‘JESUS OF HELLENISTIC HISTORY’

I read John Dart’s “The Jesus of Hellenistic History” with interest, but I am at a loss to understand why Dean Borsch’s “The Many Things in Parables” is included with the other three works reviewed. The connection is at best tenuous.

Dart is no doubt right that “even the person in the pew aware of the scholarly pursuit of the historical Jesus would consider the other three writers “preposterous revisionists.” True, he ascribes no such heretical tendencies to our bishop-elect, and he does note that “Many Things in Parables” is much more accessible--less “daunting to the untrained reader”--than the other three books. Nevertheless, I find it unfortunate that this eminently readable, reasonable and orthodox study should be associated with the evidently intentional iconoclasm of the other authors.

SUSAN SKELTON

PASADENA, CALIF.