Book Review - A Skeleton in God's Closet
When I was in college, one of my required classes was "Critical Thinking", a class dealing with logic and logical fallacies. The teacher liked to use belief in God, and at often Christianity as examples of a thought process full of logical fallacies. I can remember one case, the fallacy of Ignorance I believe, where he said that Theism is a classic case of this, because how can you prove that God does not exist?
I took the question to Jeff, a friend whose opinion I trusted. His reply was very simple and I've never forgotten it. He said, "Sure you could disprove it to a Christian. Produce the body of Jesus Christ".
I just finished a book, recommended to me by my local librarian, that deals with this very topic. Its a few years old, but it was interesting enough that I thought it worth reviewing here. The book is called A Skeleton in God's Closet, by Paul. L. Maier.
As you may have guessed by my introduction, and the title of the book, its a story about an archaeologist who is working at a dig at Rama, near Jerusalem, and finds a skeleton that all evidence points to as being that of Jesus. The book follows this man (a Christian, and the son of a pastor) as he works through the process of verifying the authenticity of his find, hoping each step of the way to find something to convince him - as a scientist - that it is false, and struggling to sort through how he should respond - as a believer - if it turns out to be true.
It also follows the response of the world, and the various Christian communities as word of the find is leaked. There is the full range of response, from liberal theologians who say "See? We always said that it was figurative!", to ultra-fundamentalists who think that the protagonist is the Antichrist himself. Somewhere in the middle is his father, struggling to help his local church deal with it all, and unsure of how to respond to his son.
As a book, the writing is pretty ordinary - nothing special. The story line is somewhat compelling in terms of the character and his journey, but made more compelling by the fact that its such an interesting subject. He does a great job of building the evidence and drawing in the reader, so that I found myself often thinking over what my response would be to such a discovery.
That's the real power of this book, I think - and what made me want to review it here. It not only tells a story, and entertains, but at the same time it makes a Christian reading it work through a certain aspect of their belief system. That, it seems to me, is an important part of "Christian Arts" - to do more than just entertain, but to challenge.
The truth is, that if we're going to prove my "Critical Thinking" teacher wrong, we must be willing to say that there are certain facts, that if proved would force us to abandon our faith. If not, then our beliefs aren't true belief, simply the way we want things to be. If someone did, in fact, ever find the physical remains of Jesus Christ and could prove them authentic, it would be our responsibility - as thinking believers - to change our beliefs.
The good news is that no one has, and I believe they never will. I don't want to give away the end of the book, so I'll leave it at that. Maybe you'll be tempted to pick it up and find out for yourself how it unfolds (or possibly just glance at the last chapter).
I took the question to Jeff, a friend whose opinion I trusted. His reply was very simple and I've never forgotten it. He said, "Sure you could disprove it to a Christian. Produce the body of Jesus Christ".
I just finished a book, recommended to me by my local librarian, that deals with this very topic. Its a few years old, but it was interesting enough that I thought it worth reviewing here. The book is called A Skeleton in God's Closet, by Paul. L. Maier.
As you may have guessed by my introduction, and the title of the book, its a story about an archaeologist who is working at a dig at Rama, near Jerusalem, and finds a skeleton that all evidence points to as being that of Jesus. The book follows this man (a Christian, and the son of a pastor) as he works through the process of verifying the authenticity of his find, hoping each step of the way to find something to convince him - as a scientist - that it is false, and struggling to sort through how he should respond - as a believer - if it turns out to be true.
It also follows the response of the world, and the various Christian communities as word of the find is leaked. There is the full range of response, from liberal theologians who say "See? We always said that it was figurative!", to ultra-fundamentalists who think that the protagonist is the Antichrist himself. Somewhere in the middle is his father, struggling to help his local church deal with it all, and unsure of how to respond to his son.
As a book, the writing is pretty ordinary - nothing special. The story line is somewhat compelling in terms of the character and his journey, but made more compelling by the fact that its such an interesting subject. He does a great job of building the evidence and drawing in the reader, so that I found myself often thinking over what my response would be to such a discovery.
That's the real power of this book, I think - and what made me want to review it here. It not only tells a story, and entertains, but at the same time it makes a Christian reading it work through a certain aspect of their belief system. That, it seems to me, is an important part of "Christian Arts" - to do more than just entertain, but to challenge.
The truth is, that if we're going to prove my "Critical Thinking" teacher wrong, we must be willing to say that there are certain facts, that if proved would force us to abandon our faith. If not, then our beliefs aren't true belief, simply the way we want things to be. If someone did, in fact, ever find the physical remains of Jesus Christ and could prove them authentic, it would be our responsibility - as thinking believers - to change our beliefs.
The good news is that no one has, and I believe they never will. I don't want to give away the end of the book, so I'll leave it at that. Maybe you'll be tempted to pick it up and find out for yourself how it unfolds (or possibly just glance at the last chapter).
posted by | 10:07 AM
3 Comments:
My mom just read that book, she wants me to read it to.
THanks for all of the good info about it:)
anna@www.azerivista.com
I don't know if there's a connection, but the movie "The Body", starring Antonio Banderas, presents almost exactly the same plot. Unforuntately, it doesn't go into as great of detail the reactions of both the secular and religious communities over the matter (though it does touch on it a bit), so I would like to see what A Skeleton In God's Closet predicts.
...And, of course, Paul the Apostle said exactly the same thing as your friend Jeff: "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God...And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men (1 Cor. 15:25-19)."
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