Toto

The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Dale Alison, previewed on Google books

There is a review in First Things: The quest for the confessional Jesus

DCHindley

Good ol' Dale Allison.

As some may recall, I once heard that he "demolished" Bart Ehrman "point by point" in a journal article published in response to one of Ehrman's earlier journal articles. I heard this, to boot, from a person well known in the world of rhetorical criticism.

To determine just how much he really demolished Ehrman, I checked out both the journal articles and compared them stylistically as well as by the points made by Ehrman and how, or whether, Allison dealt with them.

I must admit Allison seemed to have a milder, and a bit more appealing, style then Ehrman, who was more brash and self confident. He competently turned Ehrman's brashness against him, and so in rhetorical points, I gave the debate to Allison. However, Allison basically left much of what Ehrman asserted unaddressed, and what he did confront wasn't demolished by any means, simple countered by solutions less offensive to the faith community.

In my ever vigilant, and ever unsuccessful, campaign against "advocacy scholarship," I have many times noted that scholars, both amateur and professional, time and again find ways to "prove" what they want to believe. It is not just "moderates" like Ben Witherington III, James Dunn, John P. Meier or Dale Allison, but "liberals" like Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan. I don't think it is even necessary to mention the fundamentalist conservative "scholars" whose knowledge of Biblical Greek and Hebrew is often unsurpassed but who "interpret" the Bible by the Bible and little else. History and context is only used to illustrate the message they take from the Bible, for it certainly does not or can not supersede it in any way, or the world will end today.

That's the kind of scholarship Allison represents. If you can't beat them (liberal scholars), scorn them ...

DCH

Joan of Bark

Good points, DC. What I would like to see published is an account of all the hypotheses regarding the historical Jesus, with a surveyed statement of what percentage of Biblical and historical scholars support each one. Knowing the prejudices of the scholars would help, too, but that may be asking for too much.

Roger Pearse

The best thing to do with these "Jesus books" is list them, and their blurbs.

Read down the list, all the blurbs. It will cure you for life of the approach they all take.

Zaphod

Imagine the blurb for the Bible.