The Jesus Puzzle by Brenda Watson

Shares the question of knowledge of the historical Jesus, in order to refute sceptics who consider that we can know very little about Him - a useful item for students and ministers

The Jesus Puzzle - Challenging intellectual uncertainty about Jesus (released in February 2023)
By Brenda Watson
Christian Alternative Books, Imprint of John Hunt: £11.99
ISBN: 978-1-80341-012-8
Reviewed by Pieter Lalleman

 
Brenda Watson is a retired historian and educationalist who previously published some other books. She now writes to argue that we can know much about the historical Jesus and because she wants ‘to open up discussion on the historical evidence for the life of Jesus’ (107).

In the first chapter she contends that knowledge of Jesus is important and in the second she provides a brief overview of how theologians have researched the topic (the three ‘quests’ for the historical Jesus, which are further discussed in an appendix on pages 113-117).

Subsequent chapters deal with the methodology of historiography, criticising the undue scepticism and the unscholarly attitudes of theologians who have written about Jesus. Chapter 8 focuses on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. A key claim in chapter 9 is that the exclusion of the possibility that supernatural events happen is itself a faith decision.
 
Watson argues that historical sources always deserve the benefit of the doubt, that historical events are always unique and that the major facts must always be properly connected in a convincing explanation; she then applies these principles to Jesus-studies in a very general way, without discussing the actual information we have about Jesus. She refers regularly to Leopold von Ranke, while many ancient and contemporary examples clarify the argument. 
 
Watson is justly critical of much research into to historical Jesus, even by famous theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann and Bart Ehrman, but she is in no way a fundamentalist. Her historian’s mind disagrees with the toppling of the statue of Edward Colson because it fails to see him in the frame of his time; several times she criticises the woke culture. She also discusses climate change in an (unhelpful) digression.
 
The Jesus Puzzle is based on much good research and on good sources; there are six pages of bibliography! The book is reasonably well written and always clear but it should have been proofread better. It may be too abstract for most church members because it says far more about historiography than about (the evidence for) Jesus himself, but it will be useful for (not just theological) students and ministers. A nice Christmas present for thinkers.
 

The Revd Dr Pieter J. Lalleman is the minister of Knaphill Baptist Church, having previously taught at Spurgeon's College for more than 20 years