Book Review: The Forgotten Jesus by Robby Gallaty
Book Review: The Forgotten Jesus by Robby Gallaty
25 October 2022
Author and pastor Robby Gallaty takes us back to the ancient Jewish culture the Scriptures were written in and explores how this changes the way we relate to Jesus.
The fact that Jesus was a lower-class, Jewish stonemason/carpenter is worlds away from the portrayal of Christ we witness in many sermons, movies and books. And in the exceptionally researched and written The Forgotten Jesus: How Western Christians Should Follow an Eastern Rabbi, pastor Robby Gallaty shows us how the Church has divorced itself from our faith’s Jewish heritage.
While the church of Acts began with Jewish believers and was extended to the Gentiles, Gallaty explains how influential men like Roman emperor Nero, from 54-68AD, and later Martin Luther, in the mid-1500s, influenced an anti-Semitic attitude and therefore the Scriptures. This caused us to miss and misunderstand crucial elements of both the Old and New Testaments as we read them through modern Western eyes.
Gallaty’s exploration is vast. He begins in Genesis – after all, that is where Christ is first mentioned, and touches on the nuance and cultural idioms found in ancient Hebrew society. Branching then into the books of the law and the prophets (as the Scriptures were referred to by Jewish rabbi at the time of Jesus), he connects the dots for us between the testaments, revealing with greater clarity how Jesus as God personified truly fulfilled the law, rather than demolishing it.
Examples of Jesus’ teaching, his questioning, cultural knowledge and rabbinical practice are all highlighted. All in all, it reinforces the sanctity and all-knowingness of a God who truly dwelled with his people. As someone who has grown up reading the Bible, what awed me was the way Christ’s journey to the cross, death and resurrection perfectly coincided with key moments during Passover. The thread hailing Christ as the Passover Lamb, from his birth to death, was divinely woven down to the moment.
For a history buff, learning about the cultural meaning of when the ‘cock crowed’ (likely a town crier) before Peter denied Jesus was fascinating, as was Christ’s profound timing and teaching while he died on the cross.
The Forgotten Jesus will refresh you and make you fall in love with the Scriptures. The Jesus we know is complex and divine, and his human embodiment dwelt in a sacred and nuanced culture. Let us not forgot that Jesus was a Jewish man, looked down upon for his social class, and yet is the most influential teacher of all time. This is our God.
The Forgotten Jesus is available now at Christian bookstores.
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