The central theological claim of Christianity, that Jesus is God incarnate, finds eager detractors across a wide spectrum—from scholars who interpret Jesus as a prophet, angel, or guru to adherents of progressive Christianity and non-Christian religions and philosophies. Yet thorough biblical scholarship strongly supports the historic Christian teaching on the deity of Christ. Authors Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski follow the approach of their landmark 2007 study on the same topic, Putting Jesus in His Place. They focus on five pillars of New Testament teaching, using the acronym HANDS, and demonstrate what both Jesus and the earliest believers recognized, namely, that Jesus shares in the:
● Honors that are due God
● Attributes of God
● Names of God
● Deeds that God does
● Seat of God's eternal throne
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics engages objections to the divine identity of Jesus from Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, progressive Christians, Muslims, Unitarians, and others. Bowman and Komoszewski show how biblical scholarship cannot reasonably ignore the enduring, wide-ranging, and positive case for the deity of Christ.
The central theological distinctive of Christianity—that Jesus is God incarnate—has repeatedly come under fire from adherents to other religions and scholars who interpret Jesus as a prophet, angel, or guru. Putting Jesus in His Place is designed to introduce Christians to the wealth of biblical teaching on the deity of Christ. Using evidence from the New Testament, this book helps listeners appreciate the significance of Christ's deity in a personal relationship with Him, and gives them the confidence to share the truth about Jesus with others. The book is divided into five sections,
each corresponding to an aspect of the New Testament's revelation of Jesus as God, and using an acronym based on the letters in the word HANDS:
● H—Honors (Jesus shares the honors that are due God)
● A—Attributes (Jesus shares the attributes of God)
● N—Names (Jesus shares the names of God)
● D—Deeds (Jesus shares the deeds that God does)
● S—Seat (Jesus shares the seat of God's eternal throne)
Putting Jesus in His Place engages objections to the divine identity of Jesus Christ from several other religious perspectives. Its emphasis throughout, however, is on the positive case for the deity of Christ.
From the worldwide phenomenon of The Da Vinci Code to the national bestseller Misquoting Jesus, popular culture is being bombarded with radical skepticism about the uniqueness of Christ and the reliability of the New Testament. Reinventing Jesus cuts through the rhetoric of extreme doubt expressed by these and several other contemporary voices to reveal the profound credibility of historic Christianity. Meticulously researched, thoroughly documented, yet eminently understandable, this book invites a wide audience to take a firsthand look at the solid, reasonable, and clearly defensible evidence for Christianity's origins. Reinventing Jesus shows believers that it's okay to think hard about Christianity, and shows hard thinkers that it's okay to believe.
