The Existential Jesus

John Carroll

‘Though the word deconstruction is likely to get the police around these days, that is exactly what Carroll's account is: as exciting, difficult and contradictory as the best of Jacques Derrida.’

Guy Rundle, The Australian

‘The Existential Jesus broadens the debate about Jesus beyond the restrictive framework of traditional church teachings.’

Matthew Lamb, Weekend Australian

View all reviews

‘The Existential Jesus is remarkable for the intensity of the writer’s admiration for his subject.’

Jill Rowbotham, Weekend Australian

‘Anyone with doubts about John Carroll being one of Australia's most creative and original thinkers will see them dissipate after a close reading of this book.’

Peter Familari, Daily Telegraph

‘The Existential Jesus is textual scholarship of the most objective kind ... Carroll's analysis of the Gospel of Mark is compelling reading.’

Alison Cotes, Courier Mail

‘This is the Gospel of Mark as you’ve never read it before, but Carroll’s interpretation of Mark’s Jesus suddenly makes sense. It’s a scholarly but not forbiddingly academic study, for Carroll writes like a novelist, his passionate almost frantic style lending conviction to the story.’

Alison Cotes, Focus

‘The Existential Jesus has the merit of being a beautiful piece of writing as well as a remarkable piece of thinking. The words dance with each other as well as with the reader, resulting in an experience not unlike listening to a beautiful piece of orchestral music. The different movements are designed to enchant, challenge, shake, delight, confound, and uplift (sometimes one feels all of these things at once, such is the striking depth of language and craftsmanship in expression) until we are ultimately led into silence, which is, of course, the right response to the enigma of Being and of finding oneself before the mystery of I AM.’

Dr Felicity McCutcheon, Melbourne Anglican

‘An elegantly written book offering new meanings to well worn stories.’

Reform Magazine

‘The Existential Jesus testifies to the need for our culture to grapple once again with the Jesus of the New Testament. John Carroll is right. This task is inescapable if we wish to understand our history and the significance of our civilisation.’

Archbishop Peter Jensen, The Monthly

‘[T]he book is well written, and it is clear that the writer is fascinated with Mark's text.’

Nahum Ayliffe, The Program

‘Awesome, awe-inspiring ... The Existential Jesus is a work of genius. Like works of genius, it will haunt without being accepted, its impossibility of being absorbed being its power.’

Zygmunt Bauman

‘[Carroll] does not bring the biases and learned habits of churchly biblical interpretation. This leaves him free to encounter freshly the power of Mark's story of Jesus ... I was struck by the freshness of this encounter, the willingness to pursue what was found using the tools of textual analysis to unlock the themes, the courage to let the text speak and then, having unpacked it, to just let it be.’

Gary Bouma, The Age

Jesus is the man who made the West. What kind of man was he? Is he relevant to a modern world shaken by crises of meaning?

The churches have mainly projected him as Jesus the carer and comforter, Jesus meek and mild, friend of the weak. This is Jesus the Good Shepherd, who preaches on sin and forgiveness. He is Lord and Saviour.

But this church Jesus is not remotely like the existential hero portrayed in the first and most potent telling of his life-story — that of Mark. Mark’s Jesus is a lonely and restless, mysterious stranger. His mission is dark and obscure. Everything he tries fails. By the end there is no God, no loyal followers — just torture by crucifixion, climaxing in a colossal deathscream. The story closes without a resurrection from the dead. There is just an empty tomb, and three women fleeing in terror.

The existential Jesus speaks today. He does not spout doctrine; he has no interest in sin; his focus is not on some after-life. He gestures enigmatically from within his own gruelling experience, inviting the reader to walk in his shoes.

He singles out everybody’s central question: ‘Who am I?’ The truth lies within individual identity, resounding in the depths of the inner self. The existential Jesus is the West’s great teacher on the nature of being.

‘Though the word deconstruction is likely to get the police around these days, that is exactly what Carroll's account is: as exciting, difficult and contradictory as the best of Jacques Derrida.’

Guy Rundle, The Australian

‘The Existential Jesus broadens the debate about Jesus beyond the restrictive framework of traditional church teachings.’

Matthew Lamb, Weekend Australian

View all reviews

‘The Existential Jesus is remarkable for the intensity of the writer’s admiration for his subject.’

Jill Rowbotham, Weekend Australian

‘Anyone with doubts about John Carroll being one of Australia's most creative and original thinkers will see them dissipate after a close reading of this book.’

Peter Familari, Daily Telegraph

‘The Existential Jesus is textual scholarship of the most objective kind ... Carroll's analysis of the Gospel of Mark is compelling reading.’

Alison Cotes, Courier Mail

Alison Cotes, Focus

Dr Felicity McCutcheon, Melbourne Anglican

‘An elegantly written book offering new meanings to well worn stories.’

Reform Magazine

Archbishop Peter Jensen, The Monthly

‘[T]he book is well written, and it is clear that the writer is fascinated with Mark's text.’

Nahum Ayliffe, The Program

‘Awesome, awe-inspiring ... The Existential Jesus is a work of genius. Like works of genius, it will haunt without being accepted, its impossibility of being absorbed being its power.’

Zygmunt Bauman

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 210mm × 135mm

Extent:288pp

ISBN (13):9781921844386

RRP:$32.99

Pub date:28 Nov 2011

High-res cover:Download Image

AWARDS

CATEGORIES / tags

Religion & beliefs PHILOSOPHY / Religious Philosophy The historical Jesus The self, ego, identity, personality PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Existentialism RELIGION / Philosophy

AUTHOR

John Carroll

John Carroll is professor of sociology at La Trobe University in Melbourne. His books include The Western Dreaming, Terror: a meditation on the meaning of September 11, The Existential Jesus, Ego and Soul: the modern west in search of meaning, and Greek Pilgrimage.

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