I'm not entirely sure what prompted me to read The Jesus
Legend, and I'm not even certain I am glad I did. Ok, that is a lie. I am thrilled I read this book. It has equipped me in an area of research
that I am fairly weak in.
TJL is not necessarily an apologetic arguing for the
historicity of the resurrection or something like that. Rather, it is a refutation of the
Jesus-legend movement that is still prevelant today answering and rebutting their
many claims and arguments against the historical reliability of the synoptic gospels. More specifically, it was a book on
methodological issues in regards to inquiry into quest for the the historical
Jesus. More aptly, this book is in all
reality a treatise on how not to quest!
One of the things that stuck out to me in this book was the
depth and breadth of research that it engaged.
Without getting too specific, issues of memory, orality, and a wide host
of other issues were well documented and thoroughly treated from a vast host of
other inter-related disciplines.
I also appreciated the authors' emphasis on seeing the
gospels as stemming from an orally dominate culture as well as probably being a
result of oral performance (explains many of the differences, dare I say
contradictions, in the gospels). It made
the idea of redaction criticism seem a bit unnecessary in light of this. However, the authors do see a need to
harmonize in some way or shape to recreate the historical event. I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I
am more interested in the text when doing theology. But alas, this book was a sketch on
historicity.
Eddy and Boyd pretty much ripped apart form criticism in
this book as well (sorry Bultmann), spending 2 chapters debunking and defuncting
their views. At times this section was
slow and tedious, but it paid its dividends in the end. They also set up the book very nicely with
the introductory chapter arguing for an open historical-critical method. I found this section to be quite engaging and
well argued.
Conversely, one of the chapters answering the claim that Paul
was not aware (or didn't care) of the Jesus tradition and thus created Christianity was, in my
opinion, not well argued. This is not to
say that they were wrong, only that I do not think it was their strongest
chapter. Aside from that and a non-existent closing or summary (it ends rather abruptly), I predict this
book will be a standard text book in seminary.
Heaven only knows why it was in my high-school library, but I'm not
complaining. It gave me a chance to read it!
I would caution certain people about reading this book
because (1) it is… advanced is not the right word… but you know what I mean. It is not a simplified or dumbed down version
of the debate. It was scholarly. It assumed a prior knowledge (or at least soon
to be acquired knowledge) in the field of NT research and the historical Jesus
debate. (2) Though most of what is said
is helpful, those with a fundamentalist view of scripture along with a strict
adherence to inerrancy will have a problem with some of the book's ideas about
how the gospels work as a genre and historical testimony, especially when those
testimonial witnesses seems to conflict with one another (something we actually
want in eye-witness testimony to avoid the appearance of forgery). Other than that, I recommend this book fully
for anyone wanting to enter the fray of questing (are we on the 3rd???). It is a well written and thorough treatment
defeating the arguments posed by critics and arguing that the synoptic gospels truly are historically
reliable, or at least the burden of proof is on the critic to make the case
that they are not.
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