Human Christ - Hardcover

Luke Timothy Johnson Candler School of Theology, Emory UniversityEngagingly written, "The Human Christ" combines impressive erudition in the history of biblical scholarship with page-turning cultural commentary and -- let's face it -- gossip. I stayed up all night reading it and had a wonderful time. Allen supplements Albert Schweitzer's classic study by extending it to contemporary fads and controversies. She supplants Schweitzer by showing how the search for a historical Jesus has never been only an academic enterprise. From the start it has had religious motivations that can only be understood within more complex cultural and intellectual contexts. Her subplot dealing with the disappearance and reappearance of Jesus the Jew is particularly fascinating. "The Human Christ" is required reading for anyone wanting a sense of how to evaluate current headlines dealing with the Jesus Seminar and the never-ending flow of new historical Jesuses.

A response to Paula Fredriksen's review in National Review
Paula Fredriksen's review of "The Human Christ" for National Review misquotes the text twice and the jacket once (the jacket does not call me "an accomplished journalist," but rather, "a contributing editor at Lingua Franca"). Elsewhere, her review contains astonishing bloopers for the professional scholar that she claims to be: confusing King Hezekiah with his father, King Ahaz, and Origen's Dialogue with Heraclides with Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Romans, for example. I refer interested readers to my letter to National Review setting the record straight. Two professional biblical scholars read the galleys of "The Human Christ" before publication: Luke Timothy Johnson of Emory University, author of "The Real Jesus," and Leander E. Keck of the Yale Divinity School. Johnson said: "I stayed up all night reading ["The Human Christ"] and had a wonderful time." Keck said: "This concise, clearl! y written book should be read and pondered...especially by students taking courses in 'the historical Jesus.'"