Book details

  • Genre:religion
  • Sub-genre:Biblical Commentary / New Testament / General
  • Language:English
  • Pages:128
  • eBook ISBN:9798350982985
  • Paperback ISBN:9798350982978

Jesus The Black Jewish Messiah

Even Shanequa Believes

By Patrick Dankwa John

Overview

If you had the chance to talk with Jesus one on one, what questions would you ask him? If I had the chance, I would ask Him about Lazarus. Jesus cried when he heard that Lazarus had died, so the two of them were obviously close friends. How did Jesus and Lazarus become such close friends in the first place? Despite this close friendship, Lazarus never became one of Jesus' disciples. Why not? We don't know for sure, but we can use our imagination. What if Lazarus's wife--who I call Shanequa--raised Holy Hell and objected to Lazarus becoming a disciple? How may things have went down? Keep in mind that Jesus was Jewish and a man of color, as were almost all the characters in the Bible. What would a Black woman tell her husband if he came home one day and told her wanted to quit his job to follow around his best friend--Jesus--who claims to be the Son Of God? You know things would not go well for said husband...
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Description

We often forget when we read the Gospels that the words of Jesus are the words of a Jewish man speaking to a Jewish audience. in this screenplay turned book, allow your imagination to be stirred, as you are invited to picture Jesus as a Black Jewish man, living among mostly other Black Jews. The Bible omits many things about Jesus' life. We're not told much about his childhood, his friends, his relationship with his parents, or his relationship with his siblings. There's so much about Him we're not told. The Gospel tells us that Jesus loved Lazarus and that Jesus cried when he heard that Lazarus had died. But we're not told why they were close friends, or why Lazarus wasn't one of His disciples. We're never told why Jesus's mother--Mary--asked Jesus to turn the water into wine. Providing wine for a wedding seems like a trivial matter to invoke the Son Of God's assistance, so why did Mary even ask Him to do it? Why didn't Mary's husband Joseph go looking for Jesus as Mary did? Why didn't the Devil return to tempt Jesus a second time, as he had threatened he would do? Or maybe the Devil did try to tempt Jesus again... Maybe God wants us to use our minds to imagine what things may have been like for Jesus. This imaginary story is told through the eyes of Jesus' close friend Lazarus. It offers possible explanations for some of the Gospels' missing information, while remaining true to the text, and never contradicting anything in the traditional Gospels.
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About The Author

Patrick is originally from Guyana, South America, a place of grinding poverty, yet incredible racial and religious diversity. He's a Christian and belongs to a church in the United Church of Christ denomination in the Chicagoland area. He graduated from Chicago-Kent Law School in 1997, and from The City College of New York in Harlem, in 1991. His undergrad major was Urban Legal Studies, and his minor was Black Studies. He served seven years in the US Coast Guard. He's been involved with social justice issues by volunteering for various organizations and writing articles about sexism, racism and anti-semitism. Over the last several years, while working with Jewish organizations, he came to understand the striking similarities of the struggles of Blacks and Jews, and of how much Judaism has been unfortunately removed from mainstream Christian thought. This book is Pat's attempt to write a Gospel story that is true to the words of the Gospel, but that also paints a realistic picture of how Jesus impacted, and was himself impacted by those he touched.
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