What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills (English) Paperback Book

Description: What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills As the religious rhetoric of the culture wars escalates, "New York Times" bestselling author and eminent scholar Wills explores the meaning of Jesus teachings. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "Garry Wills brings his signature brand of erudite, unorthodox thinking to his latest book of revelations. . . . A tour de force and a profound show of faith." (O, the Oprah Magazine)Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Quran Meant, coming fall 2017.In what are billed "culture wars," people on the political right and the political left cite Jesus as endorsing their views. But in this New York Times-bestselling masterpiece, Garry Wills argues that Jesus subscribed to no political program. He was far more radical than that. In a fresh reading of the gospels, Wills explores the meaning of the "reign of heaven" Jesus not only promised for the future but brought with him into this life. It is only by dodges and evasions that people misrepresent what Jesus plainly had to say against power, the wealthy, and religion itself. But Wills is just as critical of those who would make Jesus a mere ethical teacher, ignoring or playing down his divinity. An illuminating analysis for believers and nonbelievers alike, What Jesus Meant is a brilliant addition to our national conversation on religion. Author Biography Garry Willsis a historian and the author of theNew York TimesbestsellersWhat Jesus Meant,Papal Sin,Why I Am a Catholic, andWhy Priests?,among others. A frequent contributor totheNew York Review of Booksand other publications, Wills is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a professor emeritus at Northwestern University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois. Review A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Praise for What Jesus Meant: "Fascinating . . . Like a long, rich conversation with a learned friend . . . that engages the heart and mind, to the ultimate benefit of both." —Jon Meacham, The New York Times Book Review "A spiritual workout." —Newsweek "Faithful to the heart of tradition, yet entirely original, Garry Willss meditation cuts through cant, piety and political exploitation to bring Jesus alive in all his urgent significance." —James Carroll, author of Constantines Sword "With characteristic clarity, Garry Wills gets to the heart of the Gospel, and through a critical reading of what Jesus says in the gospels, surprises and provokes all of us who claim to know what Jesus meant. It is plainer than we might like, and thus harder both to take and to avoid." —Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Morals at Harvard University "Intellectually stimulating . . . The author offers a fresh and somewhat startling reading of the New Testament. He challenges readers to explore the true meaning of the reign of heaven that Jesus promised not only for the future but actually brought with him into this life here on earth." —Catholic Explorer "Prophetic . . . Compact, coherent, and clearly written . . . Engaging and provocative reading." —Chicago Tribune "Addressing the meaning of Jesus teachings in the first century C.E., the book serves as a tool to combat the politicization of Jesus in the modern world . . . A fresh look at an old topic . . . Recommended." —Library Journal "Wills has brought religion back into the public arena with books that combine historical acumen and insight into the practice of faith." —The New York Sun "A fascinating example of a clearheaded close reading, and a blistering indictment of contemporary religion and the political abuses of Jesus . . . The clarity of What Jesus Meant—with its humor, anger, and sadness—make it a necessary read for believers and nonbelievers alike." —Albany Times Union "Provocative." —Esquire "[A] stimulating, fresh look into the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth." —Publishers Weekly "Garry Wills brings his signature brand of erudite, unorthodox thinking to his latest book of revelations. . . . A tour de force and a profound show of faith." —O, the Oprah Magazine Long Description In what are billed culture wars, people on the political right and the political left cite Jesus as endorsing their views. Garry Wills argues that Jesus subscribed to no political program. He was far more radical than that. In a fresh reading of the gospels, Wills explores the meaning of the reign of heaven Jesus not only promised for the future but brought with him into this life. It is only by dodges and evasions that people misrepresent what Jesus plainly had to say against power, the wealthy, and religion itself. But Wills is just as critical of those who would make Jesus a mere ethical teacher, ignoring or playing down his divinity. An illuminating analysis for believers and nonbelievers alike, "What Jesus Meant" is a brilliant addition to our national conversation on religion. Review Quote Provocative. (Esquire) Excerpt from Book Foreword: Christ Not a Christian IN CERTAIN RELIGIOUS CIRCLES, the letters WWJD serve as a password or shibboleth. Web sites sell bracelets and T-shirts with the cryptic motto. Some politicians tell us this watchword guides them in making decisions. The letters stand for "What Would Jesus Do?" We are assured that doing the same thing is the goal of real Christians. But can we really aspire to do what Jesus did? Would we praise a twelve-year-old who slips away from his parents in a big city and lets them leave town without telling them he is staying behind? The reaction of any parent would be that of Jesus parents: "How could you treat us this way?" (Lk 2.48). Or if relatives seek access to a Christian, should he say that he has no relatives but his followers (Mk 3.33-35)? We might try to change water into wine; but if we did, would we take six huge water vats, used for purification purposes, and fill them with over a hundred gallons of wine, more than any party could drink (Jn 2.6)? If we could cast out devils, would we send them into a herd of pigs, destroying two thousand animals (Mk 5.13)? Some Christians place a very high value on the rights of property, yet this was a massive invasion of some persons property and livelihood. Other Christians lay great emphasis on family values--should they, like Jesus, forbid a man from attending his own fathers funeral (Mt 8.22) or tell others to hate their parents (Mt 8.22, Lk 14.26)? Or should they go into a rich new church in some American suburb, a place taking pride in its success, and whip the persons holding out collection plates, crying, "Make not my Fathers house a traders mart" (Jn 2.16) or "a thieves lair" (Mk 11.17)? Would it be wise of them to call national religious leaders "whitewashed tombs, pleasant enough to outer appearance, but inside full of dead bones and every rottenness" (Mt 23.27)? Are they justified in telling others, "I come not imposing peace, I impose not peace but the sword" (Mt 10.34)? Or "I am come to throw fire on the earth" (Lk 12.49)? Should they imitate Jesus when he says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but never will my words pass away" (Mk 21.333)? Or when he says, "I am the resurrection" (Jn 11.25) or "I am the truth" (Jn 14.6), or "I have the authority to lay down my life and I have the authority to take it up again" (Jn 10.18)? None of those who want to imitate Jesus should proclaim that "I am the light of the world" (Jn 8.12) or that "I am the path" to the Father (Jn 14.6). These are just a few samples of the way Jesus acts in the gospel. They were acts meant to show that he is not just like us, that he has higher rights and powers, that he has an authority as arbitrary as Gods 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 or whatever he was, was certainly not a Christian. Romano Guardini put it this way in The Humanity of Christ :If Jesus is a mere man, then he must be measured by the message which he brought to men. He must himself do what he expects of others; he must himself think according to the way he demanded that men think. He must himself be a Christian. Very well, then; the more he is like that, the less he will speak, act, or think as he did; and the more he will be appalled by the blasphemy of the way he did behave. If Jesus is mere man as we are, even though a very profound one, very devout, very pure--no, let us put it another way: the measure of his depth, devotion, purity, reverence, will be the measure in which it will be impossible for him to say what he says....The following clear-cut alternative emerges: either he is--not just evil, for that would not adequately describe the case--either he is deranged, as Nietzsche became in Turin in 1888, or he is quite different, deeply and essentially different, from what we are.To read the gospels in the spirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said. We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange deeds and words. He intended to reveal the Father to us, and to show that he is the only-begotten Son of that Father. What he signified is always more challenging than we expect, more outrageous, more egregious. That is why the Catholic novelist Francois Mauriac calls him "of all the great characters history places before us, the least logical." Dostoyevskys Grand Inquisitor knew this when he reproached Christ for puzzling men by being "exceptional, vague, and enigmatic." It is true that Saint Paul tells us to "put [our] mind in Christs when dealing with one another" (Phil 2.5). But looking to the mind of Christ is a way of learning what he meant, on many levels. We can learn what he valued in the human drama as he moved among his fellows. According to the gospels, he preferred the company of the lowly and despised that of the rich and powerful. He crossed lines of ritual purity to deal with the unclean--with lepers, the possessed, the insane, with prostitutes and adulterers and collaborators with Rome. (Was he subtly mocking ritual purification when he filled the water vessels with wine?) He was called a bastard (Jn 8.41) and was rejected by his own brothers (Jn 7.3-5) and the rest of his family (Mk 3.21). He was an outcast among outcasts, sharing the lot of the destitute, the defiled, the despised. "He was counted among the outlaws" (Lk 22.37). He had a lower-class upbringing, as a cabinetmakers son. That was a trade usually marginal and itinerant in his time. He chose his followers from the lower class, from fisher-men, dependent on the seasons catch, or from a despised trade (tax collection for the Romans). There were no Scribes or scholars of the Law in his following. Jesus not only favored the homeless. He was himself homeless, born homeless and living homeless during his public life: "Foxes have lairs, and birds have nests in air, but the Son of Man has nowhere to put down his head" (Mt 8.20). He depended on others to shelter him. He especially depended on women, who were "second-class citizens" in his culture. He was not a philosopher. He wrote nothing for his followers in a later age. He depended on his uneducated followers to express what he meant. He knew that the Spirit moving them had no need of men with Ph.D.s or with grants from learned foundations (1 Cor 1.20). His very presence was subversive. He was born on the run, fleeing Herod. As the Anglican bishop N. T. Wright puts it, he "came into the world with a death sentence already hanging over him, as the paranoid old tyrant up the road got wind of a young royal pretender." Jesus would later move through teams of men setting traps for him, trying to assassinate him, to crush his following, to give him the same treatment given the beheaded John the Baptist. He had to "go into hiding" (Jn 12.36). He was in constant danger-of being kidnapped (Jn 7.30, 7.44), of being arrested (Mt 21.46, Jn 7.32), of being assassinated (Mt 12.14, Lk 13.31, Jn 7.1, 11.53), of being stoned for his irreligion (Jn 8.59, 10.31 Details ISBN014303880X Author Garry Wills Short Title WHAT JESUS MEANT Language English ISBN-10 014303880X ISBN-13 9780143038801 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 232 Year 2007 Imprint Penguin USA Place of Publication New York, NY Country of Publication United States Alternative 9781598870176 Residence US Birth 1934 DOI 10.1604/9780143038801 US Release Date 2007-02-27 UK Release Date 2007-02-27 Pages 176 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Publication Date 2007-02-27 Audience General NZ Release Date 2007-02-26 AU Release Date 2007-02-26 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:159503063;

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