Book review: The Final Days of Jesus

Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 in Book Reviews | 0 comments

by Shimon Gibson

★★★★★

If you’re interested in the historical Jesus, you’ll be fascinated by this book. Shimon is a thorough researcher and archaeologist. He is up-to-date on current scholarship, while at the same time providing new insights and theories, with a writing style that keeps you reading. Shimon excels in vividly portraying the everyday life of Jesus and his times. You’ll learn the geography, the rituals, and the lifestyle  of first-century Jews as you walk in the shoes of Christ through the final days of his life.

Shimon cautions that “some of my conclusions regarding Jesus and Jerusalem may be controversial,” but throughout the book I found all of his arguments to be logical and carefully documented.

I’m one of those fanatics that marks his books up with highlights and margin notes, and this is one of those books where I’ve got bright paragraphs and blue ink on every other page. I sometimes look over my notes as I prepare to write my reviews, but I simply don’t have the time to reread everything this book taught me. I’ll just leave it at this: If a book’s value can be measured by how much you learn from it, then this one deserves the praise I give it.