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Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was Paperback – January 26, 2015

by Gerhard Lohfink (Author), Linda M. Maloney (Translator)

4.6 201 ratings

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Who was Jesus? A prophet? There have been many of those. A miracle-worker? A radical revolutionary? A wise teacher? There have been many of these, too. In his latest book, renowned Scripture scholar Gerhard Lohfink asks, What is unique about Jesus of Nazareth, and what did he really want?

Lohfink engages the perceptions of the first witnesses of his life and ministry and those who handed on their testimony. His approach is altogether historical and critical, but he agrees with Karl Barth's statement that "historical criticism has to be more critical."

Lohfink takes seriously the fact that Jesus was a Jew and lived entirely in and out of Israel's faith experiences but at the same time brought those experiences to their goal and fulfillment. The result is a convincing and profound picture of Jesus.

Editorial Reviews

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This reviewer has read many books on the historical Jesus, but this one is the best. Why? Lohfink states, "The Jesus tradition is grounded in the interpretive community that is "church."
Father Mark G. Boyer, The Priest

"Crisp and very readable prose. . . .Lohfink has fresh things to say about Jesus' teaching through parables, about his sayings about judgment and, especially, about understanding Jesus' miracles. . . . Having read and studied, Jesus of Nazareth (and squirreled it away as a rich resource for future preaching and having been truly moved spiritually by it), I can agree with Daniel Harrington, S.J. [author of Jesus: A Historical Portrait]: "Lohfink's Jesus of Nazareth is the best Jesus book I know."
John A. Coleman, America: The National Catholic Review

The reader closes this book struck by the Spirit in whom this Jesus keeps working on the -- some would say -- now shrinking, endangered community he left behind. . . .There still may be hope.
Raymond A Schroth, SJ, National Catholic Reporter

Some have said that this book will become a classic. Indeed, it should be so considered. But much will depend on whether or not scholars will dismiss it as lacking uniqueness and innovation, and whether or not non-professionals will invest the energy in reading a scholarly treatment of Jesus. May both groups stretch themselves and give it the attention it so richly deserves!Michael J. Bowling, The Englewood Review of Books

Grounded in the most careful study of the historical Jesus and enlivened by a deep faith in the Risen Christ, this book will be of inestimable use to everyone from scholars to seekers and will most likely become a classic. It is that rarest of books on Jesus in which the author combines solid exegetical work with a profound sense of the spiritual. On top of that, it's beautifully written (and here, translated). Lohfink's book is in every way a joy.James Martin, SJ, Author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

Lohfink’s Jesus of Nazareth is the best Jesus book I know. It is solidly based on sound biblical scholarship, full of fresh theological insights, respectful of the Gospels and their portraits of Jesus, and beautifully expressed. It is especially effective in highlighting the centrality of God’s reign and Israel as God’s people in Jesus’ life and work.Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, Professor of New Testament, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry

The thread connecting what Jesus wanted, who he was, is the reign of God. Lohfink is concerned with this new thing that came into the world with [Jesus]. The consistency between this reign of God and the revelation of who Jesus is, is the chief message and controlling method of this book. The importance of another book on Christ and on Jesus in the New Testament in particular cannot be ignored or underestimated. . . . Lohfink gives the lie to any separation of what Jesus wanted from who he was. Ultimately, Christology consists in clarifying his relationship to God and humanity.
Kevin O'Gorman, The Furrow

Lohfink's portrait of Jesus is very much worth reading. Because he looks to the Gospels with a sympathetic yet critical eye, he gives a faithful interpretation of Jesus. And because he is faithful, Lohfink offers a portrait that is challenging-especially for the church today.
Thomas D. Stegman, SJ, America Magazine

About the Author

Gerhard Lohfink (1934-2024), was professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Tübingen. His many books include No Irrelevant Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Is This All There Is?, The Our Father, and Prayer Takes Us Home, all from Liturgical Press.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Liturgical Press; Reprint edition (January 26, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 408 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0814683088
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0814683088
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.38 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #281,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #511 in New Testament Criticism & Interpretation
- #537 in Christology (Books)
- #671 in Jesus, the Gospels & Acts (Books)

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4.6 201 ratings

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Customers find the book insightful and well-written. They describe it as an interesting treatment of the subject in a clear, easy-to-understand language. Readers appreciate the accessible writing style and the author's skillful use of modern scholarship.

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55 customers mention "Insight"55 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful and well-written. They say it captures the essence of Jesus' divinity and humanity. The book opens up new perspectives on Jesus and is a deep yet interesting treatment of the subject. Readers mention that the portrait of Jesus is thoroughly grounded in the Gospels and provides an accurate presentation of his life and mission.

"...I find Lohfink’s approach and conclusions to be exhilarating and convincing...." Read more

"...This is because Lohfink's portrait of Jesus is thoroughly grounded in the Gospels, which he accepts not as reportorial accounts or as misguided..." Read more

"...new world order which was brought about by the will of God and centered on God alone...." Read more

"...Not a book to just curl up with. Dense with plenty to think about. Lots of historical information that was new to me." Read more

28 customers mention "Readability"22 positive6 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and understand. They appreciate the clear and inspiring text that is suitable for slow reading and meditation. The writing style is fresh and challenging, making it perfect for both scholars and lay readers.

"...(Kudos to Linda M. Maloney for her splendid translation of this book.)" Read more

"...or as misguided narratives hiding factoid gems, but as complex interpretive portraits, which he has explained in an accessible way based on biblical..." Read more

"...It is scholarly but very accessible to the general reader...." Read more

"Difficult read, but worth it. Not a book to just curl up with. Dense with plenty to think about. Lots of historical information that was new to me." Read more

4 customers mention "Accessibility"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing accessible and lucid.

"...The writing is lucid and quite accessible" Read more

"Whether you are seeking something scholarly, prayerful, or accessible, you will find what you are looking for in Lohfink's book on Jesus...." Read more

"...It is scholarly and accessible; faith-filled and radical. It is a book that I will read many times with profit...." Read more

"...I was not disappointed in the least. I found the book accessible while being theologically sophisticated and spiritually inspiring while being..." Read more

4 customers mention "Scholarship"4 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's scholarship. They find it up-to-date and judicious in its assessment of modern scholarship on Jesus of Nazareth.

"...Lohfink's scholarship is outstanding and his interpretation of Jesus has challenged me more than perhaps any other book I have read...." Read more

"...thorough and firmly based on the gospels and very judicious in its assessment of modern scholarship. James Torrens, sj" Read more

"...He incorporates practical discipleship leads along with his wonderful scholarship." Read more

"Excellent, up to date scholarship on Jesus of Nazareth..." Read more

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M. L. Asselin
An Exhilarating and Convincing Approach to the Life of Jesus
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2021
Verified Purchase
Gerhard Lohfink’s phenomenal “Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was” is described by the author this way: “This book is about Jesus’ public life: What did he do? What did he want? Who was he?” (p. 288). Consistent with his other books, Lohfink examines the life of Jesus from the lens of Jewish history, religion, and culture leading up to and including the first century. He attempts to free Jesus’ ideas and aims from subsequent Western accretions, beginning with the influence of Greek philosophical strains of thought. I find Lohfink’s approach and conclusions to be exhilarating and convincing.

An example of Lohfink’s approach is in demonstrating how the earliest Christology of Jesus is fundamentally Jewish. Conventional thinking suggests that the divination of Jesus derived from Greek thinking. Lohfink shows how Christological formulations of Jesus’ identity in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 2:36, Matt 28:18, Rom 1:3-4, John 1:1-18, Phil 2:6-11) are, “despite the Christological novelty, … formulated in Old Testament-Jewish forms of thought” (p. 342). Lohfink illustrates this by pointing out that “when a son was born in Israel the father took him on his knee and spoke this very formula”: “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7). So, when this formula is applied to Christ in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5, 5:5), “Jesus, who was already the Son of God, was publicly legitimated as God’s Son and installed in his rightful position. This should make it clear that New Testament Christology is Jewish” (p. 343).

One line of argument that some orthodox readers may find difficult to accept is Lohfink’s insistence that the miracle stories and the Resurrection narrative need not be looked at as purely supernatural events. Traditionally, these miracle accounts have been viewed as either (1) acts that are beyond the rational, outside the bounds of history and the natural order (i.e., supernatural) or (2) beginning with the Enlightenment, they are fictions that carry symbolic value but are not otherwise real. Lohfink takes a third approach, which is that these events really happened and happened in a way consistent with the natural order, and that they were a cooperation between human agents and God’s intervention in history through those human agents: “every miracle is . . . always bringing to the fore what human and nature are able to do. Natural laws are not thus broken but elevated to a higher level. The miracle exalts nature; it does not bore holes in it” (p. 141).

Although I find this approach refreshing, I nonetheless admit to my own difficulties imagining how this explains miracles like the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Lohfink explicitly rejects the rationalization of such miracles, for instance, in this case, the tired trope that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was merely a bringing out of the generosity of the participants who had brought with them some food (p. 135). Instead, Lohfink suggests that there are some things that are not supernatural per se, but which nonetheless cannot be rationalized away, for example “that . . . in some malignant carcinomas, there can be ‘spontaneous healings’ that cannot be explained…” (p. 143). But in the case of such modern accounts of spontaneous healings it might be better said that they cannot be explained yet (because science doesn’t understand them) rather than that they cannot be explained at all (because presumably science eventually will understand them). What Lohfink seems to be suggesting, then, is that these miracles do involve God’s intentionality and intervention, but that nature accomplishes them within the bounds of nature, bounds that may not be well understood by us. So, how again, then, did the loaves and fishes multiply? And, what’s more, how does the Resurrection occur within the bounds of nature? Here my own imagination fails me.

However that may be, “Jesus of Nazareth” is an outstanding work. By focusing on the Jewish context for the story of Jesus, Lohfink helps us understand who Jesus is in a way that is nothing short of profound. (Kudos to Linda M. Maloney for her splendid translation of this book.)

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Carla Marceau
The best Jesus book I know
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2014
Verified Purchase
Those are the words of Dan Harrington, a noted scripture scholar, not mine. I agree with him completely.

Why yet another book on Jesus of Nazareth? Gerhard Lohfink rejects attempts by many modern Jesus writers to recover the historical Jesus by mining the Gospels for facts, which they use to create new interpretations of Jesus, while rejecting elements they deem improbable by modern criteria. Instead, Lohfink wishes to reconstruct and make accessible to an educated but not necessarily scholarly audience the interpretation or portrait of Jesus created by the synoptic Gospel writers in the first-century Christian community. For Lohfink, that portrait is clear: Jesus spoke and acted as the Messiah of Israel in order to bring about the reign of God.

The book's subtitle is "what he wanted, who he was." Chapters two through twelve address the first of these questions. For Lohfink, Jesus figure who devoted his life to realizing the kingdom of heaven, or "reign of God." Lohfink develops the meaning of this term through a study of Jesus' words and actions as presented in the synoptic Gospels. It is generally accepted these days that the "kingdom of heaven" refers not to the life of the soul after death, but rather to the reign or rule of God on earth, and also that the phrase refers not to an individual and subjective experience but to a communal one. In the Christian experience, eschatology has often referred to the final coming of the kingdom at the end of time. Lohfink argues that in the synoptic Gospels, the coming of God's reign was not far in the future but something that had already begun; it is "at hand," like a mustard seed that has not yet grown into a large plant. It is "not yet" because although it is offered to the people of God, they still have to reach out and accept it.

The second half of the book addresses who Jesus was. Lohfink's answer is that in life Jesus was a devout Jew whose devotion to the reign of God was uncompromising: if your eye is an occasion of sin, pluck it out; if Peter warns Jesus that it's too dangerous to go to Jerusalem, then Peter is on the side of the Devil. The major focus of this part of the book is on Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. For Lohfink, Jesus consciously acted as the Messiah, although not the warrior king Messiah that people were expecting. Chapters 15 and 16 explain Jesus' three great "sign-actions" in Jerusalem (entry on a donkey, temple cleansing, and last supper) in their Old Testament and eschatological contexts, and so weave what might seem like disparate narrative strands into a coherent story of salvation. The last chapters address soteriology (how did Jesus save us), Jesus' divinity, and the role of the church as the people of God, the present (imperfect) sacrament of the reign of God in an imperfect world, which carries on the "gathering" that Jesus began.

Jesus of Nazareth brings Jesus alive as a strong, complex, and challenging human being. This is because Lohfink's portrait of Jesus is thoroughly grounded in the Gospels, which he accepts not as reportorial accounts or as misguided narratives hiding factoid gems, but as complex interpretive portraits, which he has explained in an accessible way based on biblical scholarship and theology. The book's twenty-four pages of endnotes attest to its scholarly depth.

This book is, of course, not the last word on Jesus. Lohfink accepts uncritically the historicity of some accounts, such as a meeting of the Sanhedrin after the Seder supper, or Pilate's negotiations with the priests and release of Barabbas. More serious is the absence of support outside of the synoptics for Lohfink's portrait. If Jesus was an uncompromising announcer of the reign of God, why does the reign of God play hardly any role in Paul, and why is it completely absent in John? Lohfink himself observes this absence but does not offer any explanation.

Still, I'm with Fr. Harrington. This is the best Jesus book I know.

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Amani
Durchhalten - die Begeisterung kommt !
Reviewed in Germany on May 8, 2024
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Ich muss gestehen, dass ich am Anfang ein wenig Durchhalten üben musste, da mir die Lektüre der ersten Kapitel nicht so leicht fiel. Das änderte sich schlagartig mit Seite 100, da es ab dieser Seite wirklich um Jesus persönlich geht mit seinen Parabeln und Zeichen, seiner grossen Phantasie und Geschicklichkeit, seine Ideen bildhaft unter die Menschen zu bringen, alles im damaligen Kontext brilliant erklärt. Seither lese ich „das beste Buch über Jesus“ wie es genannt wurde, mit großer Begeisterung !

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Bella English
An easy read
Reviewed in Canada on November 4, 2018
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An excellent perspective on Jesus

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JOHN OLEARY
Excellent and thought provoking treatment of Jesus of Nazareth, Christ of faith.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2019
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Superb book. Wonderful research and insightful and enlightening treatment of Jesus of Nazareth, Christ of faith. Deserving of many rereads.

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Keith
Great book
Reviewed in Australia on May 22, 2024
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Author is top notch critical thinker.

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sakuracnd
sakuracnd
Reviewed in Japan on March 22, 2013
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Father Daniel Harrington's review on the book cover was enough for me and I am not disappointed. It is the best Jesus book I have read besides the Bible itself.

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5.0 out of 5 stars An Exhilarating and Convincing Approach to the Life of Jesus

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Jesus book I know

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Durchhalten - die Begeisterung kommt !

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy read

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and thought provoking treatment of Jesus of Nazareth, Christ of faith.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book

5.0 out of 5 stars sakuracnd

An Exhilarating and Convincing Approach to the Life of Jesus

The best Jesus book I know

Durchhalten - die Begeisterung kommt !

An easy read

Excellent and thought provoking treatment of Jesus of Nazareth, Christ of faith.

Great book

sakuracnd