(1) This pseudointellectual deconstruction of the New Testament has been going on for four centuries now - it didn't start with Voltaire.
(2) Since the initiation of this critique archaeologists and historians have discovered mountains of fascinating data about the first century of which the people of the 1600s/1700s had no knowledge.
(3) Despite centuries of criticism and the discovery of so much new, hard data the deconstructionists have actually lost ground.
Did after dig, ancient document after ancient document, the hard research either corroborates or does not contradict the New Testament accounts. Yet hard research has discredited theory after deconstructionist theory.
(5) And so the deconstructionists have had to abandon any sewrious, scholarly analysis and have resorted to the methods of the Jesus Seminar: i.e. deconstructionists vote among themselves as to what they think really happened. Imagine this happening in any other discipline - it's preposterous.
The theories of the deconstructionist critics are indefensible and that is why they continue to wax shriller and more offensive.
The future of Scripture scholarship belongs to the orthodox.
Good post.
We need go no further than the scripture, since some accept portions of the OLD. Any Bible scholar worth his/her salt could very easily take the OLD and give veracity to what is written in the NEW.