I Believe in the Historical Jesus

This is a fairly short book--only 247 pages, at least in the 1977 edition that I read. It's not a book aimed only at the scholar. Marshall sets out his arguments in clear and easy-to-understand language that can be picked up and read by even a casual reader. The first part of the book covers the history of the hunt for the historical Jesus. After vigorous debate and investigation during the Victorian era, Albert Schweitzer summed up the results when he wrote "In every case the picture of Jesus was of a Jesus clearly fashioned by a nineteenth-century artist" (p 113). Just scholars looking in their mirrors. Marshall also explains the 'History of Religions' theory when Reitzenstein and Bousset foolishly ignored "the Jewish background of the New Testament writers" (p 118) and instead thought the Second Temple Jews were wallowing in Hellenization, mystery religions and Roman divine men. Moving into the 20th century, Marshall moves through the various stages of the debate, starting with form criticism which looked for "patterns ...to show how the different pieces of tradition fitted into" (p 121) the gospels. Bultmann's theories now appear to be in tatters. And, even though this was published in 1977, Marshall then brings up the points that are currently in debate. First, "that the Gospels...were written by eye-witnesses" (p 144), a point considered recently by Bauckham in his well known book. Another core issue ignored by too many scholars is "that there was much theological evaluation of the traditions about Jesus in the early church" (p 146), most of it tied to the Old Testament, but clearly evident by the constant mention of Old Testament material.

I just bought this book and haven't read it, so take my rating with a grain of salt. However, everything else I've read by Marshall is excellent and furthermore he's very well regarded by a wide spectrum of biblical scholars. In any case, the most important point I want to make in this review is that this edition is NOT the 1972 edition! It's a revised 2001 edition. Consequently, Mr. C. Price's review of the earlier edition isn't a fair or accurate assessment of this revised edition.