Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant

Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels Reviews

• 
  Brian Griffith

  Grant brings his expertise in classical history to bear for examining what the Gospel accounts show, or do not show us. His book is old, from 1977, but it’s aged well. You can read many more recent scholarly books on the New Testament and still gain greater understanding from Grant’s work.
  
  A number of his observations seemed important to me, such as the following:
  
  Jesus apparently believed (like probably most of his contemporaries) that the cause of ill-health was sin. When people came to him with illnesses, he pronounced their sins forgiven, and that was the “cure.” He assumed that if you remove guilt over sin, then the source of disease is gone. Lest the point be lost, he was recorded telling a healed man, “Now that you are well again, leave your sinful ways, or you may suffer something worse” (John 5:14).
  
  Concerning Jesus’ baptism, Grant explains “There is no need to explain his baptism away by asserting that he was baptized for the sins of others. The sins for which he accepted baptism were his own” (p. 49). After all, he was reported asking “Why do you call me good?” (Luke 18:19).
  
  Why were people so offended when Jesus forgave sinners? Mainly because they believed he was assuming a power that was God’s alone. They had always believed that only God could forgive sins. But instead of teaching that forgiveness came through doing correct ritual appeals to the Lord, Jesus just forgave people on his own authority. He forgave them as soon as they repented of wrongs, and then told all his followers to do the same thing.
  
  Grant does not exactly ask this, but when the later church explained that Jesus had to sacrifice his life so that God could grant forgiveness for human wrongs, wasn’t that a reversion to the old assumption that only God had the authority to forgive?
  
  Jesus’s main innovation was not to declare that a kingdom of God would come. It was to declare that it had already begun on earth: “Today, in your very hearing this text has come true” (Luke 4:22). And Grant maintains that “This proved entirely wrong. The fulfilment did not take place. So the whole ministry of Jesus was founded on a mistake” (pp. 193-4). But if it was wrong in fact, it unleashed a dream of remarkable power, “seeing that it was he who demonstrated, in his own person, the highest level of attainment of which human beings … have ever proved capable” (p. 195). Grant does not exactly ask this, but when the later church reimagined the kingdom of God as a heavenly abode for the faithful in another life, didn’t that serve to deflect or neutralize the challenge that Jesus’ dream posed to both individuals and society?
  
• 
  Matthew Arnett

  This is supposed to be from the perspective of a historian. Grant acts as a well-versed theologian in his HISTORICAL work. He fails miserably. If he were to have stuck with a historian cannot verify if this claim is accurate due to “x” that would’ve been sufficient. He, instead, went forth to try and explain what he THOUGHT the text meant. I capitalized “thought” because he uses verbiage that is conclusive when it is his opinion. There are varying opinions on certain texts and he is quite conclusive in his statements. That is terrible historiography. Furthermore, he uses texts that are not canonical, which would be fine if the texts he was using didn’t have fantastical claims, such as the letter of Q. Q is hypothetical. You cannot use a hypothetical document as something to use for history. Continuing on - he uses the gospel of Thomas, which was written mid-second century, which is too late to be considered accurate for the historicity of Christ and preaches contrary to the Gospels such as Gnosticism. Here are a few examples that he used conclusive statements when it is simply his opinion:
  
  1) “Weighing up the two choices he had evidently decided that this termination, however painful and wretched, was preferable to pursuing his task in a muted, diplomatic fashion, which in dealing with such absolutes as the divine Kingdom he must have concluded to be impossible. And in any case matters had now gone so far that no such compromise could have exercised any effect.”
  
  Jesus never decided that bringing the Kingdom was impossible. He was crucified not because he failed, which Grant suggests, rather because He succeeded in displaying and proving He was God.
  
  “And then he went away, offered two more prayers, and each time, we are told, he found them still sleeping. Whether they slept or not we cannot tell.”
  
  The text is quite clear… We can, in fact, tell if they were sleeping.
  
  “John adds that he was referring to his own body and its Resurrection after his death. If this applies to the assertion in its original formulation, then it could not have been formulated by Jesus himself, but was inserted after he had died.”
  
  This has no basis of proof. Grant puts this as if there is no debate here; however, he provides nothing to support what he THINKS. This is an opinion, not a fact, as he suggests.
  
  I’ll conclude my review now. I have more examples, but I hope the reader gets the point. I respect the unbeliever when they provide facts and state their opinions are just that. I don’t respect when someone states an opinion as a fact like Grant did all throughout his book.
• 
  Nathan Albright

  Either the person who had this book before me, or possibly someone before him, made the following comment on the blank first page of this book: “This book is hogwash–and the author is no historian.” This viewpoint is a little unkind, certainly more unkind of a review than I would give, yet it gives an essential sort of difficulty that the author of this book makes. For one, historians who seek to deal with the hazardous ground of religious belief face some difficulties that are unavoidable. Too large a hostility to the religious beliefs may appeal to the biases of the scholarly community, but are unlikely to bring the book any sort of credibility with those who are most interested in religion as believers. Too great a belief of what is written in the Bible (or any other religious text) presents a different problem, as the frankly supernatural content offends the worldview of those who believe in a purely materialistic universe. So those who wish to steer a course between savage and irrelevant criticism and profession of belief that would damage academic credentials are forced to steer a somewhat middle course.
  
  To its fairness, this book attempts to do steer that middle course. If it is not as successful in doing so as K.A. Kitchen’s work [1], it is because this author does not have the command of biblical history, culture, and language to make the sort of evidence-based dogmatic stands of Kitchen’s work. As the author of this book has the moderating tendencies of a historian without the knowledge of material (his knowledge of Paul’s theology and approach, for example, is woefully inadequate to the task), the result is equivocal, and unlikely to please either rigorous historians or people of faith. This is not to say that this book is hogwash, or rubbish, or any such thing, because it has some value. Yet its value is certainly limited by the openly admitted but insufficiently overcome biases of the particular historian towards higher criticism and a distrust of the supernatural. However, the main failing of this book, and many like it, is that it presumes to come to the Bible with authority as a judge and as a critic rather than coming to God and His Messiah as a humble supplicant for mercy. It is that initial error that serves as the foundation for the rest of the many dubious statements made in this book that often overshadow the author’s occasional canny insight.
  
  For, it ought to be openly admitted that this book is at times very clever and insightful. The book begins, after a short introduction, with an analysis of the central importance of the Kingdom of God to the career of Jesus Christ, before looking at a set of titles and identities that Jesus Christ was connected with (the Galilean, Prophet and Teacher, Messiah, Son of Man, and son of God), before looking at a somewhat threadbare narrative of his ministry in Galilee, his fatal challenge in Jerusalem, his death by crucifixion, and the triumph of the resurrection. The author does not draw the evidence of the dramatic change in the mentality of the disciples to their conclusion, but then again he does not accept the veracity of a great deal of the Gospels except for some minimalistic historical kernel, which cuts against any attempt to draw from scriptures anything that does not already correspond to the historian’s own worldview. This book is therefore a missed opportunity, but not a total waste either.
  
  [1]
  https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
• 
  Jim Tyrone

  Provocative. I’m rereading this for the second time. The author makes the claim that we misunderstand so much about Jesus because we don’t understand writings and customs of the time; e.g., followers of a rabbi wouldn’t think of asking whether events in a story were real or not. He makes the argument that many of Jesus’ stories and proclamations were strongly influenced by his belief that he was ushering in the Kingdom of God.
• 
  Justinian

  2009-06 - Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Author, Michael Grant. 264 pages. 1977.
  
  I picked this book up for free at a local library give away last year. I finally got around to reading it. I picked it up because I was familiar with the writer’s work on the Roman Army and wanted to see what he brought to the table on this topic.
  
  This book review has been one of the most difficult I have written. Partly because this book was very good, thought provoking, and I thought the author did a very good job of meeting his objective. The topic (Jesus Christ) and the narrow approach (looking only at the Gospels) of this book make it a difficult subject to actually write about. While much has been written about Jesus Christ by many people from many different approaches; I have found that too often we think we know what Jesus said and what he meant. But truthfully it too often turns out that it is usually only what others have said about him or what others have said he meant. This is especially true in the religious circles. And there has been so much that in a real sense the historical Jesus has been lost in the imagery.
  
  Imagery which has been piled on by both the religious proponents and the secular pro/opponents. Peeling back this imagery, these attributions and viewing the historical man and his actions in the context of his times and locale is quite difficult. The greatest reason for this difficulty is the work of his followers themselves. They have so changed the world in his name that getting a real sense of the pre-Christian society in the Roman Near East or even of the society he preached, walked, and lived in is extremely difficult. And Jesus Christ was a product of his time and of his locality. Much of what he said, preached, and much of what he did followed norms for holy men in and around Galilee in that era.
  
  Comparing his words and actions with contemporaries and near contemporaries you can easily fail to see the radical and revolutionary aspect of what he was doing. Many other holy men preached about the end times, the coming of the kingdom, repentance, and some even could have worked miracles. But only Jesus affirmed that he, and he alone was initiating the Kingdom of God. This was a radical statement and it is in that statement or rather the evaluation of that statement that I diverge from the author of this book in regards to his evaluation.
  
  From a historians perspective yes, this part of the mission statement has not come to pass. But if you correctly understand Jesus’ admonishments to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s because earthly things matter not in the light of the impending Kingdom but fail to see the that the kingdom of God was truly established when Jesus descended in death and rendered death itself obsolete you have missed the key aspect. I suppose though that this is the difference between a historians approach and a theological approach. Not at odds necessarily but each could be viewed as incomplete on its own.
  
  Separating the theological, and focusing only on Jesus in the Gospels, and in a historical context the image of Jesus is surprising. He is not the meek and mild image beloved of greeting cards but rather a sharp tongued fiery personality who has no time for compromising or wheeling and dealing. The Kingdom is too important for anything else and the time for the Kingdom is at hand! He can easily move among those whom Judaism of that time views as unclean, undesirable, or scandalous because he has no such earthly ties or restrictions and views such as folly in the face of the Kingdom. He comes across as charismatic with a courage bordering on suicidal, which can in fact be seen as the truth. He new he was going to die if he continued as he was doing and he did not flinch; rather he narrowed and sharpened his rhetoric and actions. Tossing aside theology, Jesus stands as the single greatest example of the humanist ideal. He, through his preaching, his example, his charisma and courage shows us all what a single person is capable of … changing the world.
  
  It perhaps the narrowing of the topic to the Gospels which has made this the most difficult review to write. There is a gap between the life and death of Jesus, the writing of the Epistles and other letters, the separation of Christianity from Judaism into its own faith group, the writing of the Gospels, the growth and formalization of the Church, the standardization of the canon. The author alludes this several times in the text. The intervening periods of time and the experiences of Jesus’ followers does have an impact on what is written, subtracted, added, omitted, and nuanced in these scriptures. Essentially it must be remembered that although the author is approaching these texts from the point of view of a historian and treating the texts therefore as historical source documents he also correctly states that they are primarily a spiritual text. The accuracy/validity of the history is always secondary to the spiritual/theological. To believe otherwise is to not understand the very thing Jesus was actually preaching about … the imminence of the Kingdom and therefore the unimportance of earthly things and attachments. In his own words, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
• 
  Rick

  A classical scholar and distinguished numismatist, Grant during his long life also wrote scores of popular books on topics related to ancient and imperial Rome, including this one in 1977, though I don’t believe it was one of his bigger sellers. Unlike the much more recent book by Reza Aslan this is not a biography of Jesus but, as the subtitle states, an historian’s take on the Christian Gospels. Still there is overlap and points of agreement, despite over three additional decades of scholarship between the two books, and a few disagreements too. Interestingly, as if anticipating the minority opinion that challenged Aslan’s right to take up the topic, Grant dismisses the notion that there be any prerequisite beyond interest and capable scholarship to tackle the subject.
  
  Both agree that Jesus was probably not born in Bethlehem but in Nazareth. They both discuss the meaning of messiah and the phrases Son of Man and Son of a God and, using textual analysis, which sayings in the gospels attributed to Jesus can reliably traced back to the historical Jesus and which may have been later additions by those who wrote the gospels, the earliest being a couple of decades after his death and latest being perhaps four or five decades or more after. Both agree that Jesus was a threat to established order and was crucified by Pilate’s order, though Grant gives credence to the gospel-described reluctance of Pilate to make the call urged by the Jewish High Priest while Aslan does not, scoffing at the idea that Pilate would have been subject to manipulation or would have given second thoughts to crucifying a rabble rouser who claimed or was claimed to be king of the Jews. Pilate was the partner in governance with the upper hand and had no qualms about executing troublemakers. Both describe the rift between Jerusalem’s Jewish Christians and those who followed Paul’s teachings as a critical division unintentionally resolved by Rome’s imperial actions in response to the Jewish Revolt.
  
  They disagree on Jesus’ pre-mission socio-economic station in life. Grant viewing him as likely from a family of relative means, a carpenter or architect, while Aslan interprets it as a meaner circumstance, a humble day-laborer. Both suggest that the gospel tendency to source Jesus’ execution to Jewish leaders rather than Rome had to do with trying to distance Christians from the stigma of the Jewish Revolt and make it easier for Romans to embrace the new faith by a) making Jesus more a respecter of Roman authority and b) Rome less an agent of his death. This expediency, of course, had diabolical consequences for Jews throughout medieval Europe and beyond. Overall Grant provides a readable run through the Christian gospels, not compelling or radical, with an odd take up of a contemporary comparison that seems pretty frivolous (a 1970s leftist romantic comparison of Che Guevara to Jesus, which he dismisses as false however fashionable).
• 
  Marfita

  Grant makes Jesus' failed ministry sound much more interesting than I had ever thought possible. His failure makes his triumph after his death that much more amazing. There's nothing new in this book to anyone who has read any biblical criticism, but it is cogently argued and logically arranged. Every now and then I demanded to know his source for his assertions and have made note of them for further review, but I think Grant knows his onions here. And besides, he looked really cute in those shorts when he hosted the Trojan War series. Ohh-lala!
  This is a good book for anyone (even Christians!) interested in "an historian's" perspective of Jesus and the evangelists.
• 
  Erik Graff

  While Michael Grant was certainly a competent scholar and writer, his popular works have been usually unsatisfying, probably because they repeat so much that is already familiar. This is particularly the case with his biographies of ancient persons.
  
  Jesus is such a case. At best, it was a refresher. There was nothing new to it either in terms of evidences or in terms of interpretation. A Christian might find this book helpful, however, in that it does treat the historical Jesus much as a normal biography would cover someone like Tiberius.
• 
  Clare

  Grant does an admirable job of applying historical methods to a reading of the gospels. This is a brief but fairly convincing account of the man Jesus might have been, had we only historical tools in order to understand him.
• 
  Carl Williams

  
  
  Though perhaps a bit dated in some of the research presented and interpenetration of traditional points of view, this book remains a good dock to jump from in considering the significance and work of the historical Jesus.
• 
  Wes Pue

  Good grief, did this author work hard to produce this readable, intelligent book. Knowledge of ancient languages such as aramaic, greek, and hebrew, and first century culture - especially the diverse streams of Judaism- is just a starting point. It only rarely foregrounds its own 1970's origin.
• 
  Michael Anderson

  Valuable as a historian's perspective.
• 
  David Withun

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• 
  Kelly Shull

  I thought this was a really interesting perspective, and made a lot of sense, although it does feel a little outdated in places.
• 
  Barry Parham

  Nothing personal, anyone, but nothing here for me.
• 
  Bodin Starcevic

  Amazing!