Customer Reviews

Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture's Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having enjoyed reading books such as The Rozabal Line, The Da Vinci Code, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, The Gnostic Gospels etc. I had assumed that this book would not appeal to me. I was wrong.

I genuinely believe in many of the contrary views. For example, I do not believe that Jesus was the son of God. I do not believe in the Virgin Birth. I do not believe that he was resurrected i.e. the he "physically" came alive after his death on the cross. I believe that Mary Magdalene must have had a more important role than the one attributed to her by the Church. I am not too sure whether I believe that Christ survived the ordeal on the cross or not. Thus, you see, I am not the ideal person to read or post a positive review about this book.

And therein lies the importance of this positive review. If I could read this book cover-to-cover, digest the arguments (not necessarily agree with them) and then leave myself open to the possibility that some of the traditional Gospel versions of events could possibly be true, it would mean that this book has done its job. It has, in that sense succeeded. Before I started reading this book, I was convinced that the Gnostic gospels held more truth in them than the Canonical ones. After reading this book, I have become a little more balanced in my approach. That is probably what the authors were aiming for anyway... the text and style is not at all "thrilling" or "mysterious" and hence this book is not "sensational". Instead it attempts to provide a more balanced view of the Bible and asks us to view alternative theories with a little more scrutiny.

Read this as a primer before you read the next Da Vinci Code that comes your way. Conservative Christians will like this book in any case. The problem is whether the skeptics will view it positively. While the "style" leaves much to be desired, the "substance" (including the numerous references to the multiple sources that DO, in fact, support the Canonical version of events) creates a level playing field in the world of books on Christianity.

I will not hide my bias as I begin this review. I think it's always important to be honest about where you're coming from. Jesus is on the throne in my belief system and I feel this book may help put him back there for many others. I found the chapter that covers claim six, "Jesus' Tomb Has Been Found and His Resurrection and Ascension Did Not Involve a Physical Departure," to be the most useful brief rebuttal that I've seen. The authors clearly show, for example, that approximately 21 percent of Jewish women were called Mariamme (Mary) and that nearly 5 percent of men were named Jesus; therefore, the odds that the ossuary with the names Jesus and Mary on it being a family tomb of Christ are very slim indeed.

I think the authors point out a very real issue when they say, "The fact that there is so little to this hypothesis (that the family tomb was found and Jesus did not physically resurrect) and yet it gained so much attention and created so much hype raises the question of whether our culture is truly ready and willing to come to grips with the claims of Jesus as they have been made over the centuries." It seems that many today are interested only in hearing what will make them feel better instead of the truth. Having read other even more in-depth critiques of the family tomb propaganda, it's clear that there is not truth there and that it's filled with illogical assumptions; yet I've encountered many who call themselves atheists in the past few months who refer to it as an example of the fallacies in the Christian faith. It's interesting that they say they've reached their position with rationality and logic.

This book shows the weaknesses in the challenges. It does not focus on defending the positions of Christianity in an in-depth manner. If you're looking for that, you'll need to look elsewhere. However, if you're looking for a good book to read as you read the books that make the claims the authors deal with, I think you'll find this one the best on the shelf.

This book addresses the following six current claims from recent books that attempt to "unseat the biblical Christ:"

(1) The original New Testament has been corrupted by copyists so badly that it can't be recovered (e.g., Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus), Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, and The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament.

(2) Secret gnostic gospels, such as "Judas," show the existence of early alternative Christianities (e.g., National Geographic's "The Gospel of Judas," and Bart Ehrman's The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed.

(3) The "Gospel of Thomas" radically alters our understanding of the real Jesus (e.g., Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.

(4) Jesus' message was fundamentally political and social, e.g., Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan's The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem.

(5) Paul took captive the original movement of Jesus and James, moving it from a Jewish reform effort to a movement that exalted Jesus and included Gentiles, e.g., James Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity

(6) Jesus' tomb has beeb found, and his resurrection and ascension did not involve a physical departure, e.g., the recent Discovery Channel documentary.

Each claim in dealt with in a separate chapter. The final chapter is an excellent summary of the whole book. One point that they frequently make is that framing an argument as "either/or" isn't necessarily correct. It could be "both/and."

I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a better understanding of the arguments for and against these claims. The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five was that the authors frequently said things like "the details are not presented here because thay can be found in such-and-such a book," which I am not likely to buy or find in my local public library. A few Notes or Appendices would have been nice and would not have detracted from the excellent readability of the book.

January 10, 2008
It is not often that a book spans the great chasm that exists between scholarly and popular books. Dethroning Jesus does just that. Dallas Theological Seminary professors Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace have teamed up to provide readers a fascinating introduction to some of the latest notions about Jesus which have permeated both the scholarly and popular realms. The authors are eminently qualified to write such a book. Bock is the former President of the Evangelical Theological Society and has written numerous scholarly books and articles. He is also the author of the best-selling book Breaking the Da Vinci Code. Wallace is highly respected for his expertise in Greek grammar and textual criticism. He is the executive director of The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, and the author of the highly acclaimed Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.

The Introduction is very helpful in that it lays the groundwork for the rest of the book. "Jesusanity" is a term used frequently throughout this book. It refers to the Jesus of much of modern scholarship and popular culture, but not the Jesus of traditional Christianity or the Bible.

Proponents of Jesusanity make several claims about Jesus, and the authors do a nice job of stating these claims clearly and concisely, and then evaluating these claims in light of church history, archeology, and relevant background information. However, at all times, the scriptures are the primary means of evaluating all such claims. A number of the latest and most crucial issues in New Testament studies are touched on and briefly assessed.

The body of this work lists six claims being made by advocates of Jesusanity, and then assesses these claims. In the interests of space, I will list here only four of these claims.

Claim One: The Original New Testament Has Been Corrupted By Copyists So Badly That It Can't be Recovered
Differing forms of this theme have been advocated by various writers over the years, but the most scholarly and well known of these proponenets has been Bart Ehrman in his work Misquoting Jesus. Ehrman's thesis is examined and found wanting. Along the way, the reader is given a mini-seminar in textual criticism. Bock and Wallace make the following statement refuting Claim One:
Our fundamental argument is that although the original New
Testament text has not been recovered in all its particulars,
it has been recovered in all its essentials. That is, the core
doctrinal statements of the New Testament are not in jeopardy
because of any textual variations. This has been the view of the
majority of textual critics for the past three hundred years,
including Dr. Bruce Metzger (p.72).

Claim Two: Secret Gnostic Gospels, Such As Judas, Show The Existence of Early Alternate Christianities.
The reader is actually walked through the Gospel of Judas in summary fashion. In the process it becomes obvious to anyone familiar with the scriptures why The Gospel of Judas was excluded from the biblical canon (its view of creation is very different from the Bible for starters). Again, the authors give a succinct and helpful summary:
...the gospel truth is that Judas is not the gospel truth. Its unusual
character and distinctive theology show why works like it were never
considered seriously as being worthy of recognition or inclusion in
the New Testament. Whatever Jesus and Christianity is, the Gospel of
Judas does not help us get there. And yes, it does make a difference,
because Judas takes us to a much different place than the four
gospels(p.104).

Claim Four: Jesus Message Was Fundamentally Political and Social
Once again, the authors' reply is rooted in the biblical text, as they respond to this claim. As in most of these claims there is a kernel of truth, yet the full testimony of scripture is often ignored. Bock and Wallace point this out and show rather convincingly that the Jesus of the New Testament was not primarily concerned with political renewal.

Claim Six: Jesus' Tomb Has Been Found, and His Resurrection and Ascension Did Not Involve a Physical Departure
This chapter provides a fascinating behind-the scenes look at the making of a documentary aired on the Discovery Channel. Once again, the biblical text is the primary means of assessing claims regarding the resurrection. However, other engaging evidence is also presented in support of their conclusions- archeology, knowledge of intertestamental literature, and information regarding first-century names and customs.

The conclusion does a nice job of summarizing the contents of the book and briefly presenting the case for orthodoxy in the current milieu. This is a work based upon informed scholarship and presented in a culturally relevant and engaging manner. As the authors conclude, " an enthroned Jesus, not a dethroned one,is most able to lead us into the knowledge of God - and of ourselves."

This volume serves as sweeping introduction to some of the latest issues and scholarly personalities in New Testament studies (E.G. Bauckham, Hengel, Metzger, and Wright),as well as a valuable guide to much of what is happening in the broader culture. It is interesting to note that some of the very best work being done in the area of apoologetics today is being done by New Testment scholars. This publication will serve the Christian community well. Pastors, missionaries, and informed believers will be aided in their quest to proclaim the Jesus of scripture, and to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope that is in them(1Peter 3:15). Dethroning Jesus is an excellent read and worthy of a wide audience.

Andrew Carr
(Ohio USA)

As a firm believer but also someone who likes to engage in critical thinking, I have really enjoyed the past few years. There has been resurgence in these old arguments and I certainly like to participate from afar. I received this book as a Father's Day gift from my son.

This book challenges the claims of the recent work of many authors. In particular, it focuses on the claims of Bart Ehrman and James Tabor. Ehrman chairs the department of religious studies at the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill. He is widely considered the top authority on the history of the New Testament, the early church and the life of Jesus. His recent books - Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus) and Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) has been largely responsible for the rise of apologetics defending the changes in the Bible and /or why the changes were made.

Overall, this book focuses on six (6) main themes.

* The NT has been corrupted by copyist.
* The secret Gnostic Gospels
* The Gospel of Thomas
* Jesus' message was political and social
* Paul thwarted the original movement from Jewish to Gentiles.
* The physical resurrection of Jesus.

I fully understand the arguments made by Wallace and Bock. However I believe they have a rough row to row when they attempt to dispel the finding by Ehrman in his book,The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament In addition, I took from the reading that they downplayed the Gnostic texts a bit too much. As noted in an earlier study, a large part of the latest archeological finds are Gnostic which tends to support the belief that Gnostic belief was very widespread in its time. This was not mentioned in this book.

I found it an extremely interesting argument and really appreciate the intellectual heavy lifting performed by the authors. I did subtract one star from this review due to poor editing. Thomas Nelson Publishing should have been more cautious in their assignment of editors. I found the writing rather difficult to read at times. Editing 101 would have fixed this problem.

I hope you find this review helpful.

Michael L. Gooch

Darrell Bock PhD, is a Research Professor; Daniel B. Wallace PhD, is a Professor of New Testament Studies. Their collaboration, "Dethroning Jesus", sets out a vigorous defense of Christianity against a popular trend that they dub "Jesusanity". "Christianity involves the claim that Jesus was anointed by God to represent both God and Humanity in the restoration of a broken relationship existing between the Creator and his creation. In this version of the story, Jesus serves as a unique bridge between God and humanity, between heaven and earth." By contrast they coin the term "Jesusanity", to mean "the alternative story about Jesus. Here the center of the story is still Jesus, but Jesus as either a prophet or a teacher of religious wisdom. In Jesusanity, Jesus remains very much Jesus of Nazareth."

The authors quickly associate the reader with recent portraits of the alternative Jesus: E.P.Sanders's "eschatological" Jesus; Elisabeth Schusser's "egalitarian, antipatriarchial" Jesus; Richard Horsely's "Elijah-like" Jesus; Jesus Seminar authors Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan's respective "spiritual" and "anti-establishment" Jesuses. They examine in four groups (historical skepticism, new information, cultural factors, and innate desires to understand the spiritual) a total of twelve factors that they consider have contributed to the phenomenon of Jesusanity. The twelfth of these, "brittle fundamentalism" resonated with me: "many who write most skeptically about Christianity today started out in a conservative, Bible-believing environment ... they saw an often huge inconsistency between what the Bible taught, especially in areas tied to social justice and materialism, and what their conservative churches taught."

The "meat" of the book is the presentation and refutation of six claims that represent a large part of skepticism about Jesus today: (1) that the NT text has been too badly corrupted; (2) that "secret" gospels show an "early" alternative Jesus; (3) the differences revealed in the "Gospel of Thomas"; (4) that Jesus' message was fundamentally political and social; (5) that Paul's Jesus was an alternative to the gospel version; and (6) that Jesus' tomb had been found. Although each discussion is relatively short, I found that it properly represented the respective claim and gave a very satisfactory explanation as to why the claim should be rejected. There are other books that I have read on this subject by authors such as Ben Witherington, Craig Evans, Philip Jenkins, Ed Komoszewski, and N.T. Wright. All of these authors are convincing in their support for the Christ of Christianity. Bock and Wallace's book is very readable and of all of these, might give a skeptic the most room for reflection.

In the last few decades, and especially in the last few years, books about Jesus aimed at popular audiences have become quite common. The arguments presented vary, but there is a general picture that emerges. Whereas classical Christianity tells of a Jesus who as a divine Redeemer heals a broken relationship between God and man, who as Prophet, Priest, and King is properly an object of worship, what the authors call "Jesusanity" is the modern portrait that has a high regard for Jesus as a teacher who points the way to God, or more properly speaking, a way to God. He would belong in a religious hall of fame but he is not unique when compared to other religious leaders.

The authors engage six specific claims which appear in the various books on Jesusanity. Any of these claims, if true, would radically alter our understanding of not only Jesus, but also of God and mankind, of Creator and creation, of sin and forgiveness. I am going to focus on the first of the six claims, because if it turns out to be true, it is open season on traditional Christianity and there is no effective way to counter any of the other assertions brought forward in the spirit of Jesusanity.

The first claim is not really a new one, that the text of the New Testament as we have it now has so many mistakes and deliberate changes in it that we have no way of recovering what the original text said. What is new is that it is coming from the pen of a bona fide textual scholar, Bart Ehrman, who has written a huge bestseller, "Misquoting Jesus" in which this is his main thesis. And yet the point is made less by direct argument than by inference and misleading statements. Indeed, according to the authors, apart from these statements much of the book is an "extremely helpful introduction to the field of New Testament textual criticism."

He tells us that there are actually about 400,000 textual variants in the New Testament, and since there are around 138,000 words, this makes for three variants for every single word in the New Testament. But he is being very misleading in his use of numbers. To start with, 99% of all variants do not impact the meaning of the text: variations in spelling and word order make up the vast bulk of the variations. So actually we're talking about 4,000 meaningful variants, which translates to one every three pages.

Although this looks a lot better, the meaningfulness of the numbers still need to be clarified. It is important to realize that the more manuscripts we have, the more textual variants there are. So if we had only one manuscript, there would be zero textual variants, but we would also have no confidence that it would reflect what was originally written. There are 5700+ catalogued Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the average of which is 200 pages long. That means there are approximately 1.2 million pages of handwritten text. 4,000 meaningful variants in 1.2 million pages of text - now you start to get the meaning of the real sense of the numbers. This actually reflects an amazingly accurate history of transmission.

Ehrman says "we don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals." This makes it sound like the text was transmitted in a manner similar to the "telephone game", a party game in which a message is whispered from person to person in a line, in order to see how garbled it gets at the end. But that is not how the New Testament was transmitted. Not only are written documents much less liable to corruption than things whispered in the ear, but more than a single line of transmission was involved. New Testament books were transmitted in multiple streams because they were sent to multiple locations. Mistakes in one stream can often be detected and corrected by comparison to other streams.

Ehrman appears to be more forthcoming in some places and less in others about the true state of textual variants. The authors observe that "one almost gets the sense that it is the honest scholar in Ehrman who admits that the meaningful textual problems are neither as meaningful nor as plentiful as he would want us to think, and the theological liberal in Ehrman who keeps such admissions to a minimum" (p. 60). The bottom line is that less than one percent of the variants are really significant, but even then never to the degree that a doctrine hangs in the balance. Whatever caused Ehrman to lose his faith, then, it was not the discipline of New Testament textual criticism. An interesting observation is that the man he considers his mentor, indeed, the man to whom he dedicated the book Misquoting Jesus, Bruce Metzger, has come to the opposite conclusion, seeing his faith strengthened by a lifetime of study in this area.

Bart Ehrman was twice a guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I'm pretty sure that Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace, the two authors of this book, never will be. Modern portrayals of Jesus are much more attractive to the non-Christian world than what has traditionally been the message for two thousand years. For it allows mankind to reshape God and Jesus into whatever image is pleasing to him. Gone is any accountability of creature to Creator, and also any ability of the Creator to communicate to his creatures what he expects of them. Man becomes autonomous and sin, judgement, and the need for repentance and the Cross are done away with. Jesusanity is popular because it is easier, but if it is allowed to go unchallenged, it is absolutely fatal to biblical Christianity. Bock and Wallace have done a thorough job of meeting these claims head on and showing that they do not stand up under scrutiny.

Dethroning Jesus is another excellent book among several recently released attacking those who seek to re-create the historical Jesus. Bock and Wallace do a good job of exposing the poor scholarship prevalent in many popular publications by these charlatans, who for fame, money, post-modernism, or whatever motive, want to revise history to remove the Divine Jesus of Christianity and replace him with an ordinary man, or even treat Him as myth. Bock and Wallace use interesting terms for the two competing viewpoint of the historical Jesus; Christianity vs. Jesusanity. Christianity is the claim that Jesus is the anointed One sent from heaven, who serves as a bridge between God and humanity. Jesusiaity presents Jesus as another prophet or teacher of religious wisdom, one of many, with no enthronement at God's side.

Bock and Wallace expose the errors of the misguided skeptical scholars like Bart Ehrman, J.D. Crossan, Funk, Marcus Borg, James Tabor, Simcha Jacobvici and others with their minimalist, revisionist and faddish Jesusanity. They group the claims of the Jesusanity proponents into those that claim the original New Testament text is corrupted (Bart Ehrman), that the Gnostic Gospels (Judas) show an alternative Christianity (Elaine Pagels), that the Gospel of Thomas alters our understanding of Jesus, Jesus was fundamentally political and social (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan), that Paul altered the Jesus movement and created the exalted Jesus (Tabor) and that Jesus' tomb has been found and there was no resurrection and ascension.

The best parts, in my opinion, are found in the final two chapters. First where they expose historical errors in J. Tabor's Jesus Dynasty. Then the last chapter which challenges the absurd, illogical assertions of those (Jacobvici, Cameron, Tabor) who claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, exposing their faulty assumptions, faulty statistics, and faulty interpretation of evidence.

The true historical Jesus of Christianity is exciting and inspiring, and far more compelling than the minimalist revisionist Jesusanity version. This book does a good job of challenging the skeptics, although it is a little tedious in places (perhaps because I have heard the same arguments in similar books). Other good ones I recommend are Reinventing Jesus by Komoszewski, Sawyer and Wallace and Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels by Craig Evans.

The authors present six modern claims for an alternative Jesus in a scholarly fashion. Since they point out the basic errors made by the proponents of the alternate viewpoints(presuppostions, overselective data presentation, manipulation, etc)in brief statements with little polemics the reader may easily grasp the central issues. Therefore the work serves as a basic reference source on revisionist Christianity. In some sections the authors may be bending over backwards too far in concessions to liberal theology, which may be confusing to some readers.
The scholarly work needs a counterpart with the fire of the Epistle of Jude against all false teachers who claim to be Christians but undermine the very faith they profess with an increasing intellectual sophistication.

This book provides a very good overview of the historical basis of the gospels. It presents "both sides" of the debate around the canonical gospels and other ancient texts. Very good for the Christian looking to better understand how the New Testament came together, as well as showing why the 4 gospels "made the cut" while the others didn't.