Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture

This was a good survey of Jesus and the impact he has had on culture. We see Jesus the rabbi, as the early Christians emphasized his Jewishness. We see Christus victor and how the cross of Christ imspired the armies of Constantine and the Roman Empire to conquer the world. We also learn about how the humanity of Christ impacted the 5th century ecumenical councils who didn't want to see the divinity of Christ overshadow his human side. I also enjoyed the chapter about Christ the Liberator, and how this image of Christ inspired the work of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. There is also Christ the philospher, and how his teachings inspired Erasmus, and much later, Ralph Waldo Emerson and other humanists. There is also Christ the Monk, the One who was completely committed to a life of self-denying discipleship. This image o Christ inspired St. Benedict and Bernard of Clairveaux. The one thing these images of Christ have in common is that to one degree or another, they can be found in scripture. I recommend this book as a good historical study of Jesus and His impact on the cultures of the world.

Jaroslav Pelikan is one of the most admired men and intellectual giants of the past century. This book is a charming and exciting read that investigates the images of the "Jesus of Culture". He examines the person of Jesus of Nazareth and how he has influenced Western Culture through the past 2000 years. Some reviewers have commented that it is boring, but I beg to differ. It is thoroughly exciting and worthy of any thinkers bookshelf. As a matter of fact, I do not think you can be a cultured person without reading any of Pelikan's works. He investigates how the historical figure of Jesus Christ was interpreted by subsequent generations. This is highly enlightening, because he relates in each chapter the common thread that unites all these people, despite the (sometimes substantial) differences they have. The early Fathers, the later Fathers, the Neo-Platonist Fathers, the Scholastic Theologians, the mystics, the globalists, are all examined and discussed in scholarly detail. The first chapter focuses on Jesus the Rabbi and talks about how modern scholarship is helping us uncover (again) the Jesus of history. Jesus the Jew, who lived in a particular time-period and was restricted by his own cultural surroundings, a Jesus who is not so much different from us, a Jesus who helps us contextualize the beliefs Christians now take for granted. He moves in a logical progression, following the timeline of the Church until contemporary times. All in all this book is highly recommended and I hope you buy it, because you will not regret it.

This is not a devotional work, it is an insightful and valuable slice of intellectual history. Pelikan is a Christian, but distances himself from those he describes. I think the combination of sympathy and critical distance helps the reader have his own conversation with the persons described. Pelikan bites off more than he can chew. How can there be room in one readable, coherent and reasonably short book for Augustine and Blake, Renan and Ricci, Constantine and Gandhi? But Pelikan pulls it off pretty well, summarizing the history with interesting anecdotes, and making reasonable comments. Not all of which I think are correct, though. "It is not sameness but kaleidescope variety that is its most conspicuous feature." Pelikan includes a great deal of evidence for both, though. Early Christians attempted to translate Jesus as "logos" to relate to Greek thinking. Modern Christians in India and China undertook a similar task of describing Jesus as the "fulfillment" of the deepest truths in those great cultures. (Work I have studied quite a bit.) I give the book five stars, because it is brilliant, fascinating and informative. Nevertheless, Pelikan's position seems to soak up some of the subjectivm he chronicles. It is important to distinguish between images that are arbitrary, and those that depend on a reality that can be referred to. One could write a book called "The Moon through the Centuries." But that would be a different kind of book from "Martians through the Centuries," because in the first case, we just need to look up to be corrected. Pelikan does not take sufficient account of the fact that Jesus is more like the first than the second case. Kaleidescope is a mosaic of splintered reflections. But the image whom these reflections reflected, like the moon, is still before us, in the Gospels. Pelikan tells us we are "dependant" on "oral tradition" that was "eventually deposited" in the Gospels, but in fact they were written within the lifetimes of the first Christians. Rather than "tradition," they could have relied on memory. Pelikan does not distinguish between birds that settle in the nest as they find it, and birds that steal twigs to built their own. He weakly justifies the fantastic subjectivism that goes into revisionist historical Jesus studies. Pelikan is like a conscientious objector from the argument over what really happened. In a preface to a recent edition he admits, a bit coyly, that he doesn't buy the arguments of the "historical Jesus" crowd. Well and good: but this excellent book might be even better if the fascinating and fruitful subjectivism he chronicles were balanced with an occasional reminder that in the end, portraits are not about those who take the picture, but him whose portrait is taken. Still, a deserved classic, and a wonderful way to look at history. Highly recommended.

The eighteen chapters of this book roughly correspond to the 20 centuries of the history of the catholic church. One can use Pelikan's images to reflect on the meanings of Christ to the peoples of history and reflect on their meaning in present times. The images Pelikan give are all applicable today and can be helpful in understanding our relationships to God now. For example: how we as Christians can conduct a "just" war when we have an image of Jesus as "The Prince of Peace." Or, how we can better understand the middle East peace process with our image of Jesus as our rabbi. Or, how we can approach our busy, packed lives using the image of Christ as the perfect monk. This is a useful book to persons with varied educational backgrounds in theology or with just a desire to be able to relate the historical Jesus to their every day lives.

This is an unbelievable book. Pelikan does a wonderful job of looking at Christ's changing face throughout the last 2000 years. This book displays Christianity as it has been embedded in culture- dealing with issues such as christianity and scholasticism, the crusades, etc. Pelikan proves himself truly a great intellectual.