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(4) But what of Tabor's claim that Paul got his gospel entirely on the basis of the revelation he received from Jesus and did not link to the other leaders of the church? This also ignores a very crucial text, 1 Corinthians 15:3-5. I note this text not because it is biblical, but because it gives us an autobiographical statement. Paul says that the gospel he preached is something he received just as those in Corinth did. Paul is saying what he teaches as the gospel is what the church teaches as the gospel. More than that, he says that he received this teaching from the church. How did this take place if Paul in Galatians said his understanding of Jesus came from direct revelation?  This is easy to answer. When Paul saw the exalted Jesus and was converted, he had to have known the church's preached message in order to understand the experience. He would have heard that preaching from the believers he persecuted, figures like Peter and Stephen. This means that he knew what the gospel was when he persecuted it. The "Jewish" wall Tabor wishes to build between Paul and the other leaders never existed. They did clash on occasion about specific practices and the implications of living this message consistently, as seen in Galatians and Acts, but not in a way that was as irreconcilable as Tabor claims.

Four major historical problems exist with Tabor's portrait beyond the mere worldview issues that drive his portrait. It is ironic that what Tabor's study represents is a type of reverse Marcionism. Whereas Marcion in the second century wished to reduce and remove those Jewish features tied to Christianity, Tabor, by reducing the status of Paul and the books of Luke and Acts, rejects those very books Marcion wanted to keep. Perhaps the solution is to reject both the approach of Marcion, who shut out the Jewishness of early Christianity, and the approach of Tabor, who in seeking to maintain the Jewishness leaves out the contribution of the most Jewish-instructed of all the apostles, Paul.

Above all, one can see there was no dynastic line in this movement. All our earliest sources (what historians are supposed to rely on the most) show that Jesus was seen as a unique, exalted figure—not the first in a line of rulers, but the Son of God.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty is available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

More about Tabor and his project the Jewish Roman World of Jesus is available from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Other articles by Darrell Bock include:

Q&A: Darrell Bock | CT spoke with Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary research professor of New Testament and author of the forthcoming The Missing Gospels (Nelson), about the stir caused by the Gospel of Judas release in early April. (May 10, 2006)

The Jesus and Judas Papers: A Look at Recent Claims about Jesus | Questions about history may be sincere, but make no mistake: There is an agenda at work. (April 13, 2006)

The Politics of the People of God | The Church has a unique role to play in our politicized culture. (Sept. 7, 2005)

Jesus and Paul: Looking at a Journalistic Approach to Christianity's Beginnings | A full review of ABC's Jesus and Paul: The Word and the Witness (April 6, 2004)

The Good News of Da Vinci | How a ludicrous book can become an opportunity to engage the culture. (Jan. 5, 2004)

Seeing Light After the Smoky Darkness of the Trade Towers Collapse | The spiritual war against terrorism is the war against the sinful heart and its allegiances. (Sept. 13, 2002)

When Sin Reigns | An event like this shows us what humans are capable of becoming—both as children of darkness and of light. (Sept. 13, 2001)

No More Hollow Jesus | In focusing so intently on Jesus the man, Peter Jennings' report missed the big picture. (July 3, 2000)

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May (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50