Monday, October 17, 2016

Books read in 2016: No. 53 -- Killing Jesus

by Stephen Mansfield

Started: Oct. 14
Finished: Oct. 17

Notes: This book apparently takes a look at the execution of Jesus from a political point of view, which currently interests me more than another rehash of the religious angle. So, I'll give it a try.

Mini review: For the casual Christian reader this might be of some interest, but I found this mainly to be little more than a prose version of the last few days of the life of Jesus. It's not written badly, but this is no deep scholarly work. Most of the information is based upon the Bible, which is to be expected, but I had already read the non-Biblical sources, such as Josephus, etc. Some of this information might be new to others, but it wasn't to me. So, basically, this one wasn't for me. No big deal. I did pick up a few interesting tidbits here and there, but that was about it. I've found most mainstream Christian non-fiction works to either be overly reaffirming, which is annoying and I don't feel necessary for myself, or else they present nothing new, which is more the case here. Probably I should stick to apologists or secular Christian scholars, for at least there I find intellectual challenges.

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I've not investigated this aspect of Christianity. I've been doing a lot of reading from Christians on both sides of the evolution debate.

Ty said...

I've not read deeply concerning that particular debate, but of what I have read, on the religious side I've been more impressed with Jewish than Christian points of view.