On the advice of a character from a Jim Harrison novel I was reading many years ago, I ordered two translations of Stephen Mitchell: The Book of Job, and The Gospel According to Jesus. I finally got around to reading one of them (one big advantage of retirement). Over the last couple of weeks I have read The Gospel According to Jesus. It was interesting and worthwhile. It opens with a lengthy introduction, followed by a translation of the parts of the gospels which in some versions would be the red-letter parts. After that section, Mitchell returns to the various parts thematically, accompanied with commentary. The commentary is a mixture of Mitchell, selections from Biblical scholars, and similar themes in philosophy (Buddhist, Taoist), and poetry (Blake, Rilke for example). As one of the blurbs on the back of the book says, “This approach succeeds brilliantly. Jesus, or at least Mitchell’s attractive portrait of him, leaps. into life and will fire the interest of believers and nonbelievers alike. (Harvey Cox)” And no, I have not abandoned my apostasy.
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