reviewed very critically by N.T. Wright in Who Was Jesus? 1992

The author attempts to relate Jesus as a human person to his abilities to perform miracles. He says he doesn't believe Jesus is Lord, and works for 250 pages to prove his point. There is a lot in the book from the Pseudepigraphia and the Apocrphal Gospels of Thomas and others. While he does cite Josephus and Eusebius, the Bible he uses is the Catholic Jerusalem Bible. Most Protestants would stop reading this book after the first few chapters. Most Catholics would be outraged. I only finished it because I am a church librarian and need to know both sides of arguments. ( )

I have been motivated, over the past month, to read about Christianity. This volume is, in a sense, revisionist. It purports to discuss the latest scholarship as of the date of its publication, 1995, and presents a view of the historical Jesus. The gospels, it points out, were written in about 60-100 CE (for Common Era), and represent as much an attempt to present a Hellenized theology, and to keep the all-powerful Romans from becoming suspicious of revolution, as to record the doings of an actual person. Nonetheless, Wilson tries to identify, by internal textual criticism, elements that are likely memories of Jesus. John's gospel is very different from the other three, and may draw on a different tradition or witness; Matthew Mark and Luke may have a common source document known as Q. Paul's epistles are the earliest works, and he is the true organizer of the wider and hellenized chuch, whereas James, Jesus' brother, and a group in Jerusalem, remained true to Jewish teaching and insisted that converts follow Jewish law. Wilson suggests that Jesus was involved in a failed civil revolution when he was taken to the crucifixition. ( )