Description: No matter what we would make of Jesus, says Schalom Ben-Chorin, he was first a Jewish man in a Jewish land. Brother Jesus leads us through the twists and turns of history to reveal the figure who extends a "brotherly hand" to the author as a fellow Jew.
Brief description: SCHALOM BEN-CHORIN (1913-1999) wrote some thirty books on Jewish historical and cultural themes, of which Brother Jesus was his acknowledged favorite. German-born and -educated, Ben-Chorin emigrated to Jerusalem in 1935, where he spent the remainder of his life. In the aftermath of World War II, he worked tirelessly to repair relations between Jews and Germans and between Christians and Jews. His many awards include the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal and the Leo Baeck Prize.
Review Quotes:
This is a precious book. We see a Jewish intellectual deconstructing the Christian gospels in his quest to reconstruct his brother Jesus. It is also a poignant book. For though he knew that the gospels were Christian myth, they were the only texts he had. His pursuit of historical truth despite the mystifications of the texts reveals the no-nonsense logic of an exceptionally well-trained mind in a relentless struggle with German scholarship. And in the end, by an amazing control of historical imagination, Ben-Chorin does catch sight of his non-Christian Jewish brother. Some will celebrate this book as the excellent translation of a most readable classic on the historical Jesus. But it is more. It is a moving documentation of a little-known chapter of cultural and intellectual history. It should be read as a meditation on the civility and skill of a German-Jewish scholar in pre- and post-holocaust debate with the Christian mind.
--Burton L. Mack