Jesus never said he was the son of God, he made no mention of the devil, and he didn't instruct his followers to wait for their reward in the eternal afterlife. Today, many people are shocked by these sober conclusions of modern biblical scholarship. So what did Jesus teach?
Social historian Rex Weyler uncovers the mystery surrounding the historical Jesus, whose voice and words have been distorted by centuries of revision. By examining the research of international Bible scholars and some 200 competing ancient sources, including the recent discovery of the extraordinary Gospels of Thomas and Mary, Weyler recreates the life of Jesus and his legacy, from the Roman Empire to our present age, and offers a fresh and provocative view of Jesus' message and his mission.
Rex Weyler is the critically acclaimed author of Blood of the Land, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Greenpeace: The Inside Story, which was a finalist for the Shaunghnessy Cohen Award for Political Non-Fiction, the Hubert Evans Award for Non-Fiction, and was named one of the best books of 2004 by the Ottawa Citizen, Halifax Public Libraries, Publishers Weekly, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He is also co-author of the self-help classic, Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life. His photography and essays have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, New Age Journal, and National Geographic. He also appears regularly on Canadian television as a religion commentator and writes for magazines on social issues. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
[Weyler] is a good candidate to take another stab at the man from Galilee...The critically acclaimed author is also a supreme storyteller who writes with warmth, insight and integrity...[The Jesus Sayings] is a well-organized, compelling overview of the past few decades of more than 120 years of the scholarly search for the flesh-and-blood 'historical' Jesus.
...Weyler is wonderfully effective at coming to terms, for the well-informed common reader, with the historically likely realities of Jesus, taking into account not only orthodox Christian resources but so-called apocryphal sources, historical criticism, and recent archaeology. The result is not a Greenpeace Jesus but a complex and historically more satisfying figure.
...[Weyler] offers a wealth of new data about recent archeological discoveries...
Weyler extracts a core message, devoid of talk of miracles or the supernatural...This Jesus defines the kingdom of God as within. Righteousness resides in generosity.
Scores high points in readability, relevance and insight. Weyler shows us that Jesus still has the power to inspire, and that it is up to us to make sure this inspiration draws out the best in humanity, and not the worst.
Weyler takes his readers on a historical tour of the ancient sources...
A supreme storyteller who writes with warmth, insight, and integrity.
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