Jesus Legend, The: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Paperback)

~ Gregory Boyd (Author), Paul Eddy (Author)
Key Phrases: hellenization thesis, priori burden, oriented written texts, New Testament, New York, Grand Rapids (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Even mature Christians have trouble defending the person and divinity of Christ. The Jesus Legend builds a convincing interdisciplinary case for the unique and plausible position of Jesus in human history. He was real and his presence on the planet has been well-documented.

The authors of the New Testament didn't plant evidence, though each writer did tell the truth from a unique perspective. This book carefully investigates the Gospel portraits of Jesus--particularly the Synoptic Gospels--assessing what is reliable history and fictional legend. The authors contend that a cumulative case for the general reliability of the Synoptic Gospels can be made and boldly challenge those who question the veracity of the Jesus found there.

From the Back Cover

"This is one of the most important books on methodological issues in the study of Jesus and the Gospels to have appeared for a long time. It deserves to be widely read."--Richard Bauckham, University of St. Andrews

"The Jesus Legend is the best book in its class. Eddy and Boyd demonstrate mastery of the disciplines essential for critical assessment of the Gospels and competent investigation of the historical Jesus. I recommend this book in the highest terms."--Craig A. Evans, Acadia Divinity College; author of Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels

"A clearly written, carefully researched, and powerfully argued defense of the historical reliability of the Synoptic Gospels. What makes this book noteworthy is the careful treatment of underlying issues in historical methodology and philosophy. A pleasure to read and a wonderful resource for those who have encountered troubling skeptical claims about the Gospels."--C. Stephen Evans, Baylor University

"I am gratified that my friends and colleagues Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd have taken my work as seriously as they have in this comprehensively researched book. I urge any reader of my books to read this one alongside them!"--Robert M. Price, Center for Inquiry Institute

"Eddy and Boyd have provided a thoroughly compelling cumulative argument--one of the very best available--for the reliability of the Synoptic Jesus tradition. Their book constitutes a superb treatment of the various issues, involving both fresh research and a brilliant synthesis of material from a variety of relevant disciplines."--Craig S. Keener, Palmer Seminary

"Eddy and Boyd have surveyed technical and popular writing alike, in meticulous detail, and present what can be concluded responsibly about the trustworthiness of the Synoptic Gospels and the portraits of Jesus they contain. They compile a detailed and erudite case that supports Christian faith. Highly recommended!"--Craig L. Blomberg, Denver Seminary

"Well-written and organized, containing a masterful command of the literature. Eddy and Boyd show the difference between an open historical investigation of the life of Jesus and much of today's fictional writing that claims to be historical research concerning the origin of Christianity. A very useful introduction for college and seminary students."--Robert H. Stein, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Baker Academic (August 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801031141
• ISBN-13: 978-0801031144
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #490,587 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Legendary, December 31, 2007

By	J. D. Walters "koshte" (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The set of respectable ways to argue that Jesus was legendary or never existed just got a whole lot smaller. Two highly qualified scholars with impeccable credentials have granted the skeptics their wish: to subject the Jesus-myth arguments to critical scrutiny instead of simply dismissing them as 'anti-God' or 'just so much rhetoric'. Maybe now people like Robert Price and Earl Doherty wish they hadn't. Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy conduct such a thorough demolition of the Jesus myth and make such a strong case for the general reliability of the Gospels that, unless dramatic new discoveries come to light from the ancient world, I doubt anyone will be able on the available evidence to produce such an argument which withstands their criticisms. Skeptics will no longer be able to simply refer to 'the writings of Robert Price and Earl Doherty' and act as if that settled the issue of Christian origins. They will have to pass through Boyd and Eddy first.

From the reviews below it is evident that a major point of contention surrounding this book is whether it is a serious scholarly book or just 'conservative Christian propaganda'. The answer, of course, is that it is both: it is arguing for a conservative position vis a vis the reliability of the Synoptic Gospels, but the authors back this position up with scholarly arguments and extensive (even exhaustive) bibliography. The truth is that ALL scholars are apologists for one position or another, that is, they present positive arguments for their case and try to rebutt possible objections. If Boyd and Eddy are writing conservative Christian propaganda, then John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg are writing liberal Christian propaganda, while Burton Mack and Robert Price are writing skeptical/atheist propaganda. Let us say rather than each scholar argues as best he/she can and then it is up to other scholars and lay reader to judge whether or not they are convincing. If the arguments are good arguments, what does it matter the position they point to?

I will just make a few comments on the substance of the book, as the best word to describe it is 'exhaustive'. The authors try to address EVERY issue or question which arises with respect to determining the historicity of the Gospels and wrestle with the views of many other scholars. Less attention is given to the Jesus Seminar (whose views Boyd demolished in his Cynic Sage Or Son Of God?) and more to radical theorists such as Doherty, Price, Barker, Weeden, et al. With the exception of the important (indeed, according to the authors, most important) middle section of the book which deals with oral tradition, there is little new argumentation. Anyone who has read Meier, Sanders, Wright, Theissen, Dunn or Bauckham on the historical Jesus will find much of the material familiar. Indeed, it becomes obvious that serious scholars HAVE engaged and refuted most of the arguments which Jesus-mythers advance, but the lines of evidence are presented in piece-meal fashion in various parts of various books. Where Boyd and Eddy excel is bringing all this material together and putting it in dialogue with explicit statements and arguments of the Jesus-mythers.

It would be a mistake to think that this book is solely a defensive reply to the Jesus myth, however. The book also presents a constructive case for the reliability of the Gospels, again drawing from the best results of the last two centuries of historical study of the New Testament. Reading this book will acquaint you with all the critical tools and results one must be familiar with to offer a responsible historical assessment of these documents. That is no small feat. Indeed, I know of no other book (even Dunn's massive Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, Vol. 1), to which the authors are heavily indebted) that covers this amount of material. Add to this an important preliminary treatment of philosophical issues surrounding the question of miracle and divine action, and you have a historical Jesus book unparalleled in the history of scholarship. Its interdisciplinarity is its major strength.

Evaluations of the book's main argument will of course differ, but as far as I can objectively tell the authors succeed brilliantly in arguing that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of History, or at least as close as we'll ever come to him. Their presentation of skeptical arguments is meticulous and fair (quotations are always put in their original context and further points and arguments are referred to when appropriate) and the implications they draw from their original research in oral tradition are eminently logical. This book strengthened my faith in Jesus and greatly encouraged me with regard to the state of believing scholarship. In a word, it is blossoming. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Defense of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, September 25, 2007

By	Lamont S (Lexington, Kentucky United States) - See all my reviews

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The publishing of this book was well-timed, coming as it did just after the publishing of Richard Bauckham's excellent study of the connections between the Gospels and eyewitness testimony (in his "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses"), as Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory Boyd have pieced together a substantial volume that deals another hard blow to the critical assumptions behind the school of "Form Criticism". However, the authors' primary targets are the viewpoints of hypercritical NT scholars and popular writers (e.g. Robert Price (and the "Jesus Seminar" in general), Earl Doherty, etc.) who either consider Jesus to be a mythical figure or at least claim that the canonical Gospels are so unreliable historically that very little can be gleaned about him from these sources. So, while the book is directed at viewpoints typically not taken seriously by the mainstream scholarly guild, it nevertheless has important implications for the world of scholarly study within mainstream circles (as well as, of course, liberal and conservative ones). It is also certainly helpful to have well-thought-out responses to the kinds of arguments we see being advanced by the likes of Doherty and Price, whose works have been influential to popular audiences, if not those in the scholarly world.

The book is divided into 10 chapters, the first of which argues that truly objective historians should be open to the possibility of supernatural explanations for historical data. The second chapter deals with the impact (or lack thereof) that Hellenism had on 1st Century Judaism (and how this may have influenced the formation of a "Jewish legend of Yahweh embodied"). The third chapter deals in the ever-present issue of "parallel legends and/or heroes", with helpful discussions of Sabbatai Svi, Simon Kimbangu, and of course Apollonius of Tyana. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted, respectively, to discussions of the extra-biblical sources of Jesus (including discussions of the two famous Josephus passages and that of Tacitus, plus others), and the alleged problem of Paul's silence in regards to details of Jesus' life. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with the reliability of oral tradition and the role of memory and eyewitness testimony as it relates to New Testament studies. Chapter 8 discusses the issue of Gospel genre, which includes helpful discussions responding to such proposals as "the Gospels as fiction" and "the Gospels as ancient romance novels", etc. Finally, chapters 9 and 10 evaluate features of the Synoptic Gospels themselves and how the sum total of the data should give us the impression of the Gospels' general reliability.

As one might imagine from the above list of objectives, the scope of the book is quite broad and gives, as a spatial necessity, only enough for a general overview of much of the pertinent data. While it is difficult to find fault in any particular chapter (given the fact that a thorough traversing of all of these issues might require a wheelbarrow-full of pages), certain chapters were more compelling than others given the detail that the authors managed to include. Perhaps more helpful than any chapter was that of the very first in which the authors argue for an approach to historicity that does not rule out, a priori, the possibility of supernatural explanations for historical events (e.g. Jesus' alleged resurrection) when all naturalistic alternatives fail to explain the scope of the data. This is extremely crucial, as it is this very issue that most often separates those willing to believe that the Jesus of the Gospels could exist from those that do not. I thought that the authors' established quite successfully their case in this regard. Unfortunately, many of the other chapters could afford but only a general overview of the relevant issues. The authors' discussion of the reliability of oral tradition was interesting, coming as it did from numerous recent multi-disciplinary studies of oral traditions encompassing a wide variety of cultures, yet there was simply not enough space to engage too many of the specifics. In fairness, however, the important message was delivered successfully, i.e. yes, testimony of historical events based on oral tradition, including the kind of extended narratives like we have in the Gospels (and even narratives much *longer* than those we find in the Gospels) can be and are generally reliable. The authors give a solid overview of typical NT features that suggest the documents' general reliability, but the reader may be frustrated at the lack of examples in some (though not all) cases. For instance, I found the authors to be successful in the all-important discussion of the manifold discrepancies among the Synoptic tradition in regards to establishing that such problems do not necessarily detract from general historical reliability, and that many of these discrepancies are simply matters of acceptable variation within oral tradition. However, it would have been even more helpful if more specific examples were offered.

Of course, this is all picking at nits. A book that is already in excess of 450 pages can hardly be criticized on such grounds when it is successful in establishing its main points of contention. In fact, I shudder to imagine the hours of research that must have been poured into this volume by Eddy and Boyd. This is evidenced by the authors' copious footnotes in each of the diverse sections. In fact, while the material within the book could only give us an overview of many of the pertinent issues, such as why the oral tradition standing behind the Gospels should be viewed optimistically in regards to its ability to produce a generally reliable written product penned 40-70 years after the events in question, the footnotes themselves serve as helpful guideposts pointing to locations that serious researchers can go to next should they wish to pursue the topic(s) in more detail. As anticipated, I found the book to be a masterpiece, and one that is essential reading for those immersed in popular theories such as "The Christ Myth", "The Gospels as Fiction", and of course the ubiquitous practice of "parallelomania" (to name but a few). However, in the scholarly world, this book should also substantially contribute to the painfully-slow demise of Form Criticism.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Jesus Legend, November 9, 2008

By	Aaron Grabill (Bemidji, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Jesus Legend is worth reading. It is well written, organized, and clear.

The authors quote from other sources often, and include lots of footnotes. Although the book is somewhat lengthy, that alone should not discourage anyone from reading it. It has something for everyone (both believers and non-believers), and the way it's written is very approachable.

There are a few shortcomings of the book. One of these is that the authors sometimes seem a little too zealous in supporting their various conclusions. This led to a few demonstrable contradictions.

The authors, at one point, wish to demonstrate that the literacy rate of the time and region was quite poor. At another point, they argue that literacy rates were actually quite high.

On pages 243-245, the authors assert that literacy rates were pretty good. On page 245 they ask, "Does this (the evidence they cite in the previous few pages) not indicate that reading and writing were potentially widespread in Palestinian Judaism during the Hellenistic period?" They go on to state that "there are even stronger grounds for concluding that literacy rates among Jews in Palestine were likely higher than the general first-century Greco-Roman population."

In contrast to this, the authors also argue that the same society did not have a high literacy rate. On page 428 they state, "It means we have to understand that, unlike written accounts produced within a highly literate context, the various episodes recorded in the Gospels very likely were intentionally written..."

Obviously it can't be both ways for the authors particular points at any given time.

Another contradiction arises when the authors try to argue that:

1) Jesus was not well known. Not even well known in Galilee.

And then later on that:

2) Jesus was actually very well known throughout the region.

Pg. 168 says "First, there is a problem with the assumption that if the Gospel accounts are true, Jesus would have been something of an international figure whom people in the first century would generally be aware of." They go on to state, "While the Gospels certainly speak of crowds occasionally following Jesus in Galilee, there is no reason to think that his reputation would have expanded much beyond this region." They continue, "But it is not even clear that Jesus would have captured the attention of most people in the region of Galilee."

In contrast to this, on pg. 174 the authors argue the exact opposite. In a peculiar move, they attempt to show that a letter from Serapion to his son in prison made a reference to Jesus.

The letter "recounts the woes that fell on the Athenians after murdering Socrates. He speaks of the hardships that fell on the Samosians after putting Pythagoras to death. And, most significant for our purposes, he refers to the mistake the Jews made when they killed "their wise king, because their kingdom was taken away at that very time."

The authors ask, "How many Jews, martyred before the destruction of Jerusalem, were known by pagans throughout the Roman Empire in the second or third centuries as "wise kings" --to the point of possibly being household names, on a par with Socrates and Pythagoras?

Again, it seems that the authors are too quick to support whatever view seems to work out for the moment. Obviously these two proposals (pg. 168 & pg. 174) cannot both be true. The authors present a contradiction.

This is one of the points upon which I think the book could have made a better case. But instead of making a stronger case, the authors undermine their own arguments, as well as their credibility, by the contradictions that they present within the book.

The authors also address the idea that Jesus was not unlike other savior figures (like Apollonius of Tyana, Perseus, Mithras, etc.). They seek to address how strong the ties actually are between Jesus and other purported god-men, and to show that Jesus was someone altogether distinct from any of those who were historically cited as being nearly synonymous.

The authors of the Jesus Legend ask this question in regards to this matter of similarity between Jesus and other god-men: "The question, however, is whether these are merely intriguing similarities or whether they represent telling parallels, suggestive of some direct, if unconscious, influence or even conscious borrowing."

I'm just curious as to what the difference is between an "intriguing similarity" and a "telling parallel." I think the authors try to downplay how strong the case actually is here. They mention in the book that early Christian writers (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, etc.) made mention of these "intriguing similarities" but then they neglect to inform the reader as to what they actually said. For good reason! Justin Martyr, for example, thought the similarities/parallels (or whatever word we want to use here) were so strong that the devil had actually copied the truths of Christianity before they had even happened. But the writers (Boyd & Eddy) don't tell you what the church fathers actually said. Why? Because it would weaken their case.