A review of this

This was a compelling and readable work about the historical, thoroughly Jewish Jesus, but still a speculative one. The illuminating material is textual, about the composition of the canonical gospels, and the literary differences between the “Q” source and sources influenced by Pauline Christology. I enjoyed having the story of the Messianic movement, John the Baptist, and Jesus enhanced by archaeology, geography, and interpretations of early Jewish and Christian writers, particularly Josephus. The material about the Talpiot tomb, which Tabor contends is almost assuredly the tomb of Jesus and his family, makes a sensational, exciting popular read. But publishing this material so early and collaborating on a Discovery Channel documentary rushed its study and turned it into bad scholarship and slapdash science. Its overconfidence in its conclusions is due to lack of peer review. I’m still glad I read this book, and I admire its enthusiastic ecumenical spirit, but I’m pretty disappointed in its optimistic conclusions after reading learned responses to it. You can read much more about academia’s early 2008 reaction to Tabor’s work and his collaboration on a TV documentary in the set of links given in this blog post: http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=482