What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills bases the premise that Christianity today is nothing like the way Jesus would have wanted it. Wills believes that Jesus' messages have been misconstrued over time. Wills believes that Jesus was a radical of his time. The book tries to place Jesus in today's society hanging out with prostitutes, sinners and eating with the poor. I think people will learn something from this book.
There is a beautiful new book about Jesus, God , faith and what you will do after death entitled "The Enlightenment, What God Told Me After One Million Prayers: A Message for Everyone," by John H. Eagan. I just finished it. It's really great and deals with God, the creator, Jesus' teachings, and His Passion. It brought me to tears. I think the readers of Wills' book will really enjoy The Enlightenment
A remarkable devotional by a remarkable scholar (Rating 5 of 5)
» Craig
I rank this among my favorite Christian writings. Insight into Jesus' ministry and the culture of his time. I have read and re-read and am left with a better understanding of the gospels
Gary Wills is a heretic (Rating 2 of 5)
» Bobby Bambino
I'm quite disappointed that there are people in this world who can openly dissent from church teaching yet write and act as though the Church is the one dissenting. Wills thinks of himself as God by interpreting the bible to his own likings and to fit his own beliefs
Thank God Gary Wills is here to set us right (Rating 1 of 5)
» Seamus MacDougle
As a 26 year old Catholic I love Reading this guys work. It is so comical. He is a poster boy of the old guard still trying to reinterpret Christianity to serve their tired old hippie agenda. Thank God young Catholics and most of all young Priests don't fall for this hogwash. Of all this clowns books this is the worst(well Papal Sin was pretty darn dumb). In it he actualy deigns to tell us what Jesus realy meant. Because you know, two thousand years of scholarship not to mention the gospels have been wrong. The ego mania on this man knows no end. Apparently he fancies himself a lone prophet telling us the truth. Go Gary!!
Will's God (Rating 5 of 5)
» Todd Stockslager
I am most familiar with the Garry Wills who writes scholarly historical treatises on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, even Henry Adams (Henry Adams and the Making of America). Lately, he's been busy writing essays on spiritual issues as a devout Catholic, and as I always liked and respected historical work, I took this slim volume for a spin . . .
. . . And a worthwhile use of time it was. Wills explicates the difficulty we sinful humans have in dealing with Jesus as he was, not what we want him to be. With the lone exception of justifying homosexuality as natural and not sinful, through a rather self-consciously torturous argument, Wills makes cogent and though-provoking points. He relies on ideas from masters of the faith such as Augustine, St. Francis, and Chesterton, and his own translations of the "marketplace Greek" of the New testament.
A couple of interesting points. In the Garden, as Jesus returns to where he left Peter and a small set of the disciples with the admonition to stay awake while he prayed, Wills translates the aphorism "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" as a complete sentence that may have applied to Jesus, not Peter as the semi-colon in the NASB translation implies. And indeed, as the God-Man prayed prostrate on the ground and sweat blood in his anguish, His flesh was weak even as His spirit said "Not My will but Thine."
At another spot, discussing the Last Supper and the meaning of the breaking of bread, Wills refers to the "Our Father" and points out the difficulty of translating "daily" bread, as the word rendered "daily" means roughly "approaching" in English, and more literally can be rendered "to come", " or "to be". The "to be" sense is captured in "daily", but Wills links the prayer for the bread "To come" to the Lord's offering of the bread, representing His body, at the Last Supper! Intriguing, and spiritually powerful.
And not very Catholic! His ideas about the Last Supper seem decidedly non-transsubstantiational, if that's a word
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