What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 352 pages
• Published by: HarperOne October 16, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0061120022
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0061120022
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 11.2 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
With all the talk these days about a diversity of Christian beliefs in the first century, here's a book designed to smack some sense into the dialogue. Traditional sense, that is. Witherington, professor of New Testament interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary, creates well-researched profiles of people in Jesus' inner circle—profiles that stand up to the most rigorous biblical criticism. No flights of fancy—just the historical understandings as they can be agreed upon by the best and brightest evangelical biblical scholars. At times, there is a strong whiff of defensiveness about the orthodoxy of the canon as Witherington skewers views on early Christian beliefs made popular by Gnosticism scholars Elaine Pagels and Karen King (they being among the purveyors of the "strange theories and terrible history" in the title). Readers seeking a uniform and conservative view of early Christianity will find a wealth of information about Jesus and his early followers, which offers an ardent corrective to recent popular works by Bart Ehrman and others. Others, however, may be so put off by Witherington's polemical tones that they miss the meat of his research. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Witherington comes to his topic from an evangelical point of view. As he states in his introduction, "Readers should beware of shocking new claims about Jesus or his earliest followers based on flimsy evidence." His view is that the Gnostic Gospels and other discoveries are too far removed from Jesus' day to have much relation to seminal events in Christianity. The best sources, he believes, are the traditional ones--the Gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters. Witherington uses an interesting method of organization for his material: in order to explore the truth of Jesus' identity and his ministry, he focuses on the two Marys, Peter, Paul, James, and the Beloved Disciple. The book is eminently readable, very much at a layperson's level, but it contains circular arguments and continually strains at reconciling contradictory material--for example, the brusque treatment of Mary by Jesus at some points in the New Testament vis-a-vis his concern for his mother at the Crucifixion. Still, anyone who has been caught up in the recent controversies about the historical Jesus will want to read the other side. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible (Hardcover) Dr. Witherington contends that the primary source documents found in the New Testament are a much more reliable source for information on the historical Jesus than anything you will find in the gnostic Gospel of Judas or in any of the documents found in the Nag Hammadi Library. He also feels that getting close to the historical Jesus involves getting close to the people who knew Him best, and so there are chapters about Peter, Paul, his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the beloved disciple (the author of the Gospel of John), and his brother James. Ben reveals that there is no historical foundation for identifying Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus, and that the material about her in the Gospel of Philip and in the gospel bearing her name are inconclusive and appear to tell us more about 2nd and 3rd century gnosticism than they do about Mary Magdalene or anything in the life of the historical Jesus. The chapter about the mother of Jesus shows quite clearly that she didn't really put all of the pieces together about who her son really was until the end of His life, and that she is found in the upper room with the other disciples in Acts 1:14. The chapter on Peter shows that the Gospel accounts are painfully honest about his triumphs and his failures as an agent of Christ. The material in 1 Peter and in 2 Peter 1:12-2:3 where Peter reflects on what he has learned as one who knew the Lord rings true. Peter very clearly sees Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. There are a few surprises along the way. Ben makes a powerful and convincing case that the beloved disciple who penned the fourth gospel is none other than Lazarus. He also holds (less convincingly in my view) that Joanna the wife of Chuza who traveled with the Lord's apostolic band (Luke 8:1-3) is in all likelihood to be identified with the female apostle Junia found in Romans 16:7. Ben has also changed his view on the threefold questioning of Peter by Jesus in John 21. He now sees the word change from agape to phileo by Jesus in verse 17 as more significant than he originally thought. He sees it as Jesus questioning Peter's professed brotherly love for Him. I agree with Ben. Throughout this epochal book, Ben has clearly made the case that there is enough light and truth breaking out of God's Holy Word concerning the historical Jesus that there is really no need to consult spurious documents two hundred years after the time of Jesus or to trust the gnostic and occasionally anti-Semitic Gospel of Thomas. He concludes the church had a high Christology of Jesus from the earliest years of Christianity all the way through the New Testament, and that the ancient faith was not a battleground of dueling Christianities. This is a wonderful read, and a sorely needed book. There is a lot of junk floating around purporting to tell us something special and new about the real Jesus, and Ben cuts through all the baloney and takes us back to the primary sources. Go ahead and buy this book and read it through carefully. It is a great antidote to the stuff found in the DaVinci Code and to the stuff found in the National Geographic special on the Gospel of Judas.