Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels Book

Fabricating Jesus is written for a wide audience, from anyone who has been confused by much of the popular writing on Jesus recently (e.g. Da Vinci Code) to skeptics to scholars. After reading it I would highly recommend it to people who have not read much in historical Jesus scholarship for it provides a good entry into that realm.

The first four chapters are the very best. In chapter one Evans shows examples of both old and new skeptics, illustrating how their theories on Jesus fall short. Then in chapter two he answers some initial questions often debated in scholarship, ending with a discussion of methods to determine what parts of history are authentic (i.e. true). Chapters 3 and 4 provide numerous arguments against other gospels (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, etc.), showing that they come from much later than the canonical gospels and thus do not provide good information on the historical Jesus.

These chapters really are the basis for the rest of the book. When he discusses the diversity of early Christianity, as some scholars have claimed earliest Christianity was extremely diverse only to be crushed into orthodoxy later, much of it rests on the earlier chapters showing that this alleged diversity comes from later gospels that shed little to no light on earliest Christianity. Much of the chapter on early diversity is then a study of the New Testament and an effort, successful in my opinion, to harmonize Paul and James (and the other writers).

This book is a very helpful resource for any person who seeks to understand early Christianity and how the New Testament was put together. At numerous places there are box quotations from the sources outside the New Testament that Evans cites; he does not just leave the reader with a citation but provides the text so the reader can read it for himself. This makes it a great reference for pastors and others to go to when questioned by skeptics.

Finally, Evans chapters on Josephus and his chapter refuting the popular-level writings on Jesus of recent years (Da Vinci Code, Holy Blood Holy Grail, etc.) are great.

Overall, I highly recommend this book.