Vision and Voice: Revelatory Experience in the Formation of Christian Identity by Mark D. Batluck (review)

Abstract

ogy and philosophy that often shade our interpretations and intuitions related to historical investigations. The second reason is due to the information overload, hyper-pluralism, and fragmented nature of contemporary biblical studies as it relates to the historical quests for Jesus. A. is thoroughly immersed in this world, and he emphasizes the difficulty of arriving at certain conclusions in the attempt to decide whether the evidence points decidedly in favor of Jesus’s physical resurrection. Because I found myself agreeing with most of A.’s newest book, I can no longer accept many of the arguments and conclusions that I made in previous publications on this subject (most of my works were aligned with the apologetic viewpoint). I also do not see how a book review or full-length response article to A’s exceptional book can do complete justice to all the nuances and intricately laced arguments that are scattered in this text from beginning to end. Though my contributions to the historical approach to the resurrection have been modest, I see A.’s newest book as the scholarly standard that future studies must consult in the attempt to argue for or against the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.