Is Jesus the Only Savior?

Taking a break from Calvinism for a moment, I have to plug a great book. James Edwards was a mentor to my nephew Troy, who became a Presbyterian pastor, (and leans in the Calvinist direction - but we're still very much on speaking terms!) I had not read anything by Edwards prior to reading Is Jesus the Only Savior? I have to admit I didn't know what to make of the title at first, but after reading it, I suspect it is a book that ought to be looked at by a lot of young college age men who need mentoring, and maybe ought to be a study for high school seniors heading to college.

His book is calm, scholarly, but readable. He takes on the various phases of the "quest for the historical Jesus" by exposing the naturalistic assumptions underneath them. He takes the question further showing that there is a great deal of reason to trust the historical reliability of the New Testament with easy to read, cogent arguments and a judicious choice of compelling evidence. There was new material here that I had never encountered. Josh McDowell and others have produced a volume of information in this regard, but I found items in Edwards book very exciting. Having established the reasonableness of trusting the New Testament, he tackles the central issue - "did Jesus believe himself to be God?"

But what sets the book apart is how he links the rebuttal of "modern" skepticism of the historicity of Christianity with the "after-modern" skepticism about whether Christianity has the right to make exclusive truth claims. This is the epistemological question of the age my sons will have to deal with and I hope I can get them to take a good look at a book like this one.

The one caveat for more conservative evangelicals is that Edwards admits that it is difficult for him to reconcile every detail of the gospels into a perfect harmony, so he does not identify himself as being in the strict inerrantist/fundamentalist camp. Then again, C.S. Lewis was not exactly a fundamentalist and most evangelicals are quite comfortable learning from him.

This is an important, credible and readable book. I hope it gains a wide audience.