Posted 393 days ago

Reviews of Two Provocative Titles

Jesus Before Christianity (1976, 2001) by Albert Nolan, O.P. is a book which removes the lens of Christianity from looking at the historical Jesus, and provides the context for the times in which Jesus lived, walked the Earth, and taught His people. Interestingly, Nolan minimizes Jesus’ supernatural acts and even his divinity, but in a way that more greatly emphasizes the radicalness of the Way He taught. Thus our faith in Jesus as son of God is increased by knowing Him as Jesus the human being. Nolan points how that Jesus never proclaimed his authority nor stated that he was divine and did not even defend himself in his trial, all of which teach us something important about the nature of Jesus. (Full review here.)

The Church Before Christianity (2001) by Wes Howard-Brook. Presented as a sequel to Albert Nolan’s Jesus Before Christianity (1976; rev. 1992), Howard-Brook’s work seeks out the earliest expressions of Christian community (ekklesia) and presses the reader to reflect on their significance for contemporary life and faith. Its guiding supposition is that the earliest discipleship communities and today’s Christians alike are faced with “the effort to remain faithful to the vision of Jesus living in cities amidst the powerful countervailing forces of empire” (11). As a result, H.-B. insists that authentic community (both in the history of Israel and in the early Church) resided in small, localized groups often in conscious reaction to more centralized models of religio-political authority. (Full review here.)

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