The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the sayings of our
Lord
Phyllis Tickle
SPCK £12.99
(978-0-281-06920-0)
Church Times Bookshop £11.70 (Use code
CT602 )
MANY Church Times readers will be familiar with
red-letter Bibles, where the words spoken by Jesus are printed in
red, while the rest of the text is black. Phyllis Tickle has taken
this idea further. She has removed everything from the Gospels and
the first chapter of Acts except Jesus's spoken words, which she
has arranged in five sections: public teaching, private teaching,
healing dialogue, intimate conversation, and post-resurrection
encounters.
I found that reading the material in this way highlighted things
that I miss when I read Jesus's words in the context of the Gospel
narratives. Words with which I was less familiar stood out in a new
way. Other things struck me, too: for instance, how few words are
connected with Jesus's healings, where his actions convey his
message in a way that needs no further explanation.
I found Tickle's reflections on her work fascinating and
helpful. She explains how her project started and grew, and the
effects it has had on her thinking. Interestingly, it all began
with a colleague's question, to which she originally answered in
the negative. Over coffee, she was asked: "Did you ever wonder what
you would really find if you took out the duplications and
triplications and connective tissue of the Gospels and stripped it
all down again to just His words?" Her first response, as she tells
it in the book, was "No, I had never wondered such a thing. It
would never have occurred to me that such a thing could even be
done."
And yet she took on the challenge. I would like to encourage
others to join her in that by reading this book, which the editor
of this newspaper chose as his contribution to a round-up in
The Times of books that faith leaders, writers, and
thinkers had found most spiritually uplifting last year (The
Times, 15 December 2012).
Sarah Hillman
Priest-in-Charge of St Mary the Virgin, Puddletown,
Dorchester