The Christian apologetic of "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic," made famous by CS Lewis, has gained recent skepticism. Many modern critics of Christianity believe the biblical portrait of Jesus Christ is based on myth. Lord or Legend? puts skeptics' claims to the test against multiple scholarly disciplines to uncover fascinating truths about the historical Jesus.

Was first-century Judaism an environment for pagan mythological beliefs? How are the Gospels accurate if they originated through oral tradition? Do similarities between Jesus and other myths discredit Christianity? Are the Scriptures historically accurate? Biased? Translated accurately? Do archeological findings support or refute biblical accounts?

The Gospels present Jesus as making divine claims, performing incredible miracles, and rising from the dead. According to the New Testament, this is what convinced the earliest Jewish disciples that he was the Son of God. But this is also the most fundamental reason many contemporary New Testament scholars, as well as others, find it hard to accept that the Gospels are historically reliable. We in the Western world have all been influenced by the naturalistic worldview that arose out of the scientific revolution and the intellectual Enlightenment that followed. The naturalistic worldview holds that everything that happens can in principle be explained by appealing to laws of nature. Miracles, therefore, are ruled out of court. To the extent that we’ve been influenced by this worldview, we intuitively find it difficult to accept as factual reports that contain miracles. We’re inclined to dismiss them as legends.

A good percentage of New Testament scholars today accept this naturalistic worldview, which is why so much of contemporary New Testament scholarship is spent trying to explain in naturalistic terms how the portrait of Jesus as a supernatural figure found in the Gospels came into being. Burton Mack expresses the firm conviction of many when he writes, “The emergence of Christianity and its literature can be understood without recourse or caveats with regard to miracles, resurrections, divine appearances, presences, or unusual charismatic phenomena.” So too, Robert Funk, the founder of the famous (or infamous) Jesus Seminar, argues that “the notion that God interferes with the order of nature is no longer credible. Miracles contradict the regularity of the order of the physical universe... God does not interfere with the laws of nature.” Given this assumption, he has no choice but to contend that “the resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse. Jesus did not rise from the dead, except perhaps in some metaphorical sense.”

John Dominic Crossan agrees when he concludes his discussion of the biblical account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead by saying, “I do not think this event ever did or could happen... I do not think that anyone, anywhere, at any time brings dead people back to life.” In short, these aspects of the Jesus story may be mythologically true — that is, true in the sense that they express longings and intuitions of the human heart — but they cannot be accepted as historically true. The assumption of naturalism rules this option out, and it lies at the heart of the legendary-Jesus hypothesis. As you will see in Lord or Legend?, providing a plausible naturalistic explanation for how some of the specific supernatural aspects of the portrait of Jesus found in the Gospels came into being is no easy endeavor.

This is a marvelous study of the historicity of the gospels and the reliability of the biblical narrative. At times this book reads like a good detective story: it lays out the clues and the methods of evaluating those clues, and then draws conclusions based on the best evidence. From the most ancient witnesses, like Josephus and Irenaeus, to contemporary critics like Burton Mack, the authors ably rebut the critics' claims of inconsistency and historical error. They further explore the value of the fantasy works of popular writers like CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. This book is intended for the general reader, the average churchgoer who may be struggling with difficult questions about the Jesus story. It's a fascinating and valuable work that merits a wide readership. — Publishers Weekly

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Lord or Legend? Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma Lord or Legend? puts skeptics' claims to the test against multiple scholarly disciplines, including history, ethnography, anthropology, and folklore, to uncover fascinating truths about the historical Jesus. It is written in an accessible form for all lay readers — whether believers in or skeptics of Christianity. Authors Boyd and Eddy do not shy away from the tough historical, cultural, textual, and logical questions and their implications. Both those of a modernist and those of a postmodernist bent will find this a helpful clarification of issues relating to the truth about the historical Jesus. Some of the issues included here are rarely treated elsewhere. The authors present a compelling case that the Gospels were composed using eyewitness accounts passed down from the earliest followers of Jesus. This volume should be read by anyone interested in the ongoing discussion of the reliability of the Gospels and the truth about the historical Jesus. USA UK Canada

Not Everything in Our Bibles is Inspired Not everything in our Bibles is inspired by God. Like the chapter breaks and verse numbers, which sometimes lead us to draw conclusions that were never intended. Or punctuation — the translators have done a wonderful job, but sometimes their decisions take us in one direction when the writer may have meant something else. Neil Rees looks at these and many other later additions and embellishments to the sacred text, not least the process of translation itself, and detects a key shortfall in our understanding of God's word today: Are we missing the mission heart of God? On the one hand it is a light, jaunty page-turner, almost like reading a novel. At the same time it is constantly wandering (cleverly, intentionally) into a huge amount of the kind of information about the Bible that is normally reserved for privileged seminary students. UK Canada

Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels Fabricating Jesus inquires into the thinking and the methods of scholars and popular writers. What presuppositions do they hold? What methods do they use? Why do they move from valid observations to audacious conclusions? Indeed why and how do they fabricate a Jesus different from the one we find in the New Testament? Are these scholars actually using sound historical method? These are some of the questions this book explores. Fabricating Jesus is designed to speak to a variety of readers. First, this book is written to assist anyone who is confused by the wild theories and conflicting portraits of Jesus, the claims that he really didn’t see himself as the Messiah or as God’s Son, or that the New Testament Gospels are not trustworthy, or that other sources are better or at least equally valid, and so forth. USA UK Canada

Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't Stephen Prothero begins this valuable primer by noting that religious illiteracy is rampant in the United States, where most Americans, even Christians, cannot name even one of the four Gospels. Prothero does more than diagnose the problem; he traces its surprising historic roots ("in one of the great ironies of history, it was the nation's most fervent people of faith who steered Americans down the road to religious illiteracy") and prescribes concrete solutions that address religious education while preserving First Amendment boundaries about religion in the public square. Prothero also offers a dictionary of religious literacy and a quiz for readers to test their knowledge. This book is a must-read not only for educators, clergy and government officials, but for all adults in a culture where, as Prothero puts it, "faith without understanding is the standard" and "religious ignorance is bliss." USA UK Canada

Joining many other recently found and publicized "gospels," the gospel of Judas has found its way into the limelight as the subject of some recent books and television programming. The ancient manuscript appears to be genuine — so what are we to make of the claims therein? Judas and the Gospel of Jesus

Not so long ago religion was a personal matter that was seldom discussed in public. No longer. Today religion is everywhere, from books to movies to television to the internet to politics. Now religion is marketed and advertised like any other product or service. How did this happen? Shopping for God

In his new book Guy Harrison details such reasons for god-belief as the obviousness of God, "playing it safe," the fear of hell, that belief in gods brings genuine happiness and comforts, and the fact that so many people are religious. 50 Reasons People Give For Believing In A God

Modern historical study of the Gospels seems to give us a new portrait of Jesus every few weeks. Why are scholars so prone to fabricate a new Jesus? Why is the public so eager to accept such claims without question? What methods and assumptions predispose scholars to distort the record? Fabricating Jesus

The last three years have seen a great assault upon faith in the publishing world. Titles such as Letter to a Christian Nation, The God Delusion, and God Is Not Great have hit the bestseller charts by denouncing religious belief, specifically Christianity, as both violent and socially dangerous. The Delusion of Disbelief