I have just finished Contending with Christianities Critics (ed by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig). I had heard about this book several months ago, but held off on purchasing it. Initially, my impression was it would be a Reasonable Faith jr, but I changed my mind quickly when I discovered Dr. Craig Evans, Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College, would be a contributor.
CwCC in its entirety turned out to be much better than I had believed. I found Physicist James Daniel Sinclair’s contribution At Home in the Multiverse?, with its robust (despite its purpose as a layman introduction) discussion of contemporary cosmological trends, and critique of the multiverse hypothesis as a whole, very interesting (as a side note, on pg 285 under his contributor listing it reports Mr. Sinclair has recently completed a project in which he interviewed the world’s premier cosmologists on their views on cosmic origins).
But ultimately, the allure of Craig Evans’ work proved too much for me. In terms of personal heroes, I would rank Evans right near the tippity-top. Finding his writing both witty and sharp, and finding Evans himself to be a scholar of the highest caliber, I have digested everything the man has written. This short essay is a toned down version of his more scholarly contribution (The Apocryphal Jesus: Assessing the Possibilities and Problems) in Exploring the Origins of the Bible: Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective.
In both essays, Evans takes his fellow historical Jesus researchers (Koester, Crossan, Patterson) to task for their brazen, almost dogmatic acceptance of extra-canonical “Gospels” in their research into the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In Exploring the Origins of the Bible, I could not agree more with the conclusions. To briefly summarize:
1) Evans sees (based in large part on the work of Nicholas Perrin) the Gospel of Thomas to be an almost certain product of late 2nd century Syrian/Christian hands.
2) He is not nearly convinced that the Akhmim fragment should be identified with the Gospel of Peter Serapion the early 3rd century Bishop of Antioch dealt with as recorded by Eusebius, and so is extremely skeptical about its use in historical Jesus research.
3) Concerning papyrus Egerton 2, Evans is a tad more hospitable saying that Crossan’s and Koester’s theories are “theoretically possible” (pg 165). Nevertheless, Evans insists that the evidence as we have it either works against both scholars theories (the presence of almost certain apocryphal material in Egerton 2, the lack of any other hard textual evidence/patristic citations/quotations of this “ultra-primitive Gospel”), or can be solved without resorting to them (Koester’ argument that Egerton 2’s mixture of Johannine and Synoptic material begs for its antiquity over the Gospel of John can be solved merely by pointing out that Justin Martyr did the same thing with his Gospel quotations).
4) Finally, Evans reserves his harshest criticism/condemnations for the so-called Secret Gospel of Mark “discovered” by Morton Smith back in 1941 while he was staying at the Mar Saba Monestary in Israel. Evans is insistant (and I couldn’t agree more) that the evidence as we have it conclusively proves Secret Mark is a hoax, most likely perpetrated by Smith himself. Though we may never know his true motives.
Evans essays are worth reading in either book. One can surely feel his frustration when he caps both with these wise words:
“The scholarly track record with respect to the use of these extracanonical Gospels is, frankly, embarrassing. In marked contrast to the hypercritical approach many scholars take to the New Testament Gospels, several scholars are surprisingly uncritical in their approach to the extracanonical Gospels.” (EOB, pg 172)
Dear Lord I love this guys stuff!
derekalchemist