Craig Keener's The Historical Jesus of the Gospels provides a defining argument leveraging an exhaustive amount of textual and historical evidence for the authenticity of the gospels' portrayal of Christ.
Known as an expert in ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman sources relating to the New Testament, Keener argues. In The Historical Jesus of the Gospels that the picture of Jesus presented in the Synoptic Gospels is far more plausible than many scholars give them credit for, and that the picture they paint is far more coherent than theories offered by the competing evidence proffered and reconstructed by modern scholarship.
As always Keener is exhaustive in both research and scope (the book contains 9 Appendices and over 500 pages of notes and citations) and examines evidence from the ancient world, and the Gospels themselves with world class scholarly precision. This book is ideal for graduate courses on the Synoptic Gospels that are especially concerned to deal with the question of the Historical Jesus, the events of his life, or the accuracy of the Synoptic witness. Slightly Imperfect.
