Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God

The God of the Bible’s Old Testament differs significantly from the God of the New. Jack Miles is fascinated by both, and delights in exploring this endlessly intriguing subject from various provocative angles. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning God: A Biography, he posited the notion that the Old Testament God was a person, and then pondered his motives and actions as though the deity were a character in a novel. Now he turns his attention to the New Testament, focusing on Christ, and presenting him as a literary creation based only partly on the historical Jesus. He regards the New Testament, in which God has become a man–that is, Christ–as an epilogue to the Hebrew scriptures. The crisis in the title of this unconventional reexamination of the four Gospels is that God-as-Christ is brutally executed to atone for promises unkept. Despite his divinity, his powers of salvation are limited, a fact made appallingly obvious when he is crucified. A former Jesuit priest, Jack Miles brings his theological background to bear on questions that defy conclusive answers. In language that is both erudite and accessible, he encourages reflection and stimulates further investigation of age-old mysteries.