Editor Reviews:

Product Description:

“This book is… my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord.’” —Benedict XVI

In this bold, momentous work, the pope—in his first book written as Benedict XVI—seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent “popular” depictions and to restore Jesus’ true identity as discovered in the Gospels. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the pope shares a rich, compelling, flesh-and-blood portrait of Jesus and incites us to encounter, face-to-face, the central figure of the Christian faith.

From Jesus of Nazareth… “the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: But what has Jesus really brought, then, if he has not brought world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God! He has brought the God who once gradually unveiled his countenance first to Abraham, then to Moses and the prophets, and then in the wisdom literature—the God who showed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love.”

Rating : - Scholarly, philosophic, passionate look at the real Jesus
There has been a great deal written on the "real" Jesus in recent years. We have had the "Jesus Project" in which a team of scholars has edited the Gospels, to throw out the parts they consider not "real" Jesus. We have had a wide variety of other scholars use various methods of modern scholarly research to cut through what they consider to be the fog of the centuries, to show us who the person Jesus really was. Interestingly, they pretty much all conclude that Jesus was really a modern thinker, whose conclusions pretty much agreed with those of the writer. In other words, we have seen many writers try to take advantage of the prestige of Jesus' name to advance their own modern agendas.

In this book, Joseph Ratzinger tries to give us back the real Jesus. Ratzinger is, of course, one of the world's foremost scholars and theologians. He is very familiar with, and respectful of, modern scholarship. He is also, of course, the current Pope, although he makes it clear that this book is not written as an act of papal authority, but as a personal search for the truth.

His basic conclusion is that the Gospels present Jesus accurately, and that Jesus was the Son of God and the savior of the world. This bald conclusion makes him sound like a fundamentalist, which he is not. He is a man of deep faith, which, of course, one would expect from the Pope.

So, it is not news that the Pope is an ardent believer in Jesus. What is news is the very passionate, simple yet dense way that Ratzinger expounds his case. He does not just tell us that Jesus is the Son of God. He tells us why he says that, how Jesus and His mission are founded in the entire Bible, and what it means to say that he is Son of God. Ratzinger does not simply affirm the faith, he explains it. He makes it a living thing.

Ratzinger's prior big book, of a generation ago, was Introduction to Christianity. It remains a wonderful book. I feel that it is somewhat mis-titled, however. It is not so much an introduction to the religion of Jesus, as it is a sustained argument, to a predominantly secular world, why it should take the idea of God seriously. I feel it is less a specifically Christian book, and more a general case for religion.

This book is a very specifically Christian book. It does not express hostility to other religions, which, of course, we know that the Pope does not feel. It simply is not very concerned about other religions, except for Judiasm, which is discussed at length because it is the religion from which Jesus emerged. This book is totally focused on the Christian view. If you want a one-volume introduction to, and summary of, what Catholics believe, and why they believe it, this is the book you want. It is absolutely magnificent.