Géza VermesRecensioni

This is a short, very readable book by Geza Vermes, retired Professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford and a leading historian on Judaism in the era of Jesus.

In Part One he examines Jewish attitudes towards the afterlife in the times leading up to and including the life of Jesus. Was belief in resurrection a feature of Judaism in the time of Jesus? Definitely not. Pharisees held this belief, but their influence was small, mostly limited to the towns of Judea, and almost entirely nonexistent in the Galilee region of Jesus and his followers. To the vast majority of Jews of this era, the concept of bodily resurrection would have been either repugnant (Hellenized Jews) or unfamiliar (the rural mass of Palestinian Jewry).

In Part Two, he examines the New Testament claims regarding the Resurrection of Jesus, and very briefly offers his own thoughts on what may have happened. He begins by noting that Jesus spent very little of his ministry preaching about the afterlife. He did, however, predict his death and resurrection to his disciples. But they in turn never seemed to grasp what they were being told. Mark writes that the apostles had no idea what rising from the dead meant when Jesus predicted this to them, which confirms the previously established argument that bodily resurrection was a foreign concept to Galilean Jews of this time.

So we come to the accounts of Jesus' resurrection in the Gospels, Acts, and letters of Paul, which contain discrepencies and contradictions between them. Vermes lays these out. He then discusses how Paul was crucially responsible for making the resurrection story into the central defining argument of the emerging Christian Church.

In the last chapter Vermes gets to the question: What Really Happened? We have two classes of evidence presented in the New Testament: the account of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus to various individuals. He seems convinced of the veracity of the empty tomb. To mention one reason, every single account has women finding the tomb empty, and in Jewish society the testimony of women had no standing. This would be an exceedingly poor start to making up such a story in that historical era.

As for the appearances of the resurrected Jesus, they are no good at all as evidence for today's historian. They can convince only the already converted believer of today.

He then rules out no fewer than 8 explanations for what may have historically happened to explain the stories of the empty tomb and appearances - ranging from the true belief of the religious fundamentalist to the denial of the entire thing as mere fantasy by the committed skeptic.

What explanation does this leave? In the epilogue Vermes discusses how the apostles are transformed from a fearful, terrified band of followers in hiding following the death of their leader into brave evangelists openly preaching, defying the authorities at risk of death, and seeking converts. Something happened to them. Vermes posits that they heard of the empty tomb and experienced some "apparitions", felt themselves under the influence of the Spirit, ventured forth with some ray of hope and found renewed self-confidence and success.

Note that this does not explain why the tomb was actually empty, which Vermes accepts as a likely historical fact, and that he has previously rejected various theories that would explain this. And that reference to "apparitions" is really begging for further clarification.

Throughout, the book is written in a neutral and scholarly tone, which is most welcome for a book on this topic.

A descoberta dos Manuscritos do Mar Morto no deserto da Judeia, entre 1947 e 1956, foi um dos maiores achados arqueológicos de todos os tempos. Estes extraordinários manuscritos transformaram a forma como entendíamos a Bíblia hebraica, o Judaísmo no seu período inicial e as origens do Cristianismo.
Esta é a primeira publicação destes textos em Portugal, realizada a partir da edição muito recentemente actualizada de Geza Vermes, o investigador académico de topo a nível mundial em matéria de Manuscritos do Mar Morto.

A world renowned Jewish scholar explores the primitive and genuine significance of words and events recorded in the Gospels in order to reach a fuller understanding of the historical Jesus.

I find his logic more convincing than that of the Jesus seminar.
Folio Society Edition.

Első Vermes Géza könyvemnek az utolsó Vermes Géza könyvet választottam, egy hipotézisből és egy tényből kiindulva. A hipotézis az volt, hogy ebben a könyvben az író biztos összefoglalja majd előző munkáit, a tény meg az, hogy ez volt kéznél. Hipotézisem megerősítést nyert, Vermes valóban a könyv első negyedében (legalábbis amennyire meg tudom állapítani) áttekinti saját munkásságát, különös tekintettel az általa alaposan kidolgozott „zsidó Jézus” koncepcióra – vagyis hogy Krisztus tanításaiban sokkal (de sokkal-sokkal) több a karizmatikus judaizmus hagyományaira visszavezethető elem, mint azt a legtöbb Biblia-magyarázó elismeri. Ebből a fix pontból kiindulva áttekinti a kereszténység fejlődését, amit primitíven a következő stációkra lehetne széttagolni:
1. Jézus zsidó
2. Na jó, zsidó, de nem ez a lényeg.
3. Méghogy zsidó!? Te vagy a zsidó!!!

Jó, hát azért ennél egy picit bonyolultabban: Vermes elegáns, szellemes és helyenként egyenesen költői érvelése a jézusi tanokat egy folyamatosan változó, izgalmas gondolati rendszerként mutatja be, amit sorra termékenyített meg a hellenizmus*, a hermeneutizmus, és még annyi más kortárs elmélet. Ahogy az a Vermes által vizsgált szövegek vizsgálatából kitűnik, minél szélesebb körben vált népszerűvé, annál jobban elszaporodtak benne az új elemek, gyakran olyan mértékben, amit bízvást tekinthetünk az evangéliumi egyszerűségtől és tisztaságtól való eltávolodásnak – ugyanakkor ezzel párhuzamosan vált a kereszténység filozófiailag is érett, komplex vallási rendszerré**. És ahogy egyre összetettebbé vált, úgy tünedeztek fel a vadhajtások is – így a kereszténység, aki kezdetben az izraelitákkal és a rómaiakkal vitatkozott, a második század után kénytelen volt kvázi saját magával disputálni, különösen a Markion képviselte gnoszticizmussal. Ezekben a vitákban sorra kristályosodtak ki érvcsoportjai, hogy aztán, kizárva az ellenvéleményeket, sajnálatos módon eljussanak a merev dogmákig – köztük a híres-hírhedt homouszioszig. Köszönjük, nikaia-i zsinat, Arius meg az eretnek hívei pedig mehetnek a lecsóba. A könyv külön erénye, hogy nemcsak vallástörténet iránt érdeklődőknek nyújt örömet, hanem azoknak is, akik a tágabb értelemben vett emberi gondolkodás kacskaringói iránt érdeklődnek.

* Sok Biblia-kutató szerint nem a hellenizmus hatott a kereszténységre, hanem konkrétan Mózes hatott Platónra, úgyhogy náluk a pont. Ebben lehet valami, az legalábbis biztos, hogy Platón nyilván többet merített Mózesből, mint Mózes Platónból.
** Ennek a folyamatnak az ábrázolása különbözteti meg e művet Johnson kereszténység-interpretációjától: amíg Johnsonnál ez a folyamat egyértelműen torzulás, az eredeti tanok elferdítése, addig Vermes jóval komplexebben mutatja be ezt az utat, kiemelve, hogy a rivális vallásokkal való összecsapások során nem volt elkerülhető ez a változás.

AJA-3

This book is indeed in English. Complete? Not so much. What the book contains is translations of all the published Dead Sea Scrolls except the ones that are actual Biblical text. Oh, and the myriad bits and scraps that contain only a word or two. Still that leaves 635 pages of material, not counting the Appendix. Reading it was, well, a varied experience. Some of it was interesting, some was dreadfully dull. It would serve as waiting room material in a pinch, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but a scholar who had need of it as a reference book.
--J.

JESÚS EL JUDÍO

«El descubrimiento de los auténticos antecedentes de Jesús y de su
auténtica judeidad pretende ser, en otras palabras, ni más ni menos
que un intento de eliminar malentendidos que han sido responsables
durante mucho tiempo de una imagen irreal de Jesús; un primer paso
hacia lo que podría ser el descubrimiento del hombre real que fue.
Como hemos visto en estas páginas, sus seguidores tuvieron desde el
principio grandes dificultades para aceptar las opiniones que
él expresaba sobre sí mismo. Aunque explícitamente eludió el título de
Mesias, muy pronto le invistieron con él, haciéndose desde entonces
inseparable de su imagen en el pensamiento cristiano.

Por contraste, aunque aprobó la designación profeta, fue éste uno de los
primeros apelativos que la Iglesia desechó, y que nunca ha vuelto a adoptar.
El resultado ha sido que, incapaz de determinar y admitir el significado histórico
de las palabras registradas por los evangelistas o no
deseando hacerlo, el cristianismo ortodoxo ha edificado una estructura
doctrinal basada en una interpretación arbitraria de las sentencias
evangélicas, una estructura que tiene que ser, por su propia naturaleza,
muy vulnerable a la crítica racional»,

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean desert between 1947 and 1956 transformed our understanding of the Hebrew Bible, early Judaism and the origins of Christianity. These extraordinary manuscripts appear to have been hidden in the caves at Quumran by members of the Essene community, a Jewish sect in existence before and during the time of Jesus. Some sixty years after the Scrolls' first discovery, this revised and much expanded edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls in English crowns a lifetime of research by the great Qumran scholar Geza Vermes.

A book on the historical Jesus that takes the position that an important factor in the teachings of Jesus is that he was an observant Jew.

Unfortunately, whilst this is a book trying hard to summarise the "journey" of Christianity, which Vermes describes as the movement from a charismatic eschatological historical Jesus to a dogmatic intellectual acceptance of Jesus as God at the Council at Nicaea, it lost me as a very general reader upon the way.
I do have a better understanding of the changing nature of Christianity over its first three centuries. However, I know that I will shortly forget all but the most basic shape of that transformation. This is due to the author deciding to quote extensively from the sources, which is usually an excellent approach in historical books, but which just meant that I got bogged down in phraseology that sounded extremely similar and very opaque as to the meaning. But I expect that this is probably the difficulty of the sources, which are translations from probably fragmentary works.
So, the overall shape of Vermes argument is well made, but it took this reader a lot of work to reach it.

In memory of Maria Andreanszky

A noted biblical scholar lays to rest the doubts concerning the reality of Jesus Christ and presents telling evidence for at least an incredible event, perhaps a resurrection, yet to be explained away by worshipers of the simple is best explanation when evidence is unreliable.

Who was the real Jesus? How was this Palestinian charismatic transformed by later generations into the heavenly savior who is the focus of the Christian Church? Did Jesus's own teachings lead to his divine characterization? Or did the church-centered needs of gentile Christianity hide his true face, obscuring the religion he preached and practiced? With unique authority, sensitivity, and insight, renowned scholar Geza Vermes explores these difficult questions by examining the New Testament writings, placing them in the context of the Jewish civilization of the first century. Starting with the elevated, divine figure of Christ presented in the most recent Gospel, the Gospel of John, Vermes travels back through earlier accounts of Jesus's life to reveal the true historical figure.

What a fun, well written little book on the discovery, academic battles, content, and publishing of the Qumran Scrolls.

What a fun, well written little book on the discovery, academic battles, content, and publishing of the Qumran Scrolls.

I read this as an amateur student of religious history. The Dead Sea Scrolls have been studied for over 50 years now and although they do not "change" much of what we know about the bible itself, they do offer much insight into the background of the origin of Judeo-Christian texts. Author Vermes was in his 80's when this was written, and as one of the original experts allowed access to the scrolls, his insights and comments are very interesting. Recommended for students of biblical history.

The Authentic Gospel of Jesus
Geza Vermes
April 6, 2015
In my new religious phase, I sent out to read this for lent. Geza Vermes is a very deep scholar of Aramaic and Greek, with knowledge of canonical texts and commentary. He attempts to find passages in the gospels that were probably words, or nearly words, of Jesus. He uses a general criterion of surprise. Many statements in works written 50 to 100 years after Jesus probable death date were apologetics for the early church; those that seem to have no purpose in justifying the consolidation of the church were more likely to be orginal. He also believes that Jesus expressed himself in hyperbole. He sketches his belief that Jesus expected to see the kingdom of God established during his lifetime, was surprised at his death on the cross, and was preaching only to Jews. The multiple chapters classifying statements, offering brief explanations of the passages from the gospels, sometimes referring back to previous passages, are for specialists, only the last chapter and epilogue explain the character of the gospels overall.

Vermes takes a look, from his viewpoint as a Jewish scholar, at how much of the sayings and deeds of Jesus we can regard as "gospel"! that is, authentic. Provides a very good cultural context for much that is puzzling if read "straight". My take on it is that if we absorb no other truth from the Bible except to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, we have understood everything that is needful.

The Changing Face of Jesus, by eminent biblical historian Geza Vermes is both authoritative and readable. In this work, Vermes focuses on how Jesus is portrayed in the gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and Acts. What makes this work so important is the Vermes delves deeply into the differences in the “face of Jesus,’ between these sources. He does so with deep textual analysis combined with masterful contextual background in the culture and faith of 1st C. Palestine. For example, in his study, Vermes deals with specific terminology applied to Jesus in different sources, and contextualizes phrases like “the son of man” or “Lord,” bringing them back to their true meaning when they were used.

Vermes’ contention is that it was not the charismatic itinerant preacher that made of himself the divine figure we now know, but that each successive generation of followers added a new layer to the story crafted out of the very real concerns and issues of their respective times. Paul, unlike his fellow apostles (with whom his relationship was famously contentious). writes philosophically, devising a theology admittedly devoid of the living man, but heavily informed by the mystery cults and rhetoric of his Hellenistic upbringing. The synoptics, on the other hand, focus on the life of Christ hagiographically more than historically, and, as we might expect of a biography of a beloved icon, tailor their accounts to the audiences for which they write. John, the latest gospel by decades, is markedly different from both Paul and the synoptics, and it is primarily from John that we get the divine Christ. As Vermes puts it: "Quite frequently John's gospel speaks of the actual oneness of Father and Son. The synoptics would have had the cold shivers." (p.50) John's Jesus is the only one cast in vitriolic, even violent. opposition to the Jews, a direct response to the deep and often equally violent conflict between Jews and the ‘new’ faith, only just distinguishing itself from Judaism.

Overall, if you are interested in a scholarly, textual, and historical understanding of the Jesus story and how it changed since its beginnings, this is a superb place to begin. Those seeking Christian apologetics may not be pleased by this work, as Vermes looks to history, not faith. He is not writing as a religious man for religious readers, he writes as a scholar for genuinely interested readers.

An accessible translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS).

Vermes was a great scholar, well-attuned to Rabbinic texts and thus the history of Judaism, and this is reflected in his treatment of the DSS. The introduction may be long but it is thorough, discussing the circumstances of the discovery of the DSS, a history of the translation of the DSS, what is to be learned from the DSS, a survey of scholastic opinion regarding the relationship between the DSS and Qumran, and of course a great analysis of the Essene Jewish community at Qumran as reflected in the DSS. Furthermore, each individual text has an introduction describing its contents to the best of our understanding.

It should be noted that this collection does not include the Biblical texts discovered in the caves around Qumran but does include everything else: the community's sectarian texts, apocryphal and pseudepigraphal texts, commentaries on the Biblical texts, compositions written according to the themes of the Biblical texts, etc. Vermes consolidates texts which feature many manuscripts and notes which manuscripts underlie which sections.

The translation effectively communicates the meaning of the texts in English. Many of the texts demand some level of understanding of Second Temple Judaism, and this is where the introduction will prove quite helpful to the non-specialist.

This is a highly recommended translation of the DSS especially for those who are interested in learning more about them but are not specialists in the field.

I found this book…oddly disappointing. The main problem is a problem that is my pet peeve about many biblical scholars. This is the practice of using a statement made in one part of the Bible to prove that a statement in another part of the Bible is false. It’s kind of like using inches to prove that centimeters are wrong. I mean, sometimes I can see the point of this method, but other times it just seems nonsensical, especially when there is a completely reasonable explanation for a seeming contradiction. Vermes makes much of the fact that it seems that the location of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is an invention made to make the event line up with an obscure prophecy and as proof he points to the verses where Jesus’ contemporaries in Galilee wonder how he could be the Messiah if he was born in Nazareth.

The exact placement of Jesus’ birth does have issues, but all canonical or non-canonical accounts place it somewhere around Bethlehem. The hoops Matthew and Luke jump through to get Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem are complicated and even historically questionable, but it seems unlikely that their audience would have accepted such a complicated account if it lacked some kind of historical precedent. As for the statements of others asking about Jesus’ birth in Nazareth, hasn’t Vermes ever heard of the idea that the Gospels have as a major theme the Messianic Secret? Or that the Gospels often use irony or rhetorical questions to advance that theme?

The other major problem I had was Vermes approach to Matthew’s use of proof texts. Matthew’s appeal to prophecies are sometimes odd (and maybe even made up) but Matthew does not do anything which his contemporaries among the Mishnah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the whole stream of Second Temple Jewish Literature were not also doing, or doing even more imaginatively. Vermes knows this, I know he knows this. So why does he characterize Matthew as a purveyor of falsehoods, half-truths, and outright deception? Unless, of course, that is also his opinion of nearly every other Second Temple Jewish author, but then he should have mentioned that.

Overall, I found the book interesting insofar as it let me get an understanding of Vermes own musings and opinions of the genre of Infancy Gospels. Some of his ideas I find unlikely (such that the virgin birth referred to Mary simply becoming pregnant by Joseph before the onset of menarche), but they are interesting ideas to grapple with. Whether it was responsible for him to express such unproven ideas as fact in a book geared to a general audience is quite another matter.

The author has been working with the Dead Sea scrolls since their discovery in the 1940s, so as you'd expect this book is filled with a lot of detail backed up by first-hand accounts.

Given the amount of detail in the book, it's surprisingly readable. I still found it a bit dry, but that's really my fault rather than the book's because I was expecting a lighter read.

The author gives an independent view of the many controversies, and shows a remarkable ability to avoid demonising people for their failings. Given the number of failures and wacky theories connected with the scrolls, that can't have been an easy task.

NO OF PAGES: 286 SUB CAT I: Yeshua SUB CAT II: First Century Judaism SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: This now-classic book is a significant corrective to several recent developments in the study of the historical Jesus. In contrast to depictions of Jesus as a wandering Cynic teacher, Geza Vermes offers a portrait based on evidence of charismatic activity in first-century Galilee. Vermes shows how the major New Testament titles of Jesus-prophet, Lord, Messiah, son of man, Son of God-can be understood in the historical context. The result is a description of Jesus that retains its power and its credibility.NOTES: SUBTITLE: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels

NO OF PAGES: 197 SUB CAT I: First Century Judaism SUB CAT II: Yeshua SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: These studies develop further the investigation carried out in Dr. Vermes' books "Jesus the Jew" and "The Dead Sea Scrolls" and shed light on many important and controversial issues from that period. Subjects include the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for Jewish studies and New Testament studies; the relationship of Jewish studies to the interpretation of the New Testament; and Jesus' understanding of himself. In particular, this volume contains the Riddell Memorial Lectures, "The Gospel of Jesus the Jew", which represent a continuation of "Jesus the Jew".NOTES: SUBTITLE: