‘Christ’ does a very good job of explaining the adult Jesus’s journeys that eventually led to his crucifixion. It helped clarify many holes my Catholic patchwork education failed to adequately explain. The author stresses that everything written in the Bible had significance. None of the text was filler. If you have an acute interest in understanding Christ’s story, you will likely find Mr. Miles’s book quite illuminating. However, if your reading diet always hovers around Stephen King or Jacqueline Susann territory, you’ll likely find passing through the eye of a needle easier than reading ‘Christ.’
(P.S. If you find the second appendix interesting, I suggest the late historian Daniel J. Boorstin’s excellent ‘The Seekers: The Story of Man’s Continuing Quest to Understand His World’ for a broader understanding how humans expanded their perspectives.)
God is a learn-as-he-goes-along deity. It appears he’s omnipotent except in the thinking department. His many missteps in the Old/Hebrew Testament eventually have the Big Kahuna deciding he needs to cure the world’s afflictions that he also caused. Enter the New Testament. Like Mr. Miles Pulitzer-Prize-winning book ‘God: A Biography,’ my average-thinking brain found ‘Christ’ to be a challenging work to read. I needed to consume large portions of it in one sitting instead of small bits at a time. As the author did with the Old Testament, he analyzes the New Testament as a piece of imaginative literature and not as ancient history of actual events. In other words, the author is explaining the New Testament as art. That was fine with me because I was raised Catholic but have been agnostic for over three decades now. I don’t buy into my gonads will be roasting over the open fires of Hell when I die because I don’t accept a likely fictional God as my Lord and Savior.
Mr. Miles asks probing questions and posits thought-provoking ideas while treating the topic with respect. The author specializes in religion, politics, and culture. ‘Christ’ covers such subjects as the meaning of sacrificing animals such as lambs to expiate sins; the importance of believing in an immortal soul; Jesus’s demeanor during his travels; God taking on a mortal form through his son; Jesus’s sexuality and the biblical contradictions about intercourse; the virgin birth and Jesus being ignorant of who he really was until he reached the age of 12; and how God did a complete 180 by going from the Hebrew/Old Testament “I will smite you and the next four generations of your family” to the New Testament “Whoa, dude, chill. Turn the other cheek, man.” Mr. Miles also explains that the Romans’ harsh treatment of Jews during Jesus’s time was comparable to the Nazi’s actions; how the cultural attitudes about suicide back then are different than today’s mindset; the appeal and justification of religious martyrdom; why the bread signifies the Lord’s body and the wine his blood; the chaos and confusion Jesus created for Romans and Jews by publicly contradicting the Hebrew/Old Testament; why being ridiculed for our religious beliefs is viewed as a badge of honor; and the significance of his crucifixion and rising from the dead. The book’s two appendix chapters are lengthy but interesting. They address the different languages used while creating the Bible and the conflict between approaching the Bible as a historical work to be dissected or simply an influential piece of art.
The author adds some important historical context to help clarify why certain stories are important. One nice thing I found about the book ‘Christ’ compared to the book ‘God’ is the King of Kings is a lot more chill in the New Testament compared to his major bi-polar personality in the Hebrew/Old Testament. While reading the book I kept trying to visualize how present-day people would react to some stranger strutting around saying he was the actual son of God, displaying a handful of limited miracles (Well, raising Lazarus from the dead was a big deal), and contradicting many things the faithful took as unchangeable from the Old/Hebrew Testament. Today’s reactions would very likely mimic what happened back when Jesus was alive. The populace would be confused and wondering if the guy was truly the Messiah, a prophet, a scam artist, possessed by a demon, or his brain was a few figs short of a dozen.
Last year I read Mr. Miles’s ‘God’ and would not have understood ‘Christ’ as well if I had not read his 1996 Pultizer-Prize-winning book beforehand. While both books were interesting, it felt like homework. ‘Christ’ does a very good job of explaining the adult Jesus’s journeys that eventually led to his crucifixion. It helped clarify many holes my Catholic patchwork education failed to adequately explain. The author stresses that everything written in the Bible had significance. None of the text was filler. If you have an acute interest in understanding Christ’s story, you will likely find Mr. Miles’s book quite illuminating. However, if your reading diet always hovers around Stephen King or Jacqueline Susann territory, you’ll likely find passing through the eye of a needle easier than reading ‘Christ.’
(P.S. If you find the second appendix interesting, I suggest the late historian Daniel J. Boorstin’s excellent ‘The Seekers: The Story of Man’s Continuing Quest to Understand His World’ for a broader understanding how humans expanded their perspectives.)
July 21, 2024
In "Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God," Jack Miles, drawing on his previous exploration of the Hebrew God, offers a radical reinterpretation of the story of Jesus. He moves beyond a historical biography, instead focusing on the concept of a God experiencing a crisis and undergoing a transformation. Miles' central argument hinges on the idea that the crucifixion represents a pivotal moment for God himself.
The book opens with the image of a broken promise. God, having failed to protect the Israelites from Roman oppression, chooses a path of radical empathy. By entering human history as Jesus, God directly experiences the suffering and humiliation reserved for his people. The crucifixion, then, becomes more than just physical torture; it's a "sacred suicide," a repudiation of God's past interventions on behalf of the chosen people.
Miles challenges traditional notions of God's power and victory. Jesus' embrace of suffering and non-violence becomes a new model for overcoming evil. This redefines victory, shifting the focus from earthly power to spiritual transformation. The message expands beyond the confines of a chosen nation. Jesus' sacrifice offers the possibility of salvation for all humanity, a move away from the particularity of God's covenant with Israel.
This provocative reading has ignited lively debate. While some find Miles' emphasis on God's empathy and the universality of Christ's message refreshing, others find the concept of a suffering God unsettling, even heretical. Critics argue that Miles downplays the historical context and established theological interpretations of the Gospels.
"Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God" is undoubtedly a challenging work. It forces readers to re-examine familiar Christian narratives and grapple with profound questions about God's nature, power, and relationship with humanity. Whether you ultimately agree with Miles' conclusions or not, the book offers a valuable lens through which to understand the enduring power of the Christian story.
The book opens with the image of a broken promise. God, having failed to protect the Israelites from Roman oppression, chooses a path of radical empathy. By entering human history as Jesus, God directly experiences the suffering and humiliation reserved for his people. The crucifixion, then, becomes more than just physical torture; it's a "sacred suicide," a repudiation of God's past interventions on behalf of the chosen people.
Miles challenges traditional notions of God's power and victory. Jesus' embrace of suffering and non-violence becomes a new model for overcoming evil. This redefines victory, shifting the focus from earthly power to spiritual transformation. The message expands beyond the confines of a chosen nation. Jesus' sacrifice offers the possibility of salvation for all humanity, a move away from the particularity of God's covenant with Israel.
This provocative reading has ignited lively debate. While some find Miles' emphasis on God's empathy and the universality of Christ's message refreshing, others find the concept of a suffering God unsettling, even heretical. Critics argue that Miles downplays the historical context and established theological interpretations of the Gospels.
"Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God" is undoubtedly a challenging work. It forces readers to re-examine familiar Christian narratives and grapple with profound questions about God's nature, power, and relationship with humanity. Whether you ultimately agree with Miles' conclusions or not, the book offers a valuable lens through which to understand the enduring power of the Christian story.
January 2, 2025
Er wird festgenommen, vor Gericht gestellt, gegeißelt und verurteilt.
Der verstorbene Jorge Luis Borges sagt in einem posthum veröffentlichten Vortrag, daß die größten Erzählungen der Welt für ihn sind es die Iias, ,die Odyssee und das Evangelium - dazu einladen, immer wieder nacherzählt zu werden. Doch "beim Evangelium", sagt er, "ist es anders: Die Geschichte von Jesus Christus kann, glaube ich, nicht beser erzählt werden." Borges meint nicht, daß das Evangelium nicht nacherzählt werden sollte. Er weiß, daß es ebenso oft nacherzählt wurde wie die Ilias und die Odyssee, und er geht davon aus, daß es auch künftig nacherzählt werden wird. Und wahrscheinlich könnte man Borges mit der Frage: "Welches der vier Evangelien ist denn dasjenige, das sich nicht verbessern laßt?" in Verlegenheit bringen. Doch in einem hat er gewiß recht: Sollte sich jemand eingeladen fühlen, das Evangelium nachzuerzählen, so wird er rasch die Erfahrung machen, daß es seine Einladung zurücknimmt, daß es sich dem, wozu es herausfordert, widersetzt oder es gar vereitelt. Wer den Ver- such macht, es nachzuerzählen, wird das sofort merken.
Der verstorbene Jorge Luis Borges sagt in einem posthum veröffentlichten Vortrag, daß die größten Erzählungen der Welt für ihn sind es die Iias, ,die Odyssee und das Evangelium - dazu einladen, immer wieder nacherzählt zu werden. Doch "beim Evangelium", sagt er, "ist es anders: Die Geschichte von Jesus Christus kann, glaube ich, nicht beser erzählt werden." Borges meint nicht, daß das Evangelium nicht nacherzählt werden sollte. Er weiß, daß es ebenso oft nacherzählt wurde wie die Ilias und die Odyssee, und er geht davon aus, daß es auch künftig nacherzählt werden wird. Und wahrscheinlich könnte man Borges mit der Frage: "Welches der vier Evangelien ist denn dasjenige, das sich nicht verbessern laßt?" in Verlegenheit bringen. Doch in einem hat er gewiß recht: Sollte sich jemand eingeladen fühlen, das Evangelium nachzuerzählen, so wird er rasch die Erfahrung machen, daß es seine Einladung zurücknimmt, daß es sich dem, wozu es herausfordert, widersetzt oder es gar vereitelt. Wer den Ver- such macht, es nachzuerzählen, wird das sofort merken.
Read
November 24, 2024DNF
The fuck is he talking about? He starts banging on about the cross, the last shall be first, Neitzsche -- all for seemingly no reason. The story goes that Neitzsche finally went insane when he tried to stop a coachman from brutally beating his horse.
That horse was more worthy of a book than Christ.
He then starts with incoherent nonsense about lambs and horses being equal in symbolism, depending on which part of the world you live.
That's not true. That's NEVER been true. AND WTF DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHRISTIANITY? Even in the Prologue, he can't get to a Goddamned point.
Jack Miles must be insane. Don't waste your time with this shit.
No stars.
The fuck is he talking about? He starts banging on about the cross, the last shall be first, Neitzsche -- all for seemingly no reason. The story goes that Neitzsche finally went insane when he tried to stop a coachman from brutally beating his horse.
That horse was more worthy of a book than Christ.
He then starts with incoherent nonsense about lambs and horses being equal in symbolism, depending on which part of the world you live.
That's not true. That's NEVER been true. AND WTF DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHRISTIANITY? Even in the Prologue, he can't get to a Goddamned point.
Jack Miles must be insane. Don't waste your time with this shit.
No stars.
November 7, 2022
Interesting, if a bit tedious at times. Taking the New Testament, in particular the Gospels as literature and the character of Jesus as a continuation of the character of God in the Old and exploring the changes that take place in him and why these changes were necessary. In the end, some of the interpretations are somewhat suspect, as all character studies are, but it makes a convincing argument that the significant change from a powerful, militaristic, god to one of peace and meekness was a necessity vis a vis the reality of the descendants of Abraham as a people under the rule of Rome.
July 8, 2019
I listened to this last week, and was halfway through before I realized that I was listening to the abridged copy (the only one my library owns). It reads very much like an appendix to Miles’ phenomenal book on the Jewish God, which I had just finished, and I don’t think is worth even attempting without finishing that first.
I think this there was too much expurgated for this abridged to be a workable draft, and I look forward to actually finding a real copy at some point.
I think this there was too much expurgated for this abridged to be a workable draft, and I look forward to actually finding a real copy at some point.
December 30, 2024
This writing from Jack Miles is an interesting one that turns God's character upside down for an alternative perception. What if God not only became human incarnate to save the world from sin, but to right his own wrong of cursing mankind in Eden and abandoning Israel to Rome? However controversial in parts, Miles has several interesting ideas that lend the Christian to entertain and some to adopt as a new understanding of the Gospels. Great read for religious and non religious alike.
April 18, 2021
Interesting, but somewhat confusing book about why God who had a covenant with the Israelites created a new covenant with Jews and Gentiles when he sent Christ to earth. The last two section of the book are more understandable than the first two sections.
August 20, 2023
I read this book after reading Mile's first Book, God, A Biography. Incredibly insightful. Miles, a Jesuit priest, waited for official approval before publishing the first book, and I presume he did the same here.
December 21, 2017
A literary analysis of the Gospels from a first rate thinker and writer. Changed my way of thinking about the development of theological reflection of the Messiah.
Read
March 9, 2022I have decided to use this book as a reference rather than rate it.
March 30, 2024
I think my opinion of this book could be best summarized by simply taking the first word of the title and adding an ellipse.
Books like this are the reason why nobody takes humanities scholarship seriously anymore. It's a very, very dense, pedantic, and breathless interpretation of what the author thinks of the Bible, presented in a way that makes it obvious that Miles thinks his interpretation of disjointed, rapid-fire Bible passages is unique when in reality he's mostly stating the obvious to any halfway-observant Christian. The author also uses the word "ironically" way too often, (e.g. a chapter entitled "The Messiah, Ironically"), in a way that was overdone in 2002 and in 2014 really just makes me very unironically think of the image of Jesus wearing hipster glasses sipping a PBR. The author makes some very good points along the way, but they're too packed together into a dense blur of self-importance for me to be able to remember what they are, and the whole exercise rings of so much self-important falsehood that I can't really be bothered to care.
In that sense, this book, ironically, (there's that word again!) reminds me of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. Even though their arguments are more or less opposite, they both share the characteristic of having been produced by a certain type of nigh-unreadable egomaniac who thinks himself God's gift to philosophy even though he's really just rehashing commonly accepted knowledge as his own shiny "new" contribution and taking all the credit. In the meantime, I personally can't take seriously anyone who claims to be an authority on Christianity, yet who says in his introduction - apparently completely without irony - "The world is a crime and someone must be punished for it", then goes on to imply on a regular basis that his own Catholic interpretation of Christianity is the only valid one as a matter of course. In a religion based so heavily on the concept of forgiveness and tolerance of others, the fact that Miles is so unable to even conceive that his personal provincialism needs to be questioned when writing broadly on such an important topic makes him uniquely unqualified to write a book on it, and makes me entirely indifferent to the idea of spending any more time acknowledging that book.
Books like this are the reason why nobody takes humanities scholarship seriously anymore. It's a very, very dense, pedantic, and breathless interpretation of what the author thinks of the Bible, presented in a way that makes it obvious that Miles thinks his interpretation of disjointed, rapid-fire Bible passages is unique when in reality he's mostly stating the obvious to any halfway-observant Christian. The author also uses the word "ironically" way too often, (e.g. a chapter entitled "The Messiah, Ironically"), in a way that was overdone in 2002 and in 2014 really just makes me very unironically think of the image of Jesus wearing hipster glasses sipping a PBR. The author makes some very good points along the way, but they're too packed together into a dense blur of self-importance for me to be able to remember what they are, and the whole exercise rings of so much self-important falsehood that I can't really be bothered to care.
In that sense, this book, ironically, (there's that word again!) reminds me of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. Even though their arguments are more or less opposite, they both share the characteristic of having been produced by a certain type of nigh-unreadable egomaniac who thinks himself God's gift to philosophy even though he's really just rehashing commonly accepted knowledge as his own shiny "new" contribution and taking all the credit. In the meantime, I personally can't take seriously anyone who claims to be an authority on Christianity, yet who says in his introduction - apparently completely without irony - "The world is a crime and someone must be punished for it", then goes on to imply on a regular basis that his own Catholic interpretation of Christianity is the only valid one as a matter of course. In a religion based so heavily on the concept of forgiveness and tolerance of others, the fact that Miles is so unable to even conceive that his personal provincialism needs to be questioned when writing broadly on such an important topic makes him uniquely unqualified to write a book on it, and makes me entirely indifferent to the idea of spending any more time acknowledging that book.
October 17, 2013
It's my good fortune to have spent about a year in India over the course of the last three years, and I've often hosted first time visitors. Conversations invariably move to an overview of Hinduism, a religion that is quite foreign to Westerners. Almost without fail my guests have voiced the belief that Hinduism is all myth, and not to be taken very seriously. I've taken to asking these folks what makes Hinduism more a myth, or fiction, or literary construct than Christianity, and, to no surprise, they've failed to come up with an answer. I'm sure if any of these folks had been dyed in the wool Christians I would have heard something about the revealed word of God, etc., etc., but they've been open-minded enough to ponder the questions and the implications of judging another's belief system based on their own.
With both, "God, a Biography," and "Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God," Jack Miles has opened the field of discourse by presenting the Primogenitor as a literary character rather than a factual being; and Christ as the same, regardless of his historical reality. He has asked Christians to look at their God in much the same way we look at "foreign" Gods. Was Krishna born on July 19, 3228 BCE, in Gokula, India? Will he return at the end of the current age to usher in a time of peacefulness? Was Jesus born on December 25th, 1 CE. Will he return to judge the living and the dead? To Hindu's Krishna walked, talked, made love, performed miracles. To Christians Christ did the same (except, perhaps, made love.) How much credence we give to any story depends on our orientation, but regardless of belief, the stories themselves are wonderful.
One reason they're wonderful is they are rich in metaphor, and it's the metaphor that Mr. Miles explores to great effect. Who can deny the beauty of an infant, and the idea of an infant knowingly giving love? Who can deny the power in the story of God admitting an error and sacrificing himself in an attempt at rectification?
Mr. Miles's success is that he opens the metaphor, and forces us to think.
Although I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Miles literary style - in fact, I find it a bit stilted - what he has to say more than adequately compensates for the difficulty style presents.
Highly Recommended.
With both, "God, a Biography," and "Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God," Jack Miles has opened the field of discourse by presenting the Primogenitor as a literary character rather than a factual being; and Christ as the same, regardless of his historical reality. He has asked Christians to look at their God in much the same way we look at "foreign" Gods. Was Krishna born on July 19, 3228 BCE, in Gokula, India? Will he return at the end of the current age to usher in a time of peacefulness? Was Jesus born on December 25th, 1 CE. Will he return to judge the living and the dead? To Hindu's Krishna walked, talked, made love, performed miracles. To Christians Christ did the same (except, perhaps, made love.) How much credence we give to any story depends on our orientation, but regardless of belief, the stories themselves are wonderful.
One reason they're wonderful is they are rich in metaphor, and it's the metaphor that Mr. Miles explores to great effect. Who can deny the beauty of an infant, and the idea of an infant knowingly giving love? Who can deny the power in the story of God admitting an error and sacrificing himself in an attempt at rectification?
Mr. Miles's success is that he opens the metaphor, and forces us to think.
Although I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Miles literary style - in fact, I find it a bit stilted - what he has to say more than adequately compensates for the difficulty style presents.
Highly Recommended.
August 24, 2016
A continuation of the author's project of taking the Bible rigorously as literature. In his first book, God: A Biography, he treated the God of the Hebrew scriptures as the protagonist of a single account. This book is in a way a sequel, recounting how one group, who came to be known as Christians, responded to the crisis referred to in the subtitle: the seeming non-fulfillment of God's promise to deliver Israel. They did so by acclaiming Jesus as the Son of God and viewing the crucifixion as a divine suicide, in Miles's opinion.
Miles presents his work as a response to a second crisis, that of modern biblical studies. It is one of two possible responses, the other being the attempt to uncover the history behind the story. Since the results of higher criticism leave the scholar with ever-less that can confidently be called historical, many universities have reconfigured their programs from "New Testament" to Christian Origins. In this way, all texts become once again relevant, since all, even those that might not reflect historical events, have what scholars call "Wirkungsgeschichte". But Miles's sympathies are not with this approach, but with the other possible response, which might be called "Bible as Literature". His image for contrasting the two is that one approach strains to see through the stained-glass window to see what's on the other side, while the other approach seeks to appreciate the glass itself. There have been several proponents of this second approach, but none before Miles to apply it not to individual books of the Bible, or even smaller units, but to read the entirety as a vast novel.
The result might offend those committed to a more traditional reading of scripture, while at the same time seeming uninteresting to those who have concluded that scripture is somehow irrelevant. But for those willing to engage the author on his own terms, the result is worthwhile.
Miles presents his work as a response to a second crisis, that of modern biblical studies. It is one of two possible responses, the other being the attempt to uncover the history behind the story. Since the results of higher criticism leave the scholar with ever-less that can confidently be called historical, many universities have reconfigured their programs from "New Testament" to Christian Origins. In this way, all texts become once again relevant, since all, even those that might not reflect historical events, have what scholars call "Wirkungsgeschichte". But Miles's sympathies are not with this approach, but with the other possible response, which might be called "Bible as Literature". His image for contrasting the two is that one approach strains to see through the stained-glass window to see what's on the other side, while the other approach seeks to appreciate the glass itself. There have been several proponents of this second approach, but none before Miles to apply it not to individual books of the Bible, or even smaller units, but to read the entirety as a vast novel.
The result might offend those committed to a more traditional reading of scripture, while at the same time seeming uninteresting to those who have concluded that scripture is somehow irrelevant. But for those willing to engage the author on his own terms, the result is worthwhile.
November 3, 2008
I have read about four kabillion books about Jesus, so it was nice to read one with a little bit of a twist -- it wasn't about the historical Jesus, but it approached Christ from a literary, philosophical perspective. I think it's super important to consider Christianity in this way, because ... that's what Christianity is. The Bible is not a literal account of our history, it is a reflection of our history. This book tries to answer the question: why did this part of the story, this Jesus stuff, need to happen? What purpose did it serve the first Christians to have God Incarnate come to earth as man and die for our sins? Miles has an interesting idea -- that God needed to act because he could not fulfill his covenant promise, and to do this he needed to punish himself with death. I liked it. He does a good job explaining it. Although I do think his writing is a bit wordy and overly complicated.
Another problem is how he approached Jesus' life story. He wrote about it as if there were 1 Gospel, and there are not. He refers to 4. And that in fact is very important! The changes that those Gospels went through contributed to our history, the story, perhaps more than the actual Gospels, because they showed us the thought paths of the first Christians. So to ignore that is pretty simplistic. It's also distracting.
He also made basically no difference between Jesus and God, which was different... and sometimes confusing. I almost felt as if it was a cop-out. Like he was trying to draw in the stuff from his other book, God, while trying to make it directly relevant to Jesus. There was a LOT about God. I was thinking while reading, 'I want more Jesus stuff. I'll read his other book to learn about God.'
I probably will read his other book, because this one was pretty good.
Another problem is how he approached Jesus' life story. He wrote about it as if there were 1 Gospel, and there are not. He refers to 4. And that in fact is very important! The changes that those Gospels went through contributed to our history, the story, perhaps more than the actual Gospels, because they showed us the thought paths of the first Christians. So to ignore that is pretty simplistic. It's also distracting.
He also made basically no difference between Jesus and God, which was different... and sometimes confusing. I almost felt as if it was a cop-out. Like he was trying to draw in the stuff from his other book, God, while trying to make it directly relevant to Jesus. There was a LOT about God. I was thinking while reading, 'I want more Jesus stuff. I'll read his other book to learn about God.'
I probably will read his other book, because this one was pretty good.
July 27, 2009
Once again, the author has created a text which examines a portion of the Bible -- in this instance the New Testament -- as a work of literature rather than a sacred text. And so this time he continues his scrutiny of the "life of God", and the crisis that he -- God -- has created. Whereas the Old Testament is the story of God's covenant with his chosen people -- the Hebrews -- so the New Testament is the story of how God resolved the problem of his (apparent) inability to win a final victory on the battlefield against Israel's enemies.
God had promised Israel repeatedly that he would defeat their foes, and yet, by the conclusion of the OT they had for centuries lived under the domination of both the Assyrians and the Babylonians, with no help in sight. Thus beginneth the NT, as we see them under the rule of the Romans. The "crisis" which God faces is one which involves both defeat and victory, war and peace, good and evil. In the end it is through the Incarnation (Jesus) that he re-makes his covenant with both Israel and, more importantly, the rest of humanity. In order to ultimately win, God Incarnate must first lose (die). How this is accomplished is thoroughly examined in this book.
Once again, I think this book is worth reading if only to get a better grasp of the timeline of events in the NT. I have been studying the Bible most of my life, and admit that many times I am confused by the "flow" of events, characters, and references. Reading these two books is much like having a concordance next to your Bible on the nightstand. You may question some of the author's conclusions, but you cannot dispute his method, for it works very well to serve as another way to look "at" rather than "through" the stained-glass window.
God had promised Israel repeatedly that he would defeat their foes, and yet, by the conclusion of the OT they had for centuries lived under the domination of both the Assyrians and the Babylonians, with no help in sight. Thus beginneth the NT, as we see them under the rule of the Romans. The "crisis" which God faces is one which involves both defeat and victory, war and peace, good and evil. In the end it is through the Incarnation (Jesus) that he re-makes his covenant with both Israel and, more importantly, the rest of humanity. In order to ultimately win, God Incarnate must first lose (die). How this is accomplished is thoroughly examined in this book.
Once again, I think this book is worth reading if only to get a better grasp of the timeline of events in the NT. I have been studying the Bible most of my life, and admit that many times I am confused by the "flow" of events, characters, and references. Reading these two books is much like having a concordance next to your Bible on the nightstand. You may question some of the author's conclusions, but you cannot dispute his method, for it works very well to serve as another way to look "at" rather than "through" the stained-glass window.
December 18, 2015
Jack Miles, author of the Pulitzer Prize - winning *God -a Biogaphy* has written an excellent literary analysis of Christ in the New Testament.
What is the "crisis" referred to in the title? The crisis is that God has not delivered his Chosen People from 500 years of oppression. How does God solve this problem? Answer: God/Christ commits sacred suicide. This is Miles' provocative conclusion from his stirictly literary analysis the Christian Bible. How does Miles arrive at the conclusion? You, dear reader, should read the book in order to appreciate how he develops his plot and arrives at his conclusion. And believe me, there is a plot!
A caution is in order. Miles writes and studies Christ from a strictly literary point of view. He is not interested in the historical Jesus. If one reads this only to learn about the fundamentalist Jesus, the traditional Christian Jesus, or the historical Jesus, then this book will not satisfy! If on the other hand, you want to experience a great Biblical reading adventure, then buy and read this book!
I also would recommend that a reader, who is unfamiliar with literary critism and postmodernism, study and read Miles' appendices. "Appendix I" deals with the biblical canon and "Appendix II" deals with the history of critcal analysis of the Bible (e.g. historical criticism, canonical criticism, literary critcism)and how to appreciate the Bible as art.
I did not always agree with the author, but I enjoyed how he told the story of Christ. As a postmodern Christian, I will not privilege my reading over his.
Have fun reading *Christ: a Crisis in the Life of God*!
What is the "crisis" referred to in the title? The crisis is that God has not delivered his Chosen People from 500 years of oppression. How does God solve this problem? Answer: God/Christ commits sacred suicide. This is Miles' provocative conclusion from his stirictly literary analysis the Christian Bible. How does Miles arrive at the conclusion? You, dear reader, should read the book in order to appreciate how he develops his plot and arrives at his conclusion. And believe me, there is a plot!
A caution is in order. Miles writes and studies Christ from a strictly literary point of view. He is not interested in the historical Jesus. If one reads this only to learn about the fundamentalist Jesus, the traditional Christian Jesus, or the historical Jesus, then this book will not satisfy! If on the other hand, you want to experience a great Biblical reading adventure, then buy and read this book!
I also would recommend that a reader, who is unfamiliar with literary critism and postmodernism, study and read Miles' appendices. "Appendix I" deals with the biblical canon and "Appendix II" deals with the history of critcal analysis of the Bible (e.g. historical criticism, canonical criticism, literary critcism)and how to appreciate the Bible as art.
I did not always agree with the author, but I enjoyed how he told the story of Christ. As a postmodern Christian, I will not privilege my reading over his.
Have fun reading *Christ: a Crisis in the Life of God*!
April 25, 2011
A fantastic sequel (if it can be called that) to Miles' God: A Biography. His basic premise is that Christ, or God Incarnate, has been born in crisis, which crisis is the broken covenant Miles discusses so well in his first book. In order to resolve this crisis, Christ must humiliate himself (which is, as those of us who've read the New Testament, exactly what he does). For the believer, I feel like this book can do much to build faith; for the non-believer, this book can go far to explain (?) the irrationality that is Christianity.
This book also includes an epilogue where Miles discusses literary criticism and how its approach differs from historical criticism, which really helps to bring the two books together. Though I'm not sure Miles intended for this to be a sequel, I think having read his Biography prior to this made it a lot more meaningful, and would encourage anyone considering this book to begin there first.
This book also includes an epilogue where Miles discusses literary criticism and how its approach differs from historical criticism, which really helps to bring the two books together. Though I'm not sure Miles intended for this to be a sequel, I think having read his Biography prior to this made it a lot more meaningful, and would encourage anyone considering this book to begin there first.
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