Rating: 
Summary: Hard work but worth it
Review: Robert Price�s Deconstructing Jesus is a scholastic masterpiece of exhaustive research, carefully thought out arguments, and valuable insights into the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth. He does a fine job demonstrating, by comparing the Gospel accounts of Jesus� supernatural conception, miracles, death and resurrection with similar traditions found in the mystery cults of ancient Greece and the near East, that Jesus was probably a mythical figure created from a synthesis of numerous mythologies then in vogue in the ancient world. His relentless pursuit of ancient texts to make his point that Jesus was, essentially, a Judaized version of the ancient mystery religions that was later usurped by literalists in the Catholic Church, should leave the objective reader with little choice but to agree. I also found his demonstration that many of Jesus� teachings and parables�which I previously considered the strongest evidence for a historical Jesus available�to have parallels in the teachings of the Midrash and other rabbinical writings to be especially damning to the idea of a historical Jesus. While he remains open to the possibility of a literal historical figure existing behind the mythology, I had to agree with his assessment that such can neither be known nor, if it could be proven true, whether it would make any real difference.While Price�s conclusions and scholarship were flawless, that�s not to say the book was not without some problems. Price is a scholar writing for other scholars. As such, this is a difficult book to follow and should not be attempted by the linguistically challenged. One classic "Priceism" should be enough to serve as an example: "Neusner was no longer willing to assume that such attributions meant much diachronically (actually going back in history to Rabbi X); no, instead they must derive their meaning synchronically: as it were, two-dimensionally along the picture plane of the particular document." (Pg. 99). Huh? But for those who enjoy that kind of theological techno-babble, this is a great read. As for myself, I found it akin to wading across a sea of molasses upon the back of a Rhino. Price also has this irritating habit of dissecting the arguments of other scholars without fully explaining what their theory was or what he really found wrong with them. It was like walking into a foreign film with lots of badly translated subtitles. More than once I found myself lost and thoroughly uncomprehending what he was trying to say. In the last chapter, however, he redeems himself by pulling it all together and leaving us with the reasonable, articulate and seemingly objective conclusion that Jesus Christ was a mythical creation�one of many of the era�that rose to the top of the pecking order and survived into the modern era. I suspect most evangelical and conservative Christians will find much to take old Robert to task for in that, but that would be only because he�s drilling too close to a nerve.
Rating:
Summary: A landmark
Review: This book is a landmark: at long last we have a well-known and highly respected Christian theologian taking up for serious discussion the conclusions of several non-theological scholars about the non-historicity of the Jesus of the Gospels and Acts. Chief among these scholars has long been George A. Wells, whose first book on the subject was The Jesus of the Early Christians (1971). A half-dozen others have followed. In the last few years, Earl Doherty, a Canadian classical scholar, has pursued the subject with great energy on his very lively website, and this year in an impressive book, The Jesus Puzzle (2000). On the whole, the theological establishment has cold-shouldered, or more often, met such publications with silence rather than arguments. Hopefully Price's book will lead to a change of attitude. After all, theology, including the history of Christianity, is an essential ingredient in the history of civilization. Yet, unaccountably, Western historians have left the history of Christianity to their theological colleagues. It is significant that practically all Western general Encyclopedias have assigned the whole area of religion to theologians. The result is that the general public has got a rather biased picture of Christian origins. Price's book will shake them up. After a wide-ranging and always interesting argument he concludes as follows: "it seems to me that Jesus must be categorized with other legendary founder figures, including the Buddha, Krishna, and Lao-tzu. There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way to being sure." Fair enough. But historians will not give up their search. After all, new manuscripts, providing new ways of looking at the field, may still turn up. Michael Wise's fascinating reinterpretation of the Qumran texts referring to the Teacher of Righteousness, in his recent book The First Messiah (1998), is a case in point.
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