Darrell L. Bock - The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities

THE MISSING GOSPELS

PRAISE FOR
THE MISSING GOSPELS

Darrell Bock has written a timely and valuable study for anyone curious about the question of lost or missing gospels. Cutting his way through a great deal of hype and misinformation, he provides a solid, scholarly grounding to the early history and development of the gospel traditions. In the process, he makes nonsense of theories that Gnostic texts in any sense represented the suppressed core of Christian truth, concealed by a sinister institutional church. A breath of sanity!

PHILIP JENKINS
Professor of History and Religious
Studies, Pennsylvania State
University

This is not another lame Christian paperback whose chief purpose will be to steady a wobbly table. No! This is first-rate scholarship translated into clear, readable prose. It is classic Bock.

JAY SMITH
Assistant Professor of New
Testament Studies, Dallas
Theological Seminary

A necessary book that corrects many still fashionable but even more questionable hypotheses about the origin of the Gospels, the Nag Hammadi texts, and the development of Christian theology in the first two centuries AD.

PROF. DR. MARTIN HENGEL
Professor Emeritus of New
Testament and Ancient Judaism,
University of Tbingen, Germany

Every generation has its hawkers of wondrous new discoveries that amazingly everyone else has missed, but which, thanks to a few enlightened individuals, will dramatically rewrite history. But the vast majority of these headline-grabbing fancies evaporate under more sober scrutiny. Darrell Bocks careful book shows why recent sensationalist claims based on the Gnostic gospels are no different.

RIKK E. WATTS
Associate Professor of New
Testament Studies, Regent
College, Vancouver, BC

Darrell Bock follows up here his informed critique of the recent frenzy about The Da Vinci Code with an equally informed and readable discussion of the variety of beliefs and writings of early Christianity. Those who dont want their prejudices disturbed will want to avoid this book. Those with an open mind and readiness to learn from scholarship... read with profit.

LARRY HURTADO
Professor of New Testament
Language, Literature, and
Theology, University of
Edinburgh, Scotland

Jesus and the origins of Christianity are the subjects of extensive media coverage and everyday conversationsa New Testament scholars dream! Yet Jesus is demoted from God to guide, and the early church is said to have been hopelessly divided, even confused, as to whom Jesus was. In his superb book, Darrell Bock patiently, and accessibly, sifts through all the relevant issues and offers much-needed guidance to those who want to discern fact from fiction. If you read only one book on this issue, this is it!

ANDREAS J. KSTENBERGER, PHD
Editor, Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society , Professor of
New Testament and Greek,
Southeastern Baptist Theological
Seminary,Wake Forest, NC

Darrell Bock has produced a much needed antidote to the sensationalist claims made by those touting the discovery of lost gospels. He demolishes the frequently encountered argument that these Gnostic gospels represent the original Christianity and that orthodoxy is only a late development that suppressed earlier viewpoints. Bocks presentation is not a matter of faith against scholarship, but of better scholarship against inferior scholarship. In a non-technical and accessible way, he provides solid evidence that reveals how inflated and ill-founded these current hypotheses are. This book deserves to be read widely and needs to be put in the hands of unsuspecting readers who are being hoodwinked by what some highly recognized scholars are saying.

DONALD A. HAGNER
George Eldon Ladd Professor of
New Testament, Fuller Theological
Seminary, Pasadena, CA

Darrell Bock provides an informed and scholarly critique of the new perspective on Gnosticism and the recently discovered texts from Nag Hammadi. Although he rightly highlights the new scholarships shortcomings, he also has the grace and wisdom to underscore the notable contributions that the new perspective has made to our understanding of early Christianity. Bocks insight into the relevant literatures from antiquity, moreover, is particularly well demonstrated by his claim that most of the alternative texts (e.g., the Nag Hammadi tractates) are less countercultural than the traditional teaching (e.g., the New Testament and early patristic writings); indeed, if the implications of that insight alone are given the attention they deserve, Bocks study could have a salutary impact not only on scholarly debate but also on contemporary Christian theology, ethics, and political practice.

TODD KLUTZ
Senior Lecturer in New Testament
Studies, University of Manchester,
England

Who were the Gnostics, and what did they teach? And was second-century Christianity a mass of contradictory teachings, none of which can claim to truly represent the minds of Jesus and His first followers? Darrell Bock guides the reader clearly through the maze, providing a helpful summary of Gnostic theologies, arguing for the wide spread of the orthodox traditional teaching about Jesus, and showing that attempts to rubbish its claims to authenticity and to relativize its significance are not successful. Theological students, in particular, will be grateful for this careful assessment of early alternative forms of Christianity, based as it is on detailed assessment of the new sources that have come to light over the past half-century or so.

I. HOWARD MARSHALL
Professor Emeritus in New
Testament, University of
Aberdeen, Scotland

A welcome alternative to sensational hype and fictional novels. Here is a clear and readable account on just what these missing gospels are and their real relationship to Christianity.

CRAIG A. BLAISING
Executive Vice
President and Provost, Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, Fort
Worth, TX

Darrell Bock is what theologians should be, accessible. This book tackles a complicated subject matter in an accessible way. The New Testament is simply summarized: Jesus calls us into an intimate union and relationship with Him; then Jesus sends us into the world. The world to which we are sent is different than the one that confronted our parents. With Postmodernism the dominant ideology, Dr. Phil the ever present counselor, Hollywood dabbling in theology and the occult, and Gnosticism making a comeback, we need to tread carefully and learn wisely. Bocks treatment of the texts found at Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic gospels, the claims of Walter Bauer and the new school of theological thought, and facts surrounding the sources of Christianity is fair, clear, thorough, and... accessible. Having read it, I am better equipped to engage a confused and drifting culture, and Im protected against becoming a confused drifter myself.

PETE BRISCOE
Senior Pastor, Bent Tree Bible
Fellowship, Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

In his Breaking the Da Vinci Code , Darrell Bock has already exposed the allegedly factual portion of that novels story of Christian origins for the fiction it really is. But what are we to make of the various Gnostic Gospels that never made it into the Christian canon? Are there sound historical and theological reasons for judging them to be later, inferior, and even distorted versions of the original traditions emanating from Jesus? Or was it all a political power play so that history is just the perspective of the winners? In this volume, Bock answers all these questions, conclusively demonstrating the real nature of Gnostic Christianity, which often doesnt even support the avant-garde convictions of its modern proponents the way they make it out to do. A must-read for anyone caught up in the debate!

CRAIG L. BLOMBERG
Distinguished Professor of New