Jesus
Overview
Professor David Flusser’s biography of the life of Jesus is the fruit of almost fifty years of personal research concerning what may be considered the most well-known figure of the Second Temple Period. His philological-historical approach calls for a reconsideration of how we read the literary sources. He brings to bear the wealth of new information regarding the first-century setting in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, historical inquiry, and recent archaeological discoveries. What results is a compelling portrait of Jesus which gains additional depth because it is viewed within the context of Jewish thought and life in the first century. Both Jewish and Christian readers will be challenged by the results of Flusser’s study.
The present work is based upon Flusser’s 1968 edition of Jesus. Yet, with the passage of forty years, the new volume has been essentially rewritten to incorporate the wealth of new data. Whereas the previous book, now out of print, represented the beginnings of Flusser’s investigation into the historical Jesus, the present volume is its culmination.
Top Highlights
“Arrogance may have been prevalent among the scribes, but they were not effete academicians. They demanded that everyone teach his son a trade, and many of them were themselves artisans. Carpenters were regarded as particularly learned. If a difficult problem was under discussion, they would ask, ‘Is there a carpenter among us, or the son of a carpenter, who can solve the problem for us?’29 Jesus was a carpenter and/or the son of a carpenter.30 This in itself is no proof that either he or his father were learned, but it counts against the common, sweetly idyllic notion of Jesus as a naïve and amiable, simple, manual workman.” (Page 33)
“The early Christian accounts about Jesus are not as untrustworthy as people today often think. The first three Gospels not only present a reasonably faithful picture of Jesus as a Jew of his own time, but they even consistently retain his way of speaking about the Savior in the third person. An impartial reading of the Synoptic Gospels results in a picture not so much of a redeemer of mankind, but of a Jewish miracle-worker and preacher.” (Page 20)
“This, then, is the ‘realized eschatology’ of Jesus. He is the only Jew of ancient times known to us who preached not only that people were on the threshold of the end of time, but that the new age of salvation had already begun.” (Page 110)
“Most likely, Jesus was baptized in 28/29 and died in the year 30.” (Page 28)
“Before treating this subject more fully, allow me to make a linguistic remark. I belong to those scholars who believe that Jesus’ teaching was in Hebrew and that the Semitic language behind the first three Gospels was Hebrew. On the other hand, the bar ’anosh or Son of Man in Daniel 7:9–14 is an Aramaic expression. Why? Because the whole of Daniel 7 is written in Aramaic. Are we obliged to believe that even if his teaching was in Hebrew, when Jesus was speaking about the ‘son of man’ he used the Aramaic term? Surely not! As we will see momentarily,16 in the Testament of Abraham, the eschatological Son of Man is identified with Abel, the son of the first Adam. This is proof that the Son of Man was so called in Hebrew: ben adam.” (Pages 128–129)
- Title: Jesus
- Author: David Flusser
- Publisher: Magnes Press
- Publication Date: 2001
- Pages: 324
David Flusser is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University where he taught Judaism in the Second Temple Period and Early Christianity. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 1980 he was awarded the Israel Prize in literature.