Book Reviews: Andries van Aarde, FATHERLESS IN GALILEE: JESUS AS A CHILD OF GOD. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001. Pp. viii + 246. Paper, $28.00

As indicated by this book’s arresting title, this book argues that Jesus was a &dquo;fatherless&dquo; child. Assuming that the boy Jesus would have experienced the painful hurts inflicted on such children by firstcentury Galilean society, van Aarde claims that this factor provides explanatory power for various aspects of Jesus’ ministry, such as his identification of God as his heavenly Father, his non-patriarchal ethos, and his compassion for women, children, the sick, and other powerless people. Van Aarde is Professor of New Testament at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The argument begins with the fact that the figure of Joseph is absent from Paul, Mark, Q, and the Gospel of Thomas. Although many scholars suggest that Joseph’s absence from these sources means that he must have died prior to Jesus’ ministry, van Aarde argues that no known father played a role in the life of the histor-