CADRE Comments

In the previous post in this series I presented some quotes from Craig Keener's recent book, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, relevant to some general questions about the nature of the Gospels. In this post I include quotes from Keener on Luke-Acts in particular. I will continue to follow the Q&A format. Why should we think that Luke-Acts is historical and strives to present an accurate account of the beginning of Christianity? Various factors support the thesis that Luke conceives of his project as primarily a history. Unlike a novel, Luke uses sources abundantly in his first volume (usually agreed to be at least Mark and "Q") and presumably in his second volume as well, although we cannot distinguish the sources clearly in Acts. Luke's claim to investigate or have close acquaintance with his information (Lk 1:3) fits historical works, and his occasional use of the first-person plural (e.g., Acts 16:10) emphasizes the involvement considered ideal for a good ...

In this series of posts I want to record some quotes from Craig Keener's The Historical Jesus of the Gospels which I have found of value in answering apologetic challenges. I have decided it would be most useful to post these excerpts in a Q&A format, allowing quotes from the book to directly answer questions people sometimes have about the reliability of the Gospels and how much we know about the historical Jesus. Doesn't the fact that the authors of the Gospels were biased towards Jesus make them unreliable as sources for his life? Contrary to what modern writers sometimes suppose, 'bias' did not make biographies into novels. We take bias into account when we read works of ancient biography or history, yet at the same time we depend heavily on these sources to understand the persons about whom they are written (both because they are the only sources available, and because comparison shows such works to preserve substantial information). If this is true for other ...

I'm becoming steadily more impressed with the work of the award winning historian Professor Craig S. Keener. Somehow I only heard about him for the first time earlier this year. In the past month I've gotten around to reading his GosJohn commentary . I'm almost through with volume 1, and ironically I've been seriously debating whether to start a new tome of his just recently released, before I've even finished his second (of 2) GosJohn volume! That new release is The Historical Jesus of the Gospels . (From what I can tell, it's actually vol 1 of a 2-part series, too; the sequel will be about the miracles of Jesus.) I'm a big fan of progressing systematic analysis, whether in metaphysics (my own forte) or historical studies. So I can't help but adore the layout of this book as indicated in the table of contents. (See the Amazon link above and Search Inside the Book for the ToC.) And I'm a big fan of footnotes: 385 PAGES OF ENDNOTES AND WORKS CITED!! ...