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Review Summary: Concice easy read |
Date: 2008-02-20 |
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Details: I have never read Case for Christ, so I did not see that this was much of the same info. I enjoyed the book and thought that it has something to offer a doubter, new believer and mature believer. Deffinately worth the three dollars I bought it for. |
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Review Summary: A LAWYER FINDS GOD |
Date: 2007-07-07 |
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Details: THE CASE FOR EASTER is a thin little book printed on cheap paper that seeks to prove three momentous tenets of the Christian faith. First, that Jesus Christ died on the cross; second, that he vacated the tomb in which he had been laid; third, that he afterwards appeared alive before others. The author, Lee Strobel, presents himself as an atheist who interviewed a different theologian on each these points, tested his reasoning and found it convincing. Distinguished as a legal reporter, he asserts that his method is no different from that used when collecting evidence in the case of a murder, a fraud or a missing person.
The book is laid out neatly in three parts, one for each question. The first is "The Medical Evidence: Was Jesus' Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?" Here Alexander Metherell, a medical doctor, engineer and Christian, describes for the author the gruesome physical effects of a Roman flogging and crucifixion followed by a spear through the ribs. He leaves no doubt that anyone who suffered the ordeal of Jesus Christ as described in the Gospels could not have survived to perpetrate a hoax. Nor, if by some amazing happenstance he did manage to survive, would he have been in a condition to get up and go anywhere on his own.
The second part is "The Evidence of the Missing Body: Was Jesus' Body Really Absent From His Tomb?" Here the theologian, professor and author William Lane Craig argues that Jesus' body was not thrown in a common grave along with others of the crucified, but taken by Joseph of Arimathea and placed in a separate tomb, just as Scripture says. He describes the way such a tomb would be sealed, explains why some women followers of Christ would have gone to visit the tomb and reconciles discrepancies in the different Gospels regarding their names, their actions and the presence of guards. He seconds the finding of historian Michael Grant that "if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was, indeed, found empty." (p.46)
Anticipating the supernatural event of part 3, Craig dismisses the idea that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is improbable. What is improbable is the idea that his dead body spontaneously came back to life. "But the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead doesn't contradict science or any known facts of experience. All it requires is that God exists, and I think there are good independent reasons for believing that he does... As long as the existence of God is even possible, it's possible that he acted in history by raising Jesus from the dead." (56)
The third part is "The Evidence of Appearances: Was Jesus Seen Alive After His Death on the Cross?" Here the theologian Gary Habermas, who has authored seven books on this question, lists all those witnesses named in Scriptural accounts, relates these accounts to the period immediately following the crucifixion and disputes the contention of naysayers that they could be based on legends or hallucinations. The once-atheistic author is so impressed that he confesses: "Although I tried, I couldn't think of any more thoroughly attested event in ancient history." (74) He concludes the book by avowing his faith in Jesus Christ as his savior from original sin. (87)
Needless to say, those who already believe in Scripture will find this exercise rewarding, because it will help them to combat the objections of non-believers and possibly to settle their own doubts. Non-believers will find it rewarding for exactly the opposite reasons. Few readers, I suspect, will be converted one way or the other, because the inquiry is clearly rigged. The attempt of the experts (and the already converted author) is not really to weigh the so-called evidence pro and con as a jury, but rather to plead the case as a defense attorney, producing all the reasons, suppositions and imagined scenarios that could possibly support Scripture. In the process, a huge number of methodological problems arise, nearly one on every page.
I shall mention but three. First, Professor Craig allows that the evangelists collected various stories and recast them according to their own lights, so that Matthew with his story of the guards (pp.40-41) and Mark who "loves to emphasize awe and fright and terror" (p.48) need not be taken whole cloth. This allowance removes the "inerrant word of the Holy Spirit" and throws everything in the Gospels up for grabs. It allows not only Craig to pick and choose, but also the skeptics.
Second, Craig and Habermas presume that "legendary corruption" of a historical event takes years to form, so that if the original stories of Jesus Christ's resurrection came soon after his crucifixion they must be true. (37, 53, 77-78) This argument denies the reality, which everyone knows, that stories of miracles can spring up overnight, urban legends can spread like wildfire and sightings of ghosts, aliens and missing persons happen all the time. The last Russian tsar, for example, was seen in different cities shortly after his execution in 1919, and his executed daughter Anastasia surfaced a few years after that. Hitler was seen repeatedly after World War II. Elvis is still being seen.
Third, Habermas uses twisted reasoning to smuggle in "eyewitness testimony." He accepts that Peter and James saw the arisen Christ, because Paul says so in Corinthians I:15 and he must have learned it from them. (67) He accepts that 500 brethren saw the arisen Christ at one time, because some of them were alive at the time of Paul's writing and could have contradicted him were it not so. (68-71) He accepts St. Luke's versions (in Acts of the Apostles) of speeches by St. Peter and St. Paul, which tell of the revelation, because they must have come from "very early sources." (73-74) The lawyer-author should not have admitted even one of these pieces of evidence: the first is hearsay collected at best three years and written down twenty years after the event; the second is hearsay and does not name any one of the 500; the third is reported and possibly invented speech written down forty to fifty years after the event and probably after both speakers were dead.
The worst flaw in the author's investigation is his double standard. He and the experts pretend to apply the same critical standards to the Scriptural accounts as they do to other ancient texts, whereas in fact they accept supernatural events in Scripture and rule them out in everything else. If plausibility is the supreme criterion and the supernatural need not be excluded, as Craig asserts, then every ancient history, myth and religion can be proven if one has the wit and the will.
Obviously the supernatural is the stumbling block. Professor Craig's statement that "the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead doesn't contradict science or any known facts of experience" is simply a bald-faced contradiction of science and all the known facts of experience. The hard truth is that every single organism in the history of the earth has died or will die, and so far none of the dead has returned to life in any verifiable way, but only in memories, dreams, hallucinations, myths, religions and fiction. The hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead contradicts everything, absolutely everything. Hence St. Paul, hence the evidence of things not seen, hence the hope in the miracle of Easter. |
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Review Summary: Same as Case for Christ |
Date: 2007-05-14 |
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Details: This book is really an excerpt from The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. If you've already read that book, then your've read this one. I think that should be spelled out so everyone knows that this is not a new book. It's wonderful to pass on to others to use as a witness tool; it's a short easy read which encourages people to take a close look at the evidence of the resurrection. |
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Review Summary: A must read... |
Date: 2007-02-26 |
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Details: Who knew that Salvation could be found for $2.99 between the newspapers and the KK doughnuts at the Kroger? This book is one that I have now read twice and have committed to reading every Lent. Strobel provides a compelling case for Christ's resurrection. The best part is it's written in a clear, simple style that does not take away from the power of his argument. Many Christians criticize apologists like Strobel but I applaud him for speaking up on behalf of those who discredit the story of the resurrection, the main premise of Christianity. No matter where you are on your faith journey, there is something to be learned from this book. It graphically paints a vivid picture of the suffering of Jesus. With scriptures used throughout and only 3 chapters, it can be easily divided into three thought provoking Sunday School lessons leading up to Easter. |
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Review Summary: Misnamed book, and author needs to research the day of Astare. |
Date: 2007-02-05 |
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Details: Lee Stroebel does a great service for humanity with many of his works, by pointing out the facts which support Scriptures. However, when he names a book "The Case for Easter" instead of "The Case for the Resurrection" he is not doing a service. As most know Easter is just another name for the pagan goddess Astare. The Savior did not rise on her day, nor did He die on the day our modern calendar calls "Good Friday." He was the Passover Lamb. He was crucified at Passover. If we want to celebrate His resurrection, instead of doing so on a day set aside to honor a pagan diety, we need to do it 3, not 2, days after Golgotha, namely 3 days and nights after Passover. Yahusha does not want us to drink of the cup of demons and His cup too. One of the things He came into the world for was to defeat paganism in all it's forms. Would you want your special days celebrated not when they really happened, but on days set aside to honor pagan "gods" (or as Paul says, actually, demons)? What's wrong with celebrating the actual days associated with Him Who gave His life for us? Why should it be that traditon is more important than the truths of the Scriptures? Stroebel tells us we need to stick with the truth. He is right. When do we stop thinking we are honoring our Savior by celebrating events of His life that do not correlate to events in HIS life, but to pagan celebrations? Something to think about. |
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out of 22 Reviews
