Ebook: Putting Away Childish Things

This work illustrates the author's belief that the Church requires its members to remain lifelong children and to believe without questioning the mythic tales about Jesus are literal historical facts. This book challenges the basic assumptions of conventional Christianity and opens up a new vision of Christian faith, grounded in critical thinking, historical realism, and allegiance to Jesus's message of freedom and hope.


Reviews on Amazon.com

Uta Ranke-Heinemann takes her considerable talents and applies them to a critical analysis of the gospels, revealing the incongruities, impossibilities, distortions, and mis-interpretations that have plagued the study of the historical Jesus. Much of the material she covers has been covered by others, but she has a unique perspective and often brings to light issues which previous researchers have overlooked or ignored. There is no one so well read on the life of the historical Jesus that they will not benefit from reading this book.

In addition, Ranke-Heinemann often displays a caustic wit that lightens up what is usually a weighty subject. Her humor is sometimes biting, but never offensive.

Which is not to say that the book has no faults. Ranke-Heinemann's "pick-and-choose" style of subject selection leaves us with gaps in the story and sometimes belabours a point to the extreme. She is far too accepting of some of the traditional ideas (e.g., Jesus is from Nazareth, his family was poor, etc.) and fails on occasions to distinguish between redacted material and original emphases (e.g., the section about Jesus' family being opposed to his activities). She uses no footnotes, so sometimes the text is more detailed than it might otherwise be. And she has no reference list, referring instead within the text to the docuemnts she quotes from extensively. These are relatively minor flaws.

This book should be read by anyone interested in the life of the historical Jesus. Even the most advanced scholar will benefit from Ranke-Heinemann's unusual probing techniques.

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This book is a very sarcastic exposure of the tragically misguided nature of the key Christian myths (the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, Jewish culpability for the death of Jesus, the empty tomb, Pentecost, Hell, etc.). Almost all of the author's substantive conclusions can be gleaned from other recent works in the field of modern historical and biblical scholarship. But Uta Ranke-Heinemann presents us with a unique perspective. She was "the first woman in the world to hold a chair of Catholic theology (1970) and the first to lose it because she questioned the virgin birth (1987)" (from the back cover). Her resentment over this action taken against her can be seen on every page of her book, especially in the rancor she holds against Pope John Paul II, whom she obviously blames for her loss of position. Her tone makes for very entertaining reading by skeptics, but it will undoubtedly strongly alienate those readers in most need of books like this, namely mainstream Christians. Most of them will consign the book to the flames of hell before they finish chapter one.

The cover of my edition of this book promises to explain "how the myths behind the Church's key doctrines...distort Jesus' real message." So naturally I was eagerly looking forward to seeing what Jesus' real message actually was. But after stripping away the mythology, there does not seem to be much left. The best the author seems able to come up with are the revelations from the Sermon on the Mount. Probably 95% of this book is taken up with exposing the destructive consequences of the Christian myths and this is very good material, but only 5% of the book is spent revealing the actual words and deeds of Jesus. From reading other similar books however, this is no doubt more a consequence of the actual facts than in any fault with the book itself. Nevertheless, the objective reader should be able to obtain glimpses from this book into the truly revolutionary and wonderful messages that the historical Jesus actually did proclaim. The reader will also come away with a sense of the awesome tragedy that the history of Christianity actually is, which amounts to a monstrous betrayal of what the historical Jesus actually did and said. Unfortunately, because of Ranke-Heinemann's tone, all of this will be lost on the average Christian. For that person I would recommend the much more objective (and even more tragic) Christian Antisemitism by William Nicholls. If you look for this book in your local bookstore (instead of getting it through amazon.com), beware that most bookstores erroneously file this book under Judaism (a gross injustice to Jews actually) instead of Christianity, where it actually belongs. This is unfortunate, because most Christians would never think of perusing the Judaism section of their favorite bookstores (because of the very prejudices discussed in this book), and so they would never come across this truly extraordinary and profoundly moving book.

So in conclusion, I would recommend Ranke-Heinemann's book if you are already skeptical about the Christian religion. It will only add fuel to your fire. However, watch yourself. You may actually come away with a profound appreciation of what the historical Jesus actually did and said

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If the last two pages of this book were eliminated, it could be appropriately titled, "Debunking Christianity." Nonetheless, regardless of whether or not Uta Ranke-Heinemann is too extreme, I think her work has something very valuable to offer. It starts out with a few chapters just on Jesus' early years. The two gospel's birth narratives are their own worst enemies. The genealogies are a mess. In hindsight we find ignorant gospel writers. Later, in Christ's ministry, the prophet in a Hellenistic world was not too original when it came to being a thaumaturge. BUT, the theme of this book is giving up miraculous dogma. The miracles are of no relevence to a faith in the word of Jesus and God's love. His healing of the sick has no point unless we are too able to be healed by Him. Any honest intellectual could plainly see that Jesus was not originally made out to be a deity or "second person of the trinity." But wow, she takes it alot further than this in dropping the position of Christ as the Jewish Messiah and denying that he had to die for the sins of mankind. This seems unorthodox to most, but I do not think she is completely mistaken. (so go re-read Hosea 6:6 !) Other features to mention is the bogus personage of Judas Iscariot, who is really the personification of the Greeks' anti-Semitism. And also she takes us through a history of perdition ( Hell, Hades, Sheol, Gehenna, etc) taking it away from the ministry of Christ. Hellfire she believes, as do I, turns the gospel on its head and is at worst self defeating to the point of it all. Since her book is a huge stretch from orthodoxy and a transmogrification from the mass of Christian theology, she REALLY should have put more time into discussing her beliefs about the true meaning of Christ and why she believes certain sayings are authentic to Jesus while others are interpolations, besides her few neglible mentions in the book's body and a 2-page afterword. But verily, this is something that every Christian should consider to be a follower of Jesus' teaching and not a slave of church dogma. I hope that this book serves as a tool to erase fundamentalist hermeneutics and blind faith in bogus claims and to mollify others in a spiritual journey closer to bona fide religion and further away from wretched and morbid theology focused on the cross of human sacrifice.


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Uta Ranke-Heinemann is living proof that a person can be a theist *and* a freethinker. According to the back cover of the book, she "was the first woman in the world to hold a chair of Catholic theology (1970) and the first to lose it--because she questioned the virgin birth (1987)." In PUTTING AWAY CHILDISH THINGS, Ranke-Heinemann systematically refutes many traditional teachings of the Christian church, and she does so in a very readable way.

I agree with the first reviewer's assessment that liberal Christians and skeptics will love the book, while conservatives will hate it. I also agree that Ranke-Heinemann spent very little space actually discussing what "Jesus' real message actually was." But I would add that she spent even less space discussing WHY we should have faith in Jesus, once we have stripped away so many of the traditional church doctrines as "fairly tales" (p. 296)? To make an analogy, consider the life of the 'historical Abraham Lincoln.' Once we strip away the mythology, there are still good, authentic ethical principles left over and I can subjectively find meaning in my life by applying those principles. But I don't have faith 'in' Abraham Lincoln. And I certainly don't pray to him! It is unclear why we should view the Jesus of liberal Christianity any differently. But don't let this objection detract you from reading the book. On the contrary, I highly recommend it!