FastTracts

At Easter, major magazines and blogs will publish articles claiming to tell us who Jesus was. Every few weeks we see a new book making similar claims. Is it possible to know? In Who Is Jesus? Allan Bevere addresses this question from the point of view of a person of faith who takes seriously the gospels and early Christian tradition as documentation of events and of serious theological reflection on those events. According to Bevere, Christian theology was neither an invention, nor a set of random speculations unrelated to reality. Rather, they were the response of early Christianity to the experience of Jesus and the historical pictures as presented in the canonical gospels. From a discussion of the Old Testament record piecing together the puzzle of biblical messianic prophecy through illumination of the Christological controversies of the first five centuries of Christian history, and then back to the four portraits of Jesus given to us in the canonical gospels, this book provides a clear description of how orthodox Christian scholarship can bring together the varied evidence in order to present a coherent theological picture of the Jesus of history. As Bevere contends, history and theology are not easily separated, but are two threads that create an interwoven tapestry in which events have meaning.

What would it look like if the expression "God-incidence" was, embodied in a novel? It might well be, titled Family Secrets. In this fast-paced novel combining romance, intrigue, adventure, and yes, theology, Nancy Petrey brings to life the questions of God's guidance, miracles, and the difficulties of standing as one of the faithful in a difficult time. She also addresses issues of antisemitism, love, forgiveness, and redemption. As her characters explore their Jewish roots, the action moves from Mississippi State University, to churches and synagogues, to homes in New York City, to the Land of Israel, the action never stops. Though this is fiction, the history is carefully researched, and the book features Dr. Michael Brown, the world's foremost Messianic Jewish apologist and author, whose ideas and teaching are influential. This book is fun, educational, and profoundly, challenging.