Jesus Before Christianity

In recent days I've been thinking again about the book Jesus Before Christianity by Albert Nolan. It's one of those landmark books that come at a key moment of growth and has had a profound influence on me. 

Seven years ago I wrote a few blog posts summarizing it, and this week as I remembered it afresh, I was struck again with the man Jesus. So I'm going to republish the old posts again this week. Below is the introduction I wrote to the book; I'll post each of the following 8 parts daily after this:

The greatest joy of my retirement years has been pursuing knowing God in Jesus. While this has been a primary pursuit for most of my life, in the five years since I retired, I've had the opportunity to step away from the confines of "Christendom" and discover a wide and boundless ocean of love and goodness in God as manifested in Christ Jesus beyond that which I had ever known before.

I continue to be awestruck by this Person, Jesus of Nazareth, in ever-increasing measure! It's like opening a door into the wonder of such a person only to find another door to walk through into more of His beauty, and that door opening into another door...and on and on.

A couple of years ago I read Jesus Before Christianity by Albert Nolan and was really blessed at the time. Recently over the holidays, I picked it up again and my heart has almost exploded with wonder over Jesus once again as I've had another veil removed from my eyes related to Him by reading bits and pieces of this book.

One of the recommendations on the back of the book says, "If you are going to read only one book on Jesus this year, this is the one."

In the next little while, I'll share bits and pieces from the book but I highly recommend you read it all...