What Jesus meant

by Garry Wills

Paper Book, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

232

Genres

Religion & Spirituality

General Nonfiction

Nonfiction

All Topics

Publication

Waterville, Me. : Thorndike Press/Thomson/Gale, 2006.

Description

In what are billed as "culture wars," people on the political right and the political left cite Jesus as endorsing their views. Wills argues that Jesus subscribed to no political program--He was far more radical than that. It is only by dodges and evasions that people misrepresent what Jesus plainly had to say against power, the wealthy, and religion itself. Jesus came from the working class, and he spoke to and for that class. This book will challenge the assumptions of almost everyone who brings religion into politics--"Christian socialists" as well as biblical theocrats. 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. He argues that this does not make people embrace an otherworldliness that ignores the poor or the problems of our time.--From publisher description.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member bethlea

Garry Wills goes to the source - the market place Greek spoken by Jesus and His contemporaries and shows us what Jesus really meant. Not to found a church with any structure; not to create another religion with all its complexity and rules; but to free all people by showing them God's love and

promising to be with them for all eternity.

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LibraryThing member iammbb

Wills has an interesting perspective on who and what Jesus was. He believes, as his foreword states, that Christ was not a Christian. ". . . he is not just like us, he has higher rights and powers, he has an authority as arbitrary as God's in the Book of Job. He is a divine mystery walking among

men. The only way we can directly imitate him is to act as if we were gods ourselves - yet that is the very thing he forbids. He tells us to act as the last, not the first, as the least, not the greatest. And this accords with the common sense of mankind. Christians cannot really be 'Christlike.' As Chesterton said, 'A great man knows he is not God and the greater he is the better he knows it.' The thing we have to realize is that Christ, whoever and whatever he was, was certainly not a Christian."

Wills offers some thought provoking analysis of what the Gospels really have to say about Jesus. His is an anti-establishment view. He claims that religion killed Jesus, that Jesus was opposed to religion as it existed in his day and that he "did not found a church."

Don't read this book if you don't want to question your preconceptions.

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LibraryThing member Osbaldistone

Sure to make you think twice (or at least think more) about things you've been taking for granted.

LibraryThing member PointedPundit

Unambiguously, Garry Wills cuts to the heart of the gospel in his book “What Jesus Meant.”

As in “Lincoln at Gettysburg” and “Nixon Agonistes” (my two favorite Wills books) the author looks at a familiar set of facts and draws startling insights. In this book I was fascinated by

Wills’- a former Greek professor at Johns Hopkins University - ability to draw insightful and nuanced meaning from his personal translations of familiar New Testament verses.

Like Jesus, Wills subscribes to no later day political as he explores the meaning of the “resign of heaven” promised by God’s son. Like Jesus, he speaks plainly and bluntly about power, wealth and even religion itself.

Able to be read in a single sitting, “What Jesus Meant” is sure to spark a personal internal debate over your understand of Jesus and the Scriptures. Finish it and you will join me in thanking Wills for enhancing your understanding of religion’s role in our society today.

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LibraryThing member awoodard

An anlalysis oif Jesus' words from the Greek text

LibraryThing member AshRyan

Garry Wills is one of those very few Christians (almost invariably Catholic) whom I can sort of respect---honest, knowledgeable, even intellectual, and perfectly willing to challenge fundamental tenets of his religion's dogma and to denounce the current pope and his predecessors. But in the end, it

still comes down to blind faith in utterly unsupportable mystical gibberish---and his intelligence just makes it even more inexcusable, as it must require that much more evasion to maintain.

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LibraryThing member kvrfan

The title, "What Jesus Meant," gives the impression that what Garry Wills is going to do here is focus directly on the teachings of Jesus themselves and interpret them for the reader. And indeed he does do that, but it's not all he does. From Jesus' teachings he then goes on to discuss the

doctrines of the crucifixion and resurrection, about which Jesus himself had little to say at all. Consequently, what we have in this little book is a compact Christology which could easily carry a subtitle: "What Jesus Meant; and What Jesus Means."

Going back to the earliest sources--the Gospels themselves, and indeed that which precedes the gospels, the letters of Paul (as well as early Church writings)--Wills comes up with much to criticize in the contemporary practice of Christianity. The Jesus Wills sees in the gospels is one who, if he appeared today, would probably be crucified again for the way he would confront the forces of wealth, hierarchy, violence, and privilege--including those in the dominant religious establishment--but make no mistake: in all this Wills is unerringly orthodox in his theology. He says from the start that his book is a devotional work. He believes in divinity of Christ. He believes in the Trinitarian mystery. He believes in the Resurrection. But that's all-the-more why understanding what Jesus truly meant matters.

In the end, as fits a devotional work, I found the book inspirational. Especially so because, chasing to make the book a Christology, Wills decides to take on such questions as, "Why must Jesus have been crucified?" The doctrine that has had a stranglehold on much Christian understanding over the centuries is that of "substitutionary atonement," i.e. that Jesus had to die an awful death due to the demands of a God that someone had to suffer as a ransom for all the world's sin. Keeping his feet planted in biblical sources, Wills finds scant support for this argument, and offers an alternative meaning that truly does elevate God as One who embodies love rather than bloodthirsty retribution.

All in all, I would call this a great little Christological primer.

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LibraryThing member Elizabeth80

Wills surprised me--I have long had the basic conclusion of which he writes: Jesus began no church. While I was irritated at his section on the Jesus Seminar, it's okay - it is his opinion - and I disagree with him. But the book was well done!!

LibraryThing member deldevries

Excellent writing with cogent examples. Good for thinking. A fresh perspective.

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