Danielle Riddle - Final Thoughts on Fisk

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus would not have been my first choice of books as a leisurely read, but it held a lot of interesting concepts about the Gospels that I had never heard of before. I knew that the Gospels were written by someone for a certain type of reader, but I had never considered that they shaped their stories to convey a certain message or that they had such little historical weight. I had also never heard about the intertexuality of the Old Testament and how writers used this impression to shape how people thought of Jesus. Although the book brought up lots of eye-opening information, it also left me with a lot of loose ends. For instance, are there any other sources that we can compare to the Gospels that would provide insight to whether he knew what he was saying/doing had political advantages? I also didn’t see much depth in information about the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, since I have always thought of this to be a decent portion of Christian history; I was hoping Norm would provide more insight into it. My background with religion hasn’t opened many doors for thinking of Jesus as a normal person rather than the Christian icon that people of faith see him as. However, some ideas the Norm offers about Jesus as a person can be seen as threatening to the Christian faith, but if these ideas are “supported” by scholars, than how come they aren’t more openly discussed? I also feel that although Norm desperately wants to find the historical Jesus in some cases his strong religious views can partially mask him from believing certain aspects, such as the stone that is said to be what remains of the stone that blocked the tomb’s entrance (264). Norm cannot seem to admit the possibility that maybe it’s just a piece of old rock that someone dubbed religious. I can also see Norm doing this purposefully as an example for the reader to notice that your beliefs can alter how you analyze historical information. The way the book followed the timeline of Jesus and the aspect that Norm retraced his footsteps was an interesting and helpful way of navigating through the book. Fisk could have written a boring book laying out how to look for historic information by comparing stories, but instead he offers a creative and insightful way of relaying the same education. Overall, I found this book actually educational and offered me new ways of thinking.