Judas: The Most Hated Name in History - Couverture rigide

Stanford, Peter

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1619027097 ISBN 13 : 9781619027091

Editeur : Counterpoint, 2016

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture :

'a cracking piece of writing that posits such a great idea - a pilgrimage to Judas' FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE

Judas: The most famous traitor in all of history. But who was he really - and what does he mean for us today?

In this fascinating historical and cultural biography, Peter Stanford examines that most vilified of Bible characters: Judas Iscariot, who famously betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Beginning with the gospel accounts, Stanford explores how for two thousand years the name Judas has been synonymous with betrayal.

But was Judas all bad, or might his vilification by Christianity be a miscarriage of justice? Might this treachery have been inspired not by the devil, but by God - part of a divine plan that made possible Jesus' death and resurrection? 'You'll have to decide,' as Bob Dylan sang in the sixties, 'Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side'.

'Stanford says a lot about the many faces and other attributes of Judas, and does so very engagingly; his book manages to be fun as well as sometimes profound, and it is as much an enjoyable tour of Christian art and thought as an account of a 2000-year-old traitor' PROFESSOR DIARMAID MACCULLOCH, The Times

'I've been reading Peter Stanford's Judas. It's great. He's a beautiful writer' JON RONSON, BBC Radio 4

Peter Stanford is a features writer a senior features writer at the Daily and Sunday Telegraph titles, and contributes to the Independent, the Observer, the Daily Mail and the Catholic weekly, the Tablet, where he is a columnist. He has presented programmes on BBC 1, Channel 4 and Channel 5, as well as BBC Radios 2 and 4 and the BBC World Service. Peter is the author of numerous books, including The Devil - A Biography, Heaven - A Traveller's Guide to the Undiscovered Country, The She-Pope, and the polemical Catholics and Sex, which became an award-winning Channel 4 series in 1992.

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In this fascinating historical and cultural biography, writer and broadcaster Peter Stanford deconstructs that most vilified of Bible characters: Judas Iscariot, who famously betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Beginning with the gospel accounts, Peter explores two thousand years of cultural and theological history to investigate how the very name Judas came to be synonymous with betrayal and, ultimately, human evil.

But as Peter points out, there has long been a counter-current of thought that suggests that Judas might in fact have been victim of a terrible injustice: central to Jesus' mission was his death and resurrection, and for there to have been a death, there had to be a betrayal. This thankless role fell to Judas; should we in fact be grateful to him for his role in the divine drama of salvation? 'You'll have to decide,' as Bob Dylan sang in the sixties, 'Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side'.

An essential but doomed character in the Passion narrative, and thus the entire story of Christianity, Judas and the betrayal he symbolises continue to play out in much larger cultural histories, speaking as he does to our deepest fears about friendship, betrayal and the problem of evil.

Judas: the ultimate traitor, or the ultimate scapegoat? This is a compelling portrait of Christianity's most troubling and mysterious character.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Counterpoint
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1619027097
• ISBN 13: 9781619027091
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 288