's Best of 2001
Bucking the trend of books about "the historical Jesus," Jack Miles offers a purely literary reading of the New Testament--rendering Jesus as a character whose history spans all of time, from the beginning to the end. Continuing the work begun in his Pulitzer prize-winning God: A Biography, Miles considers the New Testament the next chapter of an ongoing story. The central question of this chapter is, "Why does [God] become a man?" In Miles's reading, God "has something appalling to say that he can say only by humiliating himself." The world's inherent flaws, its pervasive injustice and cruelty, comprise "a great crime" for which someone must pay. "Mythologically read, the New Testament is the story of how someone, the right someone, does pay for it." As God, in the form of Christ, pays the price for His own mistakes, the crucifixion "saves us from the violence that we might otherwise feel justified in inflicting on one another." Ingeniously argued and masterfully paced, this book presents an original and unsettling portrait of Christ. Whatever readers think of Miles's premise--that God is heroic but not saintly--the book will certainly force them to reexamine Christ's relevance to moral life. --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly
In God: A Biography, Miles observed that God undergoes remarkable changes in the biblical narrative, moving from action to silence. In this astonishing new book, Miles applies the same method to Jesus, God Incarnate, with even more remarkable results, arguing that "the changing of the mind of God is the great subject, the epic argument, of the Christian Bible." Engaging in close readings of the Gospels (particularly John's), as well as sweeping impressions of the entire Bible, Miles intriguingly shows that God's incarnation in humanity was a way of talking once again to God's people. After Israel experienced defeat at the hands of the Babylonians, God promised to defeat this enemy, restoring Israel. But, forgetting this promise, God allowed Israel to continue to suffer, even as God struggled to address the situation in a different, less violent way. Miles argues that when God became human in Jesus of Nazareth, God suffered with Israel, and offered some revolutionary new teachings that indicate a change of mind. As God Incarnate, Jesus taught humanity that he must die in order to bring about a restored paradise. Weaving philosophy and literature into his reflections on the Bible, Miles offers literary perspectives on the life of Christ that are at once provocative and revelatory. After reading this book, one can never look at God, Jesus or the Bible in quite the same way. (Nov. 5)Forecast: Miles's God: A Biography nabbed a Pulitzer Prize and enjoyed exceptional sales; Knopf hopes that this follow-up, which is a selection of the BOMC, History Book Club and QPB, will achieve similar heights. The title will launch with a 60,000-copy print run.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In Christ, Miles, who won the Pulitzer Prize for God: A Biography, considers the relationship between God and Christ. As the story opens, God has not kept his promise to end the 500-year oppression of the Children of Israel nor has he returned them to their greatness. Under the Romans' despotic control, the Jews face annihilation, what will be called many centuries later a Holocaust. This leaves God with a crisis, so he decides to resolve his spiritual dilemma by becoming a Jew known as Christ. He inflicts upon himself the agony his people will suffer. By dying and arising as Christ, God not only accepts historical and metaphorical defeat, but he also offers humanity the promise of a spiritual victory, "wiping away all tears." Miles has taken on two of the significant figures in the Old and New Testament, with his imagination and literary ability once again culminating in fierce storytelling. Read by Grover Gardner, this is recommended for large collections. - Pam Kingsbury, Florence, AL Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Miles presents in this work, which is essentially a sequel to his earlier GOD: A BIOGRAPHY, an account of the character of Jesus as found in the New Testament narratives. This is not an examination of the text in the manner done by biblical scholars (an examination of the origins and construction of the biblical texts). Miles presents Jesus as something like a mystical figure. In doing so, Miles encourages listeners to ponder the meaning of New Testament passages. Grover Gardner's baritone voice has a serious aura to it, and his pace is appropriately deliberate, permitting the listener to reconsider the Jesus story. Gardner certainly understands and communicates the intentions and nuances of the text in his reading. M.L.C. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Miles continues the literary analysis of the Bible that he began in the prizewinning best-seller God (1995). Taking up the story of Jesus, he treats it as the record of God's sojourn on earth as a man. That is, unlike the hordes of scholars concerned with the historical Jesus, Miles takes the Gospels at face value, though he argues, with plenty of demonstration and reason, that in them Jesus is an ironist, who turns old messianic understandings, in particular, inside out and upside down. Perhaps Miles is never more provocative than at the outset, when he posits that the Crucifixion isn't a matter of dying for humans' sins but of dying for God's error in expelling Adam and Eve from the garden. That is, it is a real punishment. This interpretation helps mend the great discordances between deity and criminal, between supreme omnipotence and innocent suffering, that the figure of God crucified contains and that repel Judaism and other religions. Jesus also demonstrates to his people that although he has failed to deliver them from repeated bondage and return them to power in the promised land, and although he won't intervene to free them from Rome, he is with them. So as the Messiah, Jesus exchanges militarism for pacifism and exemplifies triumph through loss. He is killed but rises from death to promise everyone that they will, also. This promise, Miles says in the book's first paragraph, instilled in the "cultural DNA" of the West the conviction that someday, "the last will be first, and the first last." More prizes, please. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
?Provocative and deeply engaging. . . . This is a spectacular story, and Miles tells it well. . . . Exciting reading.?

?No one who reads it will be able to think about even the most familiar Biblical scenes in quite the same way.? --Newsday

?The brilliance of Jack Miles's new book on Christ is that it manages to "make strange" the best-known story in history. . . . Stratlingly original.? ?The New Statesman

?As a way of seeing [God], Miles?s book has great power and depth.?

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Five years after his book about God as portrayed in the Old Testament - God: A Biography - Jack Miles gives us his consideration of Christ. He presents Christ as a hero of literature based only in part on the historical Jesus, asking us to take the idea of Christ as God Incarnate not as a dogma of religion but as the premise of a work of art, the New Testament." As this story begins, God has not kept his promise to end the five-hundred-year-long oppression of the Children of Israel and return them to greatness. Under Rome, their latest oppressor, the Jews face a holocaust. This is God's supreme crisis. Astonishingly, God resolves the dilemma by becoming a Jew himself, Christ, inflicting upon himself in advance the very agony his people will suffer, revising in the process the meaning of victory and defeat. By dying and rising as Christ, God not only swallows up the historical defeat of the Jews but also offers the promise of a cosmic victory that will "wipe away every tear" for all mankind.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In God: A Biography, Miles observed that God undergoes remarkable changes in the biblical narrative, moving from action to silence. In this astonishing new book, Miles applies the same method to Jesus, God Incarnate, with even more remarkable results, arguing that "the changing of the mind of God is the great subject, the epic argument, of the Christian Bible." Engaging in close readings of the Gospels (particularly John's), as well as sweeping impressions of the entire Bible, Miles intriguingly shows that God's incarnation in humanity was a way of talking once again to God's people. After Israel experienced defeat at the hands of the Babylonians, God promised to defeat this enemy, restoring Israel. But, forgetting this promise, God allowed Israel to continue to suffer, even as God struggled to address the situation in a different, less violent way. Miles argues that when God became human in Jesus of Nazareth, God suffered with Israel, and offered some revolutionary new teachings that indicate a change of mind. As God Incarnate, Jesus taught humanity that he must die in order to bring about a restored paradise. Weaving philosophy and literature into his reflections on the Bible, Miles offers literary perspectives on the life of Christ that are at once provocative and revelatory. After reading this book, one can never look at God, Jesus or the Bible in quite the same way. (Nov. 5) Forecast: Miles's God: A Biography nabbed a Pulitzer Prize and enjoyed exceptional sales; Knopf hopes that this follow-up, which is a selection of the BOMC, History Book Club and QPB, will achieve similar heights. The title will launch with a 60,000-copy print run. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In Christ, Miles, who won the Pulitzer Prize for God: A Biography, considers the relationship between God and Christ. As the story opens, God has not kept his promise to end the 500-year oppression of the Children of Israel nor has he returned them to their greatness. Under the Romans' despotic control, the Jews face annihilation, what will be called many centuries later a Holocaust. This leaves God with a crisis, so he decides to resolve his spiritual dilemma by becoming a Jew known as Christ. He inflicts upon himself the agony his people will suffer. By dying and arising as Christ, God not only accepts historical and metaphorical defeat, but he also offers humanity the promise of a spiritual victory, "wiping away all tears." Miles has taken on two of the significant figures in the Old and New Testament, with his imagination and literary ability once again culminating in fierce storytelling. Read by Grover Gardner, this is recommended for large collections. - Pam Kingsbury, Florence, AL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Miles presents in this work, which is essentially a sequel to his earlier GOD: A BIOGRAPHY, an account of the character of Jesus as found in the New Testament narratives. This is not an examination of the text in the manner done by biblical scholars (an examination of the origins and construction of the biblical texts). Miles presents Jesus as something like a mystical figure. In doing so, Miles encourages listeners to ponder the meaning of New Testament passages. Grover Gardner's baritone voice has a serious aura to it, and his pace is appropriately deliberate, permitting the listener to reconsider the Jesus story. Gardner certainly understands and communicates the intentions and nuances of the text in his reading. M.L.C. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews