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Is there a book on the life and philosophy of Christ, not so much the religious dogma? Hopefully from a non-religious perspective? : books

Book reviews, recommendations, stories about books or book technology, etc.

The Jefferson Bible is as close as you are going to get I believe.

Considering the life and philosophy of Christ is pure speculation and has always been second hand knowledge, I'm guessing anecdotal evidence and a compilation of that is all you're going to get.

The Jefferson Bible doesn't necessarily side step the source problems of the New Testament.

All Jefferson did was excise the parts he considered too miraculous or fantastic to have actually happened.

Jefferson wasn't privy to source criticism or the Quelle theory -- wasn't privy, in fact, to a lot of the problems that modern scholarship has brought to light.

But, the point is that we can never really understand or know the true words of Christ.

The Churches that have come into power have changed the texts and destroyed their sources. The Quelle Theory is a good one, however we, as modern scholars and laymen are completely cut off from the source of nearly all origin texts of religion. This sucks, but we have to take everything as more of a "Fable" or "Narrative" than what it was originally intended as. Jefferson did what he could to exorcise the dogma from the religion and get back into the word of Christ.

Jefferson did what he could to exorcise the dogma from the religion and get back into the word of Christ. And I'm not faulting him for that.

I'm just pointing out that, if the OP wants our best guess as to the actual teachings of Jesus, he's better of going with something that benefits from the huge strides in scholarship made over the last 280+ years.

I think that you'll be able to find a lot of stuff on the impact of Christianity on western culture, but otherwise you're going to run into problems.

There's little to no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and no contemporary accounts of him or his teachings.

If you're generally interested in the three Abrahamic religions and their development, I could recommend "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong.

See I'm interested in exactly the opposite of the religions.

Just so you see it, cause I wanted the same thing and found this book : http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/9herx/is_there_a_book_on_the_life_and_philosophy_of/c0csj3y

I did some searching and found Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary .

It appears the author is Christian but gives a critical analysis of the various mythical portrayals of Jesus (critical enough that one Christian Amazon reviewer was "disturbed" by its contents). Disclaimer: I did not read the book and apologize if it's unsuitable.

Http://www.amazon.com/Lamb-Gospel-According-Christs-Childhood/dp/0380813815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252098456&sr=8-1 comedic fiction.

Tells the story of Christ during his growing up years.

I love this book.

Even though it was fiction I can see how his philosophy grew and accepted other religions into his own.

It is how Christ would have acted.

Reading this now.

Started off strong, actually laughed out loud on public transit whilst reading.

Struggling to finish the last half though.

To expand on what libernaut says, "Christ" is itself a religious title--means "Messiah".

What we think of as biography or "collected works" didn't come into existence until much later in time--even what we have of Plato and Socrates is testimony and recollection, not "history."

I thought Christ meant "anointed one" or just "anointed," so it is like saying "Jesus the Anointed."

Messiah also means anointed.

One is Greek, the other is Hebrew.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but a book called "Misquoting Jesus" caught my eye a while back.

Doesn't look too hardcore scholarly, and picks out stuff that was added by translators of the original New Testament texts. For commentary on the more outlandish Jesusisms (like "You must hate your family to love God properly," as well as several other Christian philosophical debacles, you might try Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling," though Kierkegaard's is most definitely a religious perspective.

"Misquoting Jesus" is, from what I've read, primarily an exercise in debunking what we know about Jesus from the Bible, rather than just a "non-religious" take.

Lee Strobel wrote a book called The Case for the Real Jesus that is, in large part, directly in response to many of "Misquoting"'s the false claims.

What are some of the "false claims" made by a man with amazing credentials in the study of the Bible, that the megachurch apologist corrects?

Here, read for yourself, starting with the Interview with Wallace that I have linked to: http://books.google.com/books?id=qn1FU3lLcnsC&lpg=PA1&pg=PA69#v=onepage&q=&f=false Well for one thing, Ehrman claims that the Bible has been distorted by changes in the translation, and counts some extremely high number of differences.

But when you start to understand the way these changes are counted, and the fact that a huge portion of them are literally the difference between using the word "a" instead of "an", there are no fundamental doctrines that are affected whatsoever.

Even where more important changes might be made, if these variants are in a small portion of manuscripts and we have many older copies that say something different, it's clear which one is the most accurate. I have not read Wallace's book Reinventing Jesus , but that one can also be found online apparently if you'd like to see what is said there as well: http://books.google.com/books?id=GtdzmykR_XMC&lpg=PA11&dq=reinventing%20jesus&pg=PA108#v=onepage&q=&f=false Basically these scholars state that Ehrman's interpretation of the facts is wildly misleading and baseless...

Like FOX News, he presents bits and pieces of a one-sided argument and leaves the uneducated audience (remember that his book is intended for the lay person) believing every word he says even when his claims are laughable by those who study such things.

I read a bit (except the pages google left out) and it seems more like typical roundabout apologetics. Basically these scholars state that Ehrman's interpretation of the facts is wildly misleading and baseless Would people with faith ever say otherwise on such crucial allegations?

I know its not fair to discredit someone because of their beliefs, but honestly how often do you see, say, a fox news reporter eager to report the facts that go against their beliefs?

Or how often do you see someone with die-hard faith willing to consider the possibility that their beliefs - or the basis of their beliefs - could be wrong? One example of the ridiculousness of his arguments: He says that Paul wrote that over 500 people saw the resurrection of Jesus, and therefore the Bible has historical value - if that wasn't ridiculous enough, he then said that no other religions can be studied with the same "historical connection." What a load of BS! Now, I can understand pointing out the fallacy of when Erhman says there are over 200,000 modifications found in the NT, but arguing against that true, though misleading, number does nothing to counter the more damaging arguments made by Erhman. I think I will buy Reinventing Jesus just to see if this guy goes any deeper than the shallow apologetics I just read in the interview but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Would people with faith ever say otherwise on such crucial allegations? The same goes for people who don't believe.

Such a person starts out assuming the Bible is false because he doesn't believe there is a God or that Jesus could have possibly done the things he supposedly did, so he naturally clings to anything that even slightly refutes the Bible's validity as both a historical or spiritual document and gives no credence to anything that might support such a possibility.

I started out believing the Bible was true, actually.

;) and gives no credence to anything that might support such a possibility. The problem is I have yet to see anything in the Bible or Christian propaganda or history that lends credibility to the absurd claims it makes.

The closest historical detail that is at all significant to the Bible is that there is records of a man named Jesus being executed (and of course there is nothing supporting the claims that he was miraculous).

There is records of a man named Jesus being executed. I've never come across any besides the contentious passage in Antiquities of the Jews.

What records are you referring to?

I just searched all over trying to find what I thought I had seen before but it seems I am mistaken (or just can't find it atm).

Perhaps I had read an account by Tacitus or Josephus and was mislead on when they were said (from my searches now it appears all historical records took place well after Paul started spreading his words, plus after at least one of the gospels was written).

So, I have to withdraw my previous comment.

Hmm, thinking about The Tao of Pooh, I checked and...

Apparently there's a Tao of Jesus .

I would suggest this thin volume from philosopher Karl Jaspers: Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus: The Great Philosophers

The Gospel of Thomas has no miracles, and never mentions Jesus being the son of god.

It's a more philosophical book, which is probably why it was left out of the bible.

If you're looking for something old (around 200AD) from the beginnings of christianity, this would be your best bet.

The Gospel of Mary and Judas are good ones.

Any Apocryphal writings are going to give you a different view and in my mind a little closer to what his life/ philosophy was like.

(one of the reasons Mary is not in the canon , is that Jesus teaches one should rely on oneself for salvation...etc.) Anything that put emphasis for spiritual fulfillment away from the church was ultimately left out of the bible.

That's a little like looking for a historical and non-Ron Hubbard perspective on the life of the life of Xenu. No such animal.

"What Jesus Meant" by Garry Wills.

A blow by blow translation of Jesus' teachings from the original Greek.

I found it to be more philosophical than religious based, but it is written by a former Jesuit brother.

I read Will Durant's stunning overview of philosophy and on that basis would think his volume Caesar and Christ could be an excellent place to start...

Though I've not read it yet, myself.

How do you expect to separate the religious dogma from a story about Christ's philosophy?

The Gospels represent the most complete accounts of his teaching and they have a religious perspective because he claimed to be God .

In the Gospel of Mark, at what point does the Jesus character ever claim to be God?

And where would their source material come from?

I think Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium by Bart D.

Ehrman could be what you are looking for.

The author tries to answer the question: approaching things as a historian, what can we say about the life and teachings of Jesus.

There's also a series of Teaching Company lectures that cover the same material.

There's Matthew Mark Luke and John in the Bible, and Mark is definitely the least miracley and doesn't explicitly say Jesus was the son of God, though a few times when he's asked he says something like "Don't you know yet?" Reading it gave me the strong impression that it was written first and the others were based off of it.

I asked my Uncle who has a Ph.d.

In...something like that.

He does a lot of ancient stuff, speaks Hebrew, can read cuneiform I think, knows a lot about the fertile crescent area I believe.

Anyway he agreed and called it the most human book of the Gospel.

"miracley" earns an up vote for sure.

Jesus, Grandson of Herod http://www.jjraymond.com/ It will be published soon.

Historical fiction but lays out the facts for the case that Jesus was both a Hasmonean and Herodian prince.

A good place to start: The Quest of the Historical Jesus The Historical Figure of Jesus

Maurice Goguel attempts to reconstruct a the thought and biography of Jesus in his two part book Jesus and the Origins of Christianity .

Sadly, it's out of print in English, but you can still find used copies in paperback.

If I recall correctly, nearly all of volume I is a discussion and synopsis of previous attempts to write a life of Jesus, so you may want to skip directly to [volume II][1].

I won't promise that the book is completely unbiased (probably no book on the origins of Christianity is, and certainly none that attempts to reconstruct the life of Jesus could be), but I will say that it's the best researched and most thorough book I've seen on the subject.

I'd go with another redditor here and recommend the Nag Hamadi library especially the Gospels of Mary, Judas, and Thomas.

(the latter is essentially considered by many non-religious theologians to be the actual words of Jesus by an eye witness)

Try Jesus for the non-religious by Spong http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Non-Religious-John-Shelby-Spong/dp/0060778415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252525482&sr=1-1




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