Jesus, History, and paving the way for Investigation

Occasionally, I read Dave McDonald's excellent blog. Among other things, he reviews lots of books; and just recently, this one caught my eye: his review of John Dickson's latest, Investigating Jesus: An Historian's Quest.

In general, I'm a big fan of John Dickson's books. But that's not what grabbed my attention.

Here's the thing: around the traps I get the sense that we Christians are generally seen as kinda thoughtless about the reality of the things we believe.

• Are they real? 
• Is there adequate warrant for your beliefs? 
• Can you demonstrate it? 
• Have you investigated it? 
• Are you even willing to engage with criticism?
• Are you equipped to face it?

Perhaps I'm reading it incorrectly, but this expectation/presumption seems to lurk beneath the surface of two areas of discussion:

1. creation/cosmology, and 
2. the historical events of Jesus' life.

Now, that presumption of thoughtlessness encompasses much: blasé disinterest, woolly thinking, vested interest in clinging to out-dated conclusions, fundamentalist/obstructionist opposition to contrary positions,... you get the picture.

With that enormous preamble, here's all I wanted to say: I'm pretty keen to check out Dickson's book, because I reckon I (and 'we') need to become really well-practiced in articulating the historical credibility of our convictions regarding Jesus. Obviously, this isn't evangelism (proper), but it's pretty jolly handy as a preliminary :)