Order The Case for Christ (2pk)

I previously read Strobel's "The Case for a Creator" and found that book to be utterly stupid, so I was prepared to dislike this book too. I'm happy to say, however, that it's nowhere near as bad.

"The Case for Christ" follows the same general pattern as "The Case for a Creator." Strobel interviews a variety of people said to be reliable experts in this or that field, in hopes of getting reliable answers to a number of questions that challenge Strobel's religious beliefs. The qualifications of some of the so-called "experts" in "The Case for a Creator" were obviously hyped beyond all recognition, and I don't necessarily trust the apparent puffery in "The Case for Christ" either; but even so, I still thought that Strobel's challenges and the experts' responses to them were generally quite interesting and informative.

The book has three main divisions.

The first part focuses on the Biblical record of Jesus' life and responds to challenges about the reliability of the Biblical biographies of Jesus. In particular, the book offers a good response to the accusation that the Gospels are no more reliable than children playing "Telephone" or "Chinese Whispers;" discusses external evidence, including archaeological evidence, corroborating some aspects of the Biblical biographies; and offers a refutation to the Jesus Seminar's view of Jesus.

The second part of the book responds to challenges claiming that Jesus Himself did not actually claim to be the Son of God, that Jesus may have been crazy, that He did not possess the attributes traditionally associated with God, and that He did not fulfill Biblical prophecies about the Messiah.

The last part of the book focuses on medical evidence indicating that Jesus did in fact die on the cross, the significance of the empty tomb, the evidence of Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances, and other circumstantial evidence corroborating the Resurrection stories.

Each of the above challenges is the focus of a separate interview. In each interview, Strobel tries to approach it as a true skeptic, but it's obvious where his true loyalties lie, so the possibility that the weakness of the skeptical case is at least partly due to Strobel consciously or unconsciously pulling his punches is a real problem. That, plus my strong doubts about Strobel's descriptions of the stature and qualifications of some of the people he cites as experts prevent me from giving TCFC more than 3 stars. But it was interesting and well written.

For laymen with questions about the historical Jesus, Strobel's popular treatment would probably be an enjoyable and useful supplement to reading the Bible itself.Get more detail about The Case for Christ (2pk).