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: A must read for every "seeker"
Review: THE best father's day present I've ever received. Wonderfully done. Lee Strobel asks the hard questions of world class experts and delivers a compelling case for my God and Savior, Jesus Christ. I loved McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict", but this is so much more readable. His mix of present day law cases to introduce and illustrate each segment drew me in and his personal interviews with the people who know the real facts about Jesus and the New Testament was entertaining as well as informative. It was like being in on the best conversations about Jesus you could hear. I'm grateful for this author and this faith strengthening book. Christians: Buy it, read it and give it to others.
Non-Christians: This is a wonderful close-up of the facts about the life of Jesus.
Rating: 
Summary: Very compelling, but should give more opposing arguments.
Review: Strobel does an excellent job of examining the evidence for the Ressurection of Christ from all angles. His findings are very logical and convincing. This is a really good book to read if you are as confused and skeptical as I have recently become. The methodical way that Strobel presents the evidence in this book argues very very strongly for the truth of the Bible. The only shortcoming as far as I'm concerned is his neglecting to really give the full arguments for the liberals and atheists (or if he did, they sure don't have very solid cases). I would highly reccomend this book to anyone interested in learning about the history and the evidence of Christ and the church.
Rating:
Summary: A must for the Agnostic
Review: Reading this book from the perspective of an agnostic, it was the single most influential piece of literature I came across, to open my eyes to how science and modern day philosophers view biblical history, (specifically, the existence of Jesus). Though not an apologetic in the traditional sense, it makes a case for the life of Jesus of Nazareth, in the same way a defense attorney would...by going out, collecting the facts and seeing how they meld with perception. Would be very educational and insightful for the mature Christian, but a MUST for those seeking the Christian Faith, (especially from a position of scepticism).
Robert James Luedke, (Author...Eye Witness: A Fictional Tale of Absolute Truth)
Rating: 
Summary: My toughest review but candor is required...
Review: I have both the print and the audio editions. I found the audio extremely worth the money. So why three stars only?
Well, friend, because the premise is dishonest. Okay, so? This is a book about the greatest ever person ever to walk the Earth and is written by Pastor Lee Strobel.
When any competent journalist investigates a person, topic or event they must get as many views and insights as possible. Strobel, however, seems to consult only evangelicals. He might have obtained nothing new by consulting religious leaders and scholars in the Eastern Mediterranean in Rome, Greece, Lebanon, Syria, the Levant and in Egypt, but at least don't go trying to tell me that the entire truth can be learned only from Evangelicals and only in America.
Further, if Strobel really did all these interviews over a 2-year period why did it take so long to get published? Low blow? No, not really, as he makes reference to the internet in at least one place and this leads me to believe that either the interviews weren't conducted when he claims or that they may not even have really been done. In either case, Strobel owes us an explanation.
Having knocked the premise, I do not want to throw out the baby. This book still does do a good job at explaining what we do know of Christ and why we need to do God's will. In this area I give the book five stars as it is better than most at advocating why we all should be grateful that God came into human form and died for our sins. Just because the book is mis-promoted does not mean that none of its truths should be adopted by us.
One last negative thought though. Page 183 indicates the odds of any one person fulfilling 48 prephecies as one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. I have no idea the abilities of the mathemetician Strobel attributes the math to, one Peter W. Stoner. I further have no idea how to calculate such a stunning number. I do suspect, though, that a number of people can use such a statistic to allege that all facts written about Jesus have been cooked up to fit into the prophecies.
Again, I admired the lessons I learned from the book. I just didn't appreciate the dishonest premise. Nor did I welcome the phenomenal statistical discussion. I even more deeply admired the audio verson. I wish I had read this book before working in Bethlehem some three years ago when I visited Christ's birthplace.
Oh, that reminds me. Although 98% of all Jews are as good and true-believing as Palestinians and Arabs, the two-percenters are using tactics more akin to Eastern Europe's Communist leaders than to more benevolent Western security methods. I saw their brutal methods with my own eyes. Hate and oppression, whether from King Herod, Emperor Nero or from Ariel Sharon or Saddam Hussein is evil. By evil I mean to say absent of Godliness.
My book regarding Arabia and the Middle East from 1919 through 2005 will be published soon. It is a novel about how current problems in the region stem from the period following TEL (Lawrence of Arabia - see Seven Pillars of Wisdom) and The Bush-Blair Coalition.
Originally titled Hear Our Whimper; See Our Tears; Feel Our Pain, the title is being changed to "Arabia after Lawrence: For God We Endure!"
Their universal belief in the One God is the beauty of these peoples.
For further information contact LJ at ljsbreakingfree.com, the web site we are developing and publishing useful information for people who aim to break free from wage-slaving and pursue happiness and independendence in their personal lives.
Enjoying a book does not mean one does not note radical flaws.
Rating:
Summary: Well done
Review: Good basic overview of apologetics. I have used this in a classroom setting and it has been well receieved by college age students. Younger students may be better served by the Student Edition, though serious late teens can handle the full version. The book can be profitably used with "The Case for the Creator", and "The Case for Faith" for a well rounded introduction to apologetics.
Rating:
Summary: Response to reviews
Review: Some of the points the amazon.com reviewers make initially sound fair.
For instance the general critique that Strobel could have given more time to objectors to deliver stronger "journalism". However the objectors the reviewers refer to disqualify themselves from further investigation due to their own documented academic dishonesty.
Reviewers also argue against specific details about the book, for instance;
"more often, he doesn't address objections the critics do make (e.g., the unreliability of human memory, that non-Christian historians do not provide any independent confirmation for the deity of Jesus, etc.)"
Once again, the writers of many of these reviews discredit themselves. Since the book clearly address these issues early on - these reviewers thereby prove they have not sufficiently read the book they are critiquing.
For me an interesting side effect to the book are the "toolsets" he painstakingly applies to determine the truth of testimony and evidence. These toolsets, taken from the legal profession are useful in many situations.
Rating: 
Summary: Apologetic Absurdity At Its Finest
Review: If you believe that a historical figure named Yeshua of Nazareth lived and preached in the 1st century of the Common Era, then this book will be a great comfort to you.
Rating:
Summary: Misleading title, orthodox christian dogmas
Review: This is a book written by an (ex atheist) converted Christian. And as often with these people (see Paulus turned Saulus) they have a mission. It is the perfect book for faithful Christians, who want to get "scientific confirmation" for the righteousness of their faith.
However, it is not a book for those readers looking for a balanced or objective account of the historical accuracy of the Christian faith. Here the intention false flat, since the entire approach is more a religious show than an honest independent evaluation of the "real evidence".
The so called expert witnesses, all distinguished academics with a long track record in their field, are hand picked devout Christians. They present "their version" of the historical evidence, and are not contradicted by "expert witnesses" with a similar reputation but an entirely different point of view on the same accounts. The author mentions during his interviews the occasional diverging opinion of other scholars, but more to give his interview partners ample opportunity to destroy these objections as irrelevant, than to encourage true scholarly debate.
Therefore every topic of this "case" is presented with a clear bias, and it is sometimes easy for even a lay person with only little knowledge in the field to point out the one sided interpretations of the "experts".
The "truth" may be entirely different. From my studies on this topic, reading the works of other scholars, I was not always impressed by the "experts" here (note: only form the US. Some of the worlds leading experts in New Testament research are situated in Europe!). Sometimes they utter rather extreme Christian opinions, which would not even be supported by the majority of orthodox catholic scholars, and reek very much of Bible Belt fundamentalism. Putting these opinions up for discussion in the academic field would trigger a multitude of opposite arguments and contradictory examples, all completely ignored in this "case report".
For me this is again the proof, that faith and science do not make good partners, and that the former always has an influence on the latter. Besides, if the issue could be so easily solved by a court reporter, why did we need all these thousands of books dealing with Jesus so far, still without a generally accepted conclusion?
If you want to buy this book because you think it might give you a fair and balanced "trial" of the "Case of Christ", stay away from it. You will be severely disappointed.
If you are a devout Christian, you might as well buy it, because it will allure you in your line of thinking. But strictly speaking for this purpose you might as well read in your bible and donate the saved money to charity.
Rating:
Summary: Great research, well agrued, but biased
Review: As mentioned in other reviews, only one side of the story is presented. Even on the side for Christ, only evangelicals are interviewed. The evidence presented is compelling. However, because Strobel presents evidence as in a court case, a counter-argument seems to be called for. By intnerviewing skeptics, he might have made his case stronger.
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