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| What the Gospels Meant | 
 enlarge | Author: Garry Wills
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 7985
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0670018716
Dewey Decimal Number: 226.06
EAN: 9780670018710
ASIN: 0670018716
Publication Date: February 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Hardcover, 2008 copyright, viking publisher with dj.
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Product Description
New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills interprets the four Gospels
Garry Willss recent New York Times bestselling books What Jesus Meant and What Paul Meant were tour-de-force interpretations of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. Now Wills turns his remarkable gift for biblical analysis to the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Wills brilliantly examines the goals, methods, and styles of the evangelists and how these shaped the gospels messages. The earliest book, Mark, emphasizes Jesus the sufferer; in Matthew, Jesus the teacher; in Luke, Jesus the reconciler; and in John, Jesus the mystic. Hailed as one of the most intellectually interesting and doctrinally heterodox Christians writing today (The New York Times Book Review), Wills guides readers through the maze of meanings that have accrued around these foundational texts, revealing their essential Christian truths. What the Gospels Meant will prove to be a valuable source of wisdom and inspiration for all.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Insightful and Moving February 18, 2008
36 out of 42 found this review helpful
Regardless of your religious views, this is a beautiful book. Wills looks at each gospel and puts much into historical context: Mark, the first, was not so much a book for the ages as one dealing with immediate local concerns of the faithful, and lays open the rift between the siblings of Christ and other Church members. The writing on Matthew and the Beatitudes and the Antitheses is some of the strongest in the book, with Wills driving home the point that the message of Christ was built on one's intentions and internal integrity and not on one's adherence to external forms and coventional thinking. Good take on the Golden Rule, where he shows how Quakers used it to argue against salvery, as well as on the Prodigal son from Luke, which is something I have never undertsood or agreed with until reading Wills's comments,which puts it into the historical context of the struggle between Jew and Gentile to claim and direct the early movement. You also get a sense of Christ's compassion for women. And although he does not mention the Buddha, you can't help, for all the world, not to see how the teachings of the Buddha and Christ are twisted together like a pretzel.
A very nice follow up to his Jesus and Paul books February 28, 2008
29 out of 34 found this review helpful
I utterly loved both of Wills's other books on the New Testament -- WHAT JESUS MEANT and WHAT PAUL MEANT -- and I suppose it would be accurate to say that I merely liked this one. There is no question that I learned a good deal, but it simply wasn't crystallizing like those other two, bringing together all that was marvelous and debunking all the widespread misconceptions concerning Jesus and Paul. Wills is best when he is defending his perception against others. Here he is more in the way of an instructor, for while most Christians have some notion or both Jesus and Paul -- whether well or poorly formed -- few have very specific notions of what each of the gospels is like. I think most readers of the NT, with the exception of those in seminary or divinity school, tend to mix the four together, blending them all together. I'm not sure that most are aware that the nativity scenes are not present in all four gospels.
Speaking of seminary and divinity school (I attended both, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for a year before the right wing ideologues got a hold of it and Yale Divinity School after that), while attending both I developed a profound esteem for the late Raymond E. Brown, whose commentary on John and books on the death and birth of Jesus stand at the pinnacle of New Testament scholarship. Today no one thinks twice upon seeing a Biblical commentary written by a Roman Catholic scholar, but only a couple of generations ago such a thing was unheard of. It was only after Vatican II that Catholic Biblical scholars embraced the critical study of the Bible. No scholar did more to invigorate such studies within Catholicism as Brown. Anyone reading this will quickly discern how deeply indebted Wills is to Raymond Brown. This debt is indicated from the outset. The dedication page reads "To Raymond Brown, devout scholar." Then a couple of pages later the Key to Citations page lists five works that are referred to by brief citation; four of them are by Brown.
If this implies that Wills book is somewhat derivative from Brown's work, I do not mean this as a bad thing. Brown himself wrote for scholars. Bringing some of Brown's insights to general readers in hardly a bad thing. Nor is everything in the book derived from Brown. Wills is obviously a careful and diligent reader of the Bible. If Brown is his guide in many things, the final result is very much the product of Wills's own mind.
No doubt anyone who is not already an advanced scholar of the New Testament (a designation that unfortunately would not exclude most Christian ministers) will profit from this book. It does, however, have a far narrower audience than Wills's Jesus and Paul books. I have recommended both of those books to friends. Wills's views on Jesus are very similar to my own (I wanted to cheer in the passages where he debunks any notion that Jesus could be taken as a religious or moral teacher without all the god talk, since the main thing he wanted to teach was that he was god). And I've long thought that Paul took way too much flak for things he never said nor taught. So if you ask, who comprises the potential audience for those two books, the answer is easy: anyone who wants to know more about Jesus and Paul. And since those are two of the dominant figures in Western history, regardless of how you feel about Jesus being god, anyone who wants to know anything about his or her culture. But who is the audience for this book? Well, anyone who wants to know more about the ways the Gospels differ from one another. But that is a smaller audience than the Jesus and Paul books. I certainly would hesitate before recommending it to anyone who didn't want to go beneath the surface. It could well be used by church Bible study groups with profit, since most ministers have a truly weak understanding of the Bible (sorry if that sounds negative, but one problem I've had trying to find churches to attend is finding ministers who knew much about the Bible).
So, if you read Wills's Jesus and Paul books and would like more, definitely give this a try. If you have read neither of those books, read them before this one.
ANOTHER commentary on the gospels?!? Ah, but this one is worth reading... March 4, 2008
27 out of 30 found this review helpful
The four gospels have been dissected, scrutinized, and exegeted for the better part of 18 centuries. (Some would argue that, in the last two centuries, they've also been vivisected!) Thousands of volumes have been written on them. A simple amazon search of the word "gospels" reveals nearly 167,000 items alone.
That's why it's hard for me to get excited whenever yet another commentary appears. But Garry Wills' What the Gospels Meant is in a class of its own, as readers of his previous books might well expect.
Wills argues that the four gospels need to be read as forms of prayer, "meditations on the meaning of Jesus in the light of Sacred History as recorded in the Sacred Writings" (p. 7). As such, the gospels are (1) continuations of the sacred scriptures of the Hebrews and (2) accounts of Christ's indwelling in the Christian community. (Wills argues that the notion of the community of faith as the mystical Body of Christ is a quite early one, asserted by Paul in his baptismal hymn in Galatians 3.) Read individually, the gospels are on-the-ground "reports" from specific Christian communities. Read together, they constitute creed.
Wills examines the four gospels by focusing on the specific message and tone unique to each. None of the basics of what he has to say will surprise anyone who knows a bit about the New Testament. Mark, whom Augustine called Matthew's pedisequus et breviator ("drudge and condenser"), writes in less than elegant Greek and emphasizes the suffering of the persecuted Messiah and the community of his followers. Matthew is the great teacher, who neatly (and sometimes pedantically) collects Jesus' sayings (including the Sermon on the Mount) and connects them in with sacred scripture and prophecy. In a way, Matthew is the first Christian exegete. Luke is the compassionate gospelist who emphasizes Jesus' solidarity with the outcast and reconciliation between Gentile and Jew. How bitterly ironic, then, that Jesus is himself cast out by the powers-that-be. Finally, John is the mystical gospelist who preaches the Body of Christ and focuses on the Light within and without. John's gospel is a history of the interior community.
Again, nothing terribly surprising here. Wills writes with such elegance and easy erudition, however, that his discussion, however familiar it may be, is a delightful read. But what really makes his book worth reading are his wonderful translations.
Wills objects to what he calls the "prettified Bible English of most translations," arguing that it fails to capture the "telegraphic character" of the koine Greek. His own translations seek to remain loyal the "muscular and awkwardly eloquent" tone of the original, and they're startlingly insightful and evocative, making it impossible to read too-familiar scriptural passages with our usual jaded eyes. Take, for example, Will's rendering of the prologue to John's gospel (p. 159):
At the origin was the Word
and the word faced God,
and the Word was God;
this faced God at the origin.
Through him all things came to exist,
and without him nothing that exists existed.
What existed in him was vivifying,
and the vivification was alight to men,
and the light shone into the darkness,
and the darkness did not cope with it.
Or the Beatitudes from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount (pp. 77-78):
Happy the poor in their own mind,
since heaven's reign belongs to them.
Happy the sad,
since they shall be consoled.
Happy those who yield,
since they shall acquire the earth.
Happy those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail,
since they will eat and drink their full.
Happy those taking pity on others,
since they will be pitied.
Happy those who are pure within,
since they will see God.
Happy those who bring peace to others,
since they will be named God's sons.
Happy those who are punished for their virtue,
since heaven's reign belongs to them.
Great stuff, for those with eyes to see and ears to listen!
 A weak and confusing effort from a master April 3, 2008
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
First of all, I would challenge anyone who tried to claim that Garry Wills is a heretic or unfaithful Christian. No one who writes as much about Scripture as he, and with as much passion, could be anything but faithful. That said, I found "What the Gospels Meant" (WTGM) to be the weakest by far of the three volumes in this series, the other two being his insightful study of Paul and his enlightening treatment of Jesus.
Like the gospels of Luke and Matthew, WTGM leans very heavily on two sources -- the exemplary work of Father Raymond Brown and Wills's own idiosyncratic translations of the Greek text of the gospels. Wills attempts nobly to examine the gospels at a level of scrutiny that few dare to attempt. His translations attempt to convey the roughness that could be found in the original writing, especially when it comes to Mark, whose command of Greek is the most meager of all the evangelists. This roughness continues to surprise me, my understanding of Christ's words coming from the translations that have ennobled Mark's pidgin level of literary achievement. If Wills' translation was accurate and sound, it would be a great addition to library of students of Christianity. But then Wills stretches a word too far, and my trust is set back, concerned about hidden agendas. For instance, Wills translates the word "gospel," as "revelation." He translates "faith" as "trust." But while these may be better choices than most translations offer, he does not back up his decisions, either in the text or in footnotes. In an attempt to reach back to Jesus's words, he discards the evangelists' words, which really are the only ones we can count on.
Still, there is much of value in the book. Wills helps the reader to appreciate the communities that assembled and prompted the writing of the gospels. Mark's community, dealing with Zealot-led persecution; Matthew's more settled community seeking to connect Jesus with his Old Testament roots; John's mature community, riven with internal dissension. Along the way, we hear snippets of current scholarly disputes, such as those questioning Luke's familiarity with Paul, assumed for so long. Too, Wills takes Father Brown's lead in dismissing the idea that John the son of Zebedee, the Beloved Disciple (and author of the gospel of John), and the author of Revelation were the same person. This may come as a shock to some, but once you think about it, it makes sense. Wills also highlights a notion that has fallen out of favor -- that Jesus was an eschatological prophet. Wills places Jesus's parables, e.g., the Parable of the Sower, into an eschatological context that seems convincing. And his explanation of the eschatological nature of the "Our Father," while sketched too quickly, is fairly well rendered.
But Wills -- whether from an overabundance of ego or being in a hurry -- missteps often. For an author writing controversial and even contrary opinions -- Will doesn't give his wilder arguments the chance they deserve. He makes one bold and definitive statements, then lunges on to his next point, seemingly oblivious to the hand grenade now hissing ominionously in his reader's lap. For instance, Wills opines (realistically enough) that the Magnificat and Benedictus were not sung extemporaneously by Mary and Simeon. Fair enough. But his statement that the early Christian community wrote these poetic utterances for a first century version of a Christmas pageant is without basis as far as I know. Other possibilities -- that Mary and Simeon may have uttered something that was later embroidered -- are not considered.
The idea that the Infancy Narratives of Luke and Matthew (actually "Birth Narratives," Wills chides) combines statements of theological truth and historical truth is no longer considered scandalous. But Wills purports to know the evangelists' minds so well that he can state with certainty that Luke included the misdated material about the census under Quirinius to show Jesus as a model citizen of the Roman Empire. But could not Luke have been a sloppy writer/researcher who, needing an excuse to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, heard about a census in the rough timeframe of Jesus's birth and said, "close enough -- I'll throw it in"? But Wills has spoken, and alternatives such as this are rarely considered.
Like many writers before him, Wills knows exactly how crucifixion was carried out. His ideas come from the standard (and incorrect) texts that insist that Jesus was nailed through the wrists, ignoring medical evidence that nailing through the hands was possible and the archeological evidence that nailing through the forearms was practiced, at least on occasion. Most controversially, and I think deeply erroneously, he insists that Mary's physical virginity at the conception of Christ was not " a gynecological or obstetric teaching, but a theological one." (p. 70) It would be one thing to suggest that an overeager Matthew overreached in claiming that Isaiah 7 (the Masoretic mistranslation that states that a "virgin" will give birth to a child) referred to Christ's birth, Wills seems intent on demolishing the undeniable biological fact that Mary was a virgin ( "How can this be when I have not known man?) at the time of the Annunciation. Worse still, Wills quotes Father Brown out of context, using Brown's statement against reading an antisexual bias into Mary's virginity story as an attack on the virginal conception itself. This would be shameful, if not for Wills's evident sincerity of heart.
WTGM is a whirlwind of genius, speculation, insight and ludicrous error. But like the person observing a television image at close range, Wills's close-up examination of the gospels is pixilated and fragmentary, with no sense of the picture he claims to be seeing. It's too bad that he did not slow down just a bit to give his arguments more force, anticipating his enemies' obvious routes of attack. Those familiar with the gospels and the controversies surrounding their creation may glean a few nuggets of wisdom from this book. But for the uneducated and unsophisticated, WTGM is bound to leave them with more questions and less faith.
 Biased to the point of misquoting scriptures April 6, 2008
7 out of 35 found this review helpful
Inaccurate even on obvious scripture quotations
I have a degree in theology and know Hebrew and Greek. Luke 2:22 "And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him [Jesus]to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;" This narrative captures all that this family would accomplish at the temple. The text is not saying Joseph has to be made clean. This was a very common practice and would also be common knowledge among the Jews; it happened at every birth.
The Greek word can be translated to mean the individual as she or them as in all women. Orignal Greek manuscripts were all written in capital letters with no punctuation. The English translators not only had to interpret for an English translation but eventually add punctuation, chapter and verse to make sense. Willis said: "...he [Luke] does not really understand Jewish law--he says that Joseph as well as Mary had to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to be purified after childbirth, which was not the case." Luke does NOT say Joseph had to be made clean.
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