Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 10:2 (Spring 1993)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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FM 10:2 (Spring 1993) p. 91

Book Reviews

Biblical Studies

Jesus by Craig A. Evans. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992, 152 pp..

The Institute for Biblical Research, a professional society of evangelical scholars, has set out to produce a series of 14 classified and annotated bibliographies. This is number 5 in the series but the first one published. Separate volumes will cover the Synoptic Gospels (6) and Johanine Writings (7). New Testament Introduction (12) and New Testament Theology (14) are also separate volumes. Craig Evans is the New Testament Editor (Tremper Longmann is the General Editor). Each volume is expected to annotate 500 or more entries (books and articles) categorized by subject. A significant resource for students and for theological libraries, the volumes are indexed and the entries are numbered. The works cited are from all major theological perspectives with evangelical sources well represented. In some sections such as Chapter 12 “Jesus in Noncanonical Historical Sources” Evans not only cites the sources but quotes the relevant passages. This section alone is worth the price of the book. He does not give us all 21 of Jeremias’ proposed authentic agrapha, but he does quote 6 of them. Quotations from Christian apocryphal sources, Gnostic sources, Josephus (including Slavonic Josephus), Hegesippus and the Josippon, Jewish and Graeeo-Roman writers, and the Quran are also included. The subject list is quite extensive and useful. Over 75 sources are listed under sub-categories of “Authenticity Criteria.” One section of the work is an annotation of other key bibliographical sources and indexes. Some may know Evans’s excellent Life of Jesus Research. This book appears to be an abbreviated version of that work. Students will find it to be a valuable resource. Hopefully the other volumes in the series will measure up to this standard.

L. Russ Bush, SEBTS

The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. New York: Summit Books, 1991. 268 pp.

Michael Baigent is a graduate of Christchurch University in New Zealand, and Richard Leigh, a graduate of Tufts University, has done graduate work at the University of Chicago and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Together they have written three books: Holy Blood, Holy Grail: The Messianic Legacy, and The Temple and the Lodge.

In the preface to this book, the authors state that in their research, “we found ourselves confronting a contradiction… between the Jesus of History and the Christ of faith .... We also encountered a rigidly maintained ‘consensus’ of interpretation towards the content and dating of the scroll, and came to understand how explosive a non-partisan ex-

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