I think I gotta get me one of them new Pope books

Had the chance to listen in on a phone conference call yesterday with a panel of Theological Heavy Hitters (Fr. Fessio, Mark Brumley, Rabbi Jacob Neusner, Ben Witherington, Brant Pitre and a number of others) who were all giving their extremely excited impressions of the Pope’s new Jesus of Nazareth book. Everybody, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish, was raving about it. I’m not surprised. The man is a fine biblical scholar and a fine writer. He knows how to handle the tools of Scripture study like an artist and a fine craftsman and he knows (best of all) which tools are appropriate when rather than (like so many biblical scholars) taking up one tool like a hammer and treating every text like a nail. He shows us the way in terms of engaging the text as both historical *and* as a theological treatment of history instead brutally sawing our Lord in two and proclaiming the bloody halves of his corpse to be the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith. He gives us back Jesus who is the God who invades our history: fully man and fully God.

So lovely to have him as Pope!