Burridge Reviews “Jesus Tried and True”
The latest Review of Biblical Lite
rature features a review of Jesus Tried and True: Why the Four Canonical Gospels Provide the Best Picture of Jesus (Wipf & Stock, 2013) by H.H. Drake Williams III (read the review HERE). Drake’s book is yet another example of anti-Christian Apocrypha apologetic. Burridge characterizes (and indicts) the work well in saying:
Despite the claims of its title and subtitle, Jesus is never “tried,” and the canonical gospels are never properly examined. Instead of an academic study, we have a rhetorical exercise, an apologetic seeking to defend the “superiority” of the canonical gospels by a polemical attack on the noncanonical texts claiming that name. The book’s declared purpose is “to summarize the latest discussion for educated readers and draw conclusions” (xx), but actually its intention is to reassure those who share the author’s assumptions that not only is Jesus fully God and fully human according to the “Chalcedonian Statement” (xv and 143) but that all four canonical gospels promote this view centuries earlier and are therefore and ipso facto, “superior.” Despite the wild claims on the TV or in Newsweek about the latest discoveries in the desert or the arguments put forward by “a group known as ‘the Jesus Seminar’” (xix), this book suggests that these readers should not worry or be alarmed, for Jesus is “tried and true.” Unfortunately, no matter how much the axe is being ground, it is actually pretty blunt.”