Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus Book

by Sandro Magister -The Next Battle For and Against Jesus Will Be Fought by the Book

"My interpretation of the figure of Jesus in the New Testament..."

by Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI

I came to this book about Jesus - the first part of which I now present to the public – after a long interior journey. In the time of my youth – during the 1930’s and ‘40’s – there was published a series of exhilarating books about Jesus. I recall the names of just a few authors: Karl Adam, Romano Guardini, Franz Michel Willam, Giovanni Papini, Jean-Daniel Rops. In all these books, the image of Jesus Christ was outlined beginning with the Gospels: how He lived upon the earth and how, although He was truly man, He at the same time brought God to men, being one with God as Son of God. Thus, through the man Jesus, God became visible, and beginning with God one could see the image of the just man.

[snip]

While accepting all this as much as possible, I wanted to make an effort to present the Jesus of the Gospels as the real Jesus, as the “historical Jesus” in the real sense of the expression. I am convinced – and I hope that I can also make the reader aware of this – that this figure is much more logical, and from the historical point of view also more understandable, than the reconstructions we have had to confront in recent decades.

I maintain that this very Jesus – the Jesus of the Gospels – is an historically sensible and convincing figure. His crucifixion and the impact that he had can only be explained if something extraordinary happened, if the figure and the words of Jesus radically exceeded the hopes and expectations of his time.

Background info from a blogger Michael Barber (Professor of Theology at JPII The Great Univ.)