Cynic Sage or Son of God?
Author: Gregory A. Boyd
Publisher: Victor (1995)
Topic: Apologetics: How can Evangelicals respond to liberal scholars like John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack?
Media:
Description: With commanding scholarship and penetrating insight, pastor and author Gregory Boyd critiques the thinking of two of the most renowned members of the Jesus Seminar: Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan. Against their thesis that the “original” Jesus bears little resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospels, Boyd demonstrates that the historical evidence supports the conclusion that the Gospels’ portrait of Jesus is firmly rooted in history.
Greg’s story behind the writing of Cynic Sage or Son of God?: In the early 90s the Jesus Seminar was constantly in the news. This Seminar consists of mostly liberal scholars determining what aspects of the Gospels were and were not historical — with the majority of the scholars arguing that the majority of what is in the Gospels is not historical. As a person who’d been interested in apologetics for years (I was teaching apologetics at Bethel College at the time), I was surprised no evangelical scholar was stepping up to the plate to provide a compelling response to this new movement.
So I decided I’d do it. I wanted to focus my attention on two of the most vocal and liberal representatives of the skeptical view of the Gospels: John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack. Initially I had planned on co-authoring this book with my friend Paul Eddy. But work on this book came into conflict with his doctoral studies at Marquette University, so he had to bow out mid-way through the project. Yet, it needs to be said that he made an enormous contribution in researching for this book, especially in the first five chapters. Thank you Paul!
While Paul and I have recently come out with two more comprehensive books on the topic of the historical Jesus (The Jesus Legend and Lord or Legend?), Cynic Sage or Son of God? is still relevant as one of the few critiques of Crossan and Mack from an evangelical perspective.