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Craig Blomberg

The Historical Reliability of the Gospels Paperback – November 16, 2007

by Craig L. Blomberg (Author)

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Product details

Publisher : Apollos; 2nd Revised edition (November 16, 2007)
Language : English
Paperback : 416 pages
ISBN-10 : 1844741974
ISBN-13 : 978-1844741977
Item Weight : 1.41 pounds
Dimensions : 6.02 x 1.18 x 8.98 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #8,265,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26,887 in New Testament Bible Study (Books)

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84 ratings

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Jordan S.

the workbook is pretty good, which is why I gave it 5 ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2017

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Be aware that this is the WORKBOOK for Dr. Blomberg's Historical Reliability of the Gospels; this is not the book itself. I made the mistake of buying this, but now have to go back and buy the actual book. Amazon needs to change the listing to include Workbook in the title name of the listing. Having said that, the workbook is pretty good, which is why I gave it 5 stars.

15 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

An excellent source on the historic foundations of the New Testament.

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2018

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This is not the kind of book you skip through. You will pause often to digest what you have just read. If you are unfamiliar with the techniques used to verify writings from the past, that will take some more pausing and considering. It is well worth the effort. Blomberg does explain these techniques, which helps. The work is extensively footnoted and researched. The one nit I have to pick is that there is no discussion on WHEN the Gospels were composed. There is discussion on the 'original' sources (oral tradition, Q, M, L, etc.) but nothing is pinned down as to dates. Despite this, if your interest is in the foundational documents of Christianity, this is a very good place to start.

One person found this helpful

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Greg Castro

Not impressed.

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2019

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The gospels are not "Historical" or "Reliable." No amount of apologetic fog can change that. We don't know who wrote them. We don't know when (Sometime between the late first century and the middle of the second century is the best guess) they were written and we don't know the motivation or intentions of the person (s) who wrote them. Further, we have none of the originals of the gospels which prevents us from knowing the true depth and breadth of the deliberate (And uninspired) alterations we know exist. They contradict each other in many important, doctrinal ways and - especially when comparing the synoptics to John - they seem to tell completely different stories of what happened, what we are to believe, who Jesus was and why it mattered. This confusion and UN-reliability has led to centuries of blood and torture at the hands of evil, wicked men who used the vast vagaries of the gospels to further their power and wealth.

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Stevie Jake

Are the Gospels Reliable?

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2012

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Craig Blomberg's book, which was first published in 1987, answers this question in the affirmative. Blomberg's work was heavily influenced by the six volume series Gospel Perspectives; however, Blomberg's work is unique in its own right. He covers much material in this academic work and makes a decent case for the general reliability of the Gospels.

The topics he covers deal with, but are not restricted to, the synoptic problem, form and redaction criticism, oral tradition in Second Temple Judaism, the problem of miracles (both historically and philosophically), contradictions in the Gospels, the reliability of the Gospel of John, and the testimonies to Jesus outside the Gospels. While I sometimes felt Blomberg was too conservative in his conclusions I still think he was generally careful in his scholarship and seems to treat the evidence with an objective hand most of the time.

I've read many books on the Gospels and I can say that I learned a great deal from this book. I will without a doubt go back to this book to utilize its scholarship. I recommend this book to anyone, believer or non-believer, who feels the desire to delve into the field of New Testament scholarship to determine the validity of the Gospels.

17 people found this helpful

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David M. James

Great historical book for gospels.

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2020

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This is an excellent book if you are looking for logical, accurate and reasonable explanation for why the gospels record history as it happened. It is not a book about biblical inerrancy but does show how the gospels in their original autographs would reflect accurate descriptions of the history of Jesus. It is a book I will read again which is rare for me.

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Ky. Col.

Engaging and Well-Reasoned Case for the Reliability of the New Testament Gospels

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2014

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In "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels", Dr. Blomberg presents readers a detailed and well-reasoned overview for the general reliability of the four Canonical Gospels of the New Testament . This is a popular-level work derived largely from previous more technical volumes of evangelical scholars in the "Gospel Perspectives" series. I would note that popular level in this case does not mean that it lacks detail, notations, or an extensive bibliography; it has all of those. Although the most recent edition was in 2007, it seems very up-to-date in its presentation.

Dr. Blomberg himself is a respected evangelical New Testament scholar who teaches at Denver Theological Seminary. Although a theologically conservative scholar he has had well-known disagreements with more conservative theologians and apologists (eg. supporting Dr. Licona contra the philosopher Dr. Geisler). All scholars have some level of bias and personal commitments to the topics they study. Altogether though I found Blomberg to very reasoned in his approach. Clearly he creates a defense of the traditional gospels as historical sources but what ultimately matters is how he supports his conclusions.

Following the introductions is a very helpful discussion regarding the methods of scholarship in both their traditional theological and more recent critical forms (form criticism, redaction criticism, various literary criticisms, etc.). These chapters take up roughly one quarter of the book. The third section of the book deals with miracles. This topic of whether the possibility of God intervening in history should be considered is crucial in New Testament studies. Scholars can often look at the same textural evidence and arrive at differing conclusions based on their metaphysical presumptions. Dr. Blomberg first deals with scientific, philosophical, and historical objections to the miraculous. Next he pursues the topic further by addressing alleged historical parallels to Jesus, reliability, and the resurrection.

The following two sections of the book cover the Synoptic Gospels and John sequentially. Chapter 4 deals with issues relating to Mark, Mathew, and Luke. Topics discussed include omissions of particular details, variances in speeches, chronology, and paraphrasing. Chapter 5 deals with John, perhaps the most controversial of the gospels due to its unique qualities. Dr. Blomberg discusses authorship, dating, historical reliability, and very importantly whether the differences with the synoptics are nearly as great as is often argued. These two chapters are highly informative with considerable notations for those who wish to explore the topics in considerably greater detail at the scholarly level. The chapters also bring to mind the topic of harmonization and whether it is appropriate to do with separate sources. In one sense fundamentalists have at times attempted complete harmonization to protect their particular doctrines of inerrancy while in the opposite extreme some would argue that harmonization is inappropriate to attempt and that a superficial difference or omission clearly means disagreement between the sources. In my view Blomberg took a more moderate route although in fairness I largely agree with his approach. It is worth noting that one can subscribe to the general reliability and mutual support of the gospels without subscribing to more narrow definitions of inerrancy.

Chapter 6 notes discusses Jesus outside of the context of the Canonical Gospels. Blomberg overviews early Roman and Jewish writings as well as apocryphal traditions, the Nag Hammadi documents, Early Christian writers, Paul's letters, Acts, and Revelation. Aside from these discussions this chapter also notes a number of cases in which historical errors are often presumed in the gospels such as the governorship of Quirinius in Luke's infancy narrative.

Chapter 7 covers the genre of the Canonical Gospels, arguments about burden of proof, and authenticity. Following this chapter are appendices briefly discussing archaeology and textural criticism (the later responding particularly to Dr. Ehrman). Very helpfully for the reader, Blomber provides an extensive Bibliography, Author Index, and Scripture Index (his notations are throughout the book so the bibliography is not annotated). In one of my few criticisms of the book I will note there is not an actual subject index although in the author's defense the chapters are laid out well enough so that referencing is considerably facilitated.

On the whole I thought Dr. Blomberg lays out a logical and evidentially impressive case for the general reliability of the four Gospels of the New Testament. I may not agree with the author on single every point but his book is very informative as well as highly readable. It is a far cry from some of the sensational speculations offered by many popular writers (scholars and non-scholars) concerning Christian history. I highly recommend this book to both Christian and non-Christian readers with an interested in the New Testament or in ancient history.

13 people found this helpful

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FJD

This is a modern classic -- the evidence is irrefutable ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2018

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This is a modern classic -- the evidence is irrefutable. When someone attacks the substantial historicity of the New Testament Gospel narratives all they are doing is displaying (a) their bigotry and (b) the depth of their ignorance on the subject.

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S. Meadows

Well-researched, but just falls short of being convincing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2012

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To begin with, you have to note what this book is and what it is not. Blomberg is only interested in the historical side of the gospels. Of course, from this stems the theological aspect, but that is not the aim of the book. I felt that it would have been apposite to include a look at Acts as well, given that that is the only other historical book of the New Testament, yet it has been omitted in this survey.

What follows is a work which summarises the scholarship of others. Blomberg begins by looking at the general methods for the historical study of the gospels. These include harmonisation, redaction criticism and form criticism. Here, I felt Blomberg was fairly even-handed and gave praise to each methodology where due and criticism where it was deserved. Though he does not explain until the end of the book why he failed to look at textual criticism.

He demonstrates that he is not afraid to tackle potentially thorny issues head-on as from here he launches straight into the issue of miracles. He lays out various objections that one may have to believing the miracle stories of the gospels and then sets about his task of trying to show why they may be considered reasonable.

From here, he then widens his viewpoint to look at contradictions between the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke). This is a little more reasonable than the previous section, particularly when one takes into account redaction criticism. The main argument is that if you accept that the gospels do not necessarily contain verbatim testimonies then to say "Jesus said x" may still be an honest and reliable account of the message he conveyed.

Moving on from the Synoptics, he goes on to look at the specific case of the gospel of John. He resorts to rhetorical flourishes at the end of his sections which give a far more firm conclusion than his own analysis allows for, which rather frustrated me as a reader. He tries to wriggle through arguments, rather than accepting what seems, to me at least, to be a far more reasonable conclusion that the gospel of John actually does have some inconsistencies with the Synoptics.

His last major study is to look at the historicity of Jesus outside of the gospels; in other words the potential corroborative or falsifying evidence. This is one of the more convincing chapters, though its main point seems to be correcting the false hypothesis that Jesus never existed, rather than affirming the specific details within the gospels.

His section on historical methods is, I think, bang on. Here, he discusses what should be the "status quo" of belief when looking at any historical source. Should it be disbelieved until otherwise shown to be true? Should it be believed until otherwise shown to be false? Or should the default position be somewhere between? For me, this should probably have formed part of the introduction to the book as this historical hermeneutic is vital to how one undertakes such a study.

In his conclusion, Blomberg does not conclude that the gospels are entirely historically accurate. The evidence is not strong enough. Instead, he concludes that they have "general reliability." That is, though they may not pin down every point precisely, they are sound enough to be regarded as the most trustworthy accounts for the life of Jesus.

9 people found this helpful

Pauline C

This is only the workbook, be aware!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2018

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The description is misleading - this is the workbook that accompanies the main work, which I had to buy in addition. Otherwise a useful little book.

One person found this helpful

This is the workbook for a course, NOT a text or proper book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2018

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This is simply the workbook for a course and contains no information - please see the attached photo of its contents!!!

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2016

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Good and interesting book

PR439

A great book

Reviewed in Canada on January 9, 2017

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This is a very good book which should be part of a serious Christian's library.

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