Pope has Finished his Latest Book
August 2, 2012 8 Comments
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Pope Benedict XVI has completed the third volume of his book “Jesus of Nazareth”. The work, entitled “Infancy Narratives” will now translated from the original German into different languages to come out at the same time, the Vatican announced on Thursday. Publication date was not mentioned. For careful translations, however, one must reckon on a “reasonable period”, the Vatican communique said. Originally there was talk, the book could be in the bookshops at the end of the year, possibly already in September.
The first volume of the “Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI.” published trilogy was about the time from Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, which was released April 2007. Volume Two on the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection was released in March 2011.
I look forward to it. Pope Benedict XVI is a fantastic scholar on the Historical Jesus.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
I like Ratzinger/Benedict on theology, I have been reading him for years! Sadly today, Scripture scholars are on the wane! Also one of the best Catholic’s here in the last 40 years or so, has been Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J., he’s well into his 70′s now. A Pauline scholar btw, I wish him well!
Btw, it hard for me to leave out “Creation”, when talking about the Historical Jesus! (Note, 2 Cor. 4:6)… And it is here that for me anyway, a full-blown scientific evolution breaks down. Indeed biblically we must note the Ancient Hebrew Cosmology, and the Bible itself just does not fully deal with the age of the earth, but we still must understand “the generations” in Gen. 11, etc. St. Paul certainly believed in a historical Adam, (1 Cor. 15:45, etc.) WE are stuck here actually, with just God’s Word & Mystery! Old Earth/Young Earth? who really knows? The Biblical Revelation does not fully speak here, i.e. age of the earth.
Yes, and don’t forget Raymond E. Brown.
But on the Historical Jesus, Ratzinger is a brilliant scholar.
Yes, he was a good man (RIP). But, these men, also like De Lubac (who really bit hard onto theistic evolution), are going away now, sadly. And I don’t see many at all replacing them! And NT Wright and company, just does not cut it here for me anyway…(sorry Tom!
) Though of course I can’t follow Lubac on Creation! Like Augustine, perhaps GOD created the earth in one quick instantaneous moment? And the rest, (Gen. 1-2), is “Framework”, who knows? God makes us humble before HIS majesty! 
Well, I’m a little clued up on the Historical Jesus (part of the Bib. Arch). Ratzinger (as I said), NT Wright knows his story too (so yes, I’d have to respectfully disagree with you on him Fr) and crossing the theo spectrum if you will, Craig A. Evans and William Lane Craig are fine Historical Jesus scholars too. The latter deal rather decisively with the Jesus Seminar lot.
Don’t get me wrong, as I have said many times before Tom Wright is brilliant mentally, but I cannot follow his presuppositions, biblically and certainly not theologically. (Of course this does not touch on the main lines of dealing with the Jesus Sem. people, who are mostly just not Christological at all!) But again Wright is not really that creedal or conservative! I will stand on that, as a Evangelical Anglican!
– Note, Wright’s so-called “Open Evangelicalism”, which fundamentally is simply too “Open” for me! But this is the nature of general Anglicanism today (again, as I see it anyway)… we are all gonna get our front-row seat at the Bema-Seat of Christ! 
I always cringe when I read the phrase ‘Historical Jesus’- It seems to imply, that there’s the Jesus we worship, and the ‘Historical Jesus’
It smells of an old heresy that denies the oneness of Our Lord.
Indeed the Historical Jesus ideas are certainly from modern and postmodern liberal theology, i.e. Albert Schweitzer, etc. Sadly even Raymond Brown did not believe in the historical Gospel narratives. And no doubt the Jesus Seminar people spun out of the Historical Jesus theology, (so-called). For those theolog’s who care, they might want to read Craig Keener fine book: The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. I myself, stand in both Holy Scripture and the Ecumenical Councils! In reality, good literary tools support rhetorical techniques and do not really undermine history, and certainly biblical history. Nor theological readings, but rather support the thoughts of Luke-Acts as Hellenistic historiography, etc.
We should note that there are or were some fine Existential scholars, and either overtly liberal or conservative scholars can and have made mistakes in Biblical Theology! So we simply must stay the course in Holy Scripture, and in the Ecumenical Councils and Creed, with the discipline of historical study, etc. Note, the study of biblical genre, etc.
loannes… I agree with you, the way they present this is like having 2 Jesus, Oh !! this is how they confuse people I always refer to my Bible through the guidance of our Lord Jesus Christ. satan loves to confuse people. Just the other day I heard someone say the Catholic revelations are the true revelations, and I thought…. the Bible is the Word of God. God Bless