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Jesus: A Portrait

Author:	Gerald O'Collins
Published By:	Darton, Longman and Todd (London)
Pages:	243
Price:	£10.95
ISBN:	0 232 52719 9

Reviewed by Richard Sewell.

Born in Australia, Gerald O’Collins is a highly respected academic who has taught and written theology for over forty years. He is currently research professor at St Mary's College, Twickenham. He is author of 46 books, many of which have a Christological focus.

O’Collins is then well placed to write a comprehensive survey of the life of Jesus. This encompasses Jesus’ major life events, his teaching and healing, his passion, death and resurrection. He uses all four gospels and there is very little of any significance that the author does not at some point discuss.

This being a portrait, O’Collins approaches his subject rather differently to many other Christological works. He describes this life more in the style of biography than an essentially theological work. I found this refreshingly different as it threw some new light on a subject that you might consider there was nothing new to say.

O’Collins seems to want to ascertain what kind of mind, imagination and heart can be glimpsed from the words and actions of Jesus. He believes that Jesus’ stories and parables were inevitably autobiographical and so a great deal can be learned about him by looking closely into them. This is not in any sense to diminish Jesus’s divinity - O’Collins affirms this plainly - but he seeks to portray the person encountered in scripture. To do this, the author draws on all four gospels and manages to do justice to the unique style of each of the gospels whilst avoiding an unholy mish-mash. He does achieve a comprehensive overview.

As one would expect of a theologian of his pedigree, O’Collins shows awareness of biblical criticism, but he treats the material on face value rather than engaging in a thorough-going critical approach. However, there are times when this veers rather too closely for my liking into naivety. Indeed, one would have to say that this is an unashamedly orthodox portrayal which is unlikely to offend very few if any.

This book has things of value to say to students of theology of any level of experience, but could be of particular benefit to someone approaching in-depth study for the first time.