Pagola, Jose Antonio. 2009. Jesus, an Historical Approximation. Miami, Fla.: Convivium Press.
This is the English translation of Pagola’s book on Historical Jesus originally published in Spanish in 2007. Studies on historical Jesus are plenty but Pagola’s work stands out among them as he attempts to reconstruct Historical Jesus from a faith perspective.
To quote: ‘In any case, an encounter with Jesus is not the fruit of historical research or of doctrinal reflection. It only happens through personal commitment and faithful following.’
Though Jesus re
constructed through historical research is not essential for our faith, the faith demands that we use the methods available to us to have a better understanding of his historical dimension and his concrete human life. Pagola argues that this is required because Jesus Christ was incarnate in our history and he is a person of history.
However, Pagola’s work is not just a pious retelling of the story of Jesus of Nazareth. But throughout this book he interacts with other Jesus scholars and sifts in an immense amount of insights on the Roman and Jewish world of first century produced by contemporary scholarship. The result is: ‘a profound and extensive scholarly theological reflection about Jesus’ as the blurb claims and any reader would discover. It is certainly a feast to the mind and to the heart!