Customer Reviews

Portraits of Jesus: An Inductive Approach to the Gospels

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Dr. Cosby has created a great tool to plunge into the Gospels in a way that a beginning student may be starving for and that even a more advanced student would find helpful. He combines his vast knowledge of the world of the authors and hearers alongside with an inductive question-asking approach that will spur the reader on to learn it for themselves. Cosby has great insights and helpful warnings away from poor, but common, exegetical fallacies of popular Christianity. To the reader's benefit, it is very well written, and far from dry.

My only complaint would perhaps be directed towards the helpfulness of some of the questions. Many questions seem somewhat obvious and unnecessary. This could, however, be my own bias coming through. Having gone through many of his classes myself, I am able to anticipate the points he is going to make. I am sure that for students who have never actually sat down and wrestled with behind the scenes information about the Gospels, these questions would certainly be a catalyst for their own questions and ponderings. On the whole, if you go through this book, you will come out with a great understanding of the Evangelists' writings as well as the first significant steps toward finding the historical Jesus amidst all the noise that surrounds that search today.

Something to watch out for will be his inductive study of Paul's writings, due to be published in 2006. Apostle On The Edge: An Inductive Guide To Paul has gone through many years of classroom study by Messiah College students. It is similar in format and may be even better in content, as Pauline studies seems to be an even greater passion for Dr. Cosby.