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Book Review: Back to the Real Jesus

March 31st, 2010 at 08:58pm Albert McIlhenny

Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You – J. Ed. Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace Kregel Publications (May 2006) Topic: General Apologetics Summary: Defense of the Christian faith from recent attempts to undermine its credibility Rating:

Over the last few years, the media has given a popular outlet for some of the most ridiculous theories of Christian origins. From the sensationalism of late Gnostic texts to the faux histories of The Da Vinci Code, the public’s attentions has been drawn in the direction of ill supported theses concerning Jesus no matter how flimsy the evidence.

J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, all Evangelical scholars from Dallas Theological Seminary, take on these revisionist accounts in Reinventing Jesus. It is perhaps a shame the subtitle mentions The Da Vinci Code for it is by now well understood that Brown’s novel is grossly inaccurate in its portrayal of Christian history and it may make this book appear somewhat dated. However, the target is much wider and general than Brown’s silliness and the authors manage to counter a wide variety of the most publicized attacks upon the Christian faith.

Beginning with some explanations of terminology and scholarly assumptions, the issue of textual criticism is addressed head on. Disarming many of the frequently repeated but poorly supported against the textual integrity of the New Testament, the authors show there exist no documents from antiquity that matches the pedigree of the New Testament either in quantity or quality of its copies. The New Testament stands alone as the best attested document for the accuracy of its transmission.

Moving to the issue of the canon, quick work is made of the claims of “suppressed gospels.” Those asserting this have generally not studied the issue in much depth: few, if any, other texts were seriously considered for the canon and certainly the Gnostic texts were not among them. The latter were the work of esoteric sects with no connection to the Church.

The whole position of the divinity of Christ central to The Da Vinci Code is tackled next and exposed as fraudulent. The Gnostics never doubted the divinity of Christ; it was with his humanity they had issues. The Arian heresy arose long after Gnosticism has ceased being a threat and Arius was not in any way a Gnostic. The authors at this point provide an excellent outline tracing the belief in Jesus’ divinity from the New Testament period through the early Church Fathers to the period of the Council of Nicea.

The authors close by examining the issue of “pagan parallels” – the assertion the story of Jesus was copied from those of pagan deities. This line of attack is becoming popular on the less than scholarly forum of online exchanges. The authors expose the weakness of such “parallelomania,” the inherent fallacies used in such claims, and in a few short chapters and leave such ideas destroyed in their wake.

Reinventing Jesus is a strong defense of Christian belief from a wide variety of popular attacks raised by skeptics. It succeeds in analyzing the relevant components and making the concepts accessible to a wide audience. Don’t let the subtitle fool you – there is far more here than The Da Vinci Code!

Entry Filed under: Essential Books, General Apologetics, Komoszewski, J. Ed