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Corrado AUGIAS and mauro pesce, Inchiesta su Gesù: Chi era l'uomo che ha cambiato il mondo (Milan: Mondadori, 2006). Pp. [iv] + 263. euro17.
Biblical scholar Pesce is interrogated by journalist, television writer, and travel author Augias, in question-and-answer format, in this attempt to explain the person and meaning of Jesus in a popular fashion to interested nonspecialists. A.'s questions are short and P.'s replies are long, but together they cover a far-ranging field of topics related to the portrait of Jesus as painted by modem biblical science, a portrait that is often significantly different from the one confected by Christian piety.
The subjects of discourse address the life of Jesus from birth to resurrection: Jesus the Jew; the many faces of the earthly Jesus in the light of modem scholarship; the political aspects of his life and ministry; his conflicts with the Pharisees; the mystery of his virginal conception; the meaning of his vocation as a miracle-worker; the political and religious reasons for his arrest, trial, and conviction; the circumstances of his death and the stories of his resurrection; the birth of the religion that came to be called Christianity; Jesus and the future of the human race.
Numerous well-phrased statements are disseminated throughout the treatise. There is a need for historical research on Jesus in order not to evade a plethora of questions from both extremes: on the one hand, a blind acquiescence to dogma; on the other, a prejudicial refusal to admit the possibility of the supernatural. Jesus certainly...