The Life of Jesus Christ
Overview
Many biographies of Christ's life have been published through the years, but most have lasted only a short time. This volume, first printed in 1880, continues to be in demand. The Life of Jesus Christ is known in every English-speaking country and has been translated into many foreign languages. The reasons for its continued success are not hard to find. The details of Christ's life are presented in a clear and flowing style and are molded into an easily comprehended whole. Doctrinally sound, vivid in detail, as authentic as study and research can make it, this work will long hold the place it won when first written by this noted Scottish theologian.
From the Introduction to the Print Edition
"THE LIFE OF CHRIST IS an exhaustless theme. It reveals a character of greater massiveness than the hills, of serener beauty than the stars, of sweeter fragrance than the flowers; higher than the heavens in sublimity and deeper than the seas in mystery. As good Jean Paul has eloquently said, 'It concerns Him who, being the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, lifted with His pierced hands empires off their hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of its channels, and still governs the ages.'
"...His name and the power of His name, are written in the learning, art, science, government of all these ages, and they blaze conspicuously on the fair brow of modern civilization. How intensely interesting, and how immensely important then must be the biography that explains th secret of such measureless potency, and that lays bare the cause of such gigantic and practically boundless sovereignty. Only in the faithful record of the Life in the narrative of its origin, surroundings, vicissitudes, peculiarities and consummation can the true solution of the problem involved be discovered; and it is this conviction that leads so many thoughtful students to lavish the wealth of their learning on biographies of Jesus, and that constrains so many more earnest inquirers to ponder unweariedly the results of their labors. They alike delve among the roots that they may understand the flower; they dive into the spring that they may comprehend the stream; they uncover the footprints that they may measure the feet, and they lift once more the dead hand into life that they may ascertain how it sways so mighty a scepter."
Stalker's work includes a section at the back entitled "Hints for Teachers and Questions for Pupils." This supplement contains notes and "further reading" suggestions for those teaching on the life of Christ, along with a number of questions over each chapter for students to discuss.
Top Highlights
“It was a Messianic demonstration such as He had formerly avoided” (Page 115)
“It is said that as many as two or three millions of strangers were gathered in Jerusalem on such an occasion” (Page 113)
“Not armed to the teeth or bestriding a war-horse did He come, but as the King of simplicity and peace” (Page 115)
“But, in spite of all this religiosity, religion had sadly declined. The externals had been multiplied, but the inner spirit had disappeared.” (Page 32)
“The Pharisees were ardent patriots, ever willing to lay down their lives for the independence of their country, and hating the foreign yoke with impassioned bitterness. They despised and hated other races, and clung with undying faith to the hope of a glorious future for their nation. But they had so long harped on this idea, that they had come to believe themselves the special favorites of Heaven, simply because they were descendants of Abraham, and to lose sight of the importance of personal character. They multiplied their Jewish peculiarities, but substituted external observances, such as fasts, prayers, tithes, washings, sacrifices, and so forth, for the grand distinctions of love to God and love to man.” (Pages 32–33)
Praise for the Print Edition
The ease, the lucidity, the crystalline clearness with which the familiar story is retold are the last result of years of patient study and deep meditation. Dr. Stalker writes clearly because he sees clearly. The dead past has lived again before him; and it lives still for us in these graphic, vivid pages. Yet, throughout, the imagination works under wise restraints. The small canvas is never overcrowded. The leading facts of the history are seized and fixed with a master hand; the rest is forgotten. In nothing is the touch of the true literary artist more clearly seen than in the skill with which the writer has first selected and then grasped his materials. His book is a miracle of condensation, a miniature masterpiece.
—Dr. George Jackson
Product Details
- Author: James Stalker
- Publication Date: 1882
- Pages: 166
- Biographical info on Stalker by Alexander Gammie.