It turns out that Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard actually did a great service to the historical account of the life of Jesus the Christ: they wrote a book so pathetic that Robert Price had to write this one just to undork the mess they made. So aspiring writers and media pundits, take heart. There is no failure so abject that someone smarter than you cannot use it as a teaching point.
While the point of departure of Killing History is to point out where Killing Jesus failed as history, this book is actually a readable, accessible survey of how historical analysis of the Bible and other ancient writings is done. This field, dealing as it does with weighing and comparing various ancient accounts against each other and other evidence, can get pretty deep pretty fast. But by publishing a textbook example of doing it wrong, O’Reilly and Dugard provide a template of errors which Price can take one at a time and show what correct historical analysis tells us, and how to identify the sort of lazy work that fills Killing Jesus.
If you are looking for an entry point to the field of historical textual analysis, this book is ideal. By responding page by page and chapter by chapter to Killing Jesus, Price can provide clear, applied analysis to the concrete examples of O’Reilly and Dugard’s (hereafter O’D) errors. This method is clear and easy to follow, and is extensively documented. Where O’D try to mash together three or four different, inconsistent Gospel accounts, Price provides the Gospel source verses, plus any other Epistle and Old Testament verses that apply so you can follow O’D’s attempt and Price’s explanation of why it does not work. Killing History is a very fast read, but is also written in self-contained sections that allow you to read it episodically without losing the thread.
If you are looking for a book that beards the mighty O’Reilly in his own den, this does that too. Price takes significant pains to point out that he is not an O’Reilly basher, that he is in fact politically aligned with O’Reilly—he includes periodic snarky remarks about Michelle Obama and Jay Carney as reminders—but when O’D claim, over and over, to be writing “history” but are instead writing a pious novel, Dr. Price cannot let that stand in his area of expertise. Price pounds the message home, incident after incident, that O’D are either 1) dishonest, or 2) so ignorant and unqualified to write Biblical history that they can’t even grasp how dishonest they are by calling their book “history.” This is not name-calling, he just lays it out analytically.
Beyond being clear, informative, and thought-provoking, Killing History provides some bonus material. First, where O’D leave off with Jesus’ empty tomb, Price humorously (and wickedly) adopts their breezy, omniscient style to provide the Jesus’-eye-view of his resurrection as O’D might have written it. This is laugh-out-loud funny, but is still educational, as it provides example after example of how breezy, omniscient writing can no longer camouflage historical malpractice from you, the reader. After that are two very valuable “bonus” appendices.
The first is an analysis of modern thinking on when the Gospels were written. Building on the background and analysis in the body of the book, this further exploration takes many of the earlier thoughts to their conclusions and answers questions that had probably been occurring to the reader. The second appendix is a critical bibliography of contemporaneous histories, from Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius to Thallus, Phlegon, and Josephus, that are often cited by O’D and other scriptural opinion-mongers.
This being a scholarly work, it ends with 22 pages of notes, a five-page scripture index, and separate indexes for modern authors and general subjects.
This book is a rare and happy intersection of current celebrity victory laps (O’D) and sound, applied scholarship (Price). Seize the good fortune. Soli Deo Gloria.
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Customer reviews
Top reviews from other countries
Guy Mannering
Christian apologists get a drubbing from Price.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 25, 2016Verified Purchase
William Bennett
Recommended, but contains one chapter that might have been omitted.
Reviewed in Canada on June 19, 2015Verified Purchase
Michael H. Mc Quarrie
Even No Star !
Reviewed in Canada on November 14, 2014Verified Purchase
