Rating: 
Summary: Strobel offers weak basis for belief
Review: Come on fellow Christians, this book is fluff. No critic of Christianity is interviewed so Strobel controls the "court room". The author implies that the Biblical scholars he interviews represent the only credible opinions in the Christian scholarly community. They are not. Moreover, often his sources do not represent the mainstream of scholarly thought. Anyone who has faith in Christ based on the assumptions of Strobel's book is in for a hard fall if they do any more reading in the field of New Testament studies or Historical Jesus Studies. This is what troubles me most. It is like sending someone rock climbing with those fake "c" clips people use for key chains. To a novice they look like they will support weight but any expert climber knows they will fail under climbing conditions. This book is simply not the real deal. It is not subjected to blind critical review and in fact it is not very critical at all. It does not hold up under true scholarly critical "climbing conditions". There are some books written by Christian scholars that do. Let me recommend two: Jesus, A Gospel Portrait by Donald Senior and An Introduction to the Gospels by Mitchell Reddish both are scholarly and easy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Come on, whats next the Easter Bunny...
Review: Now I don't really understand why these Cult people contimue to try and create a real person out of this Jesus guy. Its obviously clear that he was created by the Romans, since at the time religion was power. They brought together pagan concepts and married them with Jewish concepts and poof you now have christianity. History has been change by the people in power. Josephus' words were changed, people will angry against that of course but here you have an extremely faithful jew calling Jesus the true christ and son their deity. Its absolutely outrageous. Now lets just pretend for a minute that this Jesus character is real. And let's say all in all he was the son of the powerful christian deity. Well upon his suffering, being a deity himself he would be more capable to block out the pain as opposed to a human, right? And dying for our sins, well 1. he's obviously aware that there is no death and only a heaven awaited and 2 that he died for our sins, considering this is rather noble upon first thought but when one really thinks about it, he rose from the dead therefore forfieting that concept. He didn't really die.
Enlightenment or spirituality is not going to be found in book or building or even in other people. Its someting that you find inside yourself, when you stop and open your eyes. Life is what we truly make of it. Life is whats around us the animals(that we mass murder for our own personal intake) the environment(which we destroy to support corporation and our own person leisure, even though other non-toxic options are available) and the people(to which we have exploited).
Rating:
Summary: Case not proven, case not even closer
Review: I have a graduate divinity degree and have studied all the extrabiblical material of Strobel's experts. Numerous claims are wrong.
Strobel claims that consensus of the early church is on the four named persons being Gospellers... not true; Bishop Papias, mentioned on page 23, refers to a "Matthew" written in Hebrew letters - obviously not the Biblical book; his statement about Mark is obviously written in response to claims that Mark either was not an eyewitness or otherwise did not get information correct or both.
I myself know that there's plenty of reason countering claims that Acts could not have been written later than 62 A.D. First of all, the "we" sections of Acts are employing a literary fiction commonly used in Greek and Latin literature of the first and second centuries whenever the main characters started a shipboard journey. In this style, the "we" ends when the characters disembark and get back on land.
Read Acts carefully; its "we" sections fit exactly this pattern.
Old Testament prophecy does not point directly to Jesus. For example, in Isaiah 7, the Hebrew word is NOT "virgin" but a word simply meaning "young woman of marriageable age." A couple of years after that prophecy, Hezekiah was born.
Luke's "census" was misdated by 10 years. At the time Jesus is believed to have been born, Herod's kingdom was an independent entity and not subject to any Roman census.
The quote from Josephus? At least partially if not completely a later addition.
Rating:
Summary: A typical one-sided account
Review: This book is the epitome of circular-reasoning. Many Christians who read this book find it "logical." However, this is one of the most collectively illogical arguments for Christianity I have ever read. I suggest people read the book, but understand there is really no debate going on within its pages. One final note: Strobel likes to portray himself as an attorney. The problem is... a Master of Studies in Law (Strobel's degree) and a Juris Doctorate (which practicing attorneys must possess) are two totally different things.
Rating: 
Summary: The book does what it was intended to do
Review: You'll notice in reading all the reviews on this site, many 5 star and many 1 star ratings. Have to wonder why, huh? Strobel, like many other Christian and Atheist authors, approaches this "case" with an obvious bias. But what was the purpose of this book, what were the author's intentions? This book was intended to present the factual evidence, not the emotional lure, of a Christian perspective on historical writings and archaeolgical findings. It is done so in comparison of how we verify other ancient works for authenticity. It is biased, but at least it sticks to the task at hand and does not (often) ask the reader to use only your emotions to make a decision. Reviewers have asked why Strobel didn't interview Atheist scholars and philosophers in addition to the Christian apologetics. Why indeed? Let's think...could it be because it would turn the book into a life-long debate?!?!?!? We have Atheist literature, we have Christian literature. We have one set of factual historical evidence. Makes you wonder how each side will interpret some of the data and findings, doesn't it? I recommend the following if you are truly interested in learning more about the history of Christ: start with a basic objection, read the atheist take, read the Christian defense...when a new objection is placed (as one always is) follow that up. Make up a decision for yourself, but make no mistake, this book is not decisive in and of itself, it is merely a reference to helpful Christian apologetics. In reality, for some people no matter what the evidence to the contrary, would they really ever change their opinion, Atheist or Christian?
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: There are many well represented arguments in this book. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: A Book for Christians Witnessing to Non-Christians
Review: Lee Strobel has an excellent work here -- it is one of the most impressive collections of arguments supporting the validity of Christianity I have read. I don't see it as persuasive however, for unbelievers. It offers valuable tools for believers in their interactions with people who have not yet followed Jesus, but by itself it has little to offer critics of Christianity. Strobel examines the record of the biblical account of Jesus, the person of Jesus himself, and the Resurrection of Jesus. He interviews various experts who all add intellectual support to the truth that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Christianity is based upon absolute truth. These arguments themselves however, will do little to reach most skeptical non-believers. This book is an excellent tool for Christians who are building loving relationships with non-Christians. In the context of that relationship, a believer can use this volume as a resource in responding to objections raised regarding the Christian faith. Don't just hand this title to a non-believer -- use it as a reference in personally, lovingly leading that individual to Christ.
Rating:
Summary: The book flat out contradicts itself, bad show all around.
Review: Though perhaps those interviewed are intelligent (one can tell, apparently from just looking at them, says the author) the interviewer and author must not be. None of his questions are answered thoroughly and most are just side stepped altogether. Though I am not Jewish, as a human, I was deeply offended by the holocaust analogy. Claiming that the gospel of John was not biased despite ideological motives based on the Jew's preservation of the memory of the holocaust, with its ideological motives is rather sick and at best inadequate.
Not only does "A and B" not mean "A therefore B" but the ideological motives of the Jews in preserving the holocaust are not to influence a growingly popular fledgling religion by writing one of its primary texts! The analogy is very poor. The author does not challenge the answer. There is a question at the end of the chapter asking how helpful I found the holocaust analogy to be. Well, the interviewee claimed that skeptics of the holocaust are like skeptics of Christianity. That's all I have to say. The first instance I noticed immediately of the book contradicting itself is when it claims that we can believe the authorship of the gospels as who they're named after because they had no motive to lie and were trustworthy people. Furthermore the people they were claiming to be were of no particular clout. However, it also claims that we can know the gospels' legitimacy because they went through strict criterion: for instance they had to be written by someone who knew or knew someone who knew Jesus. Motive to lie about your identity? Let's see... how about influencing thousands of people's beliefs by getting your book in the canon, how about claiming to be associated with the key figure in a new, and catching religion. All of the concerns addressed are legitimate but the way they have been dealt with by no means resolves them. Buy this book if you already have faith and want to blindly enforce it but this book would only convert the most idiotic of atheists who probably hasn't thought out his/her atheism and has no prejudice against Christianity. When I read this book I was offended by the author's presumed belief in the lack of intelligence of humankind. It really is that bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Spirituality is really also Intellectuality, atheists
Review: I strongly recommend this book to both believers and non-believers. Those who are Christians will be amazed at how strong the case really is, how well it stands, those who aren't will indeed be faced with the question, are you gonna change or not. See, the thing is, Strobel went beyond being a plain lazy atheist, and set out for a quest, i do believe an HONEST quest, unbiased. Why would he ask the skeptics if he HIMSELF was one? of course he knew the skeptics points of view, he carried that information along with him, he agreed with it, he had believed it all his life. If Strobel dare be accused of being biased it has to be of leaning towards SKEPTICISM, not Christianity, isn't it the point of it all. HE had the real experience of going out , facing intellectuals face to face, and being an intellectual himself,(not like many one point reviewers on this site), he made the most elegant choice, how could he not believe, how could it not be intelligent to believe. Please it's really easier than what atheists think. I just know, atheism is nothing but blindness, lazyness, and fear.
Rating:
Summary: Embarassingly Structured
Review: I am sorry but this book was so transparantly crafted with an end agenda in mind that it bears absolutely no resemblance to the most elementary scholarship. This book reads like a session in a fundamentalist Sunday school meeting, so shallow is it. I was actually embarassed for the writer while reading it. Not one original thought, not one contradictory view point, and no knowledge of how the scriptures have been didacted over the years was displayed whatsoever. The writer obviously has no training whatsoever in the scientific method, nor is he a competent investigative journalist. Horrible, just horrible.
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