Cynic Sage or Son of God?
Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
Not since David Strauss' Life of Jesus shook European Christianity to its foundations in the nineteenth century has any scholarly discussion of the historical Jesus made the impact on a popular level that the Jesus Seminar is presently making in America. Popular magazines have provided a remarkable amount of space for the Jesus Seminar, including Time and Newsweek which made their work cover stories. At the forefront of the movement lies the work of John Dominic Crossan and Burton L. Mack, who have popularized the "Jesus as Cynic sage" view. The growing popularity of this new paradigm should be of significant concern for all who hold to the historic Christian faith.
To date, however, no thorough evangelical response has been provided to these revisionist views of the historical Jesus. This book is written to fill this void. It provides a serious critique of the Cynic thesis, accessible to laypeople and of interest to thoughtful observers. With interest in the "quest for the historical Jesus" continuing anew, Boyd's Cynic Sage or Son of God? provides an orthodox defense of the biblical Jesus.
Gregory A. Boyd (Yale University Divinity School; PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Maplewood, Minnesota and President of Christus Victor Ministries (www.gregboyd.org). He has authored and co-authored twenty books, including The Myth of a Christian Nation and The Jesus Legend (with Paul Eddy).
"Recent years have witnessed several attempts to 'explain away' Jesus as either a first-century rabbi (emphasizing the Jewish connections) or as a wandering Cynic sage (emphasizing the Hellenistic first-century world). Neither does justice to the historical Jesus or to the New Testament documents. It is the Hellenistic set of reconstructions that Gregory Boyd tackles in this important book. For all who are trying to come to terms with this reconstruction, especially as represented in the well-publicized books by John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack, this volume is invaluable."
-- D.A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
"John Dominic Crossan and Burton L. Mack have proved enormously influential in recent years with their radical views on a Jesus, as Cynic sage, who bore only remote resemblance to the Christ of the Gospels. Gregory Boyd offers the most thorough demolitions of their theories to date. He has mastered a vast secondary literature and selected from it judiciously. Boyd thus presents clearly compelling counterarguments, which open the door once again to belief in the general trustworthiness of the New Testament portraits of Jesus."
-- Craig L. Blomberg, Denver Seminary
"Boyd's book provides us with a detailed response to the arguments of Crossan, Mack and others about the character of Jesus' ministry and of the early church. His arguments show wide-reaching and careful analysis. I recommend this book to those interested in Jesus as sage and Son of God."
-- Ben Witherington III, Asbury Theological Seminary
"Seldom does one find the kind of painstaking scrutiny and bibliographic competence exhibited by Greg Boyd in Cynic Sage or Son of God? While writing with the careful insight of a scholar intensely concerned with primary sources, Dr. Boyd also reaches the same audience addressed by the Jesus Seminar: general readers interested in the factual basis for the historical Jesus."
-- Gary Habermas, Liberty University
"In the long term, I am sure that Jesus as attested by the four Gospels will stand and reduced portraits of him emanating from the halls of a skeptical academy will be forgotten. However, the short term is the span of our brief life and people can be harmed by widely circulated lies, even of a temporary duration. Therefore, we need what Gregory Boyd has written - a systematic criticism of the Cynic-Jesus hypothesis - to keep the door to faith open to seekers and to allay fears of falsification."
- Clark H. Pinnock, McMaster Divinity School
"The work of the 'Jesus Seminar' in general and John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack in particular constitutes a sharp challenge to the historical foundations of the Christian faith. In this work Gregory Boyd clearly and decisively shows that the view that Jesus was a 'Cynic sage' rests on a tissue of circular argument, implausible speculation, and dubious philosophical assumptions. This book is full of good sense and good arguments."
- C. Stephen Evans, Calvin College