Rating: 
Summary: soild as a rock
Review: The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is no less than an amazing novel. Giving non-negotiable evidence is only one praiseworthy trait in the book. Creating the evidential section of the book as an atheist creates a strictly factual and reliable source of information. Among that, Lee Strobel preserves his writing as original and this shows in his book.
It starts out with the event that inspired Lee to create The Case for Christ. His wife has become a Christian. It is then and there that he decides that Lee decides to set out and once and for all decide the truth about Jesus. He then arranges fourteen interviews.
Through out his journey he records the expert's interviews. At the end of every chapter Lee asks the reader questions about the current evidence. Each chapter provides new information. Astonishing corroborating evidence is given. Just by reading the first paragraph you ca tell that this book is worth it's while. But that's not all there is past events that are told for the furthering of the point. Within the story there are more stories that clearly join in with the overall novel. Although occasionally the highly educated experts use a vocabulary unknown to the average person. But that can hardly bring down this great of a book!
The very last chapter goes over the collected information and pinpoints the main topics to refresh your mind. After words it tells about his experience and what he came to the conclusion to. This is great for all those who read through the book then realize that they can't remember the story they just read.
This book is so amazing. I will recommend this to everyone! The Case for Christ is truly and original story with an amazing style. You can check this book out at the Maple Valley Presbyterian Church or a local Christian book supply store. This book is for everyone!
Rating: 
Summary: Good read. But problems.
Review: A former atheist, Mr. Strobel presents convincing evidence in these two closely related, even complementary volumes to prove that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, the Son of God and Messiah, and that as a result, Christianity is the most logical religion. Using skills he acquired as a reporter in a metropolis, the author details the investigation he pursued. He did not go to just preachers, or to any kindly old grandparents who have dedicated their lives to being at the church all day on Sunday. He used scientists, theologians, and even psychiatrists to make his cases. Drawing upon little known historical facts, archeology, psychology, and sometimes even gruesome medical evidence, each aspect is presented in a concise, easy to follow, yet intense fashion. Inconsistencies in the Bible are taken apart piece by piece and shown to not be inconsistent at all. Translation, perspective, and factors of history and culture the modern reader would be unfamiliar with are explained. **** However, there are some facts that are not completely accurate; being stated too broadly, and some of the logic used does not ring completely true. Despite this, the sum total of these two books is sound, and whether read or listened to will provide the skeptic with enough proof to change his or her mind, and the believer to have their faith reinforced. At worst, each book is fascinating. At best, it will lead others to the faith. Reviewed by Amanda Killgore.
Rating: 
Summary: You have to agree with this book to believe it
Review: The questions surrounding who Jesus was are ones that hold a great deal of interest for me. They are more interesting still in light of the fact that the Christian faith is beginning to lose steam, at least in a conservative and traditional sense. I came to this book wanting to hear that someone could make a good apology for an interpretation of the literal Jesus. However, as I say in the title, I did not agree with that when I started the book, thus I don't believe it. If you have done little research in the field, or are already a Christian this book will probably help you feel comfortable in your beliefs, if you are not, it will not change your mind. It suffers from one major flaw, and really only has one serious argument. The major flaw is that Lee Strobel attempts to establish the evidence for Jesus as though he were in a court room trying to prove his case-hence the title. While laudable in his goals, he has the serious shortcoming of arguing against nobody. He interviews many different 'witnesses' and has them explain why they believe in the Bible, but the skeptical questions he puts forth are of his own devising, even though he is a Christian, this seems a little biased. A truly balanced case would have interviewed 'expert witnesses' on both sides of the debate. Without doing that it is very easy to appear as though you've won the case. I suppose that Mr. Strobel assumes you'll go on to do your own research, but overall he sets up arguments that are easily defeated when you talk to a well informed critic on the other side of the spectrum. If he wanted to 'win' his case it would have been far more powerful to show that it held water even against the most skeptical claims, which he isn't in a position to give. Beyond that he really only has one argument and that is that the Gospels were written down accurately and they mean literally exactly what they say, if he convinces you of this, you can believe all the other claims, but if that one falls, he doesn't have anything. Ultimately, I don't really think he has anything, but some may find it interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A Different Approach
Review: It is unlikely that "A Case for Christ" will convince a skeptic, nor is it likely to impress the majority of the ecumenical academics. It is the simple, direct, and personal journey of one man in his search for answers. This type of narrative used to be called "testimony", and is still often used in revivals to enliven the faith of those who spend too much time buried in churches whose life seems muted and mundane. I am not lettered or recognized by any theological seminary. This will give many readers of this review more than enough reason to ignore it. I cannot present this review as the learned opinion of a man who has spent years in our institutions of higher learning, whether ecumenical or secular. But then again, I don't think this book is geared to them. "The Case for Christ" addresses questions a lot of ordinary Christians have. Was Jesus crazy to call himself the Son of God? What evidence is there to support his very existence? Was the resurrection real or legend? These are all questions even Christians, honest Christians, have asked themselves in the past. Each Christian comes to a place in their faith where they have answered these very questions for themselves. If not, the questions haunt them continually and make attendance at church more an issue of guilt than satisfaction. I found this work an interesting approach to the questions it addresses. The writing may be in the stilted journalistic style, often reading like a newspaper article rather than a non-fiction treatise, but the information it conveys outweighs the awkwardness of the delivery.
Rating:
Summary: This book helped me...
Review: First, I want to state my dissapointment with all of the reviews that I have read for this book, and for it's refutation, "challenging the verdict." As for the non-Christians: I am so sorry for all the ways that this beautiful spiritual system has been misrepresented to you, if I could change things I would, but the fact remains that many Christians do more to dissuade honest seekers from the truth than anything else. Then again, how many of you are truly "honest seekers" of anything but the discredit of christianity? I do not want to assume anything that it is not my place to assume, but I have been an atheist in my past and I am fully aware of how easy it is to merely pass off any religiously affiliated assertion as biased and unfounded merely because of it's inherent religiosity. But who in this society can claim to be free from bias? I wish we could all live up to our purported standards of acceptance and view as viable the thoughts and feelings of anyone, from any faith or secular background. There is a truth beyond reason that is fully accessible to all of you, this book, through appealing to that very reason helped me justify an exploration into that truth. I love you all and wish for you to open yourselves to all the options and approach the subject of religion with no assumptions, you may find more than you expected...
To the Christians: it is important to preach to other believers, but to skeptices and contemporary "gentiles" all we can do is pray for them and WITNESS. Witness is showing them what it means to follow truth, in the living spirit of christ. Show the world that we hold no disdain for their views, only sorrow for the pain that separation from God causes in the heart of hearts. We are all Children of God, whether or not we recognise Christ as the way to salvation. We have no right to judge, or even to defend our selves, let us return to the poignant and effective concept of apology, yes, we should apologive for our faith, and if we must use historical investigation to help us justify what we believe, as Strobel does quite eloquently, let us remember that this is in essence a way for people to allow themselves in their doubt to try to get to know God better, and what could be a more valuable step for any of us to take. God bless all of you, your friend and brother, Archytas
Rating:
Summary: Knowledge is power
Review: I had no intention of writing a review to this book. I had recently read "The Case for Christ" and was looking on this website for some more great Christian reading material when I decided to check out some of the customer reviews for Strobel's book. I couldn't believe some of the scathing reviews that it has received! Obviously, Jared Hansen from D.C. is a lawyer or a law student who is trying to impress us all with his legalistic banter. "The Case for Christ" is not meant to be an attorney's handbook for how to win a case in court. I believe Mr. Strobel wrote this book to appeal to the numerous skeptics out there who just needed a little push in the right direction towards discovering the ultimate TRUTH. One of the hardest things that skeptics/non-believers have with Christianity is that when all is said and done, it comes down to faith. Faith in God and that he walked among us as the Christ. Mr. Strobel knows that you cannot "prove" faith, but that you can certainly strengthen it by looking at supporting evidence that Jesus existed and that the New Testament is firmly grounded in historical accuracy. Does the fact that Mr. Strobel does not interview any hard-core, "intellectual" (and I use that term very loosely here) skeptics detract from the "case" that he is attempting to build? Perhaps. But I would argue that the professors/experts that he did interview provided more than enough compelling information to make even the most devout atheist re-think their personal beliefs, which I believe is the aim of Mr. Strobel's book. Apologizing for the long-windedness of this review, I highly recommend this book to everyone, Christian and Non-Christian alike. Don't be afraid or unwilling to look at the TRUTH. Your soul depends on it.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful.
Review: The short version:
This book is really terrible - Strobel consistently assumes what he's trying to prove, acts as though he's proved something when he hasn't come close, and uses cheap misdirection and manipulation to do it. (See the chapter "The Fingerprint Evidence," filled with no mention of fingerprints.)
If you're looking for apologetics, turn to Francis Schaeffer or C.S. Lewis. Still flawed arguments, but at least done with some seriousness, which is more than can be said for this book.
-----
The long version:
It's not a sign of a good argument that the author feels it necessary to remind you every three paragraphs of how good an argument it is. Truth speaks for itself; as a rule, you don't need to keep insisting that what you're saying is true if it makes sense. However, this fact alone doesn't prove Strobel is wrong; it could just mean he's not a good writer, or more likely isn't very good at writing in the persuasive style. That's no big deal and I won't hold it against him; I'm not terribly good at writing in documentary or narrative style myself. However, it is tiresome. Strobel is a former journalist who covered criminal trials, which he takes to mean that he understands evidence on a deep level. I have little patience with these people that keep saying things like gospel account 'is the best historical case ever, it would be an easy win in a court of law', for three reasons:
First, it's not true. At all. Hearsay is one of the most commonly rejected forms of evidence in existence, and the entirety of 'the case for Christ' is based on hearsay. Not a single one of us is an eyewitness to this stuff, and thus anything we get from those professing to be eyewitnesses is by definition hearsay, and thus (with some exceptions) inadmissible in federal court. (Various state rules of evidence may differ; I'm no expert on that; furthermore, there ARE plenty of exceptions to the hearsay rule, and some of them may apply to some of the gospel testimony. But the bottom line is that if you were trying to get someone convicted of a capital murder on 2000 year old testimony that just happens to come from some people who believed they were in the presence of a man who was god himself, you'd have an extremely tough time convicting. And if you didn't, you can bet your Blackstone's Commentary that you'd lose on appeal.)
Secondly, it's not much of a trial if you can't cross-examine the witnesses. That's part of the whole point of the adversarial system in this country ' cross ex is an incredibly crucial part of any trial. All these people are dead; we can't cross examine them, and so lets not hear any more of this nonsense about courts of law. It's just a thinly veiled appeal to authority ' 'well, any court of law would find that x, so x must be true.' (Which, as the many well known examples where courts of law have been wrong can attest, doesn't really prove that it's true anyway.) Hiss, boo.
Third, courts of law are not institutions qualified to do fact finding regarding events that happened two millennia in the past. Courts are designed for a particular purpose ' to deter criminals, and to provide reparation to victims. BOTH of these purposes require that the court must have some kind of effect within the lifetime of at least some the people involved in the case, and for that reason alone, they're designed to work within a short time span. Indeed, most judicial systems explicitly recognize this time span issue by enforcing a statute of limitations on almost all but the most serious of crimes. So even in the event that you could get 12 people on a jury to assent to all the 'evidence' for the truth of the biblical account, it wouldn't really mean much anyway, since the court is an institution utterly incompetent to pass judgment on matters such as this, ESPECIALLY when the thing being asserted is supernatural.
Indeed, the supernaturalism alone makes the whole 'court of law' argument bogus, since courts of law explicitly operate on the naturalistic premise ' if you are found with a smoking gun in your hand, a dead guy is 10 feet away with a wound in his chest, containing a bullet that came from the gun in your hand ' well, they're not going to buy the explanation that 'I don't know what happened, I was just walking along and suddenly that guy over there fell down and then right after that this gun simply appeared ex nihilo in my hand!' They're not going to carefully weigh your trustworthiness or check to see if you can get some other people to say the same thing; they're just going to convict you straight out, and not feel at all guilty about it. Which is good, because criminals actually have something of a record of claiming to be Jesus or god or various other magical beings, and juries quite fortunately simply disbelieve them on face. Various violent people who insist that others do their bidding on the premise that the violent person is in fact God or god's emissary, when they go to trial, do not benefit from attempts to show in court that the accused is in fact the ruler of all the universe, and therefore entitled to do whatever it was he did...
--
(I wrote most of that for a friend after reading the book; I'm not quite bored enough to write that much just for amazon...)
Rating:
Summary: Good Popular Introduction to Apologetics
Review: Despite some of the criticisms of Strobel's book, this is a very good popular introduction to apologetics, written by a man who was at one time a non-Christian, but being persuaded by the overwhelming weight of evidence, became an Evangelical Christian. Strobel is one-sided in his choice of interviews, in that he does not interview any serious opponents to the Christian position. But that does not mean the scholarship is one-sided. The Jesus Seminar is representative of New Testament scholarship in the same way that The National Enquirer is representative of professional journalism! Strobel knows this and did not bother. I, for one, do not blame him. For people interested in an even more detailed (though less popularly written) presentation of the objective evidence for Christianity, see Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict.
Rating:
Summary: seen it both as a Christian and as an unbeliever
Review: I read this book when I was a fundamentalist Christian and it really bolstered my faith. It showed me that my faith was "reasonable." But I didn't read the counter arguments. I just assumed...these people are Christian, they must be being totally honest...well intellectual honesty is much different than moral honesty. In order to be intellectually dishonest you first have to lie to yourself...whether through fear or just wanting to be right...then you only accept evidence that agrees with what you think and share that with others. This is what I see happening here. Truth should not be so fragile that it cannot stand up to a real cross examination. The fact that Strobel doesn't interview any real skeptics shows that he is afraid that it will hamper the success of his book. Afterall...these kinds of books are not designed to make you think. How many fundamentalist Christians do you know who can think rationally? Now, I'm not a Christian...I just asked too many questions of my faith. I read too many different opinions and views...I looked at things too objectively...and with that...the believability of fundamentalist Christianity went out the window. I encourage the fundamentalist Christians who give these kinds of books 5 stars...to look at the other side's arguments honestly and with the open mind you've asked us to have. Skeptics who give these books 1 star...like me...perhaps we have our own limitations...but the fact remains...that we read your books. Very few fundamentalist Christians actually read the other side. After having left Christianity I looked at the book again. And I must say, the questions I'm asking are not being answered by this or any other fundamentalist book. No real proof of anything is being presented. But a fundamentalist can't be made to understand that because they've been taught that we are the "bad guy" we've been "led astray" and we just want to sin. I can assure you, nothing could be further from the truth...but the only way for you to know that is to stop being afraid of the evidence against your case and look at it. Then make up your mind. Don't just parrot all the dogma you've been spoonfed. And don't call those of us who have looked at all sides of the arguments and come to a different conclusion than you...intellectually dishonest...when all you've looked at is your own side.
Rating:
Summary: Bom resumo de Informações!
Review: Para os Brasileiros que possivelmente comprem esse livro!
Encontrei nesse livro, uma grande fonte de informações e especulações sobre questões até hoje tidas como " sem base".
Seu caráter investigativo nos instiga à confirmação e questionamento ao desenrolar do livro... Suas questões para trabalho em grupo e fontes de consulta nos fins dos capítulos, também fluem ao mesmo estilo de "ensino" que o livro se baseia.
Recomendo esse livro para quem procura um pouco sobre fatos e fundamentos históricos, escritos e vividos, descritos aquí por Strolbel.
Para quem procura trabalhar sua fé e crença e possui dúvidas sobre conceitos Critãos, recomendo C. S. Lewis e espeçificamente o livro " Mero Cristianismo".
Obtenham esse livro, ele é um bom resumo de informações obtidas por Strobel e um bom guia para outros livros também.
|
