155 - The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and Critique of Modern Jewish Study of Jesus

The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and Critique of Modern Jewish Study of Jesus

By Donald A. Hagner

Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1984. 341 Pp. $9.95.

Donald Hagner, who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary, has written a timely book, which deserves the attention of every serious student of Jesus' life. By concentrating on the most reputable attempts of Jewish scholars to describe Jesus, he offers a helpful and accurate portrait of a major movement in modern research. At the same time, he mounts a serious case for his avowedly evangelical thesis, that the Gospels do not offer a Jewish Jesus who is separable from the Christ of faith. He does so in the second major section of his work, in which he considers aspects of Jesus' ministry (his relation to the Torah, his preaching of the Kingdom, and his religious depiction of humanity) to which Hagner believes his Jewish interlocutors have not done justice. Inevitably, in a brief work of such a large scope, readers will need to pursue matters which the author refers to

156 - The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and Critique of Modern Jewish Study of Jesus

only passingly, but the extraordinary achievement of this book is that the major issues are at least touched upon. Only in his conclusion does Hagner revert to a less fortunate stance among Christians, when he states: "Probably the greatest obstacle to a correct understanding of Jesus is the inability of Jews to accept that a new stage in the history of salvation has been reached." From the point of view of Christianity, that statement appears tautologous, while from that of Judaism it can but seem offensive. If Professor Hagner intends to say that the documents of the New Testament were written from such a perspective, his observation is telling and unexceptionable; perhaps his further contributions will elucidate that matter as competently as the present book has offered a useful review of research.

Bruce Chilton, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Conn.