A Boy Named Jesus: A Biography

Not only a well-written hypothesis lacking emotional impact, it lacks theological impact as well. Had Jesus up and married and gave birth in India, He might have had the foresight to design and develop the world's first atomic weapons -- and drop them on the unsuspecting readers of this book. Not one for Dr. Strangelove, Bishop Spong nevertheless offers a satisfying substitute.

Coming across this title provides the reader with a clear pattern for adolescent faith development. Resources filling in the blanks of Jesus' adolescence aren't generally helpful. But this one is! The sense of incarnational reality is available to the reader as the author develops his argument not predicated on the life of an individual but rather a generation in which Jesus lived, and moved, and had his being. The consciousness of faith in the maturation of Jesus of Nazareth helps the reader's understanding of the Gospels not in a secret, gnostic way but in the natural unfolding of an integrated faith. Rev. Canon James Irvine