Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You

Book Review

Over the past few years we've seen an extraordinary spate of popular books that purport to debunk the New Testament as history. Perhaps this was fueled by the popularity of one of them, The Da Vinci Code. Others have included the one I just blogged about, Bart D. Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus; Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln's Holy Blood, Holy Grail (an older book given new life by controversy connected with The Da Vinci Code); and Baigent's The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History. There's quite a market, apparently, for trying to prove the Bible is myth, fable, and manufactured history.

There could hardly be a better time than now for a book like Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You, by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace.

The popular onslaught against the historical faith requires an answer on the popular level. "This book," says the introduction, "is not written for scholars but for laypersons—motivated laypersons." It's for the average churchgoer who wonders if the current attacks on the faith have substance. It's for those who have heard, "Everyone knows the Bible is full of copying errors," or, following Dan Brown, "The Council of Nicea made up the doctrine of Christ's deity, in a political power play--and they cobbled together a list of 'canonical' books to prove their point."

None of this is in fact true. I wrote about the textual transmission issues yesterday, all too briefly. Reinventing Jesus fills in the details that could never fit in a blog entry. The same is true of the other topics covered, which range from textual transmission to the development of the canon to the possibility that the story of Christ was ripped off from ancient myths. The authors present their evidences in a manner that convinces without being technically overwhelming--this book is accessible to the average interested reader.

What struck me as particularly valuable in Reinventing Jesus was their depth of coverage of these issues. These are topics that have claimed a few pages or perhaps a chapter of coverage in other apologetic works. This book covers less ground than, say, Josh McDowell's popular works, but with considerably greater wealth of information on each topic. This contributes considerably to the credibility of the answers that are provided.

It would be beyond my scope here to replay the authors' arguments; there's a reason their treatment is book-length, after all. I expect to come back to some of the topics in later blogs, as I already did in preview form with a response to Bart Ehrman's work yesterday. If, however, you have been plagued with doubts of your own or others about the reliability of the New Testament, you won't find a more complete and readable answer to your questions than this one.

Online excerpts from the book:

• Introduction

• Comments on the charge that Jesus was just warmed-over pagan religion (See under "More Reviews;" two excerpts taken from the book's endnotes)

Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You, by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace.
Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2006.
262 pages plus endnotes and index.
List Price $16.99; Amazon $11.55

Posted: Sat - October 7, 2006 at 02:42 PM |

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Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson