The authentic identity of Jesus. A polemic against Geza Vermes

Abstract

The text regards a polemic against Geza Vermes, an Jewish scholar, which was translated into Polish and was entitled Twarze Jezusa (Kraków 2008) presented the historical Jesus as a Palestinian charismatic healer and a teacher of simple religiosity. The first disciples of Jesus transferred his message from its Semitic context to the primarily Greek-speaking pagan Mediterranean world where shortly after he became a divine figure. Beginning with the divine figure of Christ presented in the most recent Gospel, namely the Gospel of John, Geza Vermes goes successively back to earlier accounts of the New Testament in order to reveal finally the allegedly true figure of Jesus hidden beneath the oldest Gospels. In the opinion of Marek Skierkowski the method used by Geza Vermes is not adequate and therefore it leads to so false conclusions.

Keywords

• Jezus, chrystologia, judaizm