Monday, February 26, 2007

Bauckham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”

I finished Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses the other day. I’m not going to try and say a lot about it, since Chris Tilling is doing a good job in a multi-part series on his blog. I did notice that Kevin Edgecomb didn’t like it.

Personally, I enjoyed it, finding it a very viable theory, and a healthy corrective to the extreme skepticism of many scholars. The last chapter was, in my opinion, the best part of the book. Ostensibly the chapter is about Jesus and tradition, but really it is a full blown examination of historiography. If you deal with history in any way, whether Hebrew Bible, New Testament, ANE, or Classics, you should read this chapter. That’s all I’m going to say. Go ahead and read it, then tell me whether or not you agree [secret recipe for sales of the book :) Do you think it will work? I don't either!]

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