The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of Christianity

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 240 pages
• Published by: Inner Traditions January 25, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1594770433
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1594770432
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 11.2 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Bütz, adjunct professor of world religions at Penn State University and an ordained Lutheran minister, explores the place of James, the brother of Jesus, in the tradition and teaching of the church. He suggests that ecclesiastical authorities have deliberately suppressed the role of James in order to minimize the Jewishness of Christianity while emphasizing the theology of Paul. Bütz sees the theologies of James and Paul as contradictory in many points, with Paul distancing himself from his Jewish roots and thus creating a religion that Bütz contends was not envisioned by Jesus. Paul, Bütz asserts, relegated good works to a secondary position, contrary to the teachings of Jesus. In calling attention to this dichotomy, Bütz raises a major question: "In other words, if the first followers of Jesus—including the apostles and Jesus' own family—were thoroughly Jewish in their belief and practice and opposed to Paul's interpretation of the gospel, then just what is 'orthodoxy' and what is 'heresy'?" This volume is eminently readable and accessible to nonscholars while being thorough in its research. It raises the specter of a revisioned Christianity and challenges readers to rethink the nature of both orthodoxy and heresy. (Mar.)
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From Booklist
James, the brother of Jesus and head of the church in Jerusalem, gained prominence several years ago when an ossuary was found ostensibly carved with his name. Now the authenticity of that artifact has been questioned, just as the role of James in the founding of the church has always been controversial. Butz does an great job of synthesizing all the information about James and presenting it an informative, highly readable manner (something that eluded scholar Robert Eisenman in his 1997 book James, the Brother of Jesus). Using both canonical and Gnostic gospels as well as the writings of historians and church fathers, Butz sheds light on the religious issues that divided James and Paul (with Peter often in the middle), and in a step-by-step approach, he clarifies what Christian writings said about the concerns that roiled the nascent church. Readers on both sides of topics such as whether Jesus repudiated Judaism will find things with which to disagree, but it is the exhilaration of the debate that makes the book such a worthy acquisition. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Reader Reviews
This is not just another conspiracy book about the origins of Christianity, but rather a sober look at the evidence contained in the New Testament and other early Christian writings. With a refreshing absence of pandering to contemporary sensibilities, and drawing upon the research of other scholars, Butz argues not that Jesus was a Gnostic/feminist/gay-liberationist, but rather a Jew among Jews, indeed the Messiah of Jewish expectations, for whom a mission to the Gentiles was strictly secondary and to whom the idea of founding a new religion was utterly foreign. Butz thus agrees with many critics that the message of early Christianity was quickly distorted, but in ways that are comprehensible without resorting to grandiose conspiracy theories. The primary architect of this transformation was Paul, who is depicted in the New Testament as being in conflict with the Jerusalem-based Christianity of James, the brother of Jesus. Butz sees the Christianity of James and Peter as the earliest and most authentic form of Christianity. This early Christianity was totally Jewish, revered the person of James, and viewed Jesus in "adoptionist" terms, i.e., not as God incarnate, but as God's elected Messiah, whose role was vindicated by the resurrection. Butz shows that the New Testament itself provides ample evidence of a struggle between Paul and James (and Peter) to define the Christian message, a struggle which on various fronts played out for centuries and indeed continues to this day. As an antidote to the highly-publicized and speculative drivel which often passes for "research" into early Christianity, this book fills a great need. Butz suggests that it is perhaps time for a "second reformation," a reformation which takes into account the findings of modern scholarship and reexamines Christianity's relationship not only to Judaism and Islam, but to its own origins.