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Description: For over twenty years, Craig Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of the Gospels has provided a useful antidote to many of the toxic effects of skeptical criticism of the Gospels. Offering a calm, balanced overview of the history of Gospel criticism, especially that of the late twentieth century, Blomberg introduces readers to the methods employed by New Testament scholars and shows both the values and limits of those methods. He then delves more deeply into the question of miracles, Synoptic discrepancies and the differences between the Synoptics and John. After an assessment of noncanonical Jesus tradition, he addresses issues of historical method directly. This new edition has been thoroughly updated in light of new developments with numerous additions to the footnotes and two added appendixes. Readers will find that over the past twenty years, the case for the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels has grown vastly stronger.
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Review Summary: The Gospels As History |
Date: 2008-08-16 |
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Details: This new edition of Craig Blomberg's THE HISTORICAL RELIABILITY OF THE GOSPELS should be an essential addition to anyone's New Testament library.
This book serves almost as an introduction to the study of the Gospels. Blomberg discusses form criticism, redaction criticism and other methods used for gospel interpretation. He also provides generally sensible harmonizations of apparently divergent accounts which avoid some of the overzealous attempts of harmonization of the past. Blomberg persuasively argues that reading the Gospels in light of ancient standards of biography and history leads to the conclusion that they contain reliable accounts of Jesus' life. (Contrary to what someone else said, Blomberg does not argue for "camcorder exactness," but instead contends that ancient history allowed for summaries, reordering and a certain amount "creative interpretation" of source material).
Along the way, Blomberg discusses miracles, the evidence for Jesus outside the Gospels (both inside and outside the New Testament), and textual criticism, among other topics.
Blomberg is a prolific New Testament scholar. Among his other books, I particularly recommend INTERPRETING THE PARABLES. |
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Review Summary: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels |
Date: 2008-04-05 |
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Details: It's required reading for the NT 1 course at Covenant Seminary so I picked it up to accompany the free course download at http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/NT220/NT220.asp . Haven't read it all yet but so far it's a keeper. |
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Review Summary: good for it's type of book. |
Date: 2008-02-26 |
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Details: Here is a book that works towards making a case for the New Testament gospel accounts as being historically reliable. This is an apologetic work by a conservative christian new testament scholar. This book contains intelligent and plausible content on it's subject matter. It is certainly worth an honest read and studied consideration. The author has produced a fine conservative "take" on the subject. With this being so, I wouldn't want this to be the only perspective one gets on the subject. |
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Review Summary: A foolish book without any merit |
Date: 2008-02-08 |
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Details: The gospel accounts have ZERO historical reliability. After the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, a great deal of material was added to the gospel of Mark to make it appear that Jesus had predicted the event. Then, the Pharisees re-wrote much of that account to make it support their belief in (a) exorcism and demonic spirits, (b) angels and (c) a general resurrection of the dead on the Day of Judgment. The version we have (which appears with minor changes under the names of Mark, Matthew and Luke) is completely fictional, an attempt to reinvent a dead Galilean as a "son of theos" using the title of the Roman Emperor Augustus.
Let me give you a superb example of the so-called historical reliability from a letter written by Paul:
2 Thessalonians 1:6 .... when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1:7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, (end)
What is the historical reliability of a prediction that Jesus will appear from behind some clouds to take a fiery vengeance on all who do not obey the gospel? And by some weird coincidence, he just happens to be leading a company of angels?
There is no Historical Reliability in the New Testament. None. ALL of the gospel story, with the possibile exception of Peter denying that he came from Galilee, was invented after all the people who actually knew Jesus had died, and replaced the original version of the gospel. (See Secret Mark for a glimpse into the original, where Lazarus was not brought back to life, but merely slept in a tomb as part of an initiation ritual.)
Biblical scholarship is the only field I know.... where all of the leading experts are so dim, they can't figure out the difference between a History Book and a Sales Pitch for a resurrection cult.
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Review Summary: Scholarly defense of the gospels' historical reliability |
Date: 2006-12-07 |
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Details: Blomberg, an expert in the Synoptics, does a superb job, showing the inadequacies of much liberal gospel scholarship, and making an eminently credible case for the overall historical reliability of the canonical gospels. This is clearly going to be a classic, and anyone interested in Biblical Studies should read it. |
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out of 16 Reviews
