Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters

N. T. Wright

HarperCollins, Oct 25, 2011 - Religion - 256 pages

"We have grown used to the battles over Jesus-whether he was human or divine as well, whether he could do miracles or just inspire them, whether he even existed or not. Much of the church defends tradition and the critics take shots at that tradition. But what if these debates have masked the real story of Jesus from us? What if even Jesus's defenders in the church have been blinded by so focusing on these issues that it has prevented them from fully grappling with what the Gospels really teach? Bible scholar, Anglican bishop, and bestselling author N.T. Wright summarizes a lifetime of study of Jesus and the New Testament in order to present for a general audience who Jesus was and is. In SIMPLY JESUS, we are invited to hear one of our leading scholars introduce the story of carpenter's son from Nazareth as if we were hearing it for the first time. "Jesus-the Jesus we might discover if we really looked," explains Wright, "is larger, more disturbing, more urgent than we had ever imagined. We have successfully managed to hide behind other questions and to avoid the huge, world-shaking challenge of Jesus' central claim and achievement. It is we, the churches, who have been the real reductionists. We have reduced the kingdom of God to private piety; the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience; Easter itself to a happy, escapist ending after a sad, dark tale. Piety, conscience and ultimate happiness are important, but not nearly as important as Jesus himself." As the church faces the many challenges of the twenty-first century, Wright has presented a vision of Jesus that more than meets them"--

What people are saying

Review: Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters

User Review  - Trevor - Goodreads

This book should be titled: "Jesus: It's Complicated" As could be expected, in this book Wright attempts to open up his dense and nuanced arguments from Jesus and the Victory of God for the non ...

Review: Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters

User Review  - Taylor Storey - Goodreads

Excellent, excellent book. NT Wright does the best job of summarizing the waves of Judaism and roman culture that intersected in the first century and what the earliest Christians were trying to ...

About the author

N. T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and one of the world’s leading Bible scholars. He is now serving as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. For twenty years Wright taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford Universities, and he has been featured on ABC News, Dateline, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air. Wright is the award-winning author of After You Believe, Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Challenge of Jesus, and The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the much-heralded series Christian Origins and the Question of God.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters
• Author: N. T. Wright
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011
• ISBN: 0062084399, 9780062084392
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Religion / Biblical Biography / New Testament; Religion / Biblical Commentary / New Testament; Religion / Biblical Studies / Jesus, the Gospels & Acts; Religion / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth; Religion / Christian Theology / Christology; Religion / Christianity / General; Religion / General