Being a Christian and a student of Communications, I felt compelled to reading The Case for Christ. I decided to use this book for this review especially due to the large amount of criticisms and backlash it had received. Lee Strobel is known for being a hard-nosed skeptical journalist and ex-investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He also described himself as a "former spiritual skeptic" before his personal mission for the proof of God. Skeptics around the world claim that Jesus either never said He was God or He never exemplified the activities and mindset of God. Either way they rather triumphantly proclaim that Jesus was just a man. Some will go so far as to suggest that He was a very moral and special man, but a man nonetheless. For Strobel, there was far too much evidence against the idea of God, let alone the possibility that God became a man. God was just mythology, superstition, or wishful thinking.
Initially what caught my interest were Strobel's "court room" questions with experts in the book, rather than logically bulldozing his way to solutions. To name a few, he grills Catholic lay philosopher Peter Kreeft about the problem of evil, Indian-born evangelist Ravi Zacharias about Christian exclusivism, historian John Woodbridge about oppression in the name of Christ, and other authorities about the truth of miracles, God's callousness in the Hebrew Bible, the Justice of Hell, the challenge of evolution, and the struggle with persistent doubt.
The Case for Christ was written in the style of an investigative report with bluntly asked questions forcing high profile scholars to give understandable arguments to support their opinions and conclusions. Strobel believed this brought complex theological concepts and historical issues down to an accessible level, where he pieced together hard facts through these interviews. "I confront leading evangelical thinkers with the kind of skeptical objections that are shared by many people" he said in an interview with Zondervan Church Source (2005).
In the first section Strobel investigates what he calls the record, where he questions eyewitnesses, gospel accounts and other evidence from outside the Bible. For example asking questions like, "Does archaeology help or hurt the case for Christ?" The second section focuses on the analysis of Jesus Himself. Did Jesus really think He was God? Strobel's investigation of the evidence for Jesus, he uses the Old Testament as a sketch of what God is supposed to be like.
In this first chapter of Jesus and the Disinherited , the author Howard Thurman describes
Brown, Raymond. A Crucified Christ in Holy Week: Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1986.
5. Paul’s testimony on the resurrection of Christ is an asset to Christian apologetics. In addition, The early historical record that the apostle provided in his letters about the death and resurrection of Jesus the Nazareth make the strong argument that the miracle of resurrection was not a myth or legend. The early historical records are poor that the resurrection was not a myth or legend invented by his followers. (124,
While the belief in Jesus Christ as a divine being, God himself come to earth, is a core belief of Christianity, in his book, How Jesus Became God, author Bart Ehrman seeks to disprove this. Focusing on answering the question of who Jesus thought he was, Ehrman argues that Jesus himself did not believe he was a divine being, and he illustrates his point by discussing how divine beings were common around Jesus’s time, and by exploring biblical texts to back up his claim that Jesus saw himself as a messiah rather than God. With these arguments, Ehrman paints a clear picture of the time period, while using historical and biblical references to prove his point.
First, we are going to explore Crossan’s technique, a process that he calls the triple triadic method. Then we are going to look at how Allison goes about studying the historical Jesus. Next we are going to look at a miracle of Jesus through the eyes of Crossan, and compare that to how Allison looks at different texts to fit with his own theory. While they both use the bible, the theory of Q, and to some extent the gospel of Thomas, the value they put on the texts differ.
Questions of the Holy Bible’s authenticity has been interrogated since the beginning. Non-believers dispute parts or the entirety of the Bible’s actuality. Yet some believers question parts of the Bible, particularly the Gospels. Individuals are skeptic if the Gospels are historically reliable. Can we Trust the Gospels? by Mark D. Roberts was able to provide reliable evidence and reasons on why people can trust the Gospels. His book gives an overview on the subject of the gospel reliability.
Stanton, Graham. Gospel Truth?: New Light on Jesus and the Gospels. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995. Paperback.
With Christianity being the number one universalizing religion, many are familiar with at the story of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Though they may not actually belong to the religion, many also celebrate the holidays of Christmas and Easter, both of which are extremely important days in the Christian religion. These two have been used for marketing seasonal goods to the United States in particular. Christmas is the time of extravagant spending for the gifts of children and loved ones, while Easter is a time of chocolate egg hunts, marshmallow peeps, and the Easter Bunny. However, these are quite different from how things occur in the Bible. Christmas is the time to celebrate the son of God becoming man, and Easter is the celebration of his resurrection from the death, which he encountered three days prior. Resurrection isn’t exactly a standard thing, and Jesus does several other things that do not happen to normal people. Jesus himself has a prophecy foretold of him, an unusual birth, an attempt made on his life, is exiled, goes on a quest, has his people turn on him, dies on hill, and has a mystery surrounding his death. Most of all, he is unique. These elements provide evidence of Jesus being a tragic hero.
...hal. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Called to Love: Christian Witness Can Be the Best Response to Atheist Polemics." America 198 (2008): 23. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 Dec. 2013.
From Jesus to Christ: the First Christians. PBS and WGBH/FRONTLINE 1998: n. pag. Online. Internet. 2 Nov. 2000. Available http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/.
Nash, R. H., 1992. Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas. Grand Rapids, MI: Academie/Zondervan.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2001.
In this paper, I will examine Jesus’ resurrection from the dead because, according to many scholars, there is no other event in the life of Jesus that is as significant. In order to better comprehend the magnitude of this event, I will begin by looking at what can be discerned from the Resurrection of Jesus. Then, I will explore the two different kinds of resurrection testimony that there are: the confessional tradition and narrative tradition. For the confessional tradition, I will look at a few examples including St. Paul’s confession in First Corinthians which is composed of four parts: Jesus’ death, the question of the empty tomb, the third day, and the witnesses. For the narrative tradition, I will briefly examine the two sources of information
Having little biblical background of the Christian lord, Jesus Christ, and yet having endured myriad quotations and descriptions of Jesus throughout my growing-up years in the heart of the bible belt (Memphis, Tennessee), I hope to verify the bible’s accounts of Jesus. I want to discern for myself whether the accounts of Jesus should be taken literally or figuratively. In reading the accounts of Jesus, I expect to see either contradictory or similar portrayals of Jesus. I expect to gain insight to the Christians perspective of Jesus as their savior; and will try to understand how certain words could and have been taken out of context to support particular Christian claims. Overall, I want to know the accounts of Jesus for myself so that I will have the capability to discuss his death and regarded importance with people of Christian faiths. I want the cognizance of Jesus to support my own beliefs regarding him and the Christian religion; so that I no longer have to compliantly agree with conservative Christians in religious conversations due to my unfamiliarity with the Jesus depicted in the bible.
Thiselton, A. C. (1980). The two horizons: New Testament hermeneutics and philosophical description. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, xix.