Kenneth E. BaileyJacob & the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel's Story

I have this book in kindle and paper. I also have the Cross and the Prodigal in kindle and paper by same author on same topic. Both are excellent excellent resources if you are at keen on understanding Biblical culture. I find this author so easy to read. In addition after i listened to him lecture about the prodigal on youtube I could really hear his voice as I was reading which helped me to digest what I was learning.

Fantastic work. 98 times Bailey weaves in the English word "reconcile" as he brings these two stories together in ways most westerners can not. Having lived my first 20 years as a missionary kid in the sixties in several non-western countries, I greatly appreciate his work. Please bring an open mind if you decide to read it. You will be pleasantly surprised.

I love this author! Very scholarly, but he does such an excellent job of opening up the cultural meanings of the Scriptures to those of us who have studied through Western eyes. Such an amazing picture of the love of Christ for us in this story. I highly recommend Kenneth Bailey to those who like to study the Word.

Certainly Bailey here further contributes to his work on the Prodigal Son by showing with Mid-Eastern sources how Jesus answers his theological critics by retelling an OT story and inserting himself as the hero reconciling the very enemies' accusing him and thereby inserting them in the story as the ones offered this reconciliation.Bailey's adept insights into sin, reconciliation and Christology are to be keenly noted and praised and utilized. Certainly and primarily this parable is about Jesus as the reconciler, the key to unlocking not only this parable but the Bible itself.Worthy of reading, and rereading.

Awesome, in-depth Bible study; using OT and NT in the study.

Kenneth Bailey provides outside insight into the culture setting of the scripture. He gives a fuller understanding of the meaning of many of the parables.This is a must reading for any pastor or teacher of the Bible.

I bought this book because our pastor referenced it in a recent sermon. Tremendous insight!! I also bought a couple of other Kenneth Bailey books because it seemed to me to be a good thing to hear what "local" people would feel about these stories. I am impressed and it gives a whole new meaning to my bible study. Context is everything!

Kenneth Bailey, one of my pastor's professors from seminary, is a real expert on the cultures of the Middle East and both their impact on the way the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures were written and how they should be interpreted by Western Bible students today. I purchased this volume out of curiosity after reading another of Dr. Bailey's books (which I've also reviewed here). I was not disappointed, however I will warn all readers: his books are not for the light reader! This is HEAVY material! Very scholarly stuff, replete with citations and endnotes ad nauseam! If you are a SERIOUS student of the Bible and you want to delve deeply into the exegetical mysteries of the texts, you'll love Dr. Bailey's books. If not, you'll probably find them insufferably dry and so exhaustively detailed as to suffocate your interest in the subject matter.

A very important book, with meticulous scholarship by one who knows Middle Eastern culture from having lived and worked in it for more than 40 years. He brings out things that the people of Jesus' time would have heard in what the parables were saying, and which the Western church has lost touch with. The book shows me how much deeper the love of God is than I'd realized, as it works through the events and struggles of the bible record, and how practical the self-sacrificing love of the father for his two sons in the parable is. Life changing in many ways.Perhaps the book is a little long and towards the end repetitive, probably because Bailey felt a need to dot i's and cross t's for fellow scholars. But stick with it.

I have recently come to read and enjoy Kenneth Bailey's approach to understanding scripture in the light of middle-east culture, with which he has a personal as well as research-based relationship. This book is a distilling of some of his more lengthy academic work, and is written for an every-day readership. While his observations on the text of the Bible have a rigorous, analytical basis, he keeps a devotional frame of mind, which draws us into his thoughts and seeks to expand our view of God's grace and purposes through Jesus.This book looks specifically at the three closely-related parables of Luke 15, the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son(s), focusing mainly on the last of these. In doing so, Bailey challenges many of the commonly-held views of what it meant for the prodigal son to take his father's wealth, squander it among gentiles and then plan his return to try and redeem his disgrace. What is the significance of his father running to the edge of the village to meet him? What of the elder, law-abiding son? What part does the community play? There are fascinating insights to ponder. Bailey draws parallels between Jesus' story of the prodigal son and the OT history of the brothers Jacob and Esau, their parting and eventual reconciliation, a backdrop with which his hearers would have been very familiar. How convincing is his reasoning? Whether you end up agreeing or disagreeing with each strand of his thesis, the journey is very rewarding and will throw fresh light on over-familiar scripture, providing a deeper understanding of the depth of God's love and grace. Read it! If you are not too sure, start with the three central chapters which tease out the meaning of each of the three parables.

The parable is so familiar that we miss its profound meaning. Bailey removes 'all the barnacles' that attached to the parable through the centuries. He brings the cultural context of the parable to the fore and gives it the freshness that one starts to see the unfathomable wisdom of Jesus Christ. the parable is no longer a puzzle to be solved but a living theologian, ie. Jesus, comes through. Grace is personified in the father of the parable. Highly recommended.

So helpful for my sermon research

Brilliant book, everyone should read it.