Galilean Jewishness of Jesus

In The Galilean Jewishness of Jesus, the first of a three-volume series, author Bernard J. Lee, S.M., reconstructs the historical, cultural and religious fabric of Galilee in the time of Jesus and examines four kinds of Jews who would have been familiar to the religious landscape of Jesus' Galilee: teacher, Pharisee, wandering charismatic, eschatological prophet. Author Lee shows how Christians today can interpret the meaning of Jesus in a way that is both adequate to their religious experience and yet does not violate Jesus' Jewishness. "This work is especially innovative in its placing of the discussion of Jesus' Jewishness and its christological implications clearly within the context of the contemporary discussion of theological hermeneutics. Bernard Lee's stress on the Jewish-Christian dialogue as the primal form of interreligious dialogue picks up on a crucial understanding initially articulated by the Protestant theologian Karl Barth. His recognition that in the effort at developing a non-supersessionist christology the church must still probe the uniqueness of Jesus is right on target. The work is excellent in showing the positive linkages between Jesus and the much maligned Pharisaic movement within Second Temple Judaism....it is an important, well presented, well documented book that will prove enriching both for the generalist as well as the scholar in the field." —John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., Catholic Theological Union "If Christians had been more sensitive to the absolute Jewishness of Jesus from the very beginning, the Holocaust would have been unthinkable. The conscious retrieval of Christian Jewishness which Bernard Lee provides us with here will help make history safer for Jews and Christians." —Harry Cargas Webster University "Interest in the empirical-historical Jesus not only does not die out, but scholars like Bernard Lee are exploring new, more fruitful, and potentially revolutionary ways of approaching Jesus.... What Lee ingeniously attempts in this volume is to set Jesus, not simply within the context of Judaism, but within the context of Galilean Judaism. That Jesus was a Jew but a non-Judean Jew, a northern, Galilean Jew, is a point so obvious that, like the forest, it has been missed by those who have minutely examined individual trees. Bernard Lee does not miss it." —Clark Williamson Christian Theological Seminary †