Publisher's Synopsis
Dan Brown's International best-seller The DaVinci Code has raised many questions in the minds of readers. The DaVinci Code, in blurring the lines between fact and fiction, popularizes the speculations and contentions of numerous more serious books that are also attracting wide attention. How should we respond to such claims that we now have documents that reveal secrets about Jesus, secrets long suppressed by the church and other religious institutions? Do these new documents successfully debunk traditional views about Jesus and early Christianity? Ben Witherington confronts these claims with the sure-footedness of a New Testament scholar, yet in the plain language than any interested reader can follow. He takes us back to the early centuries after Jesus? death and tells us what we really can know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the canonical Gospels and their Gnostic rivals. Review: ?In these few pages, an eminent New Testament scholar not only explodes the follies of the Da Vinci Code but also dissects the claims of certain scholars to find in the Gnostic gospels a historically authentic Jesus and an alternative Christianity. Timely and compelling.? William Lane Craig, coauthor of ?Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up