Fabricating Jesus
by Craig Evans, InterVarsity Press (www.ivpress.com), 2006,
290 pages, $24.00 (hardcover), ISBN-13: 0-8308-3318-8

The subtitle of this book is How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. In the past twenty-five years there has been a constant stream of television programs, books, and magazine articles claiming that the Bible is inaccurate, incomplete, and full of contradictions. Most of us have heard about the Judas gospel, the Da Vinci Code, The Pagan Christ, James Tabor, Bart Ehrman, and the Jesus Seminar. We have had a number of articles in this journal dealing with those claims, but our discussions have been fairly superficial. What Evans does is to address all of the claims challenging the belief in the New Testament as the Word of God. The subjects range from whether Jesus existed to a detailed treatment of Gnostic and apocryphal Gospels and why they should not be in the Bible and should not be taken as a valid teaching on faith and doctrine.

This is a book of factual information. There are charts and lists showing facts such as the dates of these manuscripts, the inconsistent standards used to discredit the Bible and support alternative gospels, quotes of experts in the field, and why accusations made against Jesus do not make logical sense. In addition to the chapters where data is presented, there is a glossary, an author index, a subject index, and exhaustive notes on each subject area.

This is an excellent book to have as a resource when unbelievers challenge the credibility of the Bible. We recommend it highly for all readers. It is very scholarly, highly documented, but easy to read and clear in its message.
 

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, MarApr10.