Lord or Legend?: Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma

In Lord or Legend Boyd and Eddy are not out to prove with absolute certainty that the Bible is accurate, because they understand in reality it is impossible to prove anything about the past. They do however, present the historical evidence that is found for Jesus as not just a man, but as Christ and also evidence for the reliability of the Bible. Though they are both pastors, they have great insight that goes beyond their faith. I think this book can help Christians and non-Christians see Jesus from a different perspective then maybe they have before. It is great that someone from the Christian circle is not afraid to jump into historical and often secular discussion about Jesus. Lord or Legend? is a question we all should not be afraid to explore. I think this book is a great start to a discussion about who Jesus was historically and what that means for us now.

Lord or Legend? is a great introductory book to the historical Jesus. In Lord or Legend? Boyd and Eddy make a case for the historical reliability of the portrait of Jesus painted by the gospels. In making this case Boyd and Eddy expose the myth of the 'neutral' and 'unbaised', historical critical method utilized to disprove the historicity of the gospels and their account of Jesus. Boyd and Eddy demonstrate how the historical critical method and its supporters come to the text of the gospels with their own theological bagage and faith-based presuppostitions, such as a disbelief in miracles. The historical critical method which they apply to the text is then used to disprove the reliability of the gospels based on these presuppostitions. The solution that Boyd and Eddy propose is an 'open' historical critical method which attempts to come to the text unbaised and free of faith-based presuppositions.

Boyd and Eddy present excellent arguments for the credibility of the Gospels and the divinity of Christ in this book. They address all of the major claims against the reliability of Scripture with honesty and humility, admitting that they have also had their doubts in Christianity but that its truth stands up against critical examination. Boyd and Eddy do not even claim that the historical evidence proves with absolute certainty that every aspect of the Gospel's portrait of Jesus is historically accurate, but they do claim that if one remains open to the historical possibility of that portrait they will find this to be the most historically probable understanding available. Form this open outlook the authors approach such topics as belief in the supernatural, the theology and culture of first-century Judaism, the accounts of the apostle Paul, the genre of the Gospels in relation to Jewish oral traditions, the historical veracity of the Gospel texts, the credibility of the Gospel authors, the consistency and plausibility of Scripture, and the literary and archeological evidence of the Gospels. In each of these discussions Boyd and Eddy compare the claims of Scripture and the arguments against it with historical evidence and logical reasoning apart from their beliefs as Christian men and provide extremely credible conclusions for the divinity of Christ. This book is great for anyone, Christian or non-Christian, who is willing to approach the historical life of Christ with an open mind and see where the evidence leads.

First of all, I should state my bias. I was Born Again in 1962, and am striving to be as pleasing as possible to my wonderful Lord Jesus Christ. Over the years, I have read perhaps a dozen apologetic books. It was a great pleasure to read "Lord or Legend?". It is one of the best, and perhaps the best, apologetic book, I have ever read. I can see that the authors spent much time researching this topic, and there are many new points I had not heard of before, such as the fact that the Four Gospels arose in an orally dominant culture, and there are good reasons for believing that oral transmission can actually be more accurate than written transmission. As the authors state: "But this discovery of the crucial role of individual tradents suggests that we can no longer conceive of the traditional material about Jesus being transmitted in the early church apart from the strong influence of original eyewitnesses. This renders it virtually impossible to conceive of the oral traditions in the early church veering too far from the historical events observed by eyewitnesses." The book is very well written with copious footnotes (13 pages of footnotes!), and comes with an "Index of Scripture and Ancient Writings" and a good General Index. I did not see any grammatical or spelling errors. If you are a born-again Christian (and there are really no other kinds of Christians), you will love this book. It carefully and meticulously puts to rest any lingering doubts about the historicity of the Son of God. You will be blessed by reading this book as I was. A well earned and well deserved 5 stars! I can't wait to read their next book.