Jesus Christ, whose teachings have been on the lips of millions for two millennia, is revealed here as one of the greatest poets of all time. What happened to deafen us to the poetic nature of his words? In migrating from Aramaic speech into written Greek translation, and later into English translation, the lyrics got locked up as prose.
In The Poems of Jesus Christ Willis Barnstone unveils the essential poetry of the Gospels by taking the direct speech of Jesus from Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, and lineating and titling Jesus’s words as individual poems. Jesus’s poems are wisdom lyrics and narrative parables, rich with garden, animal, and nature imagery. Austere and poignant, they carry the totality of the Gospels’ message through the intensity of a single voice––the Gospel of Jesus.
The Poems of Jesus Christ:
The words of Jesus Christ are restored to their original poetic form in this extraordinary volume.
Available
Parable of the Barren Fig Tree
A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard
and he went looking for fruit on it
and found none. He said to the gardener,
“Look, for three years I have come looking
For fruit in this tree and have found none.
Cut it down. Why should it be wasting the soil?”
But he answered and sait tohim, “Sir, let it go
For another year while I dig around it
And throw manure on it. Then it may bear fruit
In the future. and if not, cut it down.”
“When I read such verses aloud, it does not matter to me whether a poem or poetic saying comes from King James, Douay-Rheims, New Revised Standard, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Version, or any of the dozens of translations I’ve read and loved. But, once again, Prof. Barnstone took our idea to a new level.”
-Mary Harwell Sayler
Rattle.com
“This recasting from the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, presents Jesus’ words poetically and faithfully to their full power – that of poetry.”
-Elliott Bay Book Company
“A book landed on my desk with the curious title The Poems of Jesus Christ. ‘Somebody putting words in Jesus’ mouth?’ I wondered. Not at all. The poet and scholar Willis Barnstone has simply gone back to the biblical text, translating from the original, and shown how Jesus in the gospels speaks in pure poetry.”
— Guideposts“
“In restoring the words of Jesus to their rightful poetry, and making an excellent case for this necessity, Barnstone brings their music, passion, ethics and intellectual rigor into a more complete view.”
— Barbara Berman, The Rumpus
Praise for The Poems of Jesus Christ
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