The Unknown Sayings of Jesus

Contrary to popular belief, no-one went around with Jesus as He traveled through Galilee, recording His sayings as He spoke them. But His words obviously made a considerable impression on His hearers. Peter, for example, not only remembered the saying, "Anyone who does the will of God, is brother, sister and mother to Me!" but the specific circumstances which gave rise to this quote. (See Chapter 3 of the Gospel of Mark in  More Bible Wisdom for Modern Times: Selections from the Early New Testament .) Other men who came into contact with the apostles, like Paul and Sylvanus, also wrote down sayings like "It is more blessed to give than to receive", and "Wheresoever there are two gathered in My name, they are not without God; and where there is one alone, I say I am with him." Not all of these recorded sayings made it into the New Testament. In "The Unknown Sayings of Jesus", Marvin Meyer has published sayings attributed to Jesus from a wide variety of early Christian, Jewish and Islamic sources. A few parallel Biblical sayings, while some have an authentic ring ("Truth seeks the wise and the righteous"), and others seem a little fanciful ("Laughing, some people have entered the kingdom of heaven; and they have left it laughing too") because we no longer know whom Jesus was addressing nor the circumstances. But we are given no less than 200 sayings and little stories to choose from in this invaluable collection. There's also an excellent introduction which provides a guide for the reader to sift the probable from the unlikely.

I read this book as someone raised Christian who now is inspired by most of the world's religions. I'm one of those people who hasn't met a religion they didn't like!Christianity still holds a special place in my heart. Just like I've discovered sushi & Thai food since leaving home, doesn't mean I still don't like mom's home cooking! And that's what Jesus is for me: plain, good & wonderful comfort food.This book gives us plenty to chew on and think about, both within a "Jesus only" tradition and without. And it does so without a lot of religious tradition or scholarly jargon getting in the way. If you're poly-religious like myself, you'll contemplate each saying and how it relates to sayings by other sages and masters. And if you're mono-religious, you'll find a lot of inspiring sayings by Jesus that just might cause you to look deeper into your own faith tradition, whether Christian or not.The main thing to remember when looking at books like these is that Jesus was a revolutionary, aramaic-speaking Jewish peasant (probably illiterate) and for that reason was put to death by the Romans. What he actually said was then written down by many people over the following centuries. Approximately 300 years later the 4 gospels were canonized and some of his words were put in Greek in the allegorical context of the Jewish Messiah. Needless to say a lot of other stuff attributed to him was outside that Christian tradition that developed at the time. Of course, looking back, it's hard to see the Jesus for the Christ!Nonetheless, his words alone are very inspiring -- and challenging and critical -- and worth reading whether within the Christian tradition or without.

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Marvin Meyer has gathered here a selection of 200 sayings attributed to Jesus found in a number of sources - early Christian writers, apocryphal and lost gospels, papyrus fragments, gnostic works, Islamic sources and so on. Sayings from the same source are kept contiguous, though there is no formal division of the sayings into groups. It is presented very much as a book for the general reader for personal reflection and possibly for dipping into - there is generally no further commentary with a saying, just the bare saying for the reader to interpret, though there are end notes for each saying (which tend to be more cross-references than further explanations) and some more information in the introduction on many individual sayings which would have been better kept with the end notes. The introduction also discusses criteria which have been used by some scholars to determine a degree of authenticity of such sayings, though Meyer makes no such judgement of his own.

Before I read this book, I was unaware of fairly large literature in Arabic, Islamic world and Medieval periods that contained sayings of Jesus not found in standard Christian Scriptures. Sometimes they are interesting twists on existing sayings, sometimes they are knew. Generally, Marvin has done an excellent job of capturing the ones that sound "Christ like", short, powerful and dramatic.

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