Craig A. Evans. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. IVP, 2006. 290 pp.
This book is offered as an exposé of sorts, revealing how certain scholars—among them, James M. Robinson, Robert Funk, Bart Ehrman, Karen King, Morton Smith, Elaine Pagels, John Dominic Crossan, and collectively the Jesus Seminar—“distort the gospels” and thus mislead the public to historical conclusions at odds with traditional Christian claims. Evans also takes aim at various popular authors, such as Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) and Michael Baigent (The Jesus Papers), for creating what he calls “hokum history” (204). Finally, it is an apologia for the New Testament Gospels: “this book is written to defend the original witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. When put to the test, the original documents hold up quite well. Despite their having been maligned, even ridiculed, and pushed to the background, it is time to give them a fresh hearing” (17).
Reviewed by Stephen J. Patterson.
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Dave Hunt & James White. Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views. Multnomah, 2004. 432 pp.
One of the purposes of a debate in the formal sense of the word is to persuade. The object is to persuade the audience that your position is the appropriate view to adopt. Over several generations the debate over the theological views developed by John Calvin has become more and more heated. In response, James White (the champion of Reformed Theology) and Dave Hunt (the Opponent of Calvinism) have participated in a lengthy formal debate. The debate has been removed from the classical oral format and collected in the volume Debating Calvinism.
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J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture. Kregel, 2006. 352 pp.
This book is a very good introduction to the topics of Contemporary Issues, Apologetics, and Textual Criticism for the dedicated layman or the serious-minded Bible study leader. I was surprised by the popular level approach to these topics brought by some of the top-shelf names in Christian scholarship. When life-long church members can say things such as “No one can really know what happened two thousand years ago,” the pastor must know that their knowledge is lacking and wonder what is the object of their faith. Their theological training from Sunday School classes has not prepared them for current challenges to the faith, and to their own faith. For pastors with members that are interested in the subject of how we know what we know about the faith, this would make a good gift to show your appreciation for their commitment to the task of teaching the Word. This book, though good for a lay introduction, does not suffice for the seminary student.
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N. T. Wright. Evil and the Justice of God. IVP, 2006. 176 pp.
Woody Allen famously pointed out that the problem is not that God doesn’t exist, but that he is an underachiever. The philosophical tendency for at least the past three centuries has been to assume that the human estimation of God is more significant than the divine estimation of humanity. And “evil” names the extent to which, in human estimation, God’s purposes have invariably been found wanting.
In a lucid treatment of this perennial conundrum, N. T. Wright argues that pondering the “problem of evil” is an activity that displaces us from the business of implementing the healing, restorative justice of God. The problem of evil is philosophically located in theoretical analysis of an inherently distant God—that is, the deist God of the Enlightenment. . . .
Reviewed by Dr. Samuel Wells, Duke Divinity School.
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Hank Hanegraaff. The Apocalypse Code: Find Out What the Bible REALLY Says About the End Times . . . and Why it Matters Today. Thomas Nelson, 2007. 336 pp.
On the one hand, Hanegraaff does a very good job debunking the popular dispensational end-times scenarios set out by the likes of John Hagee and Tim LaHaye. Hanegraaff exposes the embarrassing problem faced by dispensationalists who claim to interpret the Bible literally, and who cannot make good on that promise. While John (Revelation 1:3; 22:10) tells us that the things recorded in his apocalyptic vision are soon to come to pass, dispensationalists are forced to tell us that “near” and “soon” don’t really mean “near” and “soon.” Instead, dispensationalists tell us, these things don’t come to pass until the end of the age—a rather embarrassing problem given their insistence that they take the Bible (especially prophecy) “literally.”
Reviewed by Kim Riddlebarger.
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