For years now I've been lamenting the sad state of published apologetics, as it seemed that there was far more interest in getting out insipid eschatological novels than in offering defenses of the faith rooted in sound scholarship. I was glad when Lee Strobel's works finally jimmied that door some, and when Licona and Habermas cracked it further open with The Resurrection of Jesus; and now, this trio has blown the door off its hinges and sent it flying into the atmosphere.

I'll put it bluntly: Buy this book. Buy multiple copies and pass them out. Rent a forklift and buy a whole pallet of them. I don't care if you know all of the stuff that's in it already (for as will be noted below, a lot WILL be familiar to the typical reader of this site). If you're tired of the Christian publishing industry putting out the intellectual equivalent of Hostess Ding Dongs in defense of the faith, you NEED to make this book a success, because otherwise, they won't get the message and we'll get more Ding Dongs instead of more roast beef. Make these three guys stinkin' rich from the residuals or you'll be SORRY.

Yes, yes: There are a lot of names of old Tekton rogues here: Ehrman, Price, Baigent, Freke and Gandy -- even Acharya S is called on the carpet some. There's a lot of stuff you've seen here and on other sites like the ThinkTank before: Gobs and gobs of juicy material on things like textual criticism, oral tradition, copycat christs (Attis, Mithra, Tammuz, Dionysus, Osiris -- these and more get some treatment), the Jesus Seminar, the canon, forged documents, the Council of Nicea. There's also a few things that are new. It sometimes goes into great detail on these things; at other times, not so. So what? If you give it your support, the publishers will be convinced of the need to make more and then future authors won't have to worry about restraints on size.

It has copious footnotes and recommends for further reading. The writing style is lucid and enjoyable; no dry bones here, and no excuse for being bored.

In a time when we have things like Ehrman spouting his Chicken Little doubts about the New Testament on public radio, quality response works like these are needed badly, and they need to be supported. The secular world made Ehrman's book a best-seller. Do we dare do any less for Re-inventing Jesus?