Zealot

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
© 2013 Raza Aslan
337 pages

Reza Aslan’s Zealot searches for the historical Jesus and finds him as a religious revolutionary, one who anticipated the imminent demise of the Roman Empire. No gentle Jesus meek and mild, nor Buddha-like figure whose notion of the kingdom of God was a metaphor for enlightened living, Jesus was a man of his times – a working-class carpenter who saw no distinction between the oppressive Romans and the corrupt class of priests in the legalistic Temple who were their lackeys. Preaching about the end of days in an province of the region frequently wracked by would-be messiahs inciting rebellion, Jesus of Nazareth was promptly executed in the style reserved for ‘bandits’,  crucified publicly as an example  of what happened to those who defied Rome.  The city of Jerusalem, and the Temple, joined him in destruction decades later, in a war in which the Christians took no part, seeing in the Romans’ rage evidence that the End had finally begun – and shortly thereafter,  the Gospels were written, and increasingly in such a way as to hide Jesus’ original message. But the historical facts that can be beaten out of the gospel accounts, writes Aslan, and they reveal him to be a passionate foe of the then-status quo, and one taken seriously as a secular, not a spiritual, threat. Aslan doesn't delve into what role if any the historical Jesus was to play in the end of things, but his aggressive forecasting certainly brought his own: in an state in which casting the Emperor's horoscope was treason, predicting his imminent fall was sure to make Rome irritated. What sets Aslan's account part from many other works is its style; though versed in theology and textual criticism (Aslan was a Muslim convert to Christianity,  and reverted while becoming a biblical scholar), this is no academic work. Aslan writes like a novelist, in which Jesus and his disciples are the reader's intimates and the events of their lives are happening now, in the present tense. I suspect this is why it's so popular, for Aslan is less a lecturer and more a storyteller.

Aslan's conclusion is similar to Bart Ehrman's, who in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium concluded that Jesus was one of many powerfully charismatic Jewish teachers forecasting the end of the world tomorrow, though in Aslan's view he was seen as a threat to personally ignite the power keg that was first-century Judea. Zealot is worth reading if for no other reason than to appreciate how much anxious energy rippled through the world of the gospels. No static background for nice stories about good Samaritans and healing the lame: first-century Jerusalem was a literal battleground -- between warring sects, the sects and the authorities, and between the authorities.  On the whole, it's quite riveting. but I'm uncertain about the scholarship. I'm sympathetic to his view because I've read one similar to it, but one better established (again, Ehrman), but the book is dotted with odd translations and sweeping statements like "the gospels were never meant to accurately portray Jesus' life'.   To be sure, the Gospels are loaded with shall we say, extra-historical content, but that doesn't mean they're the equivalent of stories about George Washington cutting down cherry trees.  The novel-like aspects of the book fascinated me, but were also bothersome upon retrospect; I suppose I'm a bit of a snob in that I think serious, academic work has to be just a little bit staid.

Ultimately,  Aslan's claims are noteworthy, but ought to be considered carefully.

Misquoting Jesus

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
© 2005 Bart Ehrman
256 pages

Contrary to popular belief, the King James Bible did not fall out of the sky, a gift from a loving deity to his people below. In Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman delves into the human side of the Christian New Testament, introducing lay readers to textual analysis and demonstrating how scribes and theologians in the early centuries of the church tweaked verses while copying them, either to correct mistakes as they saw them or to stress a theological point.  Ehrman writes not to attack the New Testament’s credibility, but rather to make readers aware that the text they cherish has a life and history of its own.  Understanding that history means gleaning new insight into early Christianities as well, for even after one theological view won out over another, the evidence of battle lays in subtle alterations. Some are subtle indeed: changing a single brushstroke in one word (changing an O into a Φ ) could assert Jesus as God made manifest. Others are more obvious, like Jesus’ “anger” at a leper being converted into ‘compassion’ for him, even though later in the same story he harshly rebukes said leper and his inserted  compassion seems out of place.  Ehrman almost avoids arguing for any sweeping changes; the broadest alteration of text he observes is that Paul seems to contract himself about the role of women in the church within the same book (1st Corinthians), indicating that a later follower might have put words into his patron’s mouth.   Only the strictest literalist would be made uneasy by  Ehrman’s revelations.  For the rest of us,  Misquoting Jesus is a fascinating work that makes one appreciate how much passion has been poured even into making copies of texts,

The Misunderstood Jew

The Misunderstood Jew: the Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
© 2007 Amy-Jill Levine
250 pages

 Amy-Jill Levine is a Jew for Jesus. No, not that kind of Jew -- she's happily Orthodox, thank you very much. But she grew up with Christian friends and developed an interest in Christian culture to the point that as a child, her Barbie and Ken dolls took celebrated Eucharist with one another -- and as an adult, she teaches on the New Testament at a largely Protestant divinity school. As someone who cherishes both religious traditions, she writes to help Christians and Jews understand one another, and believes that such an understanding may and must be rooted on the fact that Jesus, the inspiration of Christianity, was thoroughly Jewish. He is neither a heretical figure Jews should distance themselves from, nor a theological revolutionary who rendered Judaism irrelevant to those who followed him.


The first chapter covers material which I expected to be the whole of the book; using the gospel accounts  to establish that Jesus was a Jew in practice, beliefs, manners, and dress. Some of this is open to interpretation -- Levine believes that Jesus simply taught the heart of Judaism without answering to particularly restrictive schools of it and emphasizes that the Christian perception of Jewish orthodoxy is somewhat skewed given that the Pharisees of the bible are written as villains.   After this she devotes a chapter to the growth of the Christian church  from a small community of Jews to a network of communities spread out around the Mediterranean basin, dominated by 'Gentiles'.  As the church moves further away from Judaism, hostility between the two now-divergent faiths increases, and this leads into several chapters on anti-Semitism. First, Levine examines claims that the New Testament is explicitly anti-Jewish. She doesn't believe so, but allows that it CAN be used in an anti-Jewish fashion,  and this is a source of agitation for her throughout the book. She even devotes a chapter ("With Friends Like These...") to attacking liberal theologians who see Christ as rescuing spirituality from religion...because, since the religion in question is Judaism, they must not think very much of it. This chapter bothered me, for Levine seems overly sensitive. Criticizing the perceived excesses of first-century Judaism is no more anti-Jewish than criticizing the abuses of the Israeli state is anti-Semitic. Excesses are excesses regardless of who perpetuates them.  Unfortunately, Levine doesn't seem to keen on the idea of admitting that there were excesses at the time, when surely there must have been -- when has an institution with the power of religion never been abused?

The final chapter, however, ends things on a high note. In "Distinct Canons; Distinct Practices", Levine drives home the point that Judaism and Christianity are different religions: Jewish theology and Christian theology aren't the same. The best example is that of original sin and the fall from grace. It is Paul who invents the idea that Jesus died as a sacrifice to redeem people, and it is Christians who are obsessed with the idea of sin and it keeping them from the afterlife. Judaism isn't about the afterlife. 

While the book has its merits, I left ultimately disappointed. I think more space should have been devoted to first-century Judaism to more fully establish the context of Jesus' life, especially since first-century Judaism and modern Orthodox Judaism are as different as first-century Christianity and its modern forms. Jesus' Jewish audience shares ideas with him that no modern Jew would profess -- belief in Satan as a villain, for instance,  seen as an evil dragon.  They're also obsessed by the end of the world; that apocalyptic fire is now largely dead. The Misunderstood Jew should still be of use to Christians who are utterly oblivious about Judaism, but I think the the audience it would best serve are Jews who are leery of both Jesus and the New Testament, for Levine does establish that Jesus and the gospel accounts are firmly rooted in Jewish culture and not hostile to it. 

Related:

• Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible through Jewish Eyes, John Shelby Spong
• Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Bart Ehrman

I haven't read either of these, but I'm fans of both of the authors and look forward to experiencing the books at some point. 

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering
© 2005 David Gregory
100 pages


 When  Nick Cominsky received a personalized dinner invitation from Jesus of Nazareth, self-proclaimed Deity Extraordinaire, he was more than a little dubious. Obviously, his friends have concocted yet another wild joke. Since springing their trap is more interesting than helping his wife tend to their 20-month old, Nick drops in by the appropriate Italian restaurant on his way home to see what his friends have planned for him. The reservation is valid, but Nick is surprised: he is met not by the robed hippie he might expect from a joke, but by a disappointly conformist fellow in a stylish blue suit.

"Nick Cominksy," he said. "Hi. Jesus."

In retrospect, a thousand comebacks were possible -- "Jesus H. Christ! So good to finally meet you!" ...."Are twelve of our party missing?"...."I didn't know they buried you in a suit."

The absurdity of the scene, though, stunned me into silence. What do you say to that?

Although startled by the man's matter-of-fact demeanor, Nick decides to humor him. The longer their initial conversation goes on, however, the more uncomfortable Nick becomes. "Jesus" makes no attempt to convince Nick that he is in fact Yeshua bar Joseph of Nazareth. He does no miracles, yet stands by his claim. He is as gentle and unassuming as the "prince of peace" might be. Intrigued, Nick agrees to humor the man further: he'll suspend his disbelief and they'll work from there. In return for a dinner of conversation, "Jesus" will tell Nick who set up the evening in the first place.

What develops from here on out is a thinly veiled author tract. The storied setup lingers for a while longer, but slowly and surely Nick becomes a character in a Chick tract. The tract begins as Jesus and Nick discuss religion as a means of making sense of life. Jesus delivers a spiel on various religions in turn -- Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Armed with memories from a comparative religion class, Nick holds his own briefly before being subdued into silence by the fact that his debating partner has come to the table much more prepared than he. Jesus -- by which I mean author David Gregory -- makes a distinction between something working and something being true. In his eyes,  if something is not completely true, it will cease to function at some point. His approach to analyzing other religions is whole-cloth: there's no chance of dividing effective practices (meditation or yoga, say) from  the religious context that they are associated with.

Gregory -- speaking through Jesus -- develops the conversation in such a way that religions other than Christianity are proven to be unteneable. Religion itself is untenable, for --  Gregory-Jesus says -- there is no path to God. Humanity is damned. Its own efforts to reunite with God are pointless, for there is no way to earn the forgiveness of God. It can only be accepted, and that by accepting the fact that Jesus -- God -- took on the price of humanity's  sin.  Nick has no reply: his Chickification has increased at a steady pace throughout the book,  his character become a thoughtful-looking strawman. He is saved only from 2-D damnation by the fact that he hasn't quite converted by book's end.

I was somewhat disappointed in the book. I read it knowing that it was a work of Christian evangelicalism, and the strength of its opening portions was encouraging. What started as an interesting exercise in apologetics -- and thus for me, counter-apologetics -- quickly became rather shallow. Gregory does do a good job of making Christianity appear to be superficially cohesive, and I would have loved a book that continued to challenge me by giving that facade depth of substance and thus a strong case. Instead, Nick becomes a sock puppet and Jesus/Gregory looks weak for taking advatange of the situation: the author is reduced so far as to bring out the old "Lord, Lunatic, or Liar" tack. The book will probably be well-received by Christians, and I can imagine it working on a Nick-like  person who's not prepared for its arguments. Nonchristians  who are prepared might profit by reading the book, if only to give their brains a brief workout. I enjoyed it at the beginning -- it's a pity the conversation became one-sided so quickly.

As an end-note: this book may have worked better with Paul as the inviter. He is, after all, the inventor of the Christian narrative as we know it : he's the man you can thank for making the doctrine of original sin a cornerstone of Christianity. Bible-Jesus never really elaborated on what "believing in me" meant, beyond renouncing worldly goods, following the Torah, and committing to a kind of agape love.

Lamb

Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
© 2002 Christopher Moore
408 pages

"What?" [Joshua] said. "What? What? What?"

"Master, you're walking on the water," said Peter.

"I just ate," Joshua said. "You can't go into the water for an hour after you eat. You could get a cramp.What, none of you guys have mothers?"  - 357

As soon as I heard of Lamb‘s premise, I knew that I wanted to read it, and so I was indeed pleased to learn that my local library held a copy for me. Levi, Jesus of Nazareth’s lifelong best friend, has been called forth from the grave to render an account of Jesus’ life for the edification (and entertainment) of humanity. Cloistered in a hotel room and guarded by a not-too-bright ex-Angel of Death with a weakness for soap operas, Levi -- or as he prefers to be called, “Biff” -- tells us of how he and his friend Joshua -- rendered from Yeshua -- met, grew up together, and pursued his divine destiny.

Although the book begins with childhood, their journey together starts on the eve of their 13th birthdays, when the angel appears and tells Joshua that he must seek out his divinity. Joshua and Biff seek out the wisest rabbi they know, only to be turned away by the curmudgeon* and directed to seek out the three wisemen who visited him at his birth. Although their journey begins in the small town of Nazareth, it will take them to Kabul to learn alchemy, to a remote Buddhist monastery in the mountains of China , and to the coast of India before Josh is ready to return home and take up the mantle of Messiah. Although the book’s reputation for humor initially drew me to it  -- and one well deserved, for this is one of the funniest books I’ve read in over a year -- I was quickly drawn in by the story of Joshua’s and Biff’s maturation as characters.  Joshua matures here more believably than he did in Norman Mailer’s The Gospel According to the Son or in Deepak Chopra’s Jesus, which is somewhat strange given that this book is primarily humor.

Part of the humor comes from Moore treating Biff and Joshua as ordinary young boys and teenagers, who are apt to do, say, and think things that adults find entertaining.  Given that Jesus is such as Serious Historical Figure, it’s humorous to see him acting like a real person with idiosyncrasies. Moore also inserts gobs of in-jokes for his readers -- Mary summoning Joshua by having her image appear on the walls of buildings, for instance, or giving us an explanation for the Easter bunny (namely, Joshua getting a bit tipsy and declaring that whenever something really bad happens to him, bunnies should be around to make it better). Moore also has a strong penchant for absurd and surreal humor in the vein of Monty Python and sometimes offers reinterpretations of biblical events. In the "walking on water" miracle, for instance, Peter traditionally has the faith to join Jesus on the water -- when he loses that faith for a second, he begins sliding underneath the ocean. In Lamb, Joshua invites Peter out on the ocean only to play a practical joke on him.

This is a very strong book, I think -- easily accessible to nonbelievers, while not insulting to believers, unless they object to Joshua acting in human ways, including trying to figure out the mechanics of sex and shooting his mouth off. Although the book is intended as a humorous take on Jesus’ life, the story is compelling by itself: midway into the book, I was completely engrossed in it and its lead characters -- Joshua, Biff, Maggie (Mary Magdalene) and even a few of the supporting characters like the Roman centurion who befriends the leads as children. Further, this is a book I’d like to own myself, just so I could re-read in the future and lend it to friends. If you like to laugh -- give this a try.

"What is your name, Demon?" Joshua asked.

"What would you like it to be?" said the demon.

"You know, I've always been partial to the name Harvey," Joshua said.

"Well, isn't that a coincidence? My name just happens to be Harvey." - 319

* Rabbi Hillel, who grumpily informs them that all they need to know about the Torah is to love thy neighbor as thyself.

Jesus

Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

© 1989 Marcus Borg

343 pages

Marcus Borg is one of the two theologians who interested me in attempts to humanize Christianity and in the works of men like himself, Albert Schweitzer, and Shelby Spong. I looked forward to reading this book, but did not anticipate enjoying it as much as I did. Rather than simply creating a narrative from portions of the Christian gospels and promoting it, Borg attempts to distill all the information we possess to the point that a hypothetical “nonpapal conclave” composed of a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an atheist could agree on the story being told.

Before he does so, however, Borg establishes background by analyzing the information at hand and the interpretations thus far, categorizing the viewpoints into general categories and writing at length on the texts themselves. More importantly, he offers a historical and social analysis of the Roman Empire and the religious world of Judea -- something I find lacking in many books and that I was most pleased to see here. Jesus and his followers would have been shaped by the culture they lived in, and I’m glad that Borg emphasizes the importance of context.

What follows then is an examination of the gospel accounts: Borg divides them into three portions -- Jesus’ early ministry in Galilee, his last days in Jerusalem, and the road between the two. As he writes, he refers back to the contexts he established and to the important of symbolic language. What unfolds is a genuinely fair treatment of the Gospels: when I looked at the back of the book and saw it advertised as a “unifying vision for a critical time,” I scoffed because I figured the interpretations of Jesus are so varied that unifying them would be like unifying humanity -- probably impossible. To my surprise, however, the book neither insults rationality nor belief. When examining accounts of the miraculous, for instance, Borg does not spend time debating on if these things happened or not: he prefers to address the importance these stories held for the first people to tell them. What does it tell us about Jesus that they would say these things about him? A common theme is the importance of metaphor. What strikes me about Borg’s tone is his gentleness: he refuses even to label the Pharisees or Romans as evil even when acknowledging that they did disagreeable things. “You and I might enjoy the Pharisees’ company”, he comments, “and the Roman Empire was considerably better to live in than any other nation-state at the same time.” The Pharisees and Romans were both trapped by the economic-governmental system that they were born in.

The book isn’t wholly unifying, but I don’t suppose it could be. Borg believes there are two general types of Christians: those who place importance on holding particular beliefs, and those who place importance on living in a certain way -- on following Jesus on the Path, just as a Taoist follows the way of Lao Tzu and a Buddhist the way of Siddhartha Gautama. The latter Christianity is one Borg identifies as having been emerging since the 17th century. In his last chapter, he looks at how traditional/authoritative and emerging Christianity are shaping up in the United States. While admitting concern over the success of the Religious Right, he points out that mainstream Christianity’s fading-away is not necessarily a bad thing: it is simply the decay of imperial Christianity, and will ultimately free Christianity to be the lifestyle-changing religion it first was. Here I wonder if Borg has ever heard of Shane Claiborne: from what I’ve heard of Claiborne (thanks for the recommendation, Pom-Pom), I think the two would get along.

I enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it without reservation.

The Gospel According to the Son

The Gospel According to the Son

© 1997 Norman Mailer

242 pages

I spotted this on on Amazon while looking at Chopra's Jesus. I often look up books I've read on Amazon to find similar books. You might remember that Jesus was a novel about the obvious character depicting him in his twenties as he develops what Chopra referred to as "god consciousness" -- in effect forcing the view of Chopra as expressed in The Third Jesus into a novel that started off well and quickly fell apart. Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son is somewhat different. It is a first-person novel that recounts the basic story of the traditional gospels. While Mailer's Jesus does comment that the gospel writers got some things wrong -- especially "Jew-Hating Luke" -- he does toe the Nicene line and sticks to basic Christian doctrine until the very end (at which point he seems to dipose of it completely). He fleshes out some New Testament stories and omits parts of others. An example of both is his retelling of the miracle of the fishes and loaves -- or one of them, seeing as I remember that happening twice. For those of you who didn't attend a fundamentalist Sunday School, this is the one where Jesus is speaking to a crowd in the middle of no-where and realizes that the crowd is growing hungry. His disciples come up with some kid's lunch (two fish and five loaves of bred) and somehow distributes these among five thousand men, not counting their wives and children. The stories generally depict the food magically regenerating as Jesus and his followers distribute it, and even managing to exceed what the crowd needs: the disciples are stuck toting twelve baskets of left-over fish and bread back to their town through the hot desert. Mailer's Jesus doesn't do this: he tears the food up into over five thousands teeny tiny little bits and distributes them out: the tiny bits become fulfilling once someone "eats" them by putting them on their tongue. It's an interesting take that stays true to canon while toying with a little bit.

How does this work as a novel? Intermittently. The quality was never consistent for me: it would be dry for a few pages as formal quotations from the New Testament are linked with basic sentences that betray little character from Jesus or anyone else and then suddenly it begins reading like a novel, with real people actually experiencing emotions and speaking in ways you might expect a human to speak. Unfortunately, those moments are not as frequent as they need to be and the book in general read flatly for me. The story as a whole read like the New Testament sometimes: as an account of scarcely linked stories about Jesus that lacked emotional depth. If you were to present this book to a person with no knowledge whatsoever of Jesus or the traditional apocalyptic Jewish god, I don't think they could appreciate it as a novel. There's no story here, no overall narrative that ties things together and makes it seem real. Characters usually say things out of the blue: they react in jerky ways like the author is just pulling their strings and making them. Chopra's characters did this too, but not as long -- and many of them developed real depth, especially Judas and Mary Magdalene. There are high points here: Mailer does do Judas well, although I prefer Chopra's Gospel of Judas-inspired Judas to the traditional villain Judas, even though he's rendered believable here. The chapter about Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness has a very intriguing Satan who (from my perspective) makes valid criticisms about Yahweh's behavior (if for less-than-noble reasons) who continues to play a subtle part in the story despite being told off.

I suppose this book is like a plane that gets off the ground but never really takes to the air, instead constantly dipping into and bouncing off of the runaway before suddenly jerking to a stop. There are little moments, but it seems somewhere between fair and mediocre. I think those who find the four traditional Gospels to be an enjoyable read might like this, although those who are very attached to literalism may be annoyed.

Related Reading:

• Chopra's Jesus.
• Only Begotten Daughter, featuring Jesus' half-sister Julie Katz. This book is the first time I found a take on Jesus that was interesting.

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Jesus

Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment

© 2008 Deepak Chopra

273 pages

Yesterday I wandered about in my library's fiction section with the intention of letting something capture my eye. This "when the reader is ready, the book will come" approach didn't seem to be working, so I decided to find a book by Michael Crichton. He's been recommended to me before, but I've never read him before. Because I did not know how his last name was spelled -- thinking it had an "H" -- I found myself looking at the wrong bookshelves altogether, but while I looked my eyes saw the title Jesus. "Hmm", I thought, "Interesting." The full title was Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment. It was by Chopra, which gave me pause, but I opened it up to see Judas fretting about Romans looking for Jesus. "Ooh," I thought, "The story of the gospels related in novel form? I'll give it a go."

That is not quite the case. Chopra introduces the book by writing that we know little of Jesus' life between his birth and the beginnings of his time as a teacher, aside from one odd story about him getting separated from his family and teaching the rabbis in a local synagogue. Chopra therefore decided that someone should try to tell the story. Because we have no evidence from which to work, Chopra decided to use an "archetypal pattern" of people who have found enlightenment: I assume this is something along the lines of Campbell's "hero's journey" archetype. This may be the reason the story seems to lack historical depth or texture: although this is technically historical fiction, it's incredibly shallow in that you could write the same book but just change the name of the Romans to another villain, and the name of the Jews to the name of another downtrodden people. George Lucas used a pattern, but he made the developing story his own: that doesn't happen here.

As mentioned, the book is not a novel form of the gospels: it concerns Jesus as he was in his twenties, as a troubled and intuitive youth who feels compelled to search for answers to the meaning of suffering. This will set him on a somewhat brief journey to find answers, and he finally does in a range of snow-covered mountains when he encounters an old mystic who both introduces and ends the story. He does encounter two NT personalities who accompany him part of the way, namely Judas and Mary Magdalene. Chopra seems to be drawing on the Gospel of Judas when writing the ending, although he does paint Mary as a prostitute. My only knowledge about that subject is that one character in The Da Vinci Code called it a deceitful fabrication.

Previously I said that the book's plot is shallow, with no historical context to ground it. I think the same is true of Jesus: he appears to be a character with dimensions at the start, but about two-fifths of the way in, Chopra suddenly replaces him with a Jesus who says things that are seemingly out of character: it's like the author directly started making him say things instead of letting the character develop on his own. The character is used to say the same things Chopra said in The Third Jesus, which isn't that surprising but still seems muddled. What I can say positively about the book is that the "visions" were well done: I was very wary at first, but Chopra did them in a way that was not intrusive and even believable.

I can't say I would recommend this to someone looking for a gripping story, but if people find the titular character interesting, they will probably be able to enjoy this to some degree.

The Third Jesus

The Third Jesus: the Christ We Cannot Ignore

© 2008 Deepak Chopra

241 pages

I've heard the name "Deepak Chopra" before, but never in a positive light. Still, given my interest in comparative religion and philosophy, and given that I don't like having uninformed opinions about people, I decided to read The Third Jesus. Chopra's thesis is this: there are two chief ideas about Jesus, the liberal version and the conservative version. The liberal version believes in the enlightened rabbi, the human teacher. The conservative version is the "WORSHIP ME, MORTALS!" one. Chopra says that the problem with this is that the gospels, when taken in full, invalidate both. His solution to this "problem" is to propose a third Jesus, a Transcendental Jesus who teaches the way to "God-consciousness", which Chopra never really explains. Essentially, what he does is to quote text from five accounts of Jesus' life (the traditional gospels and Thomas) and uses them to support his view.

It doesn't seem to me that he's doing anything different from what Fred Phelps and Marcus Borg are doing: applying their interpretation to the story. It seems to validate Albert Schweitzer's idea that people who try to find the "True" Jesus only create narratives that satisfy their own desires. In general, I found the book to be a poor read: Chopra rarely explains his terms, and beyond the in-text verses from the gospels, nothing seems to be cited. This is particularly troublesome given that he writes on historical and scientific topics at times.