Book Review: Reinventing Jesus, by Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace

Synopsis: Such diverse literary phenomena as the findings of the “Jesus Seminar” and the popular novels of Dan Brown have in common that they are willing to go to any necessary lengths in order to make their pre-conceived ideas seem plausible. The careful scholars behind Reinventing Jesus, an easy-to-read and historically-insightful critique of such recent phenomena, tellingly document the intellectual dishonesty and prejudiced misinterpretations which underlie all of these modern attacks on the historical Jesus. Here is a harmless proposition: let everyone who is considering a revised understanding of the historical figure of Jesus, on the basis of the speculations of authors like Dan Brown, withhold judgment until giving this irenic analysis an honest consideration.

Reinventing Jesus engages the radical reconstructionist speculations of post-modern novelists and theologians on a fair and even footing. Considering a variety of novel claims about the history of Jesus and his early followers, the authors furnish ample and evident proof that these speculative theorists have been anything but honest and unbiased with the historical evidence. In questions such as the authenticity and reliability of the original Christian documents; the consistency of transmission through centuries of copying; the processes by which certain books, and no others, were recognized as canonical; the antiquity of the belief in Jesus’ divinity; and the supposed parallels between Christianity and prior pagan mystery religions, the sad reality resurfaces time and again, that those who claim to be in honest pursuit of the truth, are actually willing to follow their prejudices to the point of absurdity in the face of overwhelming evidence.

The sad truth is, of course, that we are all the same: none of us is willing to submit to the incontrovertible claims of Jesus, unless God’s grace opens our hearts to these truths which are indeed incontestable, but which we will go to any measure to avoid, because we “love darkness rather than light.” Why then write a book like this at all? I would see its usefulness involving at least three things:

  1. It convincingly exposes the anti-Jesus prejudices which lie underneath so many speculative authors, and which indeed determine how they interpret the massive amounts of reliable evidence which they must sift through and weigh.

  2. Not only does it expose false motives; but more to the point, it utterly overturns the arguments by which these novel speculations attempt to corroborate their pre-conceived ideas.

  3. And most importantly, it introduces the reader to the true and historical Jesus, very God and very man, before whom every knee will one day bow, and whom every tongue will confess as Lord. All of us are, in our hearts, evilly disposed to reject the great redemptive truths about Jesus; but it is only by encountering the story of who he is and what he has done, that God will whisper the gospel-truth into our hearts, and uncover our eyes to the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In a word, God uses the true account of Jesus to change us poor sinners. And this book gives a very faithful and accurate account of this man Jesus – may God use it to open our eyes to the wonder of who he is!

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