Not Sure if it Achieves what it Set Out To Do

I’m ambivalent about this book. It’s certainly different from the other Jewish/Christian books that I’ve read. I’ve walked away more confused.

If this more accurately portrays the Jewish perspective, it certainly doesn’t accurately portray the Christian perspective to the same text.

I wonder if this is a level of ambiguity that I don’t understand (in the same way I look at his opening suggestion that, even though Jesus was indeed a Jew, Christianity started with His teachings and was initially known as ‘The Way’). I also wonder if this is because the author does not see Jesus as The Christ (The Messiah), as he is still, after all, a Rabbi.

So I think that this is not necessarily a book geared towards teaching Christians what Jesus would have accepted and bought into as a Jew, but perhaps what He was surrounded with, culturally and traditionally. (This is brought out by the puzzlement of the understanding of the Abraham and Isaac test in chapter 4. If you cannot link this father and son with the Divine Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, then of course the story IS perplexing).

I also get the impression that I’m reading this account as written by a Scribe, Pharisee or Sadducee. It may well be an accurate insight into 1st century Israel, but I struggle to accept how Jesus merges into it. His life (from the Christian perspective), seemed to be one of pushing back against the various traditional assumptions of the Jews. There appeared to be a good deal of insinuation that, whilst not denigrating one side or the other, sets an assumed hierarchical standard between the two.

Additionally (on a side note), I wondered about the narrator’s pronunciation of certain words -namely;
Canaan, Satan, Job. It did distract me for a while.

On the whole, I wouldn’t recommend it to my regular circle of friends, but I dare say, the Theological students will look more favourably as the case study that it is meant to be.

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