books:

	What Jesus Meant Garry Wills Viking Adult, 2006 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 68 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

But Wills is just as critical of those who would make Jesus a mere ethical teacher, ignoring or playing down his divinity. Jesus without the Resurrection is simply not the Jesus of the gospels. Wills calls his book a profession of faith in the risen Lord, the Son of the Father, who leads us to the Father. He argues that this does not make people embrace an otherworldliness that ignores the poor or the problems of our time.

What Jesus Meant will no doubt spark debate about our understanding of Jesus and the Scriptures, especially as we head into midterm elections that will certainly prompt many heated discussions on the role of religion in our society.

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Will's God

I am most familiar with the Garry Wills who writes scholarly historical treatises on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, even Henry Adams (Henry Adams and the Making of America). Lately, he's been busy writing essays on spiritual issues as a devout Catholic, and as I always liked and respected historical work, I took this slim volume for a spin . . .

. . . And a worthwhile use of time it was. Wills explicates the difficulty we sinful humans have in dealing with Jesus as he was, not what we want him to be. With the lone exception of justifying homosexuality as natural and not sinful, through a rather self-consciously torturous argument, Wills makes cogent and though-provoking points. He relies on ideas from masters of the faith such as Augustine, St. Francis, and Chesterton, and his own translations of the "marketplace Greek" of the New testament.

A couple of interesting points. In the Garden, as Jesus returns to where he left Peter and a small set of the disciples with the admonition to stay awake while he prayed, Wills translates the aphorism "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" as a complete sentence that may have applied to Jesus, not Peter as the semi-colon in the NASB translation implies. And indeed, as the God-Man prayed prostrate on the ground and sweat blood in his anguish, His flesh was weak even as His spirit said "Not My will but Thine."

At another spot, discussing the Last Supper and the meaning of the breaking of bread, Wills refers to the "Our Father" and points out the difficulty of translating "daily" bread, as the word rendered "daily" means roughly "approaching" in English, and more literally can be rendered "to come", " or "to be". The "to be" sense is captured in "daily", but Wills links the prayer for the bread "To come" to the Lord's offering of the bread, representing His body, at the Last Supper! Intriguing, and spiritually powerful.

And not very Catholic! His ideas about the Last Supper seem decidedly non-transsubstantiational, if that's a word.

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Garry's Gigantic Nursery School Nanny

Garry has showed us his Jesus--a gigantic nursery school nanny.

"Now, children, be nice! Share with your friends; and remember, we are ALL friends! And if you get mad at someone, give them a BIG HUG, and think nice thoughts! Because, remember, God loves you!"

So spake Garry's Nanny-Jesus, traveling throughout Palestine.

Garry is the latest of the Annointed, telling us what Jesus REALLY meant.

Thanks, Garry. But, I ain't buyin' it.

As several reviewers have said, your Jesus is astonishingly modern. Quite a Liberal; did he not mention global warming and "liberation theology"?

Garry's interpretation of Jesus leaves me feeling like a powerless toddler. He takes away our drives, our aspirations, our desires, and puts us in the nursery, where we are all friends, we are all the same, and we are all at the mercy of our caring, superior teachers. And is this not what the Annointed want? For us to be ignorant children, sitting at their feet, getting bite-sized portions of their benevolent wisdom? I think so, because, to me, this book dripped with arrogance. Not honest, Nietzschean arrogance, but some other kind--subtle, hiding in the shadows and in the squirrelly, slightly-condescending language.

Why should I believe Garry's interpretation of an interpretation? The gospels are interpretations of Palestinians about Jesus, assuming he really existed. Even more--they are the interpretations of the recollections of those who interpreted Jesus!

Some of Garry's nonsense: "Miracles, as it were, work themselves around such men (reviewer's note: Garry is talking about St. Francis and 'the Baal Shem Tov.' Who?! Never heard of BS Tov. Why not Paramahansa Yogananda or Sai Baba? But continuing:) Jesus is the preeminent example of this. The fact that he seems like other wonder-working holy men--Appollonius of Tyana, for instance--does not mean that he is an imitation of them. Rather, they are a reaching out toward him. They are a hunger and he the food. They are an ache, he the easement. As Chesterton said, his story resembles the great myths of mankind because he is the fulfillment of the myths." (What Jesus Meant, 2006, p. xxvii)

Cheap C.S. Lewis imitation, Garry; it is also total nonsense. Just read what you wrote--total blather. Besides, Jesus is an imitation of them, and they an imitation of him, because they all imitate the myths.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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