The Jesus Inquest

Book Review

Title: The Jesus Inquest

Author: Charles Foster

Pages: 370

So, I'm pretty embarrassed to say how long I've had this book. I signed up on a website called BookSneeze.com where you can get a book for free as long as you post a review of it. My first one was The Jesus Inquest and I've had this thing forever. I would read a little at a time and it would get pushed away for a while. Then, read. Then, pushed away. But, I'm glad to say it's finally done. Here is the review I posted on Amazon:

This book definitely covered a lot of bases. It gives the view from two sides (X and Y), one for and one against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I definitely love that it not only gives the opposing arguments, but does so with credibility to the other side. I thought Foster did an excellent job of allowing credibility to both sides and leaving the decision of whether or not to believe in the resurrection up to the faith and discretion of each reader. On top of that, it is completely full of information regarding the resurrection. If you have seen a theory for or against it, it's probably in this book. Foster did an excellent job with research.

As far as keeping my attention...I had a love/hate relationship with this book. There were times where I couldn't put it down. The topic would be relevant and the writing right down my alley. Then, I would get to certain sections and be ready to collapse from boredom. And, if you stroll through life with an "average Joe" vocabulary like myself, you'll find yourself in the dictionary pretty often with this one. But, overall, I thought it was a great book. I got it through the BookSneeze.com program.

Let me also add the disclaimer about my first paragraph...I think it's obvious that I don't believe someone comes to faith in Christ through an everyday book. My point in saying that about faith and discretion was to emphasize the author's non-bias approach to the arguments.

Now that I'm done with the review, I'll leave you all with this gem from the book that I thought was a well thought out, yet simple argument. In this point, the opponent (X), is arguing the fact that people dying for a cause (the resurrection of Christ) doesn't add any evidence towards it. He then says,

"many of the early Christians, including those who were supposed eyewitnesses of the death and resurrection of Jesus, were martyred...people are prepared to die for all sorts of beliefs. We do not take the death of a suicide bomber in Iraq as proof of the validity of the reactionary Islam that has made him immolate himself."

To that, (Y) makes his rebuttal that you can't compare eyewitnesses to those who aren't eyewitness--

...There is no parallel with the suicide bombers. They are in no position to know whether or not the cause for which they die is true. They simply believe it passionately and pathologically. To die for what you believe to be true is one thing; to die for what you know to be untrue is quite another. These early martyrs, remember, were the witnesses of what they were preaching. If the tomb was not really empty, they knew. If the resurrection appearances did not occur, they knew. If the resurrection appearances "occurred" only in a subjective sense, inside the heads and psyches of the individuals, they knew. If Christianity was bogus or evidently shaky, they knew.