What do you think?
Rate this book
Manifested in the Flesh: How the Historical Evidence of Jesus Refutes Modern Mystics and Skeptics
In Manifested in the Flesh, author Joel McDurmon illustrates the uniqueness, richness, and importance of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ. Drawing from Scripture, the Early Church Fathers, ancient history, and the most recent of New Testament scholarship, this timely and lively work presents the robust truth of Christ and exposes the lies of modern pagans, atheists, and New-Age attacks on the gospel.
- GenresTheology
213 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2007
1 person is currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Joel McDurmon
41 books65 followersJoel McDurmon, Ph.D. in Theology from Pretoria University, is the Director of Research for American Vision. He has authored seven books and also serves as a lecturer and regular contributor to the American Vision website. He joined American Vision's staff in the June of 2008. Joel and his wife and four sons live in Dallas, Georgia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 30, 2021
Excellent! If I would have read this in 2007 when it first came out, I would have avoided a decade plus-long nagging doubt that he thoroughly addresses in this book.
But before I get to that, I must say this book does the job and more!
The section on the errors of Nietzsche was an expected bonus. His atheism didn’t exist in a vacuum but rather was very reliant on prior pagan thinking. That was complete news to me. And I liked Nietzsche. I thought he was intellectually consistent.
I gave atheism and non-believers way too much credit than they deserved. One thing I realized over time is that non-believers and even Christian cults have one thing in common: Biblical illiteracy.
I say that because I was one of them. And I read the Bible the way they did. But I see the illiteracy— and thus absurdity— of it all. Reading this book will bring you much closer to Biblical literacy. I
t seems like more and more nonbelievers have some special strand of misinterpretation that they hold on to.
The one special strand that I was holding on to — and this was my nagging doubt — was that old misunderstanding of Justin Martyr.
According to popular myth-understanding, Martyr saw the vast amount of pagan religions of his day that had allegedly similar characteristics as Christianity and he in desperation rationalized it by saying the devil created counterfeits of Christianity and Old Testament religion.
What skeptics are getting at is that early Christianity allegedly borrowed from pagan religions and Martyr (100 A.D. - 165 A.D.) provided a damning and desperate quote to support that.
It turns out the popular myth-understanding of Justin Martyr’s comments on the pagan religions that Paul and others allegedly borrowed from was a gross misquotation and over interpretation of his actual comments. But I’ll let you read McDurmon and follow the unraveling of this myth yourself.
Paul was not a pagan thinker nor borrows from pagan religions and McDurmon thoroughly addresses that.
Paul was a rabbi and Pharisee that was steeped in biblical concepts such as the Torah, Prophets, and Writings and the “Age to Come” and all of what we call the “Old Testament.” Paul was a genius that continued the message of the risen Lord Jesus and didn’t invent a thing. McDurmon raises this fact and that’s really the nail in the coffin for the “Pagan copycat” thesis of Christianity.
I want to bring this closer to home — closer than it’s already been.
My church just had a meeting where one homeschooling family complained that the quality of reformed homeschooling material — and specifically the theological material — is extremely lacking. I’d add this book to any homeschooling curriculum, high school curriculum, or college course.
Following the footnotes will lead to a decent apologetics library.
I was surprised by the reliance on N.T. Wright’s work as the author is a reformed guy but McDurmon’s use makes me want to dive into them as well. I’m familiar with Wright’s other work and was already a fan but didn’t realized his cited work in this book was such a death knell to the aforementioned copycat thesis.
The case against Christ gets slimmer and slimmer to non-existent.
But before I get to that, I must say this book does the job and more!
The section on the errors of Nietzsche was an expected bonus. His atheism didn’t exist in a vacuum but rather was very reliant on prior pagan thinking. That was complete news to me. And I liked Nietzsche. I thought he was intellectually consistent.
I gave atheism and non-believers way too much credit than they deserved. One thing I realized over time is that non-believers and even Christian cults have one thing in common: Biblical illiteracy.
I say that because I was one of them. And I read the Bible the way they did. But I see the illiteracy— and thus absurdity— of it all. Reading this book will bring you much closer to Biblical literacy. I
t seems like more and more nonbelievers have some special strand of misinterpretation that they hold on to.
The one special strand that I was holding on to — and this was my nagging doubt — was that old misunderstanding of Justin Martyr.
According to popular myth-understanding, Martyr saw the vast amount of pagan religions of his day that had allegedly similar characteristics as Christianity and he in desperation rationalized it by saying the devil created counterfeits of Christianity and Old Testament religion.
What skeptics are getting at is that early Christianity allegedly borrowed from pagan religions and Martyr (100 A.D. - 165 A.D.) provided a damning and desperate quote to support that.
It turns out the popular myth-understanding of Justin Martyr’s comments on the pagan religions that Paul and others allegedly borrowed from was a gross misquotation and over interpretation of his actual comments. But I’ll let you read McDurmon and follow the unraveling of this myth yourself.
Paul was not a pagan thinker nor borrows from pagan religions and McDurmon thoroughly addresses that.
Paul was a rabbi and Pharisee that was steeped in biblical concepts such as the Torah, Prophets, and Writings and the “Age to Come” and all of what we call the “Old Testament.” Paul was a genius that continued the message of the risen Lord Jesus and didn’t invent a thing. McDurmon raises this fact and that’s really the nail in the coffin for the “Pagan copycat” thesis of Christianity.
I want to bring this closer to home — closer than it’s already been.
My church just had a meeting where one homeschooling family complained that the quality of reformed homeschooling material — and specifically the theological material — is extremely lacking. I’d add this book to any homeschooling curriculum, high school curriculum, or college course.
Following the footnotes will lead to a decent apologetics library.
I was surprised by the reliance on N.T. Wright’s work as the author is a reformed guy but McDurmon’s use makes me want to dive into them as well. I’m familiar with Wright’s other work and was already a fan but didn’t realized his cited work in this book was such a death knell to the aforementioned copycat thesis.
The case against Christ gets slimmer and slimmer to non-existent.
October 16, 2011
The critics do get one thing right: "Contemporary Christians are largely ignorant of the origins of their religion." If we are to stop the influence of New-Age and atheistic attacks on our culture, then we must educate our families and our flocks.
Chapter 2 McDurmon gives an overview of the most well known of the mystery religions. He discusses the origins and personages related to each religion, the known parts of their rituals and their comparison, or lack there of, to doctrines of the Christian faith. He even discusses the fact that later in church history, some pagan practices were adopted and reinterpreted by the Church as a form of special discipleship.
Chapter 3 addresses how the early Church Fathers dealt with accusations that Christianity was derived from pagan religions. They knew the Old Testament and continually went back to the Garden, Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms to show the roots of the promises which Jesus fulfilled in the flesh. Because of this they also understood the underlying history behind all religion, pagan and Christian -- fallen humanity.
Chapter 4 introduces two claims of skeptics on Paul’s teaching of Jesus. The first which is Paul's teachings about Jesus are void of any reference to Jesus as an earthly, historical person, presenting Him rather as a heavenly/mythological figure is addressed in this chapter. McDurmon shows not only did Paul present Jesus as an historical person, he preached Jesus crucified and resurrected as the basis for the gospel.
Chapter 5 A second claim of skeptics about Paul's teaching of Jesus is Paul was primarily a Hellenistic thinker and his mind was shaped by Greek philosophy and religion. So far it has been shown that while Paul did quote Greek literature, his background was purely Jewish and when he used this in conjunction with Greek literature it was to show that Jesus is the One and true Living God; the fulfillment of OT prophecy. The remainder of Chapter 5 continues the discussion of Paul's Jewish background and includes a discussion on his teachings not from just a Jew's understanding, but in a manner that Greeks could relate to, thereby being all things to all people that he might save some. Chapter 5 shows that Paul knew a historical Jesus and he knew him within God's salvation history founded in the Old Testament.
Chapter 6 deals with the ethical responsibility of scholars to deal with all known data on any given subject faithfully, with integrity, patience, and a desire to get to the bottom of the facts, even when those facts may challenge or discredit the theory they set out to prove. The example is given of skeptics paralleling Christian doctrines to Euripides playwright "The Bacchanals" written in 5 B.C.
Chapter 7 relies heavily on Bruce Metzger's "Methodology in the Study of Mystery Religions and Early Christianity" and enumerates many more instances in which the basic ethical criteria for scholarship has been ignored, allowing the claims of parallels and Christian thievery to continue to spread. The many cases of error and fallacy presented, illustrates that the mystery religion theory is completely implausible.
Chapter 8 addresses the incarnation of God, defining what it meant for Jesus to be fully God and fully man, and the necessity for God having come in the form of man. The latter half discusses fallen man's innate desire to continually strive for something better than his current state. Man knows something is wrong, his condition is not normal; in fact it is so abnormal that it requires something drastic to fix it.
Chapter 9 addresses the implications of the incarnation, showing that the Son of God descended and manafested himself in the flesh. He thereby revealed God perfectly to men, revealed man perfectly to man, and represented man perfectly to God.
Chapter 10 God-haters try to destroy the Church in every way imaginable. They put her to the fire criticism, but stone will not burn; they swing the wrecking ball of slander, but her walls are too thick. Atheism is the sore loser, it has been blind sided by the truth. Christ conquered death forever. The Kingdom then started small and undetected and a grew into the most imposing force in world history.
Appendix 1 addresses the presuppositions scholars, and people in general, use when approaching Biblical studies. In the end it is not a Baur, or a Bultmann, but every Word of God that feeds us.
Appendix 2 addresses the writings of Franz Cumont and the influence it had over much of the scholarly world for the next 70 years.
Appendix 3 is a short critique of the book "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?" by Timothy Feels and Peter Gandy, in which McDurmon shows that from the front cover of the book to its conclusion, it is one fallacious assertion after another. Even other writers of pagan religions find this book to be far from impressive.
Appendix 4 is The Apology of Aristides. It is the earliest known apologetic outside the New Testament writings and is dated around A.D. 125. It is addressed to Caesar Titus Hadrianus Antoninus asking why Christians are persecuted for their pure beliefs when pagans who are guilty of all kinds of debauchery live in peace. There is evidence that Aristides plea was effective.
Chapter 2 McDurmon gives an overview of the most well known of the mystery religions. He discusses the origins and personages related to each religion, the known parts of their rituals and their comparison, or lack there of, to doctrines of the Christian faith. He even discusses the fact that later in church history, some pagan practices were adopted and reinterpreted by the Church as a form of special discipleship.
Chapter 3 addresses how the early Church Fathers dealt with accusations that Christianity was derived from pagan religions. They knew the Old Testament and continually went back to the Garden, Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms to show the roots of the promises which Jesus fulfilled in the flesh. Because of this they also understood the underlying history behind all religion, pagan and Christian -- fallen humanity.
Chapter 4 introduces two claims of skeptics on Paul’s teaching of Jesus. The first which is Paul's teachings about Jesus are void of any reference to Jesus as an earthly, historical person, presenting Him rather as a heavenly/mythological figure is addressed in this chapter. McDurmon shows not only did Paul present Jesus as an historical person, he preached Jesus crucified and resurrected as the basis for the gospel.
Chapter 5 A second claim of skeptics about Paul's teaching of Jesus is Paul was primarily a Hellenistic thinker and his mind was shaped by Greek philosophy and religion. So far it has been shown that while Paul did quote Greek literature, his background was purely Jewish and when he used this in conjunction with Greek literature it was to show that Jesus is the One and true Living God; the fulfillment of OT prophecy. The remainder of Chapter 5 continues the discussion of Paul's Jewish background and includes a discussion on his teachings not from just a Jew's understanding, but in a manner that Greeks could relate to, thereby being all things to all people that he might save some. Chapter 5 shows that Paul knew a historical Jesus and he knew him within God's salvation history founded in the Old Testament.
Chapter 6 deals with the ethical responsibility of scholars to deal with all known data on any given subject faithfully, with integrity, patience, and a desire to get to the bottom of the facts, even when those facts may challenge or discredit the theory they set out to prove. The example is given of skeptics paralleling Christian doctrines to Euripides playwright "The Bacchanals" written in 5 B.C.
Chapter 7 relies heavily on Bruce Metzger's "Methodology in the Study of Mystery Religions and Early Christianity" and enumerates many more instances in which the basic ethical criteria for scholarship has been ignored, allowing the claims of parallels and Christian thievery to continue to spread. The many cases of error and fallacy presented, illustrates that the mystery religion theory is completely implausible.
Chapter 8 addresses the incarnation of God, defining what it meant for Jesus to be fully God and fully man, and the necessity for God having come in the form of man. The latter half discusses fallen man's innate desire to continually strive for something better than his current state. Man knows something is wrong, his condition is not normal; in fact it is so abnormal that it requires something drastic to fix it.
Chapter 9 addresses the implications of the incarnation, showing that the Son of God descended and manafested himself in the flesh. He thereby revealed God perfectly to men, revealed man perfectly to man, and represented man perfectly to God.
Chapter 10 God-haters try to destroy the Church in every way imaginable. They put her to the fire criticism, but stone will not burn; they swing the wrecking ball of slander, but her walls are too thick. Atheism is the sore loser, it has been blind sided by the truth. Christ conquered death forever. The Kingdom then started small and undetected and a grew into the most imposing force in world history.
Appendix 1 addresses the presuppositions scholars, and people in general, use when approaching Biblical studies. In the end it is not a Baur, or a Bultmann, but every Word of God that feeds us.
Appendix 2 addresses the writings of Franz Cumont and the influence it had over much of the scholarly world for the next 70 years.
Appendix 3 is a short critique of the book "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?" by Timothy Feels and Peter Gandy, in which McDurmon shows that from the front cover of the book to its conclusion, it is one fallacious assertion after another. Even other writers of pagan religions find this book to be far from impressive.
Appendix 4 is The Apology of Aristides. It is the earliest known apologetic outside the New Testament writings and is dated around A.D. 125. It is addressed to Caesar Titus Hadrianus Antoninus asking why Christians are persecuted for their pure beliefs when pagans who are guilty of all kinds of debauchery live in peace. There is evidence that Aristides plea was effective.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews