Some may recall James Tabor as one whose work online was often used by one of my past, lesser opponents (the pest known as PTET). Tabor isn't one of those foaming at the mouth types like Robert Eisenmann, and it would not be entirely fair to class this work with conspiracy theory works like Baigent and Leigh's. Nevertheless in the end we have a case that is more flash than bang in the critical components.

I have to admire Tabor for not being a drone, but one who makes up his own mind. Certain Skeptics will dislike many of his concessions, such as that the James ossuary's authenticity remains an open question [18] and his defense of the Lukan and Matthean genealogies [52f].

On the other hand, Tabor has clearly not walked the rows of his peers for long enough either; present are some of the usual canards, such as alleged NT misuse of the OT, and his case depends somewhat on Markan priority [61] which is never a sound move. Tabor also reads far too much into the alignment of words in Matthew 13:55 versus Mark 6:3; if Matthew were indeed trying to "fix" anything from Mark, he did a poor job, since what he does give shows Jesus subjected to a highly dishonorable evaluation. He follows Butz in arguing that Jesus really didn't have a bad relationship with his brothers, and makes more or less the same misplaced arguments in support (though he adds one, strangely, that John 7:5 is likely an interpolation, which I have yet to see claimed in any commentary). He thinks that the Gospels tried progressively "playing down" Jesus' position as a disciple of John, though in fact they do no such thing (it's really rather insane to read Luke 3:19-21 "as if to imply that maybe John himself did not even baptize Jesus"; who else would have done it, Oral Roberts?). The worst of it is that he actually makes use of the "Pantera" gravestone as evidence [64] for Jesus as the son of a Roman soldier (but at least only evaluates the idea as "remotely plausible" rather than making a definitive statement -- however, as Evans notes in Fabricating Jesus [218f], it is not even that; scholarship's consensus is that Pantera was too young to impregnate Mary at the right dates). At other times Tabor tries to massage the data as much as he can; he tries to make much of three women named Mary doing grave duty in John, "[n]o matter how common the name Mary was at the time", he insists this is cause for suspicion. Oh? Even if it was the name of a quarter or more Jewish women of the time? Hmmm.