In this readable volume, William Barclay presents the best in modern scholarship on how Jesus was perceived by Jewish and Roman contemporaries. Barclay examines all of the names Jesus is called by in the New Testament—including Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man, Lamb of God, High Priest, Lord, the Word, and many more—analyzing what each title meant to those who interacted with Jesus in the first century.
Explore Barclay's theology in more detail with the SCM William Barclay Collection (3 vols.).
“It is significant that the Jewish Rabbis had a saying: ‘Six persons received their names before they were born, namely, Isaac, our great lawgiver Moses, Solomon, Josiah, Ishmael, and the Messiah.’ Jewish belief was that God would say what the name of his Messiah must be.” (Page 11)
“Which would you like me to release to you—Jesus Bar-Abbas, or Jesus called Messiah” (Page 11)
“The name Jesus underlines the real humanity of our Lord” (Page 10)
Herein Dr. Barclay has gathered and expounded the New Testament titles and interpretations of Jesus. Crisp, compact, informed, the book has all the marks of Barclay at his best. As always he draws on an apparently bottomless well of relevant and useful illustrations. There is the characteristic feeling for words and care in translation and exposition.
—Expository Times
Here are the findings of modern scholarship at its best presented in a readable and interesting manner. Some of the intricacies of textual criticism are so ingeniously handled as to make them intelligible to the reader with little or no theological training. Any intelligent churchgoer will benefit from these expositions of scriptural themes, for Dr. Barclay neither minimizes his readers’ intelligence, nor assumes that they possess knowledge of biblical background.
—Church Gazette