"Today's climate of attack on Christianity has reminded many of the parallels between the hostile pagan environment of the early church and our today. The analogies are very real, including outright persecution of Christians in some areas of the world. But there is one stark difference: ancient infidels might almost be forgiven in view of their totally pagan background, whereas modern antagonists against the faith—many of them educated in a Christian culture and with all the evidence for the reliability of Christianity at their disposal—nevertheless choose the path of apostasy almost in defiance of the evidence. . .
Manifested in the Flesh takes on this group in particular, and author Joel McDurmon does so with careful scholarship, dispassionate research, compelling logic, graceful prose, and even dashes of humor. He easily identifies the methodological chinks in the armor of the attackers and cuts through the tissues of misrepresentation on which they rely so heavily. As for the ancient pagan mystery cults (which, they claim, so heavily influenced Christianity), McDurmon lays bare the excessive, almost frantic search by such critics in trying to find parallels between the cults and early Christian practices, as well as how they warp the results of that search. Many Christians assume that because their faith is so well grounded in fact, that all other religions must have similarly strong links with the past. Alas, that is far, far from the case. For that reason alone, Manifested in the Flesh is very significant reading for our time.
—Dr. Paul L. Maier
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