Customer Reviews
A heavy read 
2008-09-13
It took me a long time to finish this book, not because it isn't good but because it's full of heavy content that can't be taken in large bites. I think it might have been easier to read without the slightly contrived "I interviewed this expert and this is where he sat and this is what he was wearing" style. It is nevertheless an excellent rebuttal of all the shoddy liberal scholarship that masquerades as theology these days.
the case for the REAL JESUS 
2008-09-08
Lee has done it again and written a consise book about his investigations into attacks again Christians about JESUS
thanks Lee job well done
Disingenuous 
2008-08-29
This is the second Lee Strobel book I have read. It is clear, as many people have pointed out, that even though Lee presents himself as a seeker who is earnestly trying to find the truth, this is a facade.
As a thinking Christian, I have been troubled by many of the issues Lee brings up in his books. I have yet found no simple answers. Yes, research has shown that Mithras was basically an A.D. Religion. But other mystery religions are not so easily dismissed.
The fact that Lee interviews one side, and declares them the winner, is disingenuous to me. A true investigative journalist would interview both sides, and then decide. It is even clear from his "thoughts", as he is interviewing people, that he already has decided the outcome.
One specific example that irritates me: Was Isaiah 7:14 a messianic prophecy? "A young woman(virgin) will conceive and bring forth a son...". Anyone who has studied the context of this prophesy knows that this was specifically intended for the IMMEDIATE future. Not for Jesus born 700 years later. There's no way around this(unless you believe in dual prophecy). Michael Brown responds to the challenge by saying "No one knows what this prophecy exactly meant". Yet Lee Strobel accepts this explanation!!!! HUH?!! How in the world could you accept this explanation, if you were truly undecided. The only way is, you already have your mind made up.
Bottom line is, you can be for or against something. But please be upfront, and don't pretend to undecided, when in fact, you are not.
Very compelling- great book 2008-08-14
This book is a very good ontological account about the reality of Christ.
It is very compelling and unbiased. He was out of prove Christianity a fallacy and ended up with a different verdict based upon his own scientific research.
The Jesus of Faith IS the Jesus of History 2008-08-10
After reading this book, I believe that Strobel accomplished what he set out to prove, first, that the Jesus of faith IS the Jesus of history and second,as he put it, "the emperors of radical scholarship have no clothes". When I first saw "The Case for the Real Jesus" in the bookstore, I have to admit that I thought that I may have heard most of the arguments since I've read quite a few books on Christian Apologetics. However, that changed for me after thumbing through the book and coming upon a discussion of Mithraism found in the 4th challenge. After finding that, I bought the book then and there because I had come upon that subject quite recently and had done some reading on it but not as much as I had wanted. I'll get to that in a minute.
I thought the discussion with Michael Brown was interesting. It gave me a lot of food for thought. I have to admit that I haven't seriously studied the messianic prophecies. After Brown argued that scripture points specifically to events 2000 years ago taking place and that it had to be Yeshua (Jesus) or no one, I'm really interested to go back now and give the Old Testament a serious study regarding that topic. In regard to the fact that messianic scripture exists, I had to ask myself why would writers throughout the centuries be writing about a Messiah the way they did if it there wasn't an expectation of a coming one?" You don't see this in any other kind of religious scripture which makes it unique to the Christian faith.
I'm still pondering on what Daniel B. Wallace had to say regarding scriptural infallibility and inerrancy. I may need to rethink these issues. Although I agree with Wallace that God spoke through different men with varying writing abilities, it doesn't seem to make sense to me, at least at this point, to say that the Bible can be trusted if it does contain incontrovertible errors, even one. Cannot the God of heaven make a revelation to mankind without incontrovertible errors? It would only make sense to. Wallace's reply leads me to wonder if he really does think that there are or could be a incontrovertible error(s) in the Bible. My question is: How many incontrovertible errors in the Bible do we have to have in order to come to the conclusion that God did not write it? As I said though, still thinking on this one.
The discussion with Yamauchi on Mithraism, as I mentioned before, is what got me to purchase the book. I had come across the claim before in my reading that Christianity stole from this ancient, little known mystery religion. I couldn't find very much on it and came to the conclusion that scholars didn't have that much information. Yamauchi pretty much confirmed my conclusion - there isn't much that scholars really know about Mithraism. Many of the sources that exist regarding the practices and rituals that liberal scholars say Christianity stole came after Jesus, not before. Yamauchi's debunking of claims that liberal scholars make, near the end of the chapter, is interesting and worth the read.
Finally, although Copan's interview wasn't anything really new for me, in regards to postmodernism (since I have read on this subject before), I felt that he was right on the button. Postmodernism, and hence relativism, whether it be any kind, is really self-contradictory. For relativism to be true for everyone, a relativist has to be an absolutist in order to believe that it holds true for everyone. I remember my professor in my critical thinking class in college discussing absolutism and the "fact" that absolutism wasn't true. I should have raised my hand at the time and asked, "Are you absolutely certain about that, Professor?"
In all, Strobel's book is worth the read. Of course, again, there will be those who will complain that Strobel only interviews believers. This is true, and I agreed with it at first, but when I thought about it some more, two things came to mind: 1) No skeptic even attempts to write a book like this that I know of, answering arguments against their own theories/beliefs in this fashion (even if Strobel's is exhaustive) and, 2) no book would be able to contain a back and forth thorough discussion between the skeptic and the believer.
Some theological training might help 2008-07-01
From college classrooms to bestselling books to the Internet, the historic picture of Jesus is under an intellectual onslaught. This fierce attack on the traditional portrait of Christ has confused spiritual seekers and created doubt among many Christians – but can these radical new claims and revisionist theories stand up to sober scrutiny?
More on Jesus to refute the skeptics 2008-06-17
This is the type of book that infuriates the active skeptics...I've read the blogs. After all, if Jesus is who the Bible makes Him out to be, He is narrow-minded ("I am the way..."), egocentric ("I am" and "I and the Father are one") and sometimes sounds like the class bully ("you are sons of your father, the Devil!"). But, like the exclusivistic version of him or not, it is vital to determine just who this Jesus of Nazareth really is. In yet another "The Case for..." book, Lee Strobel puts on his Doubting Thomas persona to interview some important scholars to determine just who this Man is and determine if Evangelical Christianity is right about its views. And, like his other books, Strobel does an excellent job bringing out information that everyone should consider when making their final opinions. The book is very readable, though the reader does need to pay attention and perhaps even highlight for notes. It is fun to stay with Strobel's thinking style, as his questions are very much on mark for where the typcial skeptic would have to go. If there is any criticism of the book, it's that some of the material is very similar to The Case for Christ, which was the original in the series. But with only six "challenges" in this book, there is much room to go deeper than the original. Overall, I believe every Christian should be able to handle the many issues that arise regarding the authentic Jesus, and after The Case for Christ, I would highly recommend this for the average layperson who wants to own his/her own faith.
Awesome 2008-03-28
I love that he asks the toughest questions, and really looks for the answers. He isn't just calling it in, he's down in the trenches, and ends up finding answers he originally didn't believe were our there.
A Progressive Evangelical's Perspective 
2008-03-23
I am a fan of Lee Strobel and have read several of his prior books including The Case for Christ, the Case for a Creator, and the Case for Faith. I have multiple copies of some of these on my bookshelf and give them to clients whose faith journeys can be advanced by Mr. Strobel's books. I give this background because, in my opinion, this is his weakest book. If I were his professor, I would give him a "B-" grade, and tell him to make a few important revisions before submitting it for publication.
The most important weakness is based on the notion that this is the definitive text to answer the question, "What is the truth about Jesus?". This is the question presented in large type in the banner across the top of the back cover. Marketing of the text in this way sets the bar so high that it cannot be met, thus leading to the book's shortfalls, which are of two types.
The first shortfall has to do with the selection of the individual examples of the "intellectual onslaught" that he intends to address, and the second shortfall has to do with the rigor with which each of the examples is addressed.
The author presents six challenges that he has selected, apparently significantly influenced by the Jesus Seminar, which he seems to denigrate. On page 14, he describes the milieu out of which the challenges that he will address as "college classrooms, increasingly dominated by liberal faculty members who grew up in the religiously suspicious 1960s...". As such a person, I am concerned that he gives us too little credit for fully investigating claims by entities such as the Jesus Seminar and sets academics as a collective straw man, while arguing that the book has been written "for the sake of my own intellectual integrity..." (p. 15). While I agree that academia has proportionally fewer Christians than the society as a whole, I insist that it is crucially important that the academic method of scholarship be respected, especially with questions of faith. I believe that we are making great progress as a nation towards spiritual maturity that will eventuate in much greater acceptance of Jesus as who He said He was by engaging people who are atheists and agnostics in well-supported and well-reasoned debates, which requires the support of Christian academics, whose work can be encouraged by authors such as Strobel. If Strobel has such concerns about the work of the Jesus Seminar wouldn't it be reasonable "for the sake of my own intellectual integrity" to interview members of the Jesus Seminar? At least for the credentialing of the six challenges that he presents, interviews with key "liberal faculty members" who are Christians might have substantiated and broadened the challenges.
The second shortfall of the book stems from the first. Generally, the author has sought out and interviewed well established scholarly resources. The problem arises when he is not as thorough as he has been in previous books in pushing back against the information provided by these resources and upholding the Socratic method. His questioning is too friendly and not sufficiently energetic to convince the reader that the expert has been thoroughly pressed.
Another nagging concern that may be only of interest to academics and scholars has to do with the inclusion of quite a bit of work from Michael Licona, a person whose academic and scholarly credentials are not yet well-established. Approximately 20% of the book involves Licona as a resource. Although I can certainly accept that a person who is not yet a fully-qualified scholar can assist in the development of a scholarly work, the appropriate way to handle his offerings (that are often useful and interesting) would be to go back to the original sources. The author's background in journalism and law certainly establishes an expectation that he would do so. Perhaps I am over-educated and have spent too many years in academia, but this particular issue causes me to be reluctant to recommend the book for academically trained intellectuals. This says nothing at all about Michael Licona as an interesting and enthusiastic Christian; this is a critical comment focused on Mr. Strobel's strategy for including Michael's information, which could have been used as the theses in arguments submitted to scholars with well-established reputations. That would have been a preferred method and would have strengthened the book overall.
Strobel challenges the toughest critics 2008-02-25
As a legal expert and accomplished journalist, Strobel takes the best arguments (using the best pro and con sources), and allows history, common sense, logic and insight to reveal the truth. No important question is ignored and no controversy is avoided. After reviewing the best evidence presented by both sides, it is pretty clear which side is more truthful, honest and compelling.
