Divinity of Christ, Apologetics, the Resurrection 

To many in this country, Jean Guitton, with his loyalty to the Newman tradition and many contacts with English life and thought, will now need no introduction. In France, his reputation has been steadily growing as a philosopher of religion, and as an outstanding figure in the literary world he recently had the distinction of being awarded the Grand Prix de Litterature by the French Academy.

The Problem of Jesus is his own abridgement for English readers of his two volumes on Le Probleme de Jesus, published respectively in 1948 and 1953.

The first part considers the evidence and its historical value. It aims at supplying, what has so far been lacking to biblical criticism, at any race consciously, a philosophy. It is, in fact, a "criticism of criticism", in the course of which the conclusions of the negative and the "mythical" schools are each in turn examined and found wanting. Having vindicated the general reliability of the documents, he then proceeds, in the second and third parts, to consider what have always been the two fundamental issues: Divinity and Resurrection: "the two facts", it has been said, "which, impinging as they do on both metaphysics and history, condition the problem of Jesus".

A failure among Christian apologists in the past has been that of not entering fully into the state of mind of the "unbeliever of good will", one who has grown up in a non-Christian tradition, but is fundamentally sincere, open to argument and genuinely willing to be guided by reason. M. Guitton postulates such a hypothetical "freethinker", and has cast his book in the form of his supposed "diary". This literary device enables the reader to follow the progress of this true "rationalist", as he gradually passes from negation and doubt to increasing assurance and eventual certitude.

Taken from the inside front flap.