The Jesus Legend

I recently finished reading Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd’s The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Gospel Tradition.  I must say that this is one of the best apologetic books that I have ever read.  The author’s really interact with the material without getting bogged down in the details of radical claims.  The purpose of this book is not to prove that every verse in the Bible is true or to work out the doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy.  Rather they work through the synoptic tradition in an attempt to demonstrate that they should be taken seriously as historical documents.

There are some very interesting things in this book.  Eddy and Boyd go on the offensive against presuppositions against the supernatural.  Some critics dismiss the Gospels because of miracles.  Eddy and Boyd remind us that ancient history writers did not dismiss the supernatural, nor do many people in the present age.  The authors also take an indepth look at the extra-biblical evidence of Jesus.  They admit when the sources are weak but also show the quality of much that we do have.  There is also an interesting section on the genre of the Gospels.  This is worth quoting.

While the Gospels may not be fully captured by the genre of ancient biography, they nonetheless are biographical in nature. Similarly, while the Gospels—even Luke—may not be reduced to historiography, pure and simple, still they are clearly historical in their intent. (p. 351)

Eddy and Boyd base much of their claims on the oral formation of the Gospel tradition. They argue persuasively that the oral nature does not work against the reliability of the Gospels. In this they use some of the current work on oral cultures.

It is not uncommon to find in orally dominant societies a clear conceptual and/or terminological differentiation between narratives considered to be factual and those considered to be fictional…. A most significant expression of this historical awareness is that it is frequently the case in predominantly oral settings that, within the context of the performance arena, the audience shares in the responsibility of accurately preserving the essential historical remembrances. That is, if an oral performer misrepresents the tradition—sometimes in even relatively minor ways—the audience frequently corrects him in the midst of the performance. (pp. 261-62)

I very much enjoyed the Jesus Legend.  The authors have an engaging writing style and the content is solid.  The footnotes give plenty of information for those who are looking for more.  The one criticism I have is that they do not give much detail in the comparison of the Gospels to pagan myths.  Nevertheless, this is a solid work.  If you have encountered any of the claims that Jesus never existed or that the Gospels are simply legends mistaken as history, this is the book to get.