A Seasoned Journalist Chases Down the Biggest Story in History
Is there credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God?
Retracing his own spiritual journey from atheism to faith, Lee Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examines a dozen experts with doctorates from schools like Cambridge, Princeton, and Brandeis who are recognized authorities in their own fields.
Strobel challenges them with questions like How reliable is the New Testament? Does evidence for Jesus exist outside the Bible? Is there any reason to believe the resurrection was an actual event?
Strobel's tough, point-blank questions make this Gold Medallion-winning book read like a captivating, fast-paced novel. But it's not fiction. It's a riveting quest for the truth about history's most compelling figure.
What will your verdict be in The Case for Christ?
'Lee Strobel probes with bulldog-like tenacity the evidence for the truth of biblical Christianity.'
Bruce M. Metzger, Ph.D., Professor of New Testament, Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary
'Lee Strobel asks the questions a tough-minded skeptic would ask. His book is so good I read it out loud to my wife evenings after dinner. Every inquirer should have it.'
Phillip E. Johnson, Law Professor, University of California at Berkeley
Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?
When I first met shy and soft-spoken Leo Carter, he was a seventeen-year-old veteran of Chicago's grittiest neighborhood. His testimony had put three killers in prison. And he was still carrying a .38-caliber slug in his skull-a grisly reminder of a horrific saga that began when he witnessed Elijah Baptist gun down a local grocer.
Leo and a friend, Leslie Scott, were playing basketball when they saw Elijah, then a sixteen-year-old delinquent with thirty arrests on his rap sheet, slay Sam Blue outside his grocery store.
Leo had known the grocer since childhood. "When we didn't have any food, he'd give us some," Leo explained to me in a quiet voice. "So when I went to the hospital and they said he was dead, I knew I'd have to testify about what I saw."
Eyewitness testimony is powerful. One of the most dramatic moments in a trial is when a witness describes in detail the crime that he or she saw and then points confidently toward the defendant as being the perpetrator. Elijah Baptist knew that the only way to avoid prison would be to somehow prevent Leo Carter and Leslie Scott from doing just that.
So Elijah and two of his pals went hunting. Soon they tracked down Leo and Leslie, who were walking down the street with Leo's brother Henry, and they dragged all three at gunpoint to a darkened loading dock nearby.
"I like you," Elijah's cousin said to Leo, "but I've got to do this." With that he pressed a pistol to the bridge of Leo's nose and yanked the trigger.
The gun roared; the bullet penetrated at a slight angle, blinding Leo in his right eye and embedding in his head. When he crumbled to the ground, another shot was fired, this bullet lodging two inches from his spine.
As Leo watched from his sprawled position, pretending he was dead, he saw his sobbing brother and friend ruthlessly executed at close range. When Elijah and his gang fled, Leo crawled to safety.
Somehow, against all odds, Leo Carter lived. The bullet, too pre-carious to be removed, remained in his skull. Despite searing headaches that strong medication couldn't dull, he became the sole eyewitness against Elijah Baptist at his trial for killing grocer Sam Blue. The jurors believed Leo, and Elijah was sentenced to eighty years in prison.
Again Leo was the only eyewitness to testify against Elijah and his two companions in the slayings of his brother and his friend. And once more his word was good enough to land the trio in prison for the rest of their lives.
Leo Carter is one of my heroes. He made sure justice was served, even though he paid a monumental price for it. When I think of eye-witness testimony, even to this day-more than twenty years later-his face still appears in my mind.
TESTIMONY FROM DISTANT TIME
Yes, eyewitness testimony can be compelling and convincing. When a witness has had ample opportunity to observe a crime, when there's no bias or ulterior motives, when the witness is truthful and fair, the climactic act of pointing out a defendant in a courtroom can be enough to doom that person to prison or worse.
And eyewitness testimony is just as crucial in investigating historical matters-even the issue of whether Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God.
But what eyewitness accounts do we possess? Do we have the testimony of anyone who personally interacted with Jesus, who listened to his teachings, who saw his miracles, who witnessed his death, and who perhaps even encountered him after his alleged resurrection? Do we have any records from first-century "journalists" who interviewed eyewitnesses, asked tough questions, and faithfully recorded what they scrupulously determined to be true? Equally important, how well would these accounts withstand the scrutiny of skeptics?
I knew that just as Leo Carter's testimony clinched the convictions of three brutal murderers, eyewitness accounts from the mists of distant time could help resolve the most important spiritual issue of all. To get solid answers, I arranged to interview the nationally renowned scholar who literally wrote the book on the topic: Dr. Craig Blomberg, author of The Historical Reliability of the Gospels.
I knew Blomberg was smart; in fact, even his appearance fit the stereotype. Tall (six feet two) and lanky, with short, wavy brown hair unceremoniously combed forward, a fuzzy beard, and thick, rimless glasses, he looked like the type who would have been valedictorian of his high school (he was), a National Merit Scholar (he was), and a magna cum laude graduate from a prestigious seminary (he was, from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School).
But I wanted someone who was more than just intelligent and educated. I was searching for an expert who wouldn't gloss over nuances or blithely dismiss challenges to the records of Christianity. I wanted someone with integrity, someone who has grappled with the most potent critiques of the faith and who speaks authoritatively but without the kind of sweeping statements that conceal rather than deal with critical issues.
I was told Blomberg was exactly what I was looking for, and I flew to Denver wondering if he could measure up. Admittedly, I had a few doubts, especially when my research yielded one profoundly disturbing fact that he would probably have preferred had remained hidden: Blomberg still holds out hope that his beloved childhood heroes, the Chicago Cubs, will win the World Series in his lifetime.
Frankly, that was enough to make me a bit suspicious of his discernment.
THE FIRST INTERVIEW: CRAIG L. BLOMBERG, PH.D.
Craig Blomberg is widely considered to be one of the country's foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, which are called the four gospels. He received his doctorate in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland, later serving as a senior research fellow at Tyndale House at Cambridge University in England, where he was part of an elite group of international scholars that produced a series of acclaimed works on Jesus. For the last dozen years he has been a professor of New Testament at the highly respected Denver Seminary.
Blomberg's books include Jesus and the Gospels; Interpreting the Parables; How Wide the Divide?; and commentaries on the gospel of Matthew and 1 Corinthians. He also helped edit volume six of Gospel Perspectives, which deals at length with the miracles of Jesus, and he coauthored Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. He contributed chapters on the historicity of the gospels to the book Reasonable Faith and the award-winning Jesus under Fire. His memberships include the Society for the Study of the New Testament, Society of Biblical Literature, and the Institute for Biblical Research.
As I expected, his office had more than its share of scholarly volumes stacked on the shelves (he was even wearing a tie emblazoned with drawings of books).
However, I quickly noted that his office walls were dominated not by dusty tomes from ancient historians but by artwork from his young daughters. Their whimsical and colorful depictions of llamas, houses, and flowers weren't haphazardly pinned up as a casual afterthought; they had obviously been treated as prizes-painstakingly matted, carefully framed, and personally autographed by Elizabeth and Rachel themselves. Clearly, I thought to myself, this man has a heart as well as a brain.
Blomberg speaks with the precision of a mathematician (yes, he taught mathematics too, earlier in his career), carefully measuring each word out of an apparent reluctance to tread even one nuance beyond where the evidence warrants. Exactly what I was looking for.
As he settled into a high-back chair, cup of coffee in hand, I too sipped some coffee to ward off the Colorado chill. Since I sensed Blomberg was a get-to-the-point kind of guy, I decided to start my interview by cutting to the core of the issue.
EYEWITNESSES TO HISTORY
"Tell me this," I said with an edge of challenge in my voice, "is it really possible to be an intelligent, critically thinking person and still believe that the four gospels were written by the people whose names have been attached to them?"
Blomberg set his cup of coffee on the edge of his desk and looked intently at me. "The answer is yes," he said with conviction.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel Copyright © 2000 by Lee Strobel. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Contents Introduction: Reopening the Investigation of a Lifetime PART 1: Examining the Record
1. The Eyewitness Evidence Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?
with Dr. Craig Blomberg
2. Testing the Eyewitness Evidence Do the Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?
with Dr. Craig Blomberg
3. The Documentary Evidence Were Jesus' Biographies Reliably Preserved for Us?
with Dr. Bruce Metzger
4. The Corroborating Evidence Is There Credible Evidence for Jesus outside His Biographies?
with Dr. Edwin Yamauchi
5. The Scientific Evidence Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus' Biographies?
with Dr. John Mc Ray
6. The Rebuttal Evidence Is the Jesus of History the Same As the Jesus of Faith?
with Dr. Gregory Boyd PART 2: Analyzing Jesus
7. The Identity Evidence Was Jesus Really Convinced That He Was the Son of God?
with Dr. Ben Witherington III
8. The Psychological Evidence Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to Be the Son of God?
with Dr. Gary Collins
9. The Profile Evidence Did Jesus Fulfill the Attributes of God?
with Dr. D. A. Carson
10. The Fingerprint Evidence Did Jesus — and Jesus Alone — Match the Identity of the Messiah?
with Louis Lapides, M.Div., Th.M.
PART 3: Researching the Resurrection
11. The Medical Evidence Was Jesus' Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?
with Dr. Alexander Metherell
12. The Evidence of the Missing Body Was Jesus' Body Really Absent from His Tomb?
with Dr. William Lane Craig
13. The Evidence of Appearances Was Jesus Seen Alive after His Death on the Cross?
with Dr. Gary Habermas
14. The Circumstantial Evidence Are There Any Supporting Facts That Point to the Resurrection?
with Dr. J. P. Moreland Conclusion: The Verdict of History What Does the Evidence Establish — And What Does It Mean Today?
List of Citations Notes Index
CHAPTER 12
The Evidence of the Missing Body Candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach flew into the world's busiest airport on a crisp autumn afternoon, stepped into a crowd, and promptly disappeared without a trace. For more than twenty years the mystery of what happened to this red-haired, animal-loving philanthropist has baffled police and journalists alike.
While investigators are convinced she was murdered, they haven't been able to determine the specific circumstances, largely because they've never found her body. Police have floated some speculation, leaked tantalizing possibilities to the press, and even got a judge to declare that a con man was responsible for her disappearance. But absent a corpse, her murder officially remains unsolved. Nobody has ever been charged with her slaying.
The Brach case is one of those frustrating enigmas that keep me awake from time to time as I mentally sift through the sparse evidence and try to piece together what happened. Ultimately it's an unsatisfying exercise; I want to know what happened, and there just aren't enough facts to chase away the conjecture.
Occasionally bodies turn up missing in pulp fiction and real life, but rarely do you encounter an empty tomb. Unlike the case of Helen Brach, the issue with Jesus isn't that he was nowhere to be seen. It's that he was seen, alive; he was seen, dead; and he was seen, alive once more. If we believe the gospel accounts, this isn't a matter of a missing body. No, it's a matter of Jesus still being alive, even to this day, even after publicly succumbing to the horrors of crucifixion so graphically depicted in the preceding chapter.
The empty tomb, as an enduring symbol of the Resurrection, is the ultimate representation of Jesus' claim to being God. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:17 that the Resurrection is the very linchpin of the Christian faith: 'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.'
Theologian Gerald O'Collins put it this way: 'In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.'1
The Resurrection is the supreme vindication of Jesus' divine identity and his inspired teaching. It's the proof of his triumph over sin and death. It's the foreshadowing of the resurrection of his followers. It's the basis of Christian hope. It's the miracle of all miracles.
If it's true. Skeptics claim that what happened to Jesus' body is still a mystery akin to Helen Brach's disappearance - there's not enough evidence, they say, to reach a firm conclusion.
But others assert that the case is effectively closed, because there is conclusive proof that the tomb was vacant on that first Easter Morning. And if you want someone to compellingly present that case, your best bet is to visit with William Lane Craig, widely considered to be among the world's foremost experts on the Resurrection.
The Eleventh Interview: William Lane Craig, Ph.D., D.Th.
I had an unusual perspective the first time I saw Bill Craig in action: I was seated behind him as he defended Christianity before a crowd of nearly eight thousand people, with countless others listening on more than one hundred radio stations across the country.
As moderator of a debate between Craig and an atheist selected by the national spokesman for American Atheists, Inc., I marveled as Craig politely but powerfully built the case for Christianity while simultaneously dismantling the arguments for atheism. From where I was sitting, I could watch the faces of people as they discovered - many for the first time - that Christianity can stand up to rational analysis and rugged scrutiny.
In the end it was no contest. Among those who had entered the auditorium that evening as avowed atheists, agnostics, or skeptics, an overwhelming 82 percent walked out concluding that the case for Christianity had been the most compelling. Forty-seven people entered as nonbelievers and exited as Christians - Craig's arguments for the faith were that persuasive, especially compared with the paucity of evidence for atheism. Incidentally, nobody became an atheist.2
So when I flew down to Atlanta to interview him for this book, I was anxious to see how he'd respond to the challenges concerning the empty tomb of Jesus. He hadn't changed since I had seen him a few years earlier. With his close-cropped black beard, angular features, and riveting gaze, Craig still looks the role of a serious scholar. He speaks in cogent sentences, never losing his train of thought, always working through an answer methodically, point by point, fact by fact.
Yet he isn't a dry theologian. Craig has a refreshing enthusiasm for his work. His pale blue eyes dance as he weaves elaborate propositions and theories; he punctuates his sentences with hand gestures that beckon for understanding and agreement; his voice modulates from near giddiness over some arcane theological point that he finds fascinating to hushed sincerity as he ponders why some scholars resist the evidence that he finds so compelling.
In short, his mind is fully engaged, but so is his heart. When he talks about skeptics he has debated, it isn't with a smug or adversarial tone. He goes out of his way to mention their endearing qualities when he can - this one was a wonderful speaker, that one was charming over dinner.
In the subtleties of our conversation, I sensed that he isn't out to pummel opponents with his arguments; he's sincerely seeking to win over people who he believes matter to God. He seems genuinely perplexed why some people cannot, or will not, recognize the reality of the empty tomb.
This book was recommended to me by my father. I am only half way done, and it has already changed my life. Prior to reading this book, I have had a strong faith, but in college I am constantly being bashed and mocked for my beliefs. Now that I have read this book, I have received a new sense of confidence and courage to stand up for what i believe in. This book has evidence that proofs Christianity true from multiple perspectives: science, psychology, history, archeology, and secular findings. It also provides tons of explanations to increase the readers understanding of the topic at hand. I loved this book so much, and I think that it has truly strengthened my faith even more. I am so thankful for this book and for Lee Strobel, the author. It is a must read if you are a Christian or Non-Christian!!!
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 15, 2009
I Also Recommend:
You know those nagging little doubts that your new-age neighbor keeps planting in your mind about Christianity? Well, this book has the answers to those qestions and more, and all from EXPERTS in their field, not just some guy who wrote a book. The author writes in an easy-to-read manner that leads you right through the chapters. He covers all the major questions from "Did Jesus really die?" to "So why are there discrepancies in the various gospels," He goes through the scientific studies--archeology studies--psychiatric studies, etc. and gathers his information from people who really know what they're talking about. This is a book I have already given away and am orderig a couple more to have on hand as a witnessing tool. A great book. I recommend it to anyone who has doubts about the validity of Christianity, and to those who are Christans--it only deepens your faith.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 21, 2004
To anyone who thinks this is a good book, here's a dare. Read it again after familiarizing yourself with logical fallacies: ad hominem, straw man, red herring, and such. Here's another: oodles of legitimate, professional scholarship on historicity is available to you. Read that.
3 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 4, 2003
Come on, this book is fluff. No critic of Christianity is interviewed so Strobel controls the 'courtroom'. The author implies that the Biblical scholars he interviews represent the only credible opinions in the Christian scholarly community. They are not. Moreover, often his sources do not represent the mainstream of scholarly thought. Anyone who has faith in Christ based on the assumptions of Strobel's book is in for a hard fall if they do any more reading in the field of New Testament studies or Historical Jesus Studies. This is what troubles me most. It is like sending someone rock climbing with those fake 'c' clips people use for key chains. To a novice they look like they will support weight but any expert climber knows they will fail under climbing conditions. This book is simply not the real deal. It is not subjected to blind critical review and in fact it is not very critical at all. It does not hold up under true scholarly critical 'climbing conditions'. There are some books written by Christian scholars that do. Let me recommend two: Jesus, A Gospel Portrait by Donald Senior and An Introduction to the Gospels by Mitchell Reddish both are scholarly and easy to read.
3 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 14, 2003
The title of the book 'The Case For Christ' nails down many facts about Christ. I was looking for more facts to help me spark the unbeliever as well as reaffirm my own faith. This book obviously cannot address every concept that its attackers would like to use to discredit its quality however it does present many undeniable facts that support that fact that Jesus lives.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 1, 2002
Again another book that can't cite proof of Christian claims outside the Bible. I admit that I read this book hoping to read, hear, or see that one thing that would convince me that Jesus is real and that there is a God. This book failed to do so. It gave some reasonable evidence but nothing that couldn't be refuted by pure logic and reason. I really doubt that Lee Strobel was ever atheist because no one who lived a life of logic and reason and scientific method would just toss it all away to live a life of blind obedience to a god he can not prove exists.
3 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 2, 2005
Interesting book if you are a person with an inquiring mind and a detective/investigative-type personality.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 10, 2006
I WAS EXCITED TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO READ A BOOK BY SOMEONE WHO I THOUGHT, WAS A TOTALLY IMPARTIAL JOURNALIST TRYING TO GET TO THE ROOT OF CHRISTIANITY. I FOUND THE BOOK WRITTEN ON A VERY NIAIVE LEVEL AND IT MAY APPEAL TO ANYONE WHO IS ALREADY A BELIEVER AND WANTS THEIR POINT OF VIEW VALIDATED. IT DID NOT GO INTO DETAIL ON THE POINTS MADE AND WHEN THE 'EXPERTS'(WHO WERE ANYTHING BUT IMPARTIAL AND HAD AN OBVIOUS AGENDA TO PROMOTE THEIR IDEA OF CHRISTIANITY) WERE QUESTIONED WITH MR STROBELS' DOUBTS, HE MERELY ACCEPTS EVERY POINT AS BEING 100% PROOF OF THE DIVINE. IF YOU ARE AGNOSTIC OR HAVING DOUBTS ABOUT THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY, YOU WILL NOT FIND THE ANSWERS YOU NEED FROM THIS BOOK.
1 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 2, 2003
This book was exactly what I expected it to be. All it did was offer different 'christian possibilities', and point at some holes that science can't currently fill. It offered no proof for Christianity or Christ, whatsoever. It is simply here if you are a half believer, or want to believe in christian myythology for some reason, and need some pseudo-science to somehow justify yourself... if that is you, this book will be very enjoyable, because it offers nothing concrete, in any sense of the word.
1 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 26, 2002
I really enjoyed this book and actually, due to the overwhelming amount of information it presents, am in the process of reading it again. I do feel there are some strong arguments that the book lets slide or that it completes an argument with a fuzzy or incomplete answer. Researching the scriptures and the history is very helpful with this book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 8, 2001
I picked up this book hoping it would help strengthen my faith and but an end to my doubts. Sadly, the book failed miserablely. Too often, Strobel accepts shady facts, and pushes aside good arguements. I mean he never even attempts to investigate the claims of the Jesus Seminar. He just accepts someone else's views on them. And what about the conflicting stories of the resurection? How Luke puts it in Jerusalem and Mathew puts it in Galilee. Does the book even mention it? Nope. All in all, I found this book extremely lacking.
1 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 6, 2011
this book is great because as a Christian I am not fully aware of all of the facts. It was a bit difficult to understand but very informational.
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Posted December 6, 2011
After reading this book, I had to read several others that are referenced in it...and also Strobel's "Case for Faith". I believe that, no matter your religion or lack thereof, there is valuable information in this book.
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Posted December 6, 2011
This book was very helpful.
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Posted December 6, 2011
I was given this book by caring family who would like to save my soul. So, I tried to find the good in it but there wasn't much. I found this book to be deceiving. It claims to treat the arguments against Christianity fairly and completely. It doesn't do either. It is written by someone with a very limited Christian perspective. This book is only convincing to believers.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 15, 2011
I'm an Atheist with Christian friends. During a discussion with one of them I asked if there was one book I should read, outside of the Bible, which would explain the Christian point of view what would it be? He suggested The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. After reading over half of the book I found I was not able to make myself complete it. It is full of so many logical fallacies that it could probably be used as an example of how not to think logically. Additionally, if you check all of the people he interviewed, they are all pro christian which contradicts the authors claim of neutrality in his "investigation". What would have been more impressive is if evidence could be found by both Christian and Secular sources that come to the same conclusion. Unfortunately that is not included in this book. I admit, I picked this book up with high hopes for a logical, well thought out discussion on the real world evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus as written about in the Bible. Unfortunately, I've found myself to be sorely disappointed. If you are already a believer, or even on the fence on the subject, this book will be great for you. If you are a non-believer, than this book won't do much to change your point of view.
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The author, himself an avowed atheist, tracks down learned experts in their field, as he investigates the evidence concerning the case for Christ's existence or nonexistence. He cross-examines each scholar in his attempt to disprove the deity, and history of Christ, but finds overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and in the process discovers his life touched by the Son of God. The author's tough questions challenge each scholar he encounters to produce undeniable evidence of their positions on the truth of Jesus, His birth, His death, and His resurrection. This book reads like a captivating novel that continually puts the reader on the edge of his seat, and challenges him to question hos own beliefs about Christianity. The author also poses questions at the end of each interview for the reader to consider in his judgment of the information which has been propounded from the questions asked, and at the end of this riveting drama, inquires as to what the reader intends to do with the information presented. He asks in the end, "What will be your verdict in the Case for Christ?
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.JurgenSchulze
Posted December 28, 2010
Strobel may have been a good legal investigative reporter, but his quest to make a case "for Christ" falls short in many respects. First, he confuses "the balance of probabilities" with "beyond reasonable doubt". Second, the pseudo approach of interviewing "authorities" demonstrates his weakness to ask probing questions (he is trying hard enough to convince the reader that he does by saying so repeatedly, but a repeated wrong does not make it a right). Third, he accepts evasive answers without following up. The list of failings is a long one - starting off with the omission to ask the following question: why are there (at least) four gospels? What did the second find wrong with the first, the third with the first two, and the fourth with the other three?
Strobel's "case" is weak, and instead of conducting a proper investigation, he follows a course that has been developed backwards from the end result. Any objective reader - and this is the audience that he wants to address - will not only find fault with Strobel's entire approach, but also the ease with which he skips over unexplained gaps, contradictions, and errors.
In conclusion: I would never opt for Strobel as my defense attorney. My conviction would be virtually guaranteed since even a weak jury would be able to see through his smoke screen.
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.In writing my own book about Jesus, I asked from the very beginning, 'Who is this man who claims he talked with God directly? Am I wasting my time following a madman?" "Which god was Jesus experinecing? So many religions and prophets, with so many conflicting claims. which messenger can we trust?"
I do not agree with the concept of God that Lee Strobel has. One can read the Bible and come away with very different perceptions of exactly who/what this God really is. Is he a local God we created when we were ignorant of how the natural world functioned? Is he a product of our superstitions? Was he created within our galaxy? Is God an alien visitor with higher intelligence, just passing through on an intergalactic ship? Did God come into being at the very moment of creation? Or are we part of a multi-verse, where Universes come and go, and all atoms are simply God's box of crayola crayons to be experimented with? What is a soul?
Many questions are not answered in this book. I do not agree with all this author believes in. I do not believe that souls go to heaven or hell, or that all can be forgiven if one just follows the rules: to be Baptised or not, to circumcize or not, to eat the meat but don't worship the cow, or worship the cow but don't eat the meat...so in spite of Strobel's best intentions, we still cannot take everything in the Bible on blind faith. There are simply too many contradictions.
Christianity is a belief system - not a knowledge system. The idea of trying to prove everything occurred in the Bible exactly as it is written is a false foundation because everything that is written can be interpreted in many ways, or written in different ways during different times by different men. If they were all experiencing the same God, they would have written the same answers each time. They didn't.
My own independent research has led me to very different conclusions about the Bible, and so I have become a strange sort of self-created Christian (with Buddhist underpinnings) who believes that Jesus is unique and had something important to say, but not necessarily messages that we are correctly understanding.
I think this is a well-thought out and researched book worthy of reading if only because we will learn more about the life of Jesus.
I spent years in India and Central Asia to follow the trail of Jesus there. I came away from the experience with a profound new respect and admiration for the man Jesus. I may not have arrived at the same conclusions as Lee Strobel about the meaning behind Jesus' life and death, but we have both come away from our investigations with a deep and abiding love and respect for the man Jesus.
Christianity is the largest religion on earth, and is the fastest growing. This book will be an affirmation of faith for many, and an interesting biography about Jesus for non-Christian readers.
I do recommend it.
American-Patriot
Posted June 19, 2010
I have actually had this book for quite a while, but never got around to reading it. Why? Not sure. It just never seemed to appeal to me at the time of my choosing a new book. But, I guess when the time was right, I needed a new book, and it seemed the right time to read it. So, I pulled it from my bookshelf and started. I decided I would read it for Lent, hoping it would help me tighten my bond with God. At first, I found it a little hard to get into. But, a short time into the book, I was hooked. This stuff was well-written and made SENSE! It did strengthen my own beliefs and answered some things for me that had caused to me to doubt my faith sometimes. Also, I finally had actual FACTS which I could use to answer some of the comments made by non-believers. Next year, this is the book our Small Faith Community will read and discuss each month. Also, other Christian friends have been convinced to read this. I am so happy that I have been successful in encouraging others to read this!
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Overview
A Seasoned Journalist Chases Down the Biggest Story in History
Is there credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God?
Retracing his own spiritual journey from atheism to faith, Lee Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examines a dozen experts with doctorates from schools like Cambridge, Princeton, and Brandeis who are recognized authorities in their own fields.
...