Finally, A Jesus Who's Not Made Up (i.e. The Real One)

I'm currently reading (among others currently stacked on my desk, which I never seem to have time for) a book by one of my seminary professors, Craig Evans. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels is a powerful antidote to the many bizarre claims about Jesus that regularly flood the MSM (mainstream media) - think Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, The Jesus Papers by Michael Baigent, The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur, yada, yada, yada. The hits just keep on comin'.

Evans systematically skewers such authors' views, and their (utter lack of) evidence for their claims. These writers and their ilk claim that, among other things, that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, never claimed to be God (the Church allegedly made that part up later), never intended to set up a Church, hence, you can't trust the Church, etc.

I always feel sorry for folks who are looking for God, and expecting to find accurate info about him in popular bookstores like Chapters here in Canada. They are not likely to find what or, rather, Who they are truly seeking. That's because the aforementioned heretical writers tend to have their books prominently displayed in popular bookstores, while orthodox views of Christ are relegated to the bottom shelf, if they're even there at all. They also tend to get a disproportionate amount of airtime on TV shows about Jesus, even though their views are a joke in the academy. There is, of course, a reason for this.

As Dr. Evans told me himself, the reason why these guys are always on TV or on the bookshelves is that their views are "news" - literally so, because "the news" is always about what's "new". As Dr. Evans noted, the reason he's not on TV a lot is because of what he would say about Jesus - that he believes the Jesus presented in the New Testament is, in fact, the real Jesus. To the news outlets, that's dull. No real news there. But, he said, if someone were to come along with, say, a theory about Jesus marring "Mags", and siring a bloodline that still exists on the earth - well, who needs evidence? Let's start the presses! Why? Because this is "news"; this is "sexy"; this will sell papers and drive up the Neilson ratings.

But it's not the real Jesus. Read Evans' book to find out why.

Those who are really interested in delving deeply into the Scriptures are also going to want to check out Dr. Evans' other fine books (his Mark commentary in the Word series is second to none). Craig Evans was by far the best professor I ever had. He is a master teacher who makes the New Testament world come alive. He currently teaches at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. His website is http://craigaevans.com/.