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• Reinventing Jesus
J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, ...

Kregel Publications, 2006 - 350 pages

average customer review:based on 40 reviews
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   highly recommended  highly recommended






Reclaiming the Mind

Challenges to the historicity of our faith have been creeping back into mainstream critical thought through recent publications, both scholarly and fiction. Difficult question, both sincere and polemic, have been around since the early days of the apologists and they will be around until Christ returns. Each assault presents its unique challenges and opportunities. The Church must always be ready to recognize these challenges and respond in an appropriate manner. If we neglect to take them seriously or fail to engage them in an intellectual manner, the Church will find itself in a state of cultural irrelevance, having its message relegated to the realm of blind faith, having a foundation of intellectual aloofness, at best, and foolishness, at worst.

The current challenges that we see today are focused upon the authenticity of Scripture and the person of Christ. Did the early scribes make mistakes in the Scripture that make it impossible to discern the true message of the text? Were the books of the Bible chosen with a political agenda? Did the early Church turn a human teacher of love and peace into a deified man who made an atonement for the sins of mankind? Is the story of Christianity based upon Greek mythology? Whether these are being posed by the general public, ABC news, respected scholars such as Bart Erman, or fictional stories like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, it does not matter; these are the questions, and we all need an appropriate, honest, and well informed response to them.

Reinventing Jesus is a book that meets the challenges of our day head on. It deserves great acclimation because of its representation of excellence in Christian scholarship. Authors Dan Wallace, Ed Komoszewski, and M. James Sawyer are able scholars for the task. They walk the reader through a thorough understanding of today's challenges in an irenic and informed way. What stands out about this book more than any other element is that it is written for a lay reader, yet the content is not sacrificed in any way. The confidence that the authors place in the reader is encouraging and greatly needed. Any person can pick up this book and walk away with both an understanding of the issues involved, and a greater appreciation for the providence of God in the history of the Church. This book has lasting value to be a standard resource in biblical apologetics and historicity.

The book is broken into five parts:

Part 1: I Believe in Yesterday: A walk though the issues involved and the current challenges we face.

Part 2: Politically Corrupt? The Tainting of Ancient New Testament Texts: An introduction to the history and transmission of the text of Scripture helping the reader to understand the process of textual criticism.

Part 3: Did the Early Church Muzzle the Canon?: An answer to all of those who wonder how the books of Scripture went from early letters and historical accounts to part of the Christian canon called the New Testament.

Part 4: The Divinity of Jesus: Early Tradition or Late Superstition?: As the title proclaims, this section shows how the divinity of Christ was not something produced ad hoc by the historical-political motives of a few, but was something that was believed from the birth of Christianity.

Part 5: Stealing Thunder: Did Christianity Rip off Mythical Gods?: A defense of the uniqueness of Christianity directed against current challenges that have resurfaced claiming that Christianity is nothing more than a retelling of old myth.

This book should be on every bookshelf, used for small group discussions, home schooling, discipleship, and any other venue that you can find. If the Church is truly going to reclaim the mind for Christ, we must make books such as these part of our standard reading. This book needs to be on the best seller list. Many thanks to the authors for responding in such a way to the current challenges and entrusting the Church with such a resource.

Michael Patton
President of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries
Director of The Theology Program
www.reclaimingthemind.org


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Reinventing Jesus is an excellent primer on text criticism

For twenty years now, the Jesus Seminar has been roaming the land educating people about what Jesus really said. A book dealing with secret prophecies contained in the Pentateuch called The Bible Code made its appearance in 1998 and was widely read. But when it comes to matters of faith and scriptural "analysis," nothing tops Dan Brown's blockbuster 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, detailing a fictional plot by the Church to conceal the truth about who Jesus really was. (The movie was released May 19, 2006.) Furthermore, scholar Bart Erhman's book Misquoting Jesus, about the formation and preservation of scripture, has become a surprising bestseller and an English translation of The Gospel of Judas (for which Erhman provides the commentary) has been published with considerable fanfare.

It is clear that an unprecedented number of people are asking who Jesus was and what do we really know about him. Where did scripture come from and how did it come to be in its present form? Is it reliable? What are Christians to make of all this?
Central to addressing these questions is the academic discipline of "textual criticism." There were no printing presses to make copies of documents in biblical times so documents had to be hand copied by trained individuals. Even with training, these copyist or scribes were inclined to make errors. Some copyist may have altered texts intentionally. Maybe they wanted to improve on the clarity of the wording or maybe they had ulterior motives.

Jesus died around 30 C.E. and most of the New Testament was written in the second half of the first century. We have none of the original texts, though we do have some significant fragments that date to the second century. Textual critics examine all the various copies in an effort to regain the content of the original documents. Using multi-disciplinary resources these scholars also try to establish the veracity of authorship and the date of production for the original documents.

The pressing question for many of us is, short of going to seminary, how are we to address the issues being raised in the media and cinema about Jesus and scripture? Up until now I have not encountered a resource that helps people sort through these issues in a succinct and jargon free way. However, Kregel Publication's Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer and Daniel B. Wallace, is just such a resource.

Reinventing Jesus puts textual criticism in terms readers can easily comprehend. The book reminds me some of Lee Strobel's work in that it makes often complex topics accessible. The authors explain:

"Textual criticism in general is the study of the copies of any written document whose original is unknown or nonexistent in order to determine the exact wording of the original. Such a task is necessary for an extensive amount of literature, especially that which was written prior to the invention of the movable-type printing press in the mid-fifteenth century. And the New Testament is no exception to this rule. Textual criticism is needed for the New Testament for two reasons: (1) the original documents (known as autographs) no longer exist, and (2) no two copies agree completely. In fact, among even the most closely related copies from the first millennium A.D., there are as many as ten differences per chapter. If the originals were still with us, there would, of course, be no need for this discipline."

The book opens with a presentaion of key terms and concepts. The authors summarize what the gospels are, why the gospels were written the way they were, and when scholars believe the gospels were written. Especially important to this discussion is the fact the Jesus didn't write anything down. How can we know that the gospel texts are reliable portrayals of Jesus' teaching? After addressing these issues, the authors give a very helpful presentation of textual criticism.

From here the attention turns to other substantive issues. The authors relate the process through which the scripture became canon, once again making a complex topic accessible to non-academic readers. They address the topic of Jesus' divinity as it played out in the early centuries of the Church. They end the book with an examination of the likelihood that elements of the gospels were merely rearticulations of prevalent myths of the time.

The authors are frequently in dialog with the Jesus Seminar, The Da Vinci Code and Bart Erhman in portions of the book. They help place the Gospel of Judas in an appropriate context even though the Gospel of Judas came after this book was written and it is not directly referenced. While the book helps the reader understand the issues involved with these other works, it is not simply a rebuttal. The book also works as primer for understanding the broader application of the issues addressed.

The authors distance themselves from the "King James Version only crowd" on the right as well as those on the left that discount the veracity of the scripture as the authoritative Word of God. The authors clearly see themselves at the center of evangelical scholarship. I can't speak with great authority as to this characterization but it does seem to fit with what I know of the topic and with the judgment of others whom I trust (Craig Keener and Scot McKnight among others.)

At the end of the book, the authors claim six conclusions can be made from their presentation:

1. The Gospels are historically credible witnesses to the person, words, and deeds of Jesus Christ. What the evangelists wrote was based on a strong oral tradition that had continuity with the earliest eyewitness testimony. In essence, the gospel did not change from its first oral proclamation to its last written production.

2. The original text of the New Testament has been lost, but it has been faithfully preserved in thousands of copies. Today we are certain of about 99 percent of the original wording. In no place is the deity of Christ or his bodily resurrection called into question by textual variants. Although much of the wording of the text has undergone change over the centuries, the core truth-claims of Christianity have remained intact.

3. The ancient church exercised careful scrutiny and sober judgment in determining which books belonged in the New Testament. They showed deep concern for authenticity--authentic authorship, history, and theology. And although the church wrestled with some of the books for centuries, a substantial core of books was accepted in the beginning.

4. There is no evidence that the early church had to sort through various gospels to find the ones that agreed with the Christian community at large. Rather, the earliest Gospels prevailed precisely because they were written early, they were written by reliable eyewitnesses and/or historians, and they were not given to flights of fancy.

5. The view that the divinity of Christ was invented in the fourth century is historically naïve. From the time that the New Testament was penned through the centuries that followed, the evidence is overwhelming that Jesus was consistently viewed as more than a man by his followers. Even the enemies of Christianity recognized that the early Christians worshiped Jesus Christ as deity.

6. The Christian message did not plagiarize the writings of pagan religions. There is no substantiated connection between belief in the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ with the cults of Osiris, Dionysus, or Mithra. Alleged parallels between earlier religions and Christianity are not sustainable when the evidence is fairly examined.

I readily agree that the authors have made their case.

As to the authors themselves, I know none of them personally, although I have corresponded by e-mail with Dr. Komoszewski. You will observe from the bios at their website (see below) that two authors hail from Dallas Theological Seminary and one from Western Seminary. As someone who is decidedly not dispensationalist and probably not supportive of other distinctives at these institutions, I came at this book with a degree of caution. I found pleasantly little in this book that gave me pause. On the contrary, I found myself affirming most of what I read. I am sure others more thoroughly trained in the subject matter will find points here and there they wish to debate. Nevertheless, the book is a very good introduction to the topic from an evangelical perspective, it is well written, extensively footnoted, and it should serve well as a primer for textual criticism and related topics. I highly recommend it for anyone who is looking for just such a resource.

The authors have a website called www.reinventingjesus.info. In addition to the book, the authors are beginning to schedule their own "Reinventing Jesus Seminars." You can also learn more about the authors, the book, and events surrounding the book's release.

(This is modified copy of my review I wrote at my blog krusekronicle.typepad.com)



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Apologetics 101

Every solid Christian should get this book for their collection. It covers a wide variety of topics in depth enough to equip you to provide an adequate defense of the faith. It puts the key points of the faith under attack, defends them and provides amble evidence to manage dealing with those who do internet research to 'debunk' Christianity. If you've had your faith shaken by recent "gospel" discoveries, listening to media seem to think the four gospels are questionable, but these newly found ones are legit or some fictional movie bears any relation to realtiy - then this book will address and put to rest those matters. Furthermore, this book details the manner by which we got the bible and how we can know the bible is accurate and from eye witnesses.

Get this book, read it, learn it and then loan it to your family and friends. Understanding what we profess, as Christians, makes us stronger in the faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ.


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Not reinventing the wheel

Reinventing Jesus,a joint effort by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Saywer, and, Daniel B. Wallace, includes summary data on how we know the Gospels got it right when it came to the life of Jesus, how we know the scribes got it right when it came to the original text, how we know the church did not rip off pagan gods and simply invent the Messiah out of whole cloth, how we know the church got it right when it came to canon, and how we know we got it right when it comes to the interpretation of the person of Christ. 30% of the book is on textual criticism. Although written for a broad audience, it is backed up with the best of scholarship (65 pages of endnotes).


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Buy multiple copies or the Twinkie god will getcha!

For years now I've been lamenting the sad state of published apologetics, as it seemed that there was far more interest in getting out insipid eschatological novels than in offering defenses of the faith rooted in sound scholarship. I was glad when Lee Strobel's works finally jimmied that door some, and when Licona and Habermas cracked it further open with The Resurrection of Jesus; and now, this trio has blown the door off its hinges and sent it flying into the atmosphere.

I'll put it bluntly: Buy this book. Buy multiple copies and pass them out. Rent a forklift and buy a whole pallet of them. I don't care if you know all of the stuff that's in it already. If you're tired of the Christian publishing industry putting out the intellectual equivalent of Hostess Ding Dongs in defense of the faith, you NEED to make this book a success, because otherwise, they won't get the message and we'll get more Ding Dongs instead of more roast beef. Make these three guys stinkin' rich from the residuals or you'll be SORRY.

Yes, yes: There are a lot of names of old rogues here: Ehrman, Price, Baigent, Freke and Gandy -- even Acharya S is called on the carpet some. There's gobs and gobs of juicy material on things like textual criticism, oral tradition, copycat christs (Attis, Mithra, Tammuz, Dionysus, Osiris -- these and more get some treatment), the Jesus Seminar, the canon, forged documents, the Council of Nicea. There's also a few things that are new. It sometimes goes into great detail on these things; at other times, not so. So what? If you give it your support, the publishers will be convinced of the need to make more and then future authors won't have to worry about restraints on size.

It has copious footnotes and recommends for further reading. The writing style is lucid and enjoyable; no dry bones here, and no excuse for being bored. This is a pioneer work that cares about the reader.

In a time when we have things like Ehrman spouting his Chicken Little doubts about the New Testament on public radio, quality response works like these are needed badly, and they need to be supported. The secular world made Ehrman's book a best-seller. Do we dare do any less for Re-inventing Jesus?


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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8



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