What the Gospels Meant

Well, maybe not new since St. Augustine was writing similar commentaries 1500 years ago. What the Gospels Meant by Garry Wills moves away from the type of "Jesus books" we've seen lately. This one doesn't split hairs about Judas, isn't written by an agnostic and doesn't mention the Rapture even once. What it does do is demonstrate the WHY of what was included in the gospels and explains the placement of the various stories across the Synoptics and ending with John. A graduate of divinity school might be bored, but this was an eye-opening book for me. I've read hundreds of books on Gnosticism, the early church and the evolution of the Christian faith and I'm a professed agnostic and I still thought it was great. The closest allegory I can think of to describe this book is from the movie business. Modern movies (i.e. those by Quentin Tarantino) will take old themes, sometimes even whole lines or scenes from films you've seen before and present them in new ways. This is Wills' contention concerning the gospels of the New Testament. It was ancient scripture reworked---same stories, same situations, even the same outcomes in some cases---for a new audience. While he doesn't come right out and say it, I got the feeling that, while a man of faith, Mr. Wills believes the New Testament to be something of an epic sequel to the Old. That is, a work of fiction. But brilliant fiction nonetheless: Jonah and the Resurrection, Isaiah and John the Baptist: this may seem obvious to someone who spent their summers in Bible school, but it was a revelation to me. I give this one five stars and I can't wait to read the rest of his stuff.

Although I have been reading Christian nonfiction and biblical commentary for a couple years now, I actively avoided reading Gary Wills 'What X, Y, Z Meant' series. I feared he would be another neo-evangelical with a infantile understanding of the Bible, its traditions and history. I was dead wrong. Gary Wills is nearly the polar opposite of a Max Lucado, Rick Warren and other similarly popular Christian authors. Wills is a true scholar, a lifelong student of the Bible who is widely read and incredibly itelligent. More importantly, he conveys his knowledge of the Gospels with a clarity and cogency to rival Elizabeth Johnson. What the Gospels Meant owes much to late-New Testament scholar Raymond Brown. So much so, the book is dedicated to Fr. Brown and borrows much of his material from his studies of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In a brisk 200-pages, Wills explains the distinctions between the various gospel-traditions (i.e. Synoptic and Johanine) and why they are there. The book is certainly not a plot summary of four distinct and rick works of ancient Christian tradition. It is a deeper analysis and understanding of what a serious student of the New Testament should take heed of while reading. There are good reasons for the evalgalists differing accounts of Christ's final words on the cross. There is a deeper meaning to the various parables than what we are told in homilies and sermons every Sunday. What the Gospels Meant is worthy of being placed in the "must-read" category of any church group or Bible study seeking to learn more about those precious books describing the life of Jesus.

If you have read any of Mr. Wills' books and have been enlightened and grown spiritually, you will not be disappointed with his latest installment of biblical critique. I recommend this book to all Catholics, and non Catholics who are on their own path of awakening or resurgence in their faith.

Regardless of your religious views, this is a beautiful book. Wills looks at each gospel and puts much into historical context: Mark, the first, was not so much a book for the ages as one dealing with immediate local concerns of the faithful, and lays open the rift between the siblings of Christ and other Church members. The writing on Matthew and the Beatitudes and the Antitheses is some of the strongest in the book, with Wills driving home the point that the message of Christ was built on one's intentions and internal integrity and not on one's adherence to external forms and coventional thinking. Good take on the Golden Rule, where he shows how Quakers used it to argue against salvery, as well as on the Prodigal son from Luke, which is something I have never undertsood or agreed with until reading Wills's comments,which puts it into the historical context of the struggle between Jew and Gentile to claim and direct the early movement. You also get a sense of Christ's compassion for women. And although he does not mention the Buddha, you can't help, for all the world, not to see how the teachings of the Buddha and Christ are twisted together like a pretzel.