|
The sub-title to this work is A Guide to Sources and Methods and the content of the book serves this goal admirably. Bock begins with a 30 page introduction to the sources that inform readers about the historical and cultural background of Jesus and his ministry. He gives an excellent overview of works such as the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books, Philo and Josephus, as well as an analysis of the four canonical Gospels and their relationship to those other works.
Next, Bock leads the reader on a tour of Jesus in his cultural context (this section is especially appropriate for Tekton readers). This is the strongest section of the book. Bock surveys and analyzes the non-biblical literary evidence for Jesus concluding that the historian can be very confident that Jesus, as a historical person, indeed existed. This is followed by an incredible analysis of the sociocultural and political history of Second-temple Judaism up to the time of Jesus. Bock helps the reader learn about the main social values of the ancient peoples such as honor/shame, purity and the patron-client relationship, issues that are essential to a proper understanding of the Gospels. His review of the political history of Judaism is especially helpful due to several charts and maps summarizing the political leaders and High Priests from the pre-Maccabean period until the time of Christ.
Finally, Bock discusses the various critical methods that have been used to study the Gospels throughout the last several centuries. He gives an excellent presentation of Historical, Source, Form, Redaction, Tradition, and Narrative criticisms by highlighting their respective strengths and weaknesses as well as how they have been abused by skeptics. Bock is especially effective in showing what can and cannot be demonstrated historically using each respective critical method. For example, some skeptics using the Historical critical method have tried pitting different versions of stories in the Gospels against each other as though the two texts are competing (especially where the words of Jesus are concerned). Bock points out that the Gospel writers were usually trying to capture the ipsissima vox ("very voice") of Jesus as opposed to his ipsissima verba ("very words"). Therefore, the texts are not competing against each other at all, but rather are trying to capture the gist of the teaching of Jesus and convey it to the church. The chapter on Source criticism is the most useful, especially for quick review, since it includes charts showing the literary relationships among the synoptics as well as the content of the hypothetical Q document.
Overall, Darrell Bock has written a wonderful gem of a book that is perfect for the beginner or intermediate student of the Gospels. It is especially well-suited to act as a "springboard" book that can help readers advance to more technical material. After reading this work one would surely be ready for The Jesus Quest by Ben Witherington or Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity by David deSilva. Though very dense with information, the book is very cogently presented-a highly recommended work.
|
