[.ca] Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the ... (ISBN 0310211395)

Takes the Jesus Seminar to task ...:
In this collection of essays and articles defending the historical Christ from contemporary detractors, editors Wilkins and Moreland have put together an important work of evangelical apologetics. Taking the claims of "The Jesus Seminar" to task, the various scholars present an intellectually defensible picture of the Jesus of traditional Christianity. The most effective chapter is definitely Darrell Bock's, "The Words of Jesus in the Gospels: Live, Jive, or Memorex?" Bock's essay serves as an extremely clear-headed and effective primer on the subject of the use of dialogue by the New Testament writers. The words of Jesus, for example, are neither "Jive" (words put into his mouth later by the gospel writers to advance their theology, the position asserted by "The Jesus Seminar" concerning almost all of Jesus' words in the NT) nor "Memorex" (his exact words down to the letter in every circumstance) but "Live." In other words, the gospel writers often recorded his teachings and sayings in summary form, and often tailored the delivery to their audience while retaining Christ's true message. Definitely recommended to theologians and defenders of the faith alike.

One of the best:
If you are going to read only one book on the "Historical Jesus", this book should be the one. This work covers the relevant topics such as the historical reliability of the Gospels, different modern views of Jesus such as a political social reformer, the veracity of the Resurrection, and my favorite chapter on the Gospels being "live, jive, or Memorex (paraphrased history, fiction, or literal verbatim history respectively). Liberal views holding a "low-Christology" such as those presented by the Jesus Seminar are taken to task and challenged on ignoring their own criterion along with their unjustified naturalistic presuppostions. I have read several works on the search for the historical Jesus and highly recommend this one.

Excellent Book:
This is a great book. It is too bad that it didn't get the press that the Jesus Seminar got. Despite what one reviewer wrote, the authors don't approach the issue just as biased as the Jesus Seminar. The authors of this book approach it from a perspective of supernaturalism. This allows for the examination of a greater number of hypotheses than does naturalism. A supernaturalist does not necessarily attribute supernatural reasons to tough questions. On the other hand, a naturalist necessarily DOES attribute natural explanations to tough questions. I hope that reviewer finishes the book, it may do him well to find that the essays are written partly in order to convince people who tend toward naturalism that naturalism is actually too limited of a world view to account for all of the facts we have. GET THIS BOOK FOR ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!

Brilliant response to the Jesus Seminar:
I love this book. Some of the best evangelical scholars do careful and calculated work to respond to the shoddy fabrication of Jesus that the Jesus Seminar seems so proud of. Having spent time reviewing the Seminar's The Five Gospels and The Complete Gospels among some of their other works, I am more convinced now that what the scholars in Jesus Under Fire have done is not only called for, but right on target. The Seminar is inconsistent in the application of its own criteria and even more shocking to me was the lack of direct scholarly references and argumentation to document their conclusions. Their assumptions and academic credentials seem to authoritatively seal the case in their minds. These are exactly the type of weaknesses Jesus Under Fire demonstrates in the Seminar's reconstruction of Jesus. Unlike the Seminar's translation and commentary, Jesus Under Fire is detailed, well argued and extensively footnoted. Amazon provides a table of contents and other reviewers have already summarized this excellent book so I won't recover that ground. Among my favorite articles are Bock's "Live, Jive or Memorex" which has helped me in explaining the historical nature of the Bible to some of my doubting friends. I also love Geivett's "Is Jesus The Only Way?" which provides some original thoughts on how to approach our pluralistic society with the exclusive claims of Christ. McKnight's introduction to Jesus Studies was helpful to me as I approached this arena. All of the articles are excellent. With the increasing media coverage of the Jesus Seminar this is an important resource for biblical Christians who are thoughtful in their approach to the gospels. The Jesus Seminar may be here for a long haul, but so are the responses presented in this great book.

A Masterpeice; Must Reading For Anyone Interested In Jesus:
Jesus Under Fire is a masterpiece, a first rate work of philosophical and historical scholarship. If you are a skeptic who doubts the nature of Jesus and who he claimed to be, this book will fascinate you. If you are already a Christian, this book will help ground your belief in solid historical and logical arguments. There are many people who believe in Jesus without the slightest degree of intellectual or philosophical justification. There are also many who reject him simply because it seems improbable that he was anything more than a man; a great spiritual leader, perhaps; a lunatic maybe, but certainly not God incarnate. This books looks at all the options and finds Jesus to be the divine being that Christians claim him to be. Many people are familiar with the popular Jesus Seminar, a group of self-acclaimed scholars who study the New Testament and purport to analyze its claims with intellectual rigor and complete impartiality. Jesus Under Fire examines the claims of the Jesus Seminar in a fair and intellectually honest way and finds them to be biased and partial - and often without historical justification. Jesus Under Fire provides its readers with logical and easily defensible reasons to think Jesus was actually more than human. It does so in a way that appeals to the objective truth-seeker within, regardless of whether one is religious or not. This book will appeal to anyone who wants to form his religious beliefs based on the evidence and not solely on the recommendation of a Christian friend or minister. It may be possible to read this book and still conclude that Jesus was other than divine. However, it is impossible to read this book and conclude that there are no good reasons to belief that Jesus was indeed the son of God. Reading this book will force all intellectually honest skeptics to acknowledge that there is credible historical evidence, as well as multiple valid analytical arguments for the Christian faith. Jesus Under Fire is divided into chapters written by distinct scholars. The most interesting chapter may be the last one, written by William Lane Craig, a research professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology. Craig's chapter deals with the resurrection. It provides fascinating reasons to believe that this admittedly incredible event actually occurred as Christians claim it did. This chapter, like the entire book, appeals not to your emotions but to your intellect. Like many books that appeal to your intellect, this one requires time and thought. It does not always read like a Stephen King novel. But the drama is just as intense and reading this book will prove to be an extremely rewarding experience for anyone who is interested in knowing the truth about Christian claims. If you have read any of John Dominic Crossan's books on Jesus, you absolutely must read Jesus Under Fire so that you may understand the contrarian's point of view. It is a view that will impress and surprise many by the strength of its arguments.