Reinventing Jesus by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace. Kregel Publications, 2006.
Have you been exposed to those who are teaching that the Bible is not reliable and that we have no idea who the Jesus of history really was? There are those who would tell us as much. Two that come to mind that the popular culture might know are the Jesus Seminar and Bart Ehrman. There was even the big controversy surrounding The Da Vinci Code in recent years. The book, Reinventing Jesus, shows the reliability of Scripture especially as it regards Jesus Christ.
This book is divided into five parts. They deal with the ideas of sources and traditions behind the Gospels, textual criticism, the formation of the canon, the history of the idea of Jesus' divinity, and the similarities and differences between Christianity and pagan religions.
What was right with this book? This book is a great starting place for believers to know how their Bible came to be. It did not fall out of the sky but was passed down by the church. This book give the average Christian enough of an idea of the issues involved to discern what is going on with those who deny the historical Jesus. It is laid out in an orderly fashion and at a level that you don't need a seminary degree just to understand what they are talking about and yet have a great general knowledge of how textual criticism works and how reliable the Bible really is.
What was wrong with this book? Nothing that I can lay my finger on. They set their sights on a general introduction of how the Bible came to be and, I think, they hit their target. There is a lot more that they could have said and they could have interacted more with the opposing side, but that would have changed their intended scope.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the formation of the Bible and its reliability. Who knows, this may end up as a study at church sometime.
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