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Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium | 
 enlarge | Author: Bart D. Ehrman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 56420
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 019512474X
Dewey Decimal Number: 232.908
EAN: 9780195124743
ASIN: 019512474X
Publication Date: May 31, 2001
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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Amazon.com Review
C.S. Lewis once noted that nowhere do the Gospels say, "Jesus laughed." He's probably laughing now, if he's got access to Bart Ehrman's IJesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium/I. The title doesn't even hint at the yuks that Ehrman's prose delivers, but from its very first page, IJesus/I will tickle your funny bone and stimulate your brain. "At last count," Ehrman begins, "there were something like 8 zillion books written about Jesus .... It's not there aren't Ienough/I books about Jesus out there. It's that there aren't enough of the right Ikind/I of book. Very, very few, in fact. I'd say about one and a half." p The right Ikind/I of book, according to Ehrman, is one that portrays Jesus roughly as Albert Schweitzer did, as a first-century Jewish apocalypticist: "This is a shorthand way of saying that Jesus fully expected that the history of the world as we know it (well, as he knew it) was going to come to a screeching halt, that God was soon going to intervene in the affairs of this world, overthrow the forces of evil in a cosmic act of judgment, destroy huge masses of humanity, and abolish existing human political and religious institutions. All this would be a prelude to the arrival of a new order on earth, the Kingdom of God." Ehrman's is a historical-Jesus book, a very smart, humble, and humorous popular summary of Christian and secular evidence of Jesus' life, work, and legacy. He believes that apocalypticism is the true core of Jesus' message, and that comfortable middle-class complacency among scholars, clergy, and laypeople has forged a counterfeit, domesticated, "ethical" Jesus to cover up their befuddlement about his misprediction of the apocalypse. The book will frustrate many readers because it offers no real guidance regarding what one should Ido/I with Jesus' apocalypticism. Its project--to prove that Jesus was wrong about the apocalypse--may even appear destructive to some. Yet the argument is convincing enough to induce among careful readers a constructive experience of confusion. IJesus/I makes readers ask the very question it appears to ignore, in a newly humble way: how, then, should we live? A serious matter, but considering humanity's endless string of wrong answers and infinite capacity for self-delusion, worthy of some good belly laughs, as well. I--Michael Joseph Gross/I
Product Description
In this highly accessible discussion, Bart Ehrman examines the most recent textual and archaeological sources for the life of Jesus, along with the history of first-century Palestine, drawing a fascinating portrait of the man and his teachings.br Ehrman shows us what historians have long known about the Gospels and the man who stands behind them. Through a careful evaluation of the New Testament (and other surviving sources, including the more recently discovered Gospels of Thomas and Peter), Ehrman proposes that Jesus can be best understood as an apocalyptic prophet--a man convinced that the world would end dramatically within the lifetime of his apostles and that a new kingdom would be created on earth. According to Ehrman, Jesus' belief in a coming apocalypse and his expectation of an utter reversal in the world's social organization not only underscores the radicalism of his teachings but also sheds light on both the appeal of his message to society's outcasts and the threat he posed to Jerusalem's established leadership.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 If nothing else, this book will give you something to think about... May 31, 2008
Greg Abrams (Valrico, FL USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ehrman's book is a no-nonsense examination of what we might be able to learn historically about the man at the center of Christianity. br / br /But let's stop for a moment and think about this...is Jesus of Nazareth truly at the center of Christianity? Or did the religion evolve out of the ideal of such a life while glossing over the less savory aspects of the reality behind the myth? Did Jesus see himself through the same lenses his followers later employed? What was the message at the root of Jesus' ministry? br / br /The book tackles these and other questions with an eye to what we can discern historically, without leaning into the realm of theology. Ehrman doesn't prop his ideas up on over-the-top conjecture, as some have done over the years. Rather, he goes to the primary sources...or at least, as close to the "primary" sources as a modern historian can get. We're reminded that not only are the majority of our sources theologically motivated, they also appear to have been derived from earlier documents not extant (such as the "Q", "M", and "L" sources). br / br /As the book moves along from a general casting of the die with regard to first century Judaism against the backdrop of the Roman Empire, an important contextual awareness is developed for the reader. Situating Jesus outside of the milieu of the high tension "Holy Land" that produced many apocalypticists proclaiming coming judgments and kingdoms of God is to ignore what is all too clearly preserved in the books of the New Testament. br / br /Without going into too many details, it becomes very clear from the evidence of Jesus' proclamations and disputes over Torah that an apocalyptic thread weaves through from start to finish. Among many perplexing statements put on the lips of Jesus in the gospels, there is the clear statement of the imminence of the end days and the establishment of God's kingdom: br / br /"Truly I tell you, some of those who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power." (Mark 9:1) br / br /"Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." (Mark 13:30) br / br /There may be a clever way to explain these verses theologically, but if you read them without a bias, you may find some questions bubbling to the surface. If Jesus was divine, how could he have missed the mark so badly on his predictions? Not only did his generation pass away...but centuries have passed away and the world is still spinning along. Even if we fall back on Jesus' statement two verses later: br / br /"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32) br / br /He still drew a circle around his generation. So although he could not state the day and hour, he nonetheless saw the end as something that would happen very soon. So what do we make of this? br / br /The above is a very brief summary of only one of the challenges put forward in this book. Several additional points are made that cannot be easily dismissed. Regardless of one's beliefs concerning Jesus, it seems to me that a good understanding of the many points of view can be beneficial. We could simply accept without question those doctrines developed by men living centuries ago...or we can do our own homework and ask if their conclusions really hold up to scrutiny. In my opinion, Ehrman does his homework and asks some tough questions here.
 Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium February 15, 2008
S. D. Wittberger (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ehrman provides a compelling case for arguing that Jesus was truly and apocalyptic prophet, citing many sources and not just those included in the Bible.
God in the Flesh or Leader of a Lunatic Fringe? February 8, 2008
M. JEFFREY MCMAHON (Torrance, CA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In sophisticated rhetoric that asks us to make our own inferences rather than pounding us over the head with strident prose, Bart Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium paints Jesus as a doomsday prophet who, according to the Gospels, proclaimed the end would come before his disciples' lifetime and that he was wrong. Like many doomsday prophets of his age and those to come, even today, Jesus mistakenly thought the world was to come to an end and this error causes other lapses in judgment--a severe asceticism that asked us to reject worldly pleasures, an extreme loyalty that asked us to despise our own family, mothers, fathers, and children to follow him. In fact, Ehrman argues, Jesus' own family rejected his apocalyptic vision and this resulted in a rift between them. br / br /In assured prose, Ehrman provides us the historical context to see that Jesus was not as so much a unique figure but a common type of prophet who emerged out of Palestine's occupied condition. The Israelites hungered for deliverance from the Romans who occupied Palestine and Jerusalem for centuries and what they wanted was a Messiah who would free them. Jesus was one such Messiah. According to Ehrman, there were at the time many such "Messiahs." br / br /While C.S. Lewis would reject this book's central thesis, that Jesus was a misguided doomsday prophet, he would approve of Ehrman's decision to not patronize what Jesus said in the Gospels. To paraphrase Lewis, either Jesus was God or a madman but not some "wise man." Ehrman does not patronize Jesus; instead, he argues in very readable, sometimes suspenseful, exposition, that Jesus could not deliver the promise to his disciples that they would not taste death because they would be raptured before the world as they knew it vanished forever. br / br /
Want to be closer to true Jesus? January 21, 2008
Stanislaw Herman (Poland)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Oh Jesus! What they did to you! br /Not Romans or Jews. Christians! They corrupted Your teachings, used them for their own purposes. Good one to be honest, but extremly different from what taught The Teacher himself. br /This is one evening read which will open your eyes.
Despite the disagreement January 8, 2008
Stratiotes Doxha Theon (Richmond, Missouri)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Despite disagreeing with many of Dr. Ehrman's conclusions, I cannot help but enjoy his books and lectures. In this work he shares his belief, along with a crowd that went before him in the early 20th century, that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptic prophet. He also asserts that the belief in Jesus' divinity developed over time and was not claimed by Jesus or his earliest followers while Jesus was alive. This too is no new theory. But, both theories, in my opinion, seem to fly in the face of the new testament and early church fathers. br / br /Of course, the response of Dr. Ehrman's persuasion will be that the references to Jesus' divinity were added to the Biblical accounts. But what evidence is offered for this assertion? Only the evidence that we "know" that Jesus did not claim to be God. It is circular reasoning based on questionable presuppositions at best. br / br /Despite these disagreements, Dr. Ehrman's scholarship is well respected and that respect is certainly deserved. His works have made the theories of others accessible to a general audience and that alone makes his contributions important to us. His writing style is enjoyable and challenging without being offensive to those with whom he disagrees. br / br /But, for a better understanding of Jesus in the context of history, I have found that Pope Benedict XVI provides a much more likely view in Jesus of Nazareth. The holy father's approach gives us a much more believable and less 2-dimensional view of Jesus than do the skeptics. Do not make the mistake of buying into the hype of the historical Jesus crowd with only the Dr. Ehrman understanding. As much as I respect Dr. Ehrman, his conclusions seem forced and simplistic.
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