Who's Who in the Age of Jesus

Author and scholar Geza Vermes was born to Jewish parents in Hungary, who converted to Roman Catholicism. He became a priest, and later an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He later left the Catholic Church, but is now known for his studies on the historical Jesus and the relationship of Jesus and the early church to the Jewish milieu from which they sprang. In this fascinating book, the author gives a Who's Who in the ancient Roman and Israelite worlds, showing them from Biblical and extra-Biblical sources in a more full light. For example, what do you know about the High Priests who appear briefly in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles? If you want to know more, pick up this book and see what their contemporaries had to say about them. Overall, I found this book to be a mixed bag. The author does cast a wide net in finding information about the various people who appear (often briefly) in the Bible, giving a lot of truly relevant information on them. My problem with this book, though, is that the author fairly consistently considers the Bible to be an inferior source to just about all others. I mean, who would be interested in this book? Someone who is deeply committed to a faith in Jesus Christ, and wants to know more. However, such a reader will not be pleased to have the Bible criticized as a source. But, that said, I think that this book is a great resource, one that is sure to expand any reader's understanding of who the people were in the early Church, both insiders and outsiders. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention the great timeline that begins the book. It does a great job of putting Jesus and the early Church within its historic framework!

An intriguing and entertaining historical study in the form of brief biographical sketches that can easily be digested straight through or as a reference. Very well done and based on solid historical research. This is not the revisionist polemic aimed at discrediting the Christian faith but a serious historical study that conveys accurately the middle east at the time of Jesus. It makes for an enjoyable and informative study that places the New Testament in historical context like few other works.