The 2005 book, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus, by professor
Geza Vermes, is an extremely interesting book for those who love history, biography, and the Bible. Dr. Vermes intended the
book to emphasize the unassailable historicity and the intense Jewishness of
Jesus.
Many of the people Dr. Vermes discusses are persons you have
never heard of before. He talks,
of course, about the Roman emperors, governors, procurators, and legates and
the Jewish High priests, but also about important women such a Mariamne and
Drusilla, rabbis such as Yohanan
ben Zakkai and Simeon ben Shetah, Jewish mystics such as Simon the Essene and
Honi the Circle-Drawer, Jewish revolutionaries such as Simon bar Giora and
Judas son of Sapphoreus, writers such as Josephus and Justus of Tiberias, and important persons.
The book also contains genealogical charts and a
chronological table.
Dr. Vermes was born in 1924 in Hungary into a Jewish family,
some of whom (including his parents) died during the Holocaust. The family became converts to Roman
Catholicicsm and young Geza went on to become a Roman catholic priest. Vermes is essentially a scholar and
academic and became a specialist in Hebrew, Aramaic, Christian and Jewish history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the
life of Jesus.
Dr. Vermes questions some of the traditional Christian understandings of Jesus.
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