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If Jesus and freedom have a profound, if complex, relationship, Jesus and democracy are considerably more problematic. In the hands of democrats, Jesus has taken on form after ever-expanding form. Prothero's quip is cute but discerning: The American Jesus was "born in Jefferson's White House and raised by evangelical and liberal Protestants," but then "turned his back on his Christian upbringing and struck out on his own in multi-religious America."

Predictably, as scholarship rooted in traditional Christian affirmations has deepened, hundreds of books have appeared to combat the wayward turn of a people that increasingly identify themselves as "spiritual" but not "religious." The rigor of those mounting arguments is impressive, and the authors pull no rhetorical punches. In Fabricating Jesus (InterVarsity Press), Craig A. Evans, New Testament professor at Acadia Divinity College, places his scholarly bona fides against those of the Jesus Seminar and calls their errors "egregious and legion." In What Have They Done with Jesus? (HarperSanFrancisco), the prolific Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, continues to engage in the Jesus wars. He argues that, contra much recent scholarship, none of the textual variants of New Testament writings provide "hard evidence" that "the virginal conception, crucifixion, bodily resurrection of Jesus, or even the Trinity" were developed much later by those trying to establish what became known as orthodoxy.

Beware the "scholarly consensus" so treasured by critics, these scholars warn: That consensus is founded on what Witherington dubs the "'justification by doubt' factor" and conditioned by today's skeptical—indeed, cynical—climate.

In a formidable piece of scholarship, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans), University of Saint Andrews historian Richard Bauckham says essentially the same thing. He meticulously rips away what he regards as specious modern conceptions of the ancient world. The eyewitnesses to the life of Christ—the living voices—"remained accessible sources and authoritative guarantors of their own testimony throughout the period between Jesus and the writing of the Gospels," he contends. He wants to dispel the still-dominant impression that there existed a "long period of creative development of the traditions before they attained written form in the Gospels." This view, he declares, is no longer defensible, and he provides a plausible account of real people living in actual communities who devoted themselves to preserving a record of truly remarkable events.

"It is hard to see," says Bauckham, "how Christian faith and theology can work with a radically distrusting attitude to the Gospels." Risking opprobrium in the land of "scholarly consensus," Bauckham, Witherington, and Evans badly want this faith and theology to work. They want to permit its living voice to speak into an age cluttered with voices. Our minds addled and our hearts tethered, we listen desperately for the voice that whispers our name, that tells us who we are and what we are for, that frees us from a way of life that teaches little about life.

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June 2007, Vol. 51, No. 6