This slim volume embodies a very rich dialogue on its topic and was sponsored by the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum and hosted by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The dialogue itself, between historian of ancient Christianity Bart Ehrman and New Testament scholar Craig Evans, is a model of collegial engagement, a courteous and principled agreement to disagree—which surprisingly reveals many areas of agreement as well. Their dialogue is sandwiched between two essays by Robert Stewart, an Introduction that offers thoughts on what “doing history” means (1–20), and a pellucid concluding essay on the current quest for the Historical Jesus (75–84). A select bibliography and an index brings the project to port within one hundred pages.

I am myself a historian of ancient Mediterranean religions with a specialization in ancient Christianities, so my remarks will attend more to the historical and historiographical issues expressed by the book's title—the reliability of the gospel narratives for reconstructing a historically plausible figure of a first-century messianic figure—than to the question that underlies the title, namely, the way that this figure usefully and usably supports (recognizably Protestant) theological claims about such a figure. (The epigram by Evans on page vi neatly frames this aspect of the dialogue.)

Stewart's introduction reviews the task of the historian and the similarities and differences between doing history and doing science. (He sees more similarities than differences, 4–8.) The statement this prologue drives toward—“The authors of the New Testament Gospels were acting as historians . . . . [The Gospels] cannot be less than historical documents” (8–9)—usefully sums up a strong theme of Evans's presentation, but it is challenged by Ehrman. Our idea of “doing history”—research into texts in primary languages; careful and critical reconstruction of historical context; broadband investigation of various contemporary data, whether archaeological, epigraphic, or literary—was born in the Renaissance. The authors of the Gospels were both transmitting and creating traditions, but there were no archives of Aramaic records for these Greek readers to consult. The first generation had died away or been killed in Titus's destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE: so, there were no living contemporary interviewees either. The evangelists’ construction of late Second Temple Judaism in Galilee and Judea serves first of all to narratively foreground, usually by means of contrast, their respective interpretations of Jesus of Nazareth. Where Matthew and Luke depend on Mark, they do not hesitate to construct their own image of Jesus by changing what Mark claims Jesus said or did. The Fourth Gospel famously contrasts, and occasionally clashes, on matters of fact (such as the timing of Jesus's final Passover) with the preceding three Synoptics.

I respectfully dissent, then, from Stewart's characterization here: just because a document is ancient does not make it “historical” in the way that his history/science analogy seeks to support. His statement that the early church “unanimously attributed these books to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John” (18) is true, but the “early church” here points to a second-century tradition preserved by later ecclesiastical writers. The early gospels all originally circulated anonymously. His statement that “Believers were proclaiming the good news before the first Gospel was written” (19) is unquestionably true: we have Paul's letters in evidence. But Paul's letters also reveal that, by the late 40s and early 50s of the first century, within the lifetime of the first generation, the purveyors of the good news were already fracturing into factions. Vigorous variety characterized the Jesus movement virtually from the beginning (cf. Mt 28.17!). What motivated the writers of these depictions of Jesus's mission and message was their intent to persuade their listeners of the truth of their version of the evangelion. Their works conform neither to each other's nor—how could they?—to twenty-first century standards of historical writing. Stewart makes a point with which I do concur: the gospels present us with our best sources for reconstructing the Jesus of history. But they have to be read critically to provide usable material for that project: they do not offer such material in a first-order way.

Pages 21 through 53 are taken up with Ehrman and Evans's respective presentations. I lean more toward Ehrman's perspective: historical information has to be gleaned from these texts, which are not ipso facto in any simple way “reliable.” (Jesus's home town, for example, may either have been Bethlehem, so Matthew, or Nazareth, so Luke; but it cannot have been both.) Evans argues for a more optimistic view; some of his points are stronger than others. “Verisimilitude,” for example, is a literary technique common to writers of ancient novels as well as to writers of other kinds of ancient narratives: it is not in itself evidence of “eyewitness” authority, cf. 45. And where Evans insists that the evangelists’ “overarching concern was clarity,” I would substitute, instead, “persuasiveness.” Ehrman then responds to Evans (53–57), and Evans responds to Ehrman (57–64); and both subsequently take questions from the audience (65–74). Their respective presentations and engaging responses are the meat of the matter: I cannot summarize their points here. Clarity, concision, and courtesy mark all of their give and take.

In brief, it is hard to imagine a better introduction to the question of the Gospels and the historical Jesus, whether for the thinking layman or for the responsible pastor. This book is at once learned and lively. Teachers in seminaries, take note: Can We Trust the Bible on the Historical Jesus? awaits its rightful place on your bookshelf and in your syllabi.