I, Jesus - An Autobiography
More than twenty centuries have come and gone since this extraordinary rabbi walked the territories of his homeland of ancient Israel. Throughout these 2,000 years, the Apostle John’s pronouncement about his teacher that we’ve just quoted has proven to be amazingly prescient: literally thousands of men and women have spoken, instructed, slandered, lectured, theorized, gossiped, libeled, and written regarding the man who called himself “the Good Shepherd.”
Over the last several decades, Dr. Missler and I have contributed in no insignificant way to what has been written about Jesus of Nazareth. Dr. Missler has published dozens of books and has released literally millions of audio and video recordings relating to exposition of the Scriptures as our New Zealand and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho based Koinonia Institute “think tank” has gone about its mission of equipping God’s people with effective tools to defend their faith in what is becoming an increasingly hostile environment for Christians. I’ve addressed a number of annual Strategic Perspectives Conferences on behalf of Koinonia Institute and serve on the Board of Directors of Koinonia House, the publishing arm of the Koinonia Institute. I’ve also served as Executive Director of the ISV Foundation, which produces The Holy Bible: International Standard Version, which I worked on as an Associate Editor and translator of a significant portion of the Hebrew Scriptures.
During late January 2014, Dr. Missler and I were talking about the cultural mythology that affects—or, more accurately, infects—our largely Christ-rejecting culture concerning the person of Jesus of Nazareth. As we continued talking, it occurred to us that perhaps we should address the subject of the person of Jesus himself in some depth. The result of those discussions is this book, which is also the first formal textbook to be produced for Koinonia Institute students and for friends of this ministry throughout the world. Our intention is to release the material contained in this work as a printed book, an eBook in a variety of popular formats, a DVD series, and a PowerPoint presentation suitable for use by teachers of apologetics, which is that branch of systematic theology that deals with the defense of the Christian faith.
The Person of Jesus:
Variants on the Literary Fiction View
Was He a Legend?
Most non-Christians seem to waver between two extremes when it comes to their opinions regarding Jesus of Nazareth. On one extreme, there’s the literary fiction view: some folk say he never existed at all. These people claim that the exalted view of the rabbi from Nazareth that is described within the pages of the New Testament is a historical fiction crafted in later generations many decades after the apostles had died...
