En torno al libro “Jesús”, de José Antonio Pagola

La obra y su recepción

Abstract

José Antonio Pagola’s Jesus. An Historical Approximation appeared in Madrid in 2007 and generated huge interest in spite of initial criticism and suppression on the part of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference. This rapid interest occurred not only in church circles and inside Spain, but throughout Latin America. Since then eleven Spanish editions have appeared, over 120,000 copies have been bought and the first edition has been published in numerous translations. In the USA the fifth edition was honoured with the ‘Prize for Excellence for Catholic Publications 2014’ by the Society of Catholic Publishers. Now that the storm around the book has calmed down, Rafael Aguirre turns his attention anew to the central claims of the book, to subject them to a critical evaluation and also to indicate the book’s limitations. He appreciates the central intention of Pagola to make the message and life of Jesus attractive to people of our time through historical research, but he also asks whether Pagola brings with it some one-sided narrow opinions. At the same time, Aguirre attempts to draw some lessons from what has happened, from what the book has thrown up, and the alienation that has been exposed in a dramatic way between the church authorities and believers in Spain.