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Title: Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? by Robert M. Price ISBN: 1-59102-121-9 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Authoritative and insightful
Comment: Price is extremely thorough and cogent in his scholarship, and the book is very well written. Highly recommended, and the strident apologist who gave it a single star doesn't seem to have read one paragraph of the book (a common practice among such ideologues) and certainly didn't offer ONE effective rebuttal of anything Dr. Price said in the book. Instead, resorting to a vacuous and pompous dismissal of the whole argument with some reference to how one of his apologetic champions would squash the thesis of the book (also an increasingly common and shrill response from this quarter as each new book of genuine scholarship undermines their cherished point of view). Read the book and decide for yourself.
Rating: 1
Summary: They Never Change...
Comment: It is amazing that anyone would take this book seriously. The only way that one could ever think that this work is "objective" scholarship has to arrive at the text with the conclusing that the Gospels (and belief in God) cannot present historically accurate material.
First, the author shows that he in fact has very little understanding of ancient historiography or the limits upon Enlightenment thought and historiography.
Second, it is as if he never really read any credible material that critiques the "Jesus Seminar"...and by the way, they are the laughing stock of New Testament scholarship. N. T. Wright, Richard Hays, and many others could boil this book. It simply does not hold up, and addresses no major challenge to the "scholarship" of the Jesus Seminar. There have been many brilliant authors that respect the historicity of the Gospels.
Third, this book represents an attempt to resurrect Enlightenment critiques of literature that cannot work. If post-modernism has taught us anything, it is that Enlightenment presuppositions cannot function when analyzing at text.
Like Bart Ehrman, the only way that this author would come to his conclusions is because of his presuppositions. Those who do not believe in miracles are sometimes atheists, but their atheism is the presuppostion from which they base their claims. This author is hardly honest, and hardly a scholar.
Read something by N. T. Wright for real New Testament scholarship, read this if you want to be entertained by the scholarly level of John Shelby Spong...a mile wide and an inch thick.
Rating: 5
Summary: Helms and Price.
Comment: As Michael Turton contrasted G. A. Well's The Jesus Myth with Robert Price's Deconstructing Jesus, so too would I like to contrast two very similar books, Randal Helms' Gospel Fictions with Price's new book The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. Both of these books have largely the same aim; to show where the Gospel writers got their information from to construct their stories.
As with Wells, the contrast between Price and Helms is stunning. Price is scholar who isn't afraid to tread new ground and to scoff at traditional scholarship. He even goes so far as to say the Jesus Seminar was "too uncritical." Helms, on the other hand, in his deconstruction of the Gospels, rarely strays far from comparisons that can be found in standard introductory texts like Brown's and good study bibles like the Harper Collins or the Oxford Annotated Bible.
Price begins his book with a discussion of the historical criteria he will use to shred the Gospels into pieces. They are three simple criteria; the criterion of dissimilarity, the principle of analogy, and the principle of biographical analogy. Briefly, the criterion of dissimilarity states that we do not have any reason to accept as authentic any saying that has a parallel with contemporary Judaism or Hellenism. The principle of analogy, as we skeptics all know too well, is basically the old Humean position on miracles. And lastly, but certainly not least (Price will make extensive use of this one), the principle of biographical analogy states that we can't accept anything as authentic when it conforms to standard myths and legends. With a discussion of these criteria and their usage by historians, we move on to the next chapter on sources.
The first chapter is a whirlwind of discussions about the primary source material historians have to work with when reconstructing the life of Jesus. The discussion goes from form criticism, the creativity of the evangelists, the dating of the Gospels, the synoptic problem, and even when to date the historical Jesus! Probably the most interesting, at least in my opinion, is what Price has to say about the dating of the Gospels. Price points out that the conventional dates are the product of the Christian apologetic agenda. All we can say for certain is that Mark was written after the destruction of the temple, based on the 'Little Apocalypse'. This make it the earliest possible date, not the most probable date. And he points out, if Mark 13 is prior document taken over by Mark, as some scholars believe, this pushes the likely date of Mark's Gospel back even further! Price also briefly mentions the possibility, argued by Hermann Detering in The Journal of Higher Criticism that Mark 13 doesn't refer to the destruction of Jerusalem at all, but the Bar Kochba revolt in 132 CE.
The rest of the chapters read much like Helms' book, except much more radical. While Helms is usually is very careful in pointing out the borrowing, even going so far as to quote the Septuagint and point out the similarity in vocabulary, Price is much more daring in any comparison he makes. No doubt, some of the comparisons might strike the reader as forced, but this is not usually the case because of Price's hyper-critical eye. One instance in particular was when Price was discussing John as the Elijah figure. As was pointed out by Helms, Mark's description of John seems to be taken from 2 King 1:8. But is it that simple? No, says Price. He points out that Zechariah 13:4 says similar garb was the standard for any prophet. So which passage does Mark have in mind for his readers?
Price is too radical even for mythicism. Throughout this book, as was the case with Deconstructing Jesus, Price points out many possible historical roles that Jesus could have played, and points out historical parallels to substantiate the point. But Price will ultimately have none of that, showing how these scenarios have no historical weight because they're derived from the Gospels, which are historically worthless. I suspect, with his new book, Price will emerge as the new champion of Jesus Mythicism.
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Title: Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony by G. A. Wells, George Albert Wells ISBN: 0812695674 Publisher: Open Court Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart D. Ehrman ISBN: 0195141830 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Deconstructing Jesus by Robert M. Price ISBN: 1573927589 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $33.00 |
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Title: The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Acharya S ISBN: 0932813747 Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources by Frank R. Zindler ISBN: 1578849160 Publisher: American Atheist Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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