Again, his attention to small, yet meaningful details struck me: the manger for the one who would be our bread, our food, the birth of the son of David among shepherds, and the angelic announcement. Benedict also affirms the historicity of the virgin birth and links this to the resurrection as the two great miracles of Christianity.īenedict then turns to the actual birth of Jesus and his presentation in the temple. Benedict suggests that in one sense, she conceived this child through her ear, taking in Gabriel’s (and the Lord’s) word. I also appreciated the focus on Mary’s response of seeking understanding, holding the word in her heart, and her “yes” to God. I had not thought before of John’s descent from a priestly line, the forerunner of a new priesthood inaugurated in Jesus. The second part covers the annunciation narratives, comparing and contrasting them. One lovely detail was the focus on the four women in Matthew’s geneology, none of whom were Jewish and all considered “sinners” yet through them came this child, He notes the differing geneologies of Matthew and Luke and their purposes emphasizing the fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Davidic promise, and Luke’s which emphasizes the one who represents all of humanity. He begins with the question of the identity of this infant, posed in John 19:9 by Pilate. The work is the final volume in the Pope’s Jesus of Nazareth series. What follows are some of the details I had either not noticed or thought about in the ways Benedict describes. The work, by Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) combines careful scholarship with devotional reflectiveness that evidences deep reflections on the details of these gospel texts in Matthew, Luke, and John. I read this over the Christmas holiday and found this a wonderful study on the narratives surrounding the birth of Christ. Summary: A study of the gospel accounts of the annunciations, the infancy, and boyhood of Jesus of Nazareth. 374 pp.Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, Pope Benedict XVI (translated by Philip J. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. It is this God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth. He has brought God! He has brought the God who once gradually unveiled his countenance first to Abraham, then to Moses and the prophets, and then in the wisdom literature, the God who showed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the Pope shares a rich, compelling, flesh-and-blood portrait of Jesus and invites us to encounter, face-to-face, the central figure of the Christian faith.įrom Jesus of Nazareth, the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: But what has Jesus really brought, then, if he has not brought world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world, what has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. In this bold, momentous work, the Pope, in his first book written as Benedict XVI, seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent, popular, depictions and to restore Jesus' true identity as discovered in the Gospels.