As our culture continues its relentless degeneration into secularism and paganism, many of us grapple for the optimum means of both promoting and defending Christianity. One could say that the world is fast becoming as barbaric as that of the first Christians. The latter concentrated on the person of Jesus Christ: His Life Death and Resurrection. This was most effective in communicating Christianity to the outside world. Perhaps we should follow the example of the first Christians. Many Christians of today diligently practice their faith but are vulnerable to secularisation because of a lack of knowledge of the historical reality of Jesus. It is hoped that this book will be widely promoted to remedy this situation.
A Lion Book, Oxford, 2005 Price in UK £6.99 ISBN 0 7459 5147 3 Ordering in UK: Maston Book Services. Tel 01235 465500 Ordering outside UK. Please email: enquiries@lionhudson.com
In this slender (158 page) book, Professor Thiede has sought to present to the serious reader, anxious to make his or her way through the blizzard of differing views and judgements currently in circulation regarding the person of Jesus and the origins of Christianity, with a convincing account of the reality of the man, and of the trustworthiness of the sources upon which we have to depend for our primary information. Employing all his profound scholarship, and drawing on his long experience as an exponent of
New Testament history and expert in the fields of Papyrology and Archaeology, Professor Thiede leads the reader
through such issues as the historical existence of Jesus; his place in Jewish tradition; his death and resurrection,
and his self-evaluation, while, at the same time, pointing to the absurdities of the kind of pseudo-historical
writing exemplified in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
and the highly questionable scholarship of Jesus scholars who have attached themselves in recent times to the so-called
‘Jesus Seminar’. Version: 30th March 2006
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