The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ

This little book claims to pack a big punch, yet Boyarin (A Radical Jew), professor of Talmudic studies and rhetoric at University of California, Berkeley, may not surprise as many readers as he (or his publisher) hoped he would. The author explains that his goal is to counter a popular assumption: that Jesus brought about a radical change in the theological imagination to include ideas alien and abhorrent to Judaism. Such assumptions indeed exist; but within mainstream biblical scholarship, the Jewishness of Jesus is no longer a source of contention. General readers will appreciate Boyarin’s discussion of passages from Daniel and early Jewish Enoch showing how they anticipate ideas of the Messiah that Jesus represents in the gospels. And Boyarin’s rereading of Mark for its kosher-keeping Jesus is compelling in the best midrashic ways. That the New Testament isn’t simply “a misappropriation of the Old” is also a welcome corrective. The best part of the book, though, is the foreword by Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Jack Miles. (Apr.)