Title: Unraveling the Family History of Jesus
Author: Steven Donald Norris
Publisher: Pen House, LLC
ISBN: 978-1951961503
Pages: 604
Genre: History
Reviewed by: Aaron Washington
Hollywood Book Reviews
When Christians talk about Jesus, they refer to him as the Messiah. He is this mighty son of God who gave his life to take away the sins of believers. In the Bible, Jesus is portrayed as a higher being whose strength and powers have enabled believers to lead a different life. For any Christian, reading about Jesus would always have them reference him as the son of God. In ‘Unraveling the Family History of Jesus’, however, Steven Donald Norris makes the reader see Christ in a different light. He is not just the son of God; he had an extended family like all of us. In the book, the author extensively writes about Jesus’ family history. Every human being has a family tree. You most likely have been told of or read about your ancestors. In his book, Steven Donald Norris helps the reader know and understand Jesus’ family tree, his background, and many more facts that may not be captured in theology books.
The reader is taken through different events and people from 100 BC to 100 AD. Steven Donald Norris writes about the many relatives of Jesus and how they impacted him and his family in one way or another. The author starts with Mary, the daughter of Heli and the mother of Jesus, and describes her relations and how she had Jesus. The next chapter is about Joseph, the son of Jacob, patriarch of Jerusalem. The text in the book is clearly written, but what helps the reader better comprehend the histories and relations of Jesus’ relatives are the illustrations and diagrams depicting his family tree. I enjoyed looking at the diagrams because they give a deeper understanding of Jesus’ background and his family outside of the nuclear family.
I was impressed every time the author wrote about an extended family member of Jesus that I had never heard of. You get to read about his cousins, aunties, uncles and other relatives who are not mentioned in many books. Reading about Jesus’ grandparents was the best part of the book for me because I could draw certain similarities between Jacob and Cleopatra VII, and Anne Bint Matthan and Heli Joachim. It was also my favorite because I got to view Jesus from a different perspective. For a moment, you stop regarding Jesus as the Messiah and look at him as a commoner with a loving, complex family similar to many other families today. This helps the reader connect with Jesus in a more special manner.
When reading this book, you realize there is so much about Christ that people do not know about. Apart from his family, the reader is enlightened about the different groups of people and how they relate to Jesus and each other. The reader learns about Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Zealots, among others. There are tons of history lessons and not just biblical lessons in ‘Unraveling the Family History of Jesus’. This is a great book for both believers and non-believers who enjoy history as a subject. I enjoyed the impeccable writing and the extensive research that was put into the penning of this book.