Once again I enjoyed Yancey's thorough journalistic style combined with his ability to clearly communicate his opinion. However, I felt Yancey was talking above my knowledge on this one. My understanding and awareness of Jesus-including familiarity with Biblical history-remains at an elementary level, so many of the events and passages Yancey refers to are not crystal clear to me. In response to this I know that I need to read and study the Gospels soon. Even though I found myself tripping over many of the events, the book did give me a thorough re-introduction to Jesus and like the title indicates, I felt I was reading about the "Jesus I Never Knew."
The best thing this book did for me I found in the last chapter in which Yancey breaks down what he has learned about Jesus in several categories or impressions. Yancey points out that Jesus is a "portrait of God," and that is what ultimately intellectually turns him on to Christianity: "Books of theology tend to define God by what he is not: God is immortal, invisibile, infinite. But what is God like, positively? For the Christian, Jesus answers such all-important questions. Jesus was God's exact replica."
Also, Yancey asks himself a bold question and answers boldly, "Why am I a Christian? I sometimes ask myself, and to be perfectly honest the reasons reduce to two: 1)the lack of good alternatives and 2)Jesus. Brilliant, untamed, tender, creative, slippery, irreducible, paradoxically humble-Jesus stands up to scrutiny. He is who I want my God to be."
After reading this book I have a clearer idea about who I want my God to be.