The subtitle is a better guide to the contents of the book than the title. I had expected this to focus on critiquing other people's work, but that is only incidental to the author's explication of his own point of view. That's not a complaint, just a clarification. The exception is an appendix, pp. 293-309, which is an in-depth review of James Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. I found that book pretty interesting, and this contains some very valid criticisms.

Since this is a topic about which many people, including me, have strong ideas in which they have a substantial investment, I am not going to attempt to judge whether Witherington is "right" or "wrong", merely whether or not it is worth reading, especially for laypeople. I also have no ambitions to judge his scholarship; I leave the meaning of ancient Greek prepositions to those who know what they are talking about.

Since he refers to them in the third person, I assume that Witherington does not consider himself to be a fundamentalist. I gather that he doesn't regard that Christian canon as inerrant dictations from the Holy Spirit, but rather as the good-faith, reliable testimony of eye-witnesses. He includes miracles and the resurrection of Jesus as events on which they may be trusted. He makes a careful comparison of various texts and comments upon their probably lineage, e.g., Paul to Luke, Peter to Mark, etc. He is concerned mainly with the apostolic era. He argues that there were different streams of Christianity, e.g., Gentile versus Jewish, but that these difference were often more cultural than theological. There may have been multiple churches in one place with different orientations, but these represented an agreement to disagree, not hostility.

By the same token, he argues that the so-called Gnostic gospels, and other later writings, are so different from the early writings that it is doubtful that they were original strains of Christianity. Although I admire the tolerance and equality which some scholars have attributed to Gnostic gospels, I have never found their theology appealing, and I am amused by Witherington's comments (pp.28-29): "This puts salvation on a whole different footing ... [s]alvation is a matter of who you know and how well you understand these secret sayings ... presumably salvation for the literate or even the learned. It is not a surprise that some scholars find this vision of salvation appealing. ... This sounds like a form of revelation that can be received only by those who have far too much time on their hands." Cleverly and effectively put.

I think this is very well done: clear and logical. I don't think that definitive answers are possible to these questions, but Witherington has done an exemplary job of presenting his case. The chapters are organized around particular members of the early Christian community: e.g., Peter, James the Just, Mary Magdalene, Paul, etc. Particularly in the beginning, Witherington often shows a good-natured wit: the Introduction is entitled "The Origins of the Specious." The section labelled "Doubting Thomas" (p. 27) begins: "There is no doubting that the Gospel of Thomas ... "

I don't accept Witherington's criticisms of Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus). Ehrman's point is that while the originals of canonical documents may have been written in the first century, we have only later copies which differ from one another. In the picky, ruthless world of theology, "those who have far too much time on their hands", small differences have led to bloodshed.

I recommend having a Bible while reading this, since Witherington does not always explicate the verses he quotes, but although I didn't have one, he explains well enough that I didn't feel too much lack. (I have not read most of the Epistles, and in those cases, I had no idea what they were about, except as Witherington explains them.) [Added later: After a well-deserved chatisement by a commentator on this review, I read the rest of the Epistles - none of my views are changed.]

There is no bibliography, outside of the notes, which also contain numerous explanatory in addition to bibliographic notes. My personal preference is for having a separate bibliography and explanatory notes at the bottom of the page. The indexing could be a little more thorough: the reader is not led to information about the Gospel of Thomas by looking up Thomas, the Apostle, or Doubting Thomas. Even though the author does not believe that the Apostle wrote that Gospel, I think the two should be linked. There are two indexes, one for subjects and one for scriptures. ( )

History