Book Plunge: Jesus, Skepticism, and the Problem of History

What do I think of Darrell Bock and Ed Komoszewski’s book published by Zondervan?

This book is largely a response to Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne’s book Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. The editors have put together a fine team of scholars to write various chapters illustrating that the criteria do still work. In the end, there are also three responses from those who can be critical looking at what was said.

For those not aware, the debate largely centers around checking various criteria to see if we can know if the historical Jesus did and said certain things or didn’t do and say certain things. These have been debated various times, but for the most part what we have is generally accepted with some qualifications. If anything, it really seems to come down to worldview a lot of the times.

A number of the essays in here provided some interesting viewpoints. I don’t know if I agree with Beth Sheppard on Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount in a theater, but her other insights on the culture and Jesus is excellent. Who would have thought that the Roman guard getting a sponge with wine for Jesus when He was crucified would also be an insult along the lines of toilet humor?

I appreciated also Paul Anderson’s essay on the Gospel of John. This is a Gospel that has sadly been neglected, and yet there is much in there that is supportable by new evidence that has come forth from the Dead Sea Scrolls and archaeology. However, I don’t think the Gospel of John will spark the fourth quest for the historical Jesus. If anything, I think the fourth quest should be involving a look not just at the Jewishness of Jesus, but also at the honor-shame culture that Jesus lived in.

Also, everyone who is familiar with New Testament studies will find something they like in here and also someone that they like in here. You can find Blomberg, Wallace, Licona, Bird, Keener, Evans, and several others contributing to this volume. You will have topics covered like the burial of Jesus, the resurrection, and the book of Acts.

The responses are also interesting. Scot McKnight’s was probably the most engaging and the one that I am thinking about the most. McKnight argues that the problem is not the methods but the results and that the premise of historical Jesus scholarship is to find the real Jesus instead of the one that is presented in Christianity. I wonder if this is really the case.

After all, if two people are doing the same methodology and reach different conclusions, either wrong data was used or someone made a mistake or some combination thereof. If we are doing history right, will we not find the Christ of Christianity if Christianity is true? It’s the same approach I take to science in that if Christianity is true, science can never contradict it.

At any rate, this volume is definitely a great defense of using the criteria in historical methodology to demonstrate several facts about the historical Jesus to be likely true. Even if you are not interested in that debate, the reader will gain much knowledge on other areas reading this. I highly recommend this volume for those interested in historical Jesus studies.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Please Support Ed Komoszewski

What can you do to help? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Whenever I have been to churches, I have always grown antsy when they talked about money. I understand if people are getting concerned with this, but this is not to support me. This is to support someone else. This is to support Ed Komoszewski.

Many fine Christians will tell you that this is someone to support. Daniel Wallace, Darrell Bock, Rob Bowman, and Mike Licona all come to mind. Ed is one of the writers of the book Putting Jesus In His Place which is an excellent defense of the deity of Christ. He has done much to serve the Kingdom of God.

You would never know the suffering he goes through.

Yet he does.

I have been told that he wakes up every morning and has to throw up for some time. Eating is very hard for him. He has been regularly to the Mayo clinic and no one can really figure out what’s wrong with him. Despite this, he is still serving. Just recently he turned in another paper on the historical Jesus.

Recently, Ed was in a Wal-Mart and his heart failed on him. He lost consciousness entirely. Ed woke up in the intensive care unit. He was told the electrical system in his heart would no longer work and he had a pacemaker implanted.

This is in addition to everything else he deals with. In the past sixteen months, he has undergone major hospitalization four times. This is a strain on him and on his family as well.

Ed’s bills are still coming in and his family is having to have the burden. Many people have helped through the GoFundMe, but many more could help and even if the goal is reached, let any extra income come in because barring a miracle, which we should pray for, there will be another time.

Speaking from experience, I can say despite what Ed goes through, he has been more positive than many of us are with less. My wife has been posting about her weight loss and so many times he posts encouraging messages to her. I keep thinking this should be the reverse. We should be the one posting encouraging messages to Ed.

I can’t help but think of Paul in prison in Philippians. Paul is the one in prison and he is writing to them about the importance of joy. It doesn’t make sense to us, but Ed is being like that. Ed is out there in his suffering and he doesn’t draw attention to himself. He doesn’t say “Woe is me” (At least in public). He does all that he can to give to the kingdom.

We Christians are supposed to care for our own. It’s about time that we did that. In all honesty, my family does not have the money to donate, and Ed I am sure knows this, but I want to know that if you do have the means, do consider making a donation to Ed and his family. They could really use your support.

Ed’s GoFundMe

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Putting Jesus In His Place

Have we read the deity of Christ into the Bible? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Written on a popular level, Ed Komoszewski and Rob Bowman’s “Putting Jesus In His Place” is an excellent look at the biblical testimony to the full deity of Jesus Christ. The writing is clear and accessible with several charts that will help the reader with seeing the comparisons that the writers frequently make.

Also, the writers regularly go with the best in New Testament scholarship. We’re not talking about just reading popular authors. (Although the people they reference should be popular in the church and it’s a sign of our weakness that they’re not.) We’re talking about scholars like Bauckham, Hurtado, Witherington, and Wright. That’s just a small sample.

The writers also do not go too technical which will be a benefit. At times, there is Greek terminology used, but I suspect those who have no grasp at all of the Greek language would still manage to find their way through this work.

At the start, the book explains as well the importance of honor in the ancient worldview, a point that I like to see repeatedly emphasized as so many people today think the biblical culture was just like theirs. This only leads to a further misunderstanding of what we find in the Bible.

The book has the advantage as well of going through the New Testament and not just going to the main texts usually used like John 1:1-18 or Hebrews 1 or John 20:28, etc. Of course, they do go to these texts, but they bring up several points where the Bible implicitly has in the background the full deity of Jesus and that these passages do not make sense unless you see that.

The book focused on comparing Jesus in five areas to make a cumulative case. The acronym used is HANDS. Jesus shares the honors of God, the attributes of God, the name of God, the deeds of God, and the seat of God. This is a powerful case combined together and goes beyond just finding texts where Jesus is explicitly called God.

However, while this case is powerful, I do have some concerns that I would like to see if the writers decide to write a second edition of the book in the future.

First, I would like to see more interaction with the other side. One of my rules for reading a book is to beware of the sound of one hand clapping. A case sounds powerful if you don’t interact with the other side.

Now this book does interact with the other side, but it should be more frequent. For instance, I don’t think it was until I was 100 pages into the book that I came across the first mention of Jehovah’s Witnesses. For the writers addressing a popular audience, this is the group they will come across the most that is arguing against the deity of Christ. Their arguments need to be taken more seriously and need to be referred to more often.

Second, I would like to see more of an index. There is an index of Scriptural passages, but it would be nice to see something like an index of writers or even people like Jehovah’s Witnesses or people like Greg Stafford. (I know who Stafford is, but it would have been nice to also seen who he is explained in the text since many people might not check notes.)

Third, I do think some cases could have been stronger, but I suppose that is the same for every work. For instance, Revelation 5:13-14 was used repeatedly, which is good, but I never saw mentioned how it says that all creation worships Him who sits on the throne and the Lamb, which differentiated the Lamb from creation. I think Matthew 28:17 could be strengthened when you noticed that the people in the text grasped Jesus’s feet and worshiped him. Jehovah’s Witnesses often tell us that the Greek word proskuneo, means to bow down and do obesiance. That would be problematic here since if the feet of Jesus are already being grasped, then it’s quite likely that they were already bowed down.

I also think some examples could have been improved upon as well. For instance, we are told Jesus was omnipresent in that He saw Nathaniel while Philip was talking to him. Yet could not the Jehovah’s Witness say Elisha knew about what Gehazi was doing while Gehazi was out? Mind you, I do not think that is a good objection, but it is an objection and I can easily see a Jehovah’s Witness using it.

Of course, in any work, there are always ways to improve and that would require volumes and volumes. Still, the main improvement I would like to see would be more interaction with the other side. I think every chapter should deal with some counterarguments to the position or reasons to doubt it.

Also, a caveat, this book is written on a popular level for Christians. You will not see arguments generally for the historicity of the text or the textual reliability of the text. Numerous books have been written on those areas already and I do think it would be too much to ask that everyone who is writing a book like this also have to write a book defending historicity and textual reliability. Those who want to argue on other grounds against the deity of Christ must go elsewhere.

Still, despite the caveats and ways of improvement, I do recommend this book. It is the best book I know of on a popular level dealing with the subject, but I hope those who read it will also read the scholarly books that deal with the subject.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Reinventing Jesus

What do I think of this book by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel Wallace? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I have read a number of books on the Historical Jesus that defend my own view, a conservative Christian view, but most of them are rather passe in many ways. You can hear the same old, same old, as if the writers just want to give you the mere basics of the case so you can make it. Now for some people, basics are good and necessary, but so often I really would like to read something more substantial from the conservative side and something that will give them a lot of firepower.

I picked up Reinventing Jesus not knowing what to expect, but found myself impressed thoroughly by this work. The authors lay out a powerful case and even better, they deal with the popular critics that will be mentioned in water cooler conversation. These are the ones largely quoted on the internet. Scholarship doesn’t really take their claims seriously, but such a situation has never stopped ignorant people on the internet from touting off the claims with the same degree of certainty as they condemn in a fundamentalist revival preacher.

So do you want to see Dan Brown dealt with? Got it covered! How about Acharya S.? She’s answered? Earl Doherty? Taken to task. Frank Zindler? Robert Price? Freke and Gandy? Aside from Price, who is on the fringe of scholarship, these are names not taken seriously, but that does not mean they should be ignored. It’s extremely important to show the massive ignorance that is often pontificated on the internet.

The authors start off with the case for oral tradition, which is an excellent start since the average lay reader knows little about this and can often think of modern concepts of memory which don’t really apply to an ancient society. In doing so, they show that the teachings of Christ would have lasted at least to the time of writing.

Well how about that time? Maybe the writings are wrong? That’s when we look at textual criticism and this section is an excellent tour de force. The authors have up-to-date statistics on when the NT manuscripts were written and how they were copied and deal very well with the popular criticisms that work against the idea as well as scholarly concerns. Let it never be stated they only deal with popular claims. They deal with scholarly ones as well.

What about the books that were copied? How do we know the canon was right? Again, this is an excellent topic that is not discussed often in literature. The writers put forward a presentation that demonstrates the integrity of the early church and show that they did not just blindly attribute authorship to a writer. They had the highest of standards. Much of this information I found immediately useful.

Did those books reflect the truth about Jesus? Extremely beneficial here is a look at what went on in the Council of Nicea to show that Nicea did not change everything. Also, there is abundant information to show that there was an early high Christology showing Jesus was perceived as included in the divine identity and that He Himself made such claims.

Supposing that’s the case, did the Christians not just rip off other pagan myths like Osiris and Mithra? I was extremely pleased to see a section on this! This is one of the most preposterous claims that goes around the net by people who have never read an original source on the topic. The writers have done us a service by giving a superb presentation to show that there has been no copying, unless you count copying by others of Christian claims and language.

In conclusion, I recommend this fine work without reservation. If I was to teach a class on NT apologetics, this book would no doubt be required reading.

In Christ,
Nick Peters