Legendary Jesus rot refuted,
October 3, 2007
I have spent hundreds of hours reading skeptics of the Gospels,
particularly John D. Crossan, as I write my doctoral dissertation.
Crossan claims that "the last chapters of the gospels and the first
chapters of Acts taken literally, factually, and historically
trivialize Christianity and brutalize Judaism."
Others promote that we need to distinguish "the 'mythical'
(anything legendary or supernatural) in the gospels from the
historical." Speaking of Crossan's, The Historical Jesus, British
scholar, N. T. Wright, claims "the book is almost entirely wrong."
Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews and G. A. Wells argue that the Jesus tradition is perhaps entirely fictional in nature.
To these and other doubters of Gospel content, Paul Eddy & Greg
Boyd, in The Jesus Legend, challenge the Jesus-legend thesis and defend
the historical reliability of the Synoptic Jesus tradition - based on
evidence.
This is a book for those who want the challenges of the skeptical
left addressed in a substantive, scholarly way. The authors examine (1)
The historical method & the Jesus tradition in first-century
Palestine, (2) Other witnesses, including ancient historians & the
apostle Paul, (3) The early oral tradition between Jesus and the
Gospels, and (4) The Synoptic Gospels as historical sources for
reliable evidence for Jesus.
They reach the researched decision that "our broad cumulative case
for the historicity of the essential portrait(s) of Jesus found in the
Synoptic Gospels" refutes the legendary-Jesus thesis, based on the
Gospels an examination of "the general religious environment Jewish
Palestine" (p. 452).
They are in agreement with James Dunn that "if we are unsatisfied
with the Jesus of the Synoptic tradition, then we will simply have to
lump it; there is no other truly historical or historic Jesus" (cited
in p. 453).
This is one of the most refreshing books I have read in my
scholarly escapades. It is not for those who want a nice bed-time
story, but for those who seek answers to the scholarly rot of recent
years that has infected the church and the Christian faith.
Spencer Gear,
Hervey Bay, Qld., Australia