John Dickson is an Australian pastor, historian, and evangelist. Denny Burk has called Dickson's review of Reza Aslan's book on Jesus "the most devastating" he has read. After reading it myself, I must agree. In fact, if you read only one review of Aslan's best-seller, Dickson is the one to read. Incidentally, Dr. Dickson is a fabulous preacher and apologist. His books are worth reading and the programs he has produced for Australian TV are outstanding.
Check out his review HERE.
"The most disappointing thing about the fanfare accorded to a book like
Zealot is not that it will undermine the Christian faith (it will not);
even less that it poses a challenge to the consensus of working scholars (it
certainly does not). It is that it chips away at the public's confidence in
history per se.
"For a brief moment, Reza Aslan will be heralded as a breakthrough author. In
a month or so, some other theory, equally unsubstantiated and certainly
contradictory, will get the same kind of airtime. Such works are generally
ignored by working scholars, who tend to be suspicious of anything that bypasses
the peer review process.
"The general public, however, over time experiences breakthrough
fatigue - an increasing contempt coupled with a decreasing curiosity toward
any new claim about the man from Nazareth. The net effect is a weary scepticism
that we can know anything about the historical Jesus or about history
at all.
"The Jesus depicted in Zealot is certainly a figment of the
imagination of a professor of creative writing, but he is likely to do concrete
damage to the public's appreciation of a vast and worthwhile academic
discipline. Aslan's Jesus is giving history a bad name."
- John Dickson
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