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  • Reading Jesus

  • A Writer's Encounter with the Gospels
  • Written by: Mary Gordon
  • Narrated by: Renée Raudman
  • Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
  • 1.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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Reading Jesus

Written by: Mary Gordon
Narrated by: Renée Raudman
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Publisher's Summary

In the introduction to this remarkable book, Mary Gordon is riding in a taxi as the driver listens to a religious broadcast, and she reflects that, though a lifelong Christian, she is at odds with many others who identify themselves as Christians. In an effort to understand whether or not she had "invented a Jesus to fulfill my own wishes," she determined to read the Gospels as literature and to study Jesus as a character. What results is a vibrantly fresh and personal journey through the Gospels, as Gordon plumbs the mysteries surrounding one of history's most central figures.

In this impassioned and eye-opening book, Gordon takes us through all the fundamental stories---the Prodigal Son, the Temptation in the Desert, the parable of Lazarus, the Agony in the Garden---pondering the intense strangeness of a deity in human form, the unresolved more ambiguities, the problem posed to her as an enlightened reader by the miracle of the Resurrection. What she rediscovers---and reinterprets with her signature candor, intelligence, and straightforwardness---is a rich store of overlapping, sometimes conflicting teachings that feel both familiar and tantalizingly elusive. It is this unsolvable conundrum that rests at the heart of Reading Jesus.
©2009 Mary Gordon (P)2009 Tantor
Religious Studies Bibles & Bible Study Ministry & Evangelism Biographies & Memoirs
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What the critics say

"Gordon tackles the power and puzzle of the Christian gospels with measure and imagination, providing welcome relief for those left cold by scholarly or fundamentalist parsing." ( Publishers Weekly)

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Intentionally Offensive, Lacking and Curt

Listening to Reading Jesus by Mary Gordon was a tiring experience; I anxiously waited for the audio book to conclude but gave Mary Gordon the respect of following her work until the end. Clearly, Mary is liberal in her beliefs - I have no issue with this. I have listened to may "scholarly" renditions of texts and theoretical historical context that shape the author's analyses to which I do not agree, but I expect that the author's argument be logical, in-depth and comprehensive. I found Mary's text to be intentionally radical for shock-value which I found offensive, not because she had differing views. For example, at one point Mary suggests that there is something "homoerotic" about Jesus' night in Gethsemane - believer or not, I have heard no other scholar suggest such immaturity. Other times, she dismisses Jesus as a dolt. To her credit, Mary identifies in the preface that her understanding and interpretation of the Gospels is not traditional; fair enough. But, I do expect some grounding in Christology or theological acceptance to argue unconventional points. Sadly, I felt this text was misinformed by an unqualified and imperious individual with little regard for sensitivity. I give very minimal credit to this audio book - other than the occasional insight, Mary Gordon does not have the skill-set to exegete Scripture fairly, maturely or sensitively. To the non-believer, there is no credible 'historical' analysis; for the believer, this text is purposefully distasteful - you will find no familiar Jesus here.

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