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Review title: Maccoby the Mythmaker
Product review: Convincingly argued? Sure. Convicingly documented? Hardly.There are two glaring flaws in this book:1) A complete lack of documentation. Claims that go contrary to traditional scholarship are seldom even backed up with addition primary source materials/quotes.2) A tendency to equate "probably" with "definitely." Maccoby likes to deconstruct a particular incident in the NT (the Jerusalem council, for example) and explain why it couldn't possibly have happened this way. Then he explains (with qualifiers like "likely" and "probably") what he believes happened in reality. All fine and good. But later in the book, he often refers back to these reconstructions as now-established historical facts. Thus, his "probablies" become "definitelies."It does raise some important issues, but doesn't resolve anything convincingly.
