The Case for Christ - Lee Strobel

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	• The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus Lee Strobel Zondervan, 1998 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 636 reviews view larger image
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The Case for Christ - Lee Strobel

Everytime I return from Europe (which is only three times), I get into religion. It happened again after returning from Iceland. I found this book at Kroger's and read it, trying to make sense of God, Jesus and the Resurrection.

Lee Strobel was a legal journalist for the Chicago Tribune. He brings his skepticism and his investigative methods to bear on Christianity in an effort to discover the truth. Who was Jesus? Was He the Son of God? Is the Resurrection fact or fiction? Were the miracles real?

Through a series of interviews with Bible scholars, Strobel ultimately comes to believe that the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith are the same.

He verifies the authorship of the gospels. Mark came first. Mark was an associate of Peter's and wrote his biography based on Peter's account. Peter was in Jesus' inner circle.

Mark's gospel influenced Matthew and Luke. Matthew was a disciple. Luke was Paul's physician. The first three gospels are similar. John is different. It emphasizes Jesus' deity. John was a disciple.

Strobel notes that the biographies of Jesus differ from modern biographies. Parts of Jesus' life are skimmed over or omitted. Mark focuses on the last week of Christ's life.

One of the Bible scholars suggests that the gospels were written sooner after the Crucifixion than generally assumed and that they are harmonious in spite of apparent contradictions.

Paul encountered the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus. His New Testament letters predated the gospels. Paul attests to Jesus being the Messiah who died for sins and rose from the grave. He writes that other people saw the resurrected Jesus. The idea is that Jesus' followers will be resurrected as He was, and that freedom from death can be achieved through faith.

I wondered why Jesus is called both the Son of God and the Son of Man. "Son of Man" harks back to the Old Testament and the prophet Daniel.

Doubts linger. There is that enigmatic plea made by Jesus on the cross: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Words like sin, spirit, soul, holy and righteous seem out of place today.

How are miracles possible in a natural world? According to Bible scholars, they are an indication of the coming Kingdom of God. Strobel notes that the miracles take different forms. Some were psychosomatic like driving out demons. Others were nature miracles like calming the sea and turning water into wine. And of course Jesus brought Lazarus back to life.

Even more telling than the miracles is that Jesus took upon Himself to forgive sinners. Such authority was an indication that He was God. Jesus Himself was without sin.

What do we know of God? We know He is omnipotent or all-powerful. He is omnipresent or everywhere at once. He is omniscient or all-knowing. He is eternal and infinite. He is the uncreated Creator of all things. The New Testament implies that Jesus was all of these.

God is spirit in the Old Testament. He is flesh in the New Testament. Scholars maintain that Jesus fulfilled 50 prophecies from the Old Testament.

Strobel wonders if the darkness at the time of the Crucifixion is a literary device to stress its importance. He offers what he believes is "independent corroboration," that there was indeed a darkness at this time, either from a solar eclipse or by divine intervention.

If a Creator, responsible for the singularity which exploded as the Big Bang, suspended the laws of nature for the special case of manifesting Himself or Itself in the space/time continuum, then the Incarnation, miracles and Resurrection are true.

That western civilization measures time based on the year Jesus was born indicates the hold which Christianity has.

Strobel brings up the Dead Sea Scrolls found in 1947. They deal with ancient Jewish customs. They do not mention Jesus. So what is the big deal if there is no mention of Jesus?

Strobel began his spiritual journey after his wife became a Christian. He was an atheist. He thought God was a mix of mythology, superstition and wishful thinking. His critics maintain that he only interviewed Bible scholars, that he did not interview scientists. He was looking for reasons to believe.

He believes in Intelligent Design, that because cosmology has proven that the universe had a beginning, it must have had a cause (God).

Some disagree, seeing cause and effect reasoning as part of the evolution of the human brain and a means of surviving on earth.

Strobel said he resisted God because of the morality issue. He wanted to do what he wanted rather than bend his knee to Jesus.

Part 3 of his book deals with the Resurrection. Was the Resurrection a hoax? Did Joseph of Arimathia really bury Jesus in a tomb? Did the disciples steal His body? If there was a Resurrection, was it physical or spiritual?

The gospels give different empty tomb accounts when it comes to details about the women. Only Matthew says there were guards. One of the scholars dismisses the discrepancies as secondary to the fact. He concludes that as long as it is possible that God exists, it is possible that He raised Jesus from the dead.

No one saw Jesus come back to life even though the Bible records post-Resurrection appearances. Jesus appeared to His disciples and to Mary Magdalene. He appeared to James and Peter. He appeared to Paul. He appeared to more than 500 people at once.

Oddly enough, there are no appearances in Mark. Matthew and Luke contain some. John has the most.

Strobel questions whether the Resurrection was a legend which grew up over time. If Jesus' body was so brutally mutilated by His beating and by hanging on the cross, was it restored to mint condition? Why did the nail marks in His hands remain? Why did He eat? Would a man who has risen from the grave be hungry?

The Resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity. If it happened, there is eternal life with God. According to the Bible, we must believe and receive God's grace. It is then that we become children of God.

Do I believe? Of course! Lee Strobel and I will shake hands in heaven! Hallelujah! Thank you! Jesus!!

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A pivotal book

I stumbled across Lee Strobel's books early on in my quest for the truth at the turn of the millennium. Armed with a master's degree from Yale, Strobel was a hardened investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune when he set out to prove his wife's newfound Christianity a crock. But as this book explains, his investigations led him to the opposite conclusion. He's not the only one -- this book helped me through the gate from atheistic feminism to born-again Christianity.

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Evangelism Help

I needed help with how to answer questions when I shared the gospel. This video is the help I needed. Because Mr. Strobel answers the questions that common people, educated and uneducated seekers, have about "why believe in Jesus."

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Good, but not perfect

I enjoyed this book but I don't think it would convice a person who does not believe in God or Jesus. I read the book because of doubts I have. My husband says that the Bible is not scientific and that the miracles of Jesus did not really happen because they are scientifically impossible. Lee's book did not have convincing enough evidence to dispel doubts. Some of the interviews Lee does are pretty good, but others just don't convince very well. He interviews experts, which is ok, but these experts are Christians, so of course they are going to try to prove their beliefs. He doesn't interview athiests to see what they say about Christian beliefs. Then some of the experts ignore some of the problems and contradictions in Christianity by saying that they don't really use that evidence or story from the Bible, etc. The also grab at straws to explain away some of the other contradicitions and I think their explanations are at times a stretch. I have read Bart Ehrman's book, Misquoting Jesus and his evidence on how thes Bible is inaccurate and changed from the original is more convincing than Lee's book that the Bible and Jesus are still what they should be.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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