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Learn moreWith the same passionate scholarship and analytical audacity he brought to the character of God, Jack Miles now approaches the literary and theological enigma of Jesus. In so doing, he tells the story of a broken promise–God’s ancient covenant with Israel–and of its strange, unlooked-for fulfillment. For, having abandoned his chosen people to an impending holocaust at the hands of their Roman conquerors. God, in the person of Jesus, chooses to die with them, in what is effectively an act of divine suicide.
On the basis of this shocking argument, Miles compels us to reassess Christ’s entire life and teaching: His proclivity for the powerless and disgraced. His refusal to discriminate between friends and enemies. His transformation of defeat into a victory that redeems not just Israel but the entire world. Combining a close reading of the Gospels with a range of reference that includes Donne, Nietzche, and Elie Wiesel, Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is a work of magnificent eloquence and imagination.
Jack Miles is a writer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, the 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.
Grover Gardner’s narration career spans 25 years and over 550 audiobook titles. AudioFile magazine has called him one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and features him in their annual “Golden Voices” update. Publishers Weekly named him Audiobook Narrator of the Year for 2005. His recordings have garnered 18 Earphones Awards from AudioFile and an Audie Award from the Audio Publishers’ Association.
Jack Miles is a writer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, the 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.
Grover Gardner’s narration career spans 25 years and over 550 audiobook titles. AudioFile magazine has called him one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and features him in their annual “Golden Voices” update. Publishers Weekly named him Audiobook Narrator of the Year for 2005. His recordings have garnered 18 Earphones Awards from AudioFile and an Audie Award from the Audio Publishers’ Association.
Reviews
"Miles is a master, provocative and accessible, in presenting a God who is ambivalent, hesitant, moody, offhand, remote and opaque.... All in all, this is the most compelling page-turner of the year."--Bill Bell, New York Daily News
"The brilliance of Jack Miles’s new book on Christ is that it manages to “make strange” the best-known story in history."
--Edward Skidelsky, The New Statesman
"...an erudite and provocative literary tour de force that would make a perfect Christmas or Hanukkah present for believers and nonbelievers alike. It is truly impossible to catalog all of the literary riches in this reinterpretation of the New Testament."
--Susan Jaccoby, Newsday
"As a way of seeing, Miles’s book has great power and depth. Though he does not try to solve the problem of evil, his book gives us, with horrid clarity, the vision of a culpable, guilty, and finally atoning God..."
--James Wood, The New Yorker
"The faithful may be disturbed by Miles’ reading of the Bible as a portrait of a God capable of changing his mind... But Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is, like Miles’ previous book, a stimulating, challenging work.
--Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury
"...a daring critic who can provide his own translations of Hebrew and Greek. 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."
--Ron Charles, Christian Science Monitor
"...a literary vision of Christ with more insight, warmth, and verve (not to mention chutzpah), that have been seen...for many a year."
--Peter Heinegg, America
"This American ex-Jesuit...is a resuscitation artist. His style is exceptionally riveting. His theses are daring, his perspectives astonishing, his insights as daring as they are witty."
--Ludger LŸtkehaus, Die Zeit, Hamburg Expand reviews
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