A last look at Keller's book

This will be the last blog on Timothy Keller's book, The Reason for God. So far I have covered the first six chapters, which offer various defenses of the Christian faith. This blog will take on the challenge by secularists who say that you can't take the Bible literally.

The author tells an interesting story about Anne Rice, famous as the writer of Interview with the Vampire and other horror/erotica books. She started out as a Catholic but lost her faith at a secular college. After wild success at writing vampire books, Rice announced she had returned to Christianity. Why? She had initially accepted recent scholarship that offered historical reconstructions of the early Christianity. This scholarship suggested there were new gospels and that most of the classic Christian teachings about Jesus were mistaken and based on legends. Then she did her own research. She says she was amazed at how weak this recent scholarship is: "Some books were no more than assumptions piled on assumptions... Conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all... I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I've ever read."

Keller takes on scholars who argue that the Bible is a historically unreliable collection of legends. He specifically points out the Jesus Seminar, a group of people who say very little of Jesus sayings and actions can be historically validated. They believe the New Testament Gospels were written so long after the events that they cannot be trusted. They also believe there were many other gospels that were suppressed by the church in a power play. Does this sound familiar? It's the same message contained in a wildly popular book The Da Vinci Code.

But Keller has strong arguments against these ideas. First, the timing is far too early for the gospels to be legends. Paul's letters, written within 15 to 25 years after the death of Jesus, contain the same basic message that we see in the gospels -- the miracles of Jesus, his claims, the crucifixion, and, most importantly, his resurrection. He cites other authors who say at the time the gospels were written there were still numerous well-known living eyewitnesses to Jesus's teaching and life events. In addition, there is no other alternative gospel that was written as early as the four canonical books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). For example, the Gospel of Thomas is dated no earlier than 175 A.D. Secondly, Keller says there is no evidence the later church created the gospels to support their views since Jesus never takes sides in any debate they were going on in the early church. In addition, the content in the gospels is far too counterproductive for the gospels to be legends. Consider how the disciples are shown -- petty and jealous, slow-witted, and cowards. Another point Keller raises is the literary form of the gospels. It is too detailed to be considered as legend. As support, he uses C. S. Lewis, a world-class literary critic, who said there is a huge difference between gospel accounts and ancient legends. There is irrelevant detail, and the stories often take the limited vantage point of a participant rather than that of an omniscient narrator.

Keller notes another approach by critics is to complain about the Bible's cultural stance. Some see the Bible as outmoded because it seems to support slavery and the subjugation of women. However, in the first-century Roman empire at the time the New Testament was written, there was not a great difference between a slave and the average free person. This was not the slavery of the African slave trade nearly 2000 years later. In Roman times slaves made the same wages as free laborers and often were able to buy themselves out of slavery. Keller says it's arrogant for us to use our time's standard of "progressive" as the plumbline by which we decide which parts of the Bible are valid and which are not.

I have only covered half of Keller's book through these seven blogs. The second half of The Reason for God deals with effective reasons to have a faith in Christianity. This part of the book is well done too, but I want to move on to other topics. This book is for both Christians and non-Christians alike -- check it out for yourself.