Christian apologists work hard to defend the resurrection of Jesus, despite the woefully poor descriptions of the supposed event in the New Testament. I suspect they could also rise to the challenge of proving that the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella really did transform a pumpkin into a carriage. It's no surprise that the apologetic literature defending the resurrection is enormous, but there has been considerable pushback from secular writers-as well as from religious scholars who can live with a metaphorical understanding of the resurrection. But the task for the curious reader-trying to cut through all this clutter-has been made easy by Robert Conner's The Jesus Cult: 2000 Years of the Last Days. As this title suggests, Conner incisively demonstrates that a crucial element in early Christian belief-the arrival of Jesus on the clouds any day now-is just plain wrong. He also pulls together the New Testament texts that show just how incoherent the resurrection stories are: no wonder the apologists have to work so hard. In his engaging conversational writing style, Conner also shows the on-going damage-into our own times-that the Jesus Cult causes. This book is a must-read, especially for Christians who may be curious enough about their faith to do at least a little due diligence.

David Madison, Ph.D. in Biblical Studies