I am in hearty agreement with Fred Sanders’ critique of Larry Crabb’s new book on gender. The connections that Crabb makes between Trinitarian doctrine and gender roles seem to be entirely speculative and not founded in what the scriptures actually say. In short, Crabb’s paradigm is unmoored from the Bible, and Sanders has shown the flawed basis of Crabb’s thesis. Having said that, there’s one detail in Sanders’ critique that I would take exception with. I’m reluctant to mention it because I’m a big fan of Sanders. He’s one of the bright lights of evangelical theology and has produced some remarkable work on the Trinity. If you haven’t read his…

I think John Dickson may have written the most devastating review of Reza Aslan’s book that I have seen yet. It’s lengthy and does not pull any punches. He catalogues the errors and exaggerations and shows how Aslan’s conclusions are well outside the mainstream of historical scholarship on Jesus. But there is one particular bit at the end that I thought was telling. Dickson writes, For a brief moment, Reza Aslan will be heralded as a breakthrough author. In a month or so, some other theory, equally unsubstantiated and certainly contradictory, will get the same kind of airtime. Such works are generally ignored by working scholars, who tend to be…

Craig Evans is at the top of the heap as far as scholars of the Gospels go, and he has a review at Christianity Today that eviscerates Reza Aslan’s book Zealot. Evans says Aslan’s book makes numerous historical errors, relies on an outdated thesis, ignores the testimony of eyewitnesses, and forces Jesus and Paul into a theological cagematch. In short, it’s a bad book. Here’s an excerpt from the review: There are numerous problems with Zealot, not least the fact that it heavily relies on an outdated and discredited thesis. But it also introduces a number of its own novel oddities and implausibilities. Aslan has canvassed much of the responsible scholarship…