Book Review

Pope Benedict seeks to enrich views on Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth | By Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, translated by Adrian Walker | Random House/Doubleday (New York, 2007). 374 pp., $24.95.

Review by John F. Fink

As you know, or can see by looking at page 5 each week, Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein’s column is called “Seeking the Face of the Lord.” It’s interesting,

therefore, that Pope Benedict XVI wrote that his new book, Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, $24.95), is “my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord.’ ”

This is an unfinished book. It begins with Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River and ends with his Transfiguration.

In the book’s foreword, the pope explains that he decided to publish the first 10 chapters of the book as Part One because “I do not know how much more time or strength I am still to be given” in order to complete Part Two. That part will, he wrote, include the infancy

narratives as well as the rest of Jesus’ life, death and

resurrection.

Popes have long published encyclicals, the highest form of papal teaching, and Pope Benedict wrote his first encyclical, “God Is Love,” while he was finishing this book. Jesus of Nazareth, though, is not an encyclical.

He wrote in its foreword that it “is in no way an exercise of the magisterium” so “everyone is free to contradict me.”

He began to write the book in 2003, while he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. After being elected pope, he “used every free moment to make progress on the book.”

Michael Dubriel, a book editor at Our Sunday Visitor, reported that he read the pope’s 374-page book in one day. I guess it’s possible to speed-read the book, but why would anyone want to do that? This is a book that should be read slowly then read again.

Those who have read Cardinal Ratzinger’s previous books will recognize the style of this book. Although it does indeed go from the baptism to the Transfiguration, it’s not a chronological account of Jesus’ life. Rather, it’s a series of essays about who Jesus was. After an initial reflection on the

mystery of Jesus, he does indeed begin with Jesus’ baptism and temptations, but then abandons chronology.

For example, he doesn’t follow Jesus’ temptations in the desert with the calling of the disciples or the wedding feast at Cana. He discusses the disciples in Chapter 6 and the wedding feast in an essay on vine and wine in a chapter about the principal images of John’s Gospel.

One of the longest chapters is about the Sermon on the Mount, followed by essays on the seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. His chapter on the parables includes essays on only three of them—the Good Samaritan, the Two Brothers and the Good Father (sometimes called the Prodigal Son parable), and the Rich Man and Lazarus. In the final chapter, Jesus clearly declares his identity, repeating God’s name for himself in the Old Testament—“I am.”

Perhaps everyone will have a favorite chapter. Certainly one of the most intriguing is the one on John’s Gospel, especially concerning its authorship and the identity of the “beloved disciple.”

Throughout the book, Pope Benedict quotes others who have written about Jesus, some who agree with him and others who don’t. Naturally, he disagrees with those who have written that the “historical Jesus” is completely

different from the “Christ of faith.” He says that the

historical-critical method is an indispensable tool, but it has its limits, on which he elaborates.

Quotations from the Old Testament are used throughout the book to show that the Old Testament pointed the way to Jesus, the new Moses. Jesus, in fact, is the greater Moses since Moses, while speaking to God as a friend, did not see his face. “Only the one who is God sees God—Jesus,” the pope writes.

We hope that God will give Pope Benedict the time and the strength to complete Part Two of this magnificent book.

(John F. Fink is editor emeritus of The Criterion.) †