Book Review, 24 May 2007
Reviewed by Fergus Kerr

Christ in faith and history

Jesus of Nazareth: from the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration
Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI
Bloomsbury, £14.99
Tablet bookshop price £13.50 Tel 01420 592974

Benedict XVI writes Jesus of Nazareth not as Pope ("it goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the Magisterium") but as one theologian among others ("everyone is free, then, to contradict me"). A second instalment is planned but, not knowing how much more time or strength he will have, he publishes this much now.

So well translated from the German by Adrian J. Walker that it reads as if written in English, this book of some 350 pages seeks to counteract the impression, which "has by now penetrated deeply into the minds of the Christian people at large", that the "Christ of faith" has little or nothing to do with the "historical Jesus", as the jargon goes. On the contrary, although the gospels' picture of Jesus is, as the Pope agrees, the product of selection and revision, which critical-historical analysis lays bare, it does not follow that the "real" Jesus remains unknown. Rather, the unique relationship that the historical Jesus had with the God of Moses is a matter of fact, demonstrably, and not a way of viewing him conceived afterwards by theologically inventive followers. The Pope recalls books about Jesus from his youth, by Karl Adam, Romano Guardini and others, all of course written before Pope Pius XII's encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) authorised Catholic scholars to subject the gospels to critical-historical analysis. The challenge, then, is to write a book that inspires and confirms faith in Jesus, while completely accepting the legitimacy of the historical-critical method.

Whether many Catholics in Britain have as yet had their faith disturbed by the reductive and somewhat sceptical procedures of historical-critical exegesis may be doubted. In professional circles, however, teachers of Christian doctrine have long felt uneasy. New Testament scholars, on the other hand, are often reluctant to connect their conclusions as historians with the doctrines about Jesus that good Catholics believe. The Pope regards Rudolf Schnackenburg (1914-2002) as the greatest Catholic New Testament scholar of recent times. Jesus of Nazareth is quite explicitly an attempt to write the book that Schnackenburg tried but ultimately failed to write towards the end of his life, seeking to harmonise analysis of the gospels as literary constructs with traditional Christian doctrine.

An eight-page glossary has been supplied by the publishers, explaining 90 terms, such as Aramaic, icon, liturgy and Magisterium; and also, more fundamentally, Christology, Epiphany and Incarnation (although not Christmas or Resurrection). Perhaps this is to help anti-Christian media pundits skimming the book in the hope of finding illiberal thoughts. Make no mistake, however: this book will be hard going for those who need the glossary.

The book concludes (there is no index) with 10 workmanlike pages of annotated bibliography by the author. He refers mostly to recent German scholarship. Like any fair-minded academic, he recommends books of which he does not entirely approve. In commending John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew, for example, he directs us to the review by Jacob Neusner, presumably critical in a way that he endorses, though unhappily for us in a rather inaccessible journal. C.H. Dodd on the parables, C.K. Barrett, Raymond E. Brown and Francis J. Moloney on St John's gospel complete the tally of books written in English.

The central theme, to put it simply, is that Jesus brought the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - the true God - to the Gentiles. Furthermore, he knew what he was doing. Thus, the first three chapters deal with the baptism, the temptations and the preaching of the Kingdom of God, each freshly considered, indebted explicitly to the German exegetes Joachim Jeremias and Joachim Gnilka.

The fourth chapter, among the longest (over 60 pages), dealing with the Sermon on the Mount, brings the central theme to the fore. In dialogue with Moses and the tradition of Israel, Jesus understood himself as the Torah - as the Word of God in person. This chapter is written in dialogue with "the great Jewish scholar" Jacob Neusner, whose book A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, the Pope says, opened his eyes to what he wanted to say.

He goes on to discuss the Lord's Prayer, the disciples and the Parables (with lengthy exegesis of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Rich Man and Lazarus). The chapter on the fourth gospel opens with 20 pages refuting Bultmann's thesis - which "shaped half a century's reading of the text" - that it derives from Gnostic sources. For students brought up on Dodd, Barrett and suchlike British scholars, Bultmann was never so persuasive. The rest of the chapter (over 50 pages) offers a deeply meditated analysis of the symbolism of water, vine and wine, bread, and the shepherd, in Jesus' discourses.

The final two chapters deal with Peter's confession, the Transfiguration, and Jesus' self-designation as "Son of Man", "Son" and "I am he". Like Moses, he speaks face to face with God as a friend, knowing all along (however) that his communion with God was unique. Of course this will give rise to debate. Like such maverick scholars as François Dreyfus and John C. O'Neill, the Pope holds that "scientific" exegesis of the New Testament does not necessarily show that Jesus did not know his own identity.

The Pope indulges in a few sideswipes: the "cruelties of capitalism", aid programmes to developing countries that are often destructive because of the West's "technocratic mind-set", and so on. "Modern liturgists" who regard the Sunday Mass obligation as a "Constantinian aberration" puzzle him. Translations of Scripture that, indifferent to Jewish sensitivities, spell out the most sacred name of God he finds deplorable. As regards critical-historical biblical scholarship, however, the tone throughout is respectful and irenic, a model of how to conduct theological debate.

Not much to contradict here, then, but a great deal to reread, to question and reflect upon. This is a theologian on top form. Indeed, this is the best of Professor Ratzinger's many fine books - so far!

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