Christ : a crisis in the life of God

357 Pages·2011·1.68 MB·English

by  Jesus Christ

Acclaim for Jack Miles’s
CHRIST
“[Jack Miles] is a daring critic.… Regardless of our agreement or disagreement with
him, he prods us to read these familiar stories afresh, with all their original suspense
and drama, his analysis serving as an invitation for our own.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“As literary interpreters go, Miles does a lovely job.… Often thrilling.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Brims with ideas, and Miles has a teacher’s urge to find a profusion of ways to explain
those ideas.… Let all great religious texts have such enlightened readers.”
—Daily Telegraph (London)
“A literary vision of Christ with more insight, warmth, and verve (not to mention
chutzpah), than have been seen … for many a year.”
—America
“Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is, like Miles’s previous book, a stimulating,
challenging work.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“Miles is a master, provocative and accessible, in presenting a God who is ambivalent,
hesitant, moody, offhand, remote and opaque: a reluctant supernatural magician.… This
is the most compelling page-turner of the year.”
—New York Daily News
Jack Miles
CHRIST
Jack Miles is a writer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications,
including The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington
Post, and The Los Angeles Times, where he served for ten years as literary editor and as a
member of the newspaper’s editorial board. The recipient of a Ph.D. in Near Eastern
languages from Harvard University and a former Jesuit, he has been a Regents Lecturer
at the University of California, director of the Humanities Center at Claremont Graduate
University, and visiting professor of humanities at the California Institute of
Technology. His first book, God: A Biography, won a Pulitzer Prize and has been
translated into fifteen languages. Currently senior advisor to the president of the J. Paul
Getty Trust, a foundation supporting art and scholarship, Dr. Miles lives with his wife
and daughter in Southern California.
Also by Jack Miles
GOD: A BIOGRAPHY

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 2002
Copyright © 2001 by Jack Miles
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in
the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in
hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
in 2001.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Miles, Jack.
Christ: a crisis in the life of God / Jack Miles.—1st ed.
p. cm
eISBN: 978-0-30778910-5
1. Incarnation—Biblical teaching. 2. Jesus Christ—Person and offices—Biblical teaching. 3. Bible.
N.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
4. Bible as literature. I. Title.
BT220.M55 2001
232—dc21 2001033808
Author photograph © Marilyn Sanders
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
For
Mary Anne, Terrence,
Catherine, Michael,
and Mary
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
PROLOGUE: Crucifixion and the Conscience of the West
A Note to the Reader
PART ONE: THE MESSIAH, IRONICALLY
His life before he was born
“The winnowing-fork is in his hand”
John hails him, strangely, as “the Lamb of God”
The Devil tries to take his measure
Disciples, unsought, follow after him
He performs his first miracle, but reluctantly
He stages an attack on the Temple, then retreats
Interlude: the burden of his omniscience
He speaks of a new creation, but privately
He talks, but to himself, of God as illness and as remedy
Interlude: the asexuality of the Father and the sexuality of the Son
He admits, but to a heretic, that he is the Messiah
Who do his disciples think he is?
PART TWO: A PROPHET AGAINST THE PROMISE
His inauspicious first cure: a Roman child
A demon cries out, “I know who you are”
The men of Nazareth, insulted, try to kill him
Interlude: the story of his birth
He repudiates his warrior past
Interlude: the Roman shoah and the disarmament of God
The price of his pacifism: John is murdered
A whore demonstrates his strategy of shame
He feeds a multitude
He stills a storm
He speaks of drinking blood, and many desert him
He appears in sudden glory on a mountaintop
PART THREE: THE LORD OF BLASPHEMY
He flagrantly violates the law of Sabbath rest
Scandal spreads, an arrest attempt fails
He refuses to condemn an adulteress
“Is he going to kill himself?”
Interlude: the suicide of God Incarnate in Christian theology
He resolves the great crisis in his life
His new commandment: kindness to strangers
His new promise: victory over death
He raises a dead friend to life as a sign
He is marked for death, then exalted as king
PART FOUR: THE LAMB OF GOD
The changing of the mind of God
A second Passover
The last testament of the Lord
1. He washes his disciples’ feet
2. He foresees betrayal but preaches love
3. The supper of the Lamb
4. “Take heart, I have conquered the world”
He is arrested, tried, scourged, and sentenced
He is crucified as King of the Jews
He rises to life, incorporates, ascends to heaven, and marries
EPILOGUE: On Writing the Lives of God
Appendix I: One Bible from Many Scriptures
(How It Happened and Why It Matters)
Appendix II: The Bible as Rose Window
(or, How Not to See Through the Bible)
Acknowledgments
Notes
Permissions