Review of Jesus - According To Thomas & Mary - and Me
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[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Jesus - According To Thomas & Mary - and Me" by Francis William Bessler.]
Jesus – According To Thomas & Mary – and Me by Francis William Bessler is the author’s collected work of essays, poems, and songs about Jesus derived from his study and interpretation of The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Francis Bessler makes it clear that he is not a scholar or historian in any way, so what he says in this book is his own interpretation.
Francis Bessler includes the verses from The Gospel of Thomas and Mary, and then after each verse he provides his own interpretation. I liked the author’s emphasis that this book is his opinion and should be treated as an opinion, just as we should treat the sayings of the apostles as opinions as well, and to also form our own opinions and interpretations.
I think this book is an especially detailed analysis of The Gospel of Thomas, as there are many verses here that I struggled to understand, and it would be especially helpful for those yearning to understand Thomas’s Gospel better. There are easy and very compelling verses, such as Verse 48 (“Jesus said: If two make peace with each other in this one house, they shall say to the mountain: “Be moved”, and it shall be moved”), and other more complicated verses such as Verse 56 (“Whoever has known the world has found a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse, of him the world is not worthy”). I didn’t agree with a lot of the interpretations the author made, such as his interpretation of Verse 58, which reads: “Jesus said: Blessed is the man who has suffered, he has found the Life.” During his commentary of this verse, the author stated: “There is certainly no value in suffering of itself, but if suffering occurs while trying to live a conviction, be encouraged.” I disagree with this and believe that sometimes suffering does contain value. Otherwise, how are we to know what happiness truly feels like if we don’t understand and experience true suffering? And often the greatest changes happen when we go through the greatest sufferings, and not always while trying to “live a conviction.” Sometimes, suffering just happens, but it isn’t always for naught. But even if I didn’t 100% agree with the author’s interpretations, hearing it interpreted helped me understand what the verse was trying to say, thus making it easier for me to form my own opinion.
I really appreciated how much the author emphasized that not only should we not take his word/translations as gospel, but we should not take even the words from The Gospel of Thomas as gospel, as they are words of man and are full of things others may have written who were not as knowledgeable of Jesus as Thomas was. So, even the verses in this book should be taken with a grain of salt and left up to our own interpretation. To quote the author: “We all have minds. Let us use them to discern what is probably truth from falsity” (page 60).
I really enjoyed reading The Gospel of Mary more than The Gospel of Thomas, even though Mary’s Gospel was very short (only 5 verses). Thomas’s words were interesting and often thought-provoking, but I found a lot of the verses hard to understand. But The Gospel of Mary felt more like reading a story…a recount of Mary’s experiences with Jesus. They felt more personal. And my sect of Christianity believes that Mary Magdalene had a very close relationship with Jesus, so I really enjoyed this short section.
The only negative I found in this book was the editing. While most of the book seemed fairly well-edited, I did come across more than ten errors in my reading. However, they weren’t egregious errors that took away from my enjoyment. Also, as a fair warning to readers, The Gospel of Thomas is not for every sect of Christianity. There are verses in the book that contradict beliefs and scriptures in different versions of the Bible or different gospels. So, it’s not a “one-size-fits-all” kind of book, though the author never said that it was.
Due only to the fact that I found ten errors in the book, I have to give Jesus – According To Thomas & Mary – and Me4 out of 5 stars. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy studying Jesus’ sayings and who love puzzling out interpretations of scriptures.
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Jesus - According To Thomas & Mary - and Me
View: on Bookshelves
Jesus – According To Thomas & Mary – and Me by Francis William Bessler is the author’s collected work of essays, poems, and songs about Jesus derived from his study and interpretation of The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Francis Bessler makes it clear that he is not a scholar or historian in any way, so what he says in this book is his own interpretation.
Francis Bessler includes the verses from The Gospel of Thomas and Mary, and then after each verse he provides his own interpretation. I liked the author’s emphasis that this book is his opinion and should be treated as an opinion, just as we should treat the sayings of the apostles as opinions as well, and to also form our own opinions and interpretations.
I think this book is an especially detailed analysis of The Gospel of Thomas, as there are many verses here that I struggled to understand, and it would be especially helpful for those yearning to understand Thomas’s Gospel better. There are easy and very compelling verses, such as Verse 48 (“Jesus said: If two make peace with each other in this one house, they shall say to the mountain: “Be moved”, and it shall be moved”), and other more complicated verses such as Verse 56 (“Whoever has known the world has found a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse, of him the world is not worthy”). I didn’t agree with a lot of the interpretations the author made, such as his interpretation of Verse 58, which reads: “Jesus said: Blessed is the man who has suffered, he has found the Life.” During his commentary of this verse, the author stated: “There is certainly no value in suffering of itself, but if suffering occurs while trying to live a conviction, be encouraged.” I disagree with this and believe that sometimes suffering does contain value. Otherwise, how are we to know what happiness truly feels like if we don’t understand and experience true suffering? And often the greatest changes happen when we go through the greatest sufferings, and not always while trying to “live a conviction.” Sometimes, suffering just happens, but it isn’t always for naught. But even if I didn’t 100% agree with the author’s interpretations, hearing it interpreted helped me understand what the verse was trying to say, thus making it easier for me to form my own opinion.
I really appreciated how much the author emphasized that not only should we not take his word/translations as gospel, but we should not take even the words from The Gospel of Thomas as gospel, as they are words of man and are full of things others may have written who were not as knowledgeable of Jesus as Thomas was. So, even the verses in this book should be taken with a grain of salt and left up to our own interpretation. To quote the author: “We all have minds. Let us use them to discern what is probably truth from falsity” (page 60).
I really enjoyed reading The Gospel of Mary more than The Gospel of Thomas, even though Mary’s Gospel was very short (only 5 verses). Thomas’s words were interesting and often thought-provoking, but I found a lot of the verses hard to understand. But The Gospel of Mary felt more like reading a story…a recount of Mary’s experiences with Jesus. They felt more personal. And my sect of Christianity believes that Mary Magdalene had a very close relationship with Jesus, so I really enjoyed this short section.
The only negative I found in this book was the editing. While most of the book seemed fairly well-edited, I did come across more than ten errors in my reading. However, they weren’t egregious errors that took away from my enjoyment. Also, as a fair warning to readers, The Gospel of Thomas is not for every sect of Christianity. There are verses in the book that contradict beliefs and scriptures in different versions of the Bible or different gospels. So, it’s not a “one-size-fits-all” kind of book, though the author never said that it was.
Due only to the fact that I found ten errors in the book, I have to give Jesus – According To Thomas & Mary – and Me4 out of 5 stars. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy studying Jesus’ sayings and who love puzzling out interpretations of scriptures.
******
Jesus - According To Thomas & Mary - and Me
View: on Bookshelves
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