Jesus Before God: The Prayer Life of the Historical Jesus

This book presents an astonishing new way of prayer based on the latest biblical research. New Testament scholar and minister Hal Taussig answers two vital but unexplored questions: How did Jesus--the Jesus of history--really pray? What does his prayer life teach us about how to pray today?

Combining a scholar's skills with a poet's voice, Hal Taussig reveals new and unexpected ways of prayer--prayer as unsettling today as it was to Jesus' audience two thousand years ago. The way Jesus actually prayed appears to be very different from the prayers of his contemporaries, from traditional church prayers, and from the latest styles of spirituality.

About the Author:

Hal Taussig is a member of the graduate faculty at the Chestnut Hill College Program in Holistic Spirituality and at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. A Danforth Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Union Theological Seminary in New York, he is also pastor of the Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church. His books include Many Tables: The Eucharist in the New Testament and Liturgy Today (with Dennis Smith) and Reimagining Christian Origins (with Elizabeth Castelli).