Cynthia Bourgeault creates a masterful guide to Jesus’s vision and the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself. If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness. The Wisdom Jesus provides a new perspective on Christ and an expansive interpretation of His message.
Bob’s Reflection
I’ve always been fascinated by the reading material known as ‘Low Christology’, the focus on Jesus’s humanity and earthly life experiences. I am inspired when looking at His life from that perspective, and reading about what scholars are saying as they reveal more about the social world of the New Testament and the cultural anthropology that would have influenced Jesus’s ministry, teaching, and his way of seeing the world.
Learning About The Author
Cynthia Bourgeault presents Jesus not primarily as a teacher of doctrine but as a master of the Wisdom Tradition, and one who invites us into inner transformation. Rather than emphasizing belief-systems and doctrine, she presents Jesus’s purpose as transforming the way we see God, ourselves, and others.
Questions The Book Raised
Two questions that stayed with me throughout the book:
- What was it about Jesus the man, that so captured people’s hearts before the Resurrection? and
- What qualities inspired so many to alter and often sacrifice their lives in following him?
Cynthia makes the point that most of us have the benefit of looking at Jesus through a 2000-year historical/institutional perspective that has largely solved all the questions of faith. This book reminded me again of how much our conventional religious containers can begin to limit our images and experience of God.
