60 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Real Jesus Revealed!, October 12, 2006
This review is from: What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible (Hardcover)
Dr. Witherington contends that the primary source documents found in the New Testament are a much more reliable source for information on the historical Jesus than anything you will find in the gnostic Gospel of Judas or in any of the documents found in the Nag Hammadi Library. He also feels that getting close to the historical Jesus involves getting close to the people who knew Him best, and so there are chapters about Peter, Paul, his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the beloved disciple (the author of the Gospel of John), and his brother James.
Ben reveals that there is no historical foundation for identifying Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus, and that the material about her in the Gospel of Philip and in the gospel bearing her name are inconclusive and appear to tell us more about 2nd and 3rd century gnosticism than they do about Mary Magdalene or anything in the life of the historical Jesus.
The chapter about the mother of Jesus shows quite clearly that she didn't really put all of the pieces together about who her son really was until the end of His life, and that she is found in the upper room with the other disciples in Acts 1:14.
The chapter on Peter shows that the Gospel accounts are painfully honest about his triumphs and his failures as an agent of Christ. The material in 1 Peter and in 2 Peter 1:12-2:3 where Peter reflects on what he has learned as one who knew the Lord rings true. Peter very clearly sees Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
There are a few surprises along the way. Ben makes a powerful and convincing case that the beloved disciple who penned the fourth gospel is none other than Lazarus. He also holds (less convincingly in my view) that Joanna the wife of Chuza who traveled with the Lord's apostolic band (Luke 8:1-3) is in all likelihood to be identified with the female apostle Junia found in Romans 16:7.
Ben has also changed his view on the threefold questioning of Peter by Jesus in John 21. He now sees the word change from agape to phileo by Jesus in verse 17 as more significant than he originally thought. He sees it as Jesus questioning Peter's professed brotherly love for Him. I agree with Ben.
Throughout this epochal book, Ben has clearly made the case that there is enough light and truth breaking out of God's Holy Word concerning the historical Jesus that there is really no need to consult spurious documents two hundred years after the time of Jesus or to trust the gnostic and occasionally anti-Semitic Gospel of Thomas. He concludes the church had a high Christology of Jesus from the earliest years of Christianity all the way through the New Testament, and that the ancient faith was not a battleground of dueling Christianities.
This is a wonderful read, and a sorely needed book. There is a lot of junk floating around purporting to tell us something special and new about the real Jesus, and Ben cuts through all the baloney and takes us back to the primary sources. Go ahead and buy this book and read it through carefully. It is a great antidote to the stuff found in the DaVinci Code and to the stuff found in the National Geographic special on the Gospel of Judas.
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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Exegesis and Presentation, January 5, 2007
This review is from: What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible (Hardcover)
I am not a seminary student. Most theological books I have read tend to be lofty and rife with jargon. This one is not. Whenever Witherington introduces a term or concept, he explains it for the novice.
Whether you are liberal or conservative in your theology, you can easily understand Witherington's thinking process and exegesis. He is thorough, researched, full of references, and well organized.
This book was hard to put down and left me wanting more which is unique for me when reading nonfiction. I would not be surprised if this book becomes a sort of primer for the historicity of Jesus.
I recommend this book because of its content, exegetic process, and presentation. I received it for Christmas and am proud to display it in my library.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Taking on the revisionists, July 16, 2007
This review is from: What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible (Hardcover)
Common to the Christological revisionists are claims that there are lost or suppressed Christianities, and that there is a radical discontinuity between who Jesus really was and how he was represented by his early - and later - followers. What much of this amounts to is an attempt to rewrite history, to undermine the reliability of the New Testament, and to recreate Jesus in the image of liberal scholarship.
Thus we need once again to determine just who Jesus really was, and what in fact was his message. And the best way to do that, argues New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, it to get back to the inner circle of Jesus. Those who were closest to him or knew him best are our most reliable guides to what he believed and what the early faith was all about. This book provides a close look at this so-called inner circle. It carefully examines those from Jesus' own physical family: Mary, James and Jude; as well as Peter, the Beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Paul.
Taken together, their testimonies help us understand who Jesus was, and what his core message was. A close examination of these individuals reveals that they all agree to a common understanding of the man and his mission.
Witherington argues that no wide wedge can be driven between these close associates and their take on Jesus, and that of Jesus himself. Consider James, the brother of Jesus, and the first leader of the post-Easter Jesus movement. The contents of the epistle that bears his name are remarkably similar to that of the most basic teachings of Jesus.
For example, one can find over two dozen close similarities between what is found in his epistle and what is recorded in the Sermon on the Mount. This demonstrates, in part, that James is quite familiar with the sayings of Jesus in some form. Says Witheringtom, "the letter of James is deeply indebted to the Jesus tradition".
And the oft-heard contentions that James and Paul are fundamentally at odds, or that Paul has radically reinterpreted Jesus, are far from the truth. There are admittedly differences of emphasis between Paul - the missionary to the Gentiles - and James - who ministered to Jewish believers - but their basic message is the same, centred on a high view of Christ and his saving work.
And Paul's theology flows out of the life and teaching of Jesus. He is no inventor of new theologies, but a faithful witness to the Jesus story. His message is fully in accord with the others of the Jesus circle. Any differences among them, suggests Witherington, are primarily ecclesiological in nature, not Christological.
The inner circle stands in complete continuity with Jesus and his message. And the message they spread was quite congruous. Says Witherington, "the earliest Christian leaders were remarkably similar in their beliefs about the divinity of Jesus, the way of salvation, and basic ethics".
The idea that they, or others, have somehow misrepresented Jesus or departed from his words and teachings is simply without any firm evidence, argues Witherington. Indeed, the idea that there were competing Christianities during the first century is simply incorrect. The kind of Gnostic gospels and alternative Christianities that many modern liberal theologians seek to argue for simply were not in existence during the time of the very early church, but instead begin to appear in the second to the fourth centuries.
"It is pointless to talk about `lost Christianities' if we are talking about the apostolic age," says Witherington, "because there were no forms of Christianity like later Gnosticism already extant in the first century." Indeed, "as far as we know there were no forms of earliest Christianity that did not worship Jesus as crucified and risen Lord".
The earliest leaders of the Jesus movement shared a very high Christology, and a common understanding of the basic Christian message. Indeed, all the New Testament documents "can be traced back directly or indirectly to the inner circle of Jesus," and all 27 New Testament documents present a messianic picture of Jesus.
Asks Witherington, who should we most heavily rely upon: The inner circle of Jesus or later Gnostic writings? The inner circle had "more than enough living contact with the historical Jesus to remember who Jesus was, what his teaching was like, and what claims (implicit or explicit) he made of a messianic nature".
Concludes Witherington, "There is no nonmessianic Jesus to be found at the bottom of the well of history".
It is imperative that the new Christological revisionism is challenged historically and biblically. That Witherington does here to great effect.
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