According to the earliest sources, Jesus grew up fatherless. Joseph does not appear in Paul, the Gospel of Mark, Q, or the Gospel of Thomas. Although later Christian traditions establish Joseph as Jesus' father, Joseph s role is minimal. For all intents and purposes, Jesus led the life of a fatherless child in the Gospels. In first-century Galilee, such children were marginalized and excluded from being considered "children of God." Yet Jesus' followers considered him to be just that the child of God. In Fatherless in Galilee, Andries van Aarde explores the stories of the fatherless child, Jesus, who called upon God as his father. He offers an explanation of the historical figure of Jesus who claimed and trusted God as his father and destroyed conventional patriarchal values by caring for fatherless children within the sociological framework of family distortion and divine alienation in Herodian Palestine. Aarde's compelling portrait adds a whole new dimension to historical Jesus scholarship, and convincingly demonstrates that being fatherless was foundational in Jesus' life and ministry. Andries G. van Aarde is Professor of New Testament at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. For: Pastors; seminarians; graduate students; religious professionals>
