Rating: 
Summary: What trash!!!!!
Review: This book is written by an ignorant soul and that is a shame. Those that will be fooled by it will be as ignorant as he. The only one who will benefit from this book will be Josh himself in the money he makes.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could rate this as no star at all
Review: This book is a complete and utter waste of time if you are looking for objective scholarship, honest historical research from a learned scholar. This author is nothing more than a promoter who operates under the guise of scholarship. His arguments - evidence is specious and he commits virtually every logical fallacy one can commit, but the worst thing is his mistating of the truth in so many places.Go to The Journal of Higher Criticism and read some reviews of McDowell and this colleagues: Ben Witherington, Gary Habermas and Lee Strobel. Simply stated, their arguments which they claim are based on reason/analytical approach and the historical record are an insult to any thoughtful mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Detailed answers to questions nobody asks
Review: It probably is good that there exist books like this. It may even be beneficial for a Christian to own such a book and to periodically leaf through it for ideas. However, this does not mean that we all need to read them. Thank goodness. As encyclopedias of academic answers to boring academic questions go -- and let's face it, such questions and the need for answers to them are a fact of life -- this one seems pretty good. It is fairly complete and has an extensive bibliography. However, the text is extremely dry (presumably to let us know just how serious the book is), and most of the questions never challenge anybody. However, the book is fair in admitting its place in the world. Most folks that are Christians are not Christians because they've been convinced by a thorough search of the philosophical literature, and most folks that are not have made that decision for reasons other than arcane logical paradoxes and historical clericalisms which, if they were but turned to the right book for an answer, would entirely satisfy them. Thus, this is a fine book for the very small niche it fills in the world.
Rating: 
Summary: A whole lot of facts
Review: Mr. McDowell has compiled an impressive amount of information about the historical validity of the Bible. He has also presented a convincing case against the documentary hypothesis. Contrary to many of the reviews posted here, he does not rely entirely on "argument from authority" (though perhaps he overuses it a bit). The big problem with this book is that, whenever it gets into the realms of philosophy and theology, it comes off as extremely shallow. This book is worth getting, but start on chapter 3 and stop after the C. S. Lewis essay.
Rating:
Summary: poor as a work of apologetic
Review: Mr. McDowell's approach is to take a topic and then line up as many quotes from many different sources as he can to try to overwhelm the reader into believing in Christianity. This works sometimes on the wholly ignorant. But for anyone who has done any serious reading in biblical studies, church history, and theology, it will not work. Why? McDowell's fundamental argument is a distorted version of the from authority. Basically, it is, we should believe item a because b, c, d, e, and f believe a and they are all professors or historians. By itself this is extremely weak since there is often little consensus about anything in the academy. Now, there is nothing wrong with appealing to authority in certain cases. One can use authority as part of an argument if one can show the trustworthiness and reliability of that authority. Or one can use authority in a system of reasoning that depends on authority (for example Catholic theology which depends on the authority of the Church's teaching magisterium). But in terms of evidential arguments aimed at unbelievers, it is weak. McDowell also ignores the views of respected scholars (even respected conservate scholars) who disagree with much of what he presents as fact. On philosophical issues, McDowell is just too simplistic. On the topic of truth, Mcdowell simply states that the correspondence theory of truth is true and opposes skepticism to it. However, the issue of truth is quite complicated in philosophical study. And don't get me wrong, I do not deny the correspondence theory of truth as being one important aspect of truth. However, Mcdowell clearly has no understanding of philosophy, so the book would have been better if he would have just ignored that part or if he had someone else review it. One final note: I must mention that his treatment of the Canon of Scripture is simply wrong. The majority of early Christian fathers regarded the larger canon including deuterocanonicals as authentic rather than the shorter Hebrew canon. Poor scholarship, poor church history, poor philosophy, poor logic.
Rating:
Summary: 1 Star for Presentation, 5 as a resource book
Review: Let me begin by quoting one of his arguments: "... Confucius, Buddha, and all other human beings were conceived by natural means: a male human sperm fertilizing a female human egg. Not so with Jesus Christ. His mother conceived Him while she was yet a virgin. He had no paternal father..." (1999 Edition with the golden hard cover, p.287) This is simply --- before I could think of another concluding adjective --- INAPPROPRIATE. The author has fallen into unnecessary blind zeal of inflating his faith to go to such "details" for argument and in deflating other faiths in such way. This seriously gross self-inflicting flaw has destroyed the other goodwill points, no matter how archaeologically accurate, historical and authoritative the rest of the argument points may be. Bear in mind, the reader, regardless of background faith, has natural Halos Effect psychological responses.
Excuse me, but once I encountered and read this point, the rest of the book in previous and following pages have all become irrelevant. Now I am keeping this book not for reading his argument, but as a source book. It is useful to me as a theological topics compendium about Jesus. I look up the author's topic arrangement and resources and branch from there. Undeniably he put a lot of hard work in it --- in terms of references and bibliography, it is a 5 star. So I do a rough math for average (1+5) / 2 = 3 stars. From other reviews/websites I have read comments about this book and his approach also. I have read that McDowell quotes his sources in his way he wants to quote them. And when the readers/reviewers really go to the sources that McDowell cited, they saw a different picture from the original picture. I can present a case. I once referred to a vintage 1875 Whiston Edition of "Complete Works of Flavius Josephus". McDowell uses Josephus Antiquities XX 9.1, which mentioned James, the brother of Jesus. McDowell's logic: if James is a historical person --- then Jesus is a historical person.
And it came to pass that there are schools of tradition that James may be the elder brother of Jesus (The NIV Study Bible), or younger one, or Jesus was the lone son. Thus McDowell risks contradicting himself in his argument for virgin birth. Whilst McDowell cannot just simply cite source and apply it to his liking whenever, I myself see Jesus's greatness by greatness itself. Next thing I like to do is to personally review his sources and bibliography as much as possible to cross check his quotation and interpretation.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: If you are looking for arguments supporting Christianity, you should look elsewhere; McDowell is not at all a serious thinker. I would recommend Francis Schaeffer (especially his "trilogy" of The God Who is There, He is there and He is Not Silent, and Escape from Reason), and C.S. Lewis (especially Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain). Ultimately, I think that all of their arguments are flawed (indeed, what would be the point of faith if there was *any* conclusive argument to support the position in question), but they at least address the questions in a serious way, which is more than McDowell does. Handily indexed for easy referencing, _Evidence_ treats itself as an easy refutation to skeptics. As an atheist myself, I can assure you it's not; in fact, the real reason most people don't like McDowell's arguments isn't that they're just so powerful (as he wants you to believe), but that they're so utterly facile that no one wants to waste time debating them. If McDowell were a bit more clever, he'd seem like a mole, attempting to subvert christianity by promoting weak arguments for it, so that people change their minds when presented with the stronger ones for atheism - but as it is, he just comes across as a christian with too much confidence and too little serious thought to back it up. Read something else.
Rating: 
Summary: An Absolute MUST Have...
Review: For any Christian who needs quick back-ground info, this book is it. Don't use it as the bulwark of your defence, but as an important reference to some of the weaker skeptical arguments. If you don't have it, get it.
Rating: 
Summary: More apologist slight-of-hand serving a presumed conclusion.
Review: Be forewarned: McDowell cites passages selectively then conveniently neglects to go the extra step that might negate the very point he is trying to make. One very good example of this is McDowell's citing of both Clement F. Rogers' "The Case For Miracles (1936)" and the Old Testament. In Chapter 9 McDowell cites Rogers several times in support of McDowell's contention of the early church belief in the virgin birth. In actuality, the citation that McDowell is using will actually go on and counter McDowell's later claim that Isaiah 7:14 ("Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." KJV) is an example of a fullfilled prophecy. McDowell fails to cite Rogers when McDowell argues that Isaiah 7:14 is an example of a fulfilled prophecy even though a relevant passage directly follows a passage McDowell has already cited regarding early church belief in the virgin birth. Take a look: "In the early church, there were a few who rejected the virgin birth. Some of these heretics belonged to a Jewish Christian sect called the Ebionites. While some Ebionites accepted the virgin birth, others did not. Among those who denied the virgin birth were those who objected to the church's use of the passage in Isaiah concerning the virgin bearing a son (Isaiah 7:14). They said that the verse should be translated 'a young woman.' (Rogers, CM, 105) But with the exception of these Ebionites and a handful of others, the rest of the curch upheld the virgin birth of Christ and passed it on as part of orthodox doctrine. (McDowell p. 303) Examining the citation that McDowell uses (Rogers, CM, 105) we actually find: "Then there were the Ebionites of whom Irenaeus also speaks.... They objected to the Church's use of the passage in Isaiah vii.: 'Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.' They said the words simply meant 'a young woman,' and were so rendered in the version they used. In this they were right, but their objection shows that the belief of the Church was in the Virgin Birth." (Rogers 1936, p. 105) In this they were right, says Rogers - the virgin reference in Isaiah really does mean "young woman". It's the very next sentence following what McDowell does cite regarding the church's belief in the virgin birth. McDowell couldn't have missed it. But does he cite Rogers in his discussion of Isaiah 7:14 and the fulfillment of prophecy? Not at all. That wouldn't have supported his silent agenda. McDowell also conveniently fails to discuss at this point the underlying objection the Ebionites had at the use of the word 'virgin' when it really should have been 'young woman', how and why it was mistranslated, where it was mistranslated, and how the mistranslation later affected the so-called 'fulfillment' of prophecy later claimed by the author (or authors) of the book of 'Matthew': "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us (Matthew 1:22-23 , KJV)". If the word in Isaiah 7:14 really should be translated as 'young woman' instead of 'virgin' then why was it initially translated as 'virgin' then later used by the author (or authors) of 'Matthew' to claim that prophecy has been fulfilled? Actually, in the original Hebrew text the word is 'ALMAH which means 'young woman' and not BETULAH (or BETHULAH) which does mean 'virgin'. So how did the word 'virgin' get into Isaiah and later referenced by Matthew if it really does say 'young woman'? This happened when Greek-speaking Jews translated the original Hebrew into a Greek (in the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible) and tranlsated the Hebrew world 'ALMAH meaning 'young woman' into the Greek word PARTHENOS meaning 'virgin'. So the book of Matthew's claim of the fulfillment of prophecy only works just so long as there was a mistranslation (the author or authors of the book of 'Matthew' were using the Greek-translated Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible to support their claims and not the older, original Hebrew versions). In order for the New Testament to be inspired by God, infallible, and inerrant as both fundamentalists and evangelicals claim, then the book of Matthew's use of the word 'virgin' based on a mistranslation of the word for 'young woman' in the Hebrew Bible must mean that even mistakes, errors, and mistranslations are inspired by God, also inerrant and infallible. Without the mistranslation itself there would have been no prohecy for 'Matthew' to claim fulfilled. All this stems from McDowell's citing (and failure to cite) one author and one passage from the Bible. Presumably, McDowell is anticipating that his readership will not go out and do the open and intellectually honest research that he fails to bring to this book. That would require real work and a commitment of time, resources, and education that most "believers" are unwilling to give. For more thorough analysis of the 'young woman' and virgin' issue and Old Testament context see Kenneth E. Nahigian's article "A Virgin-Birth Prophecy?" (do a search online using the keywords: Nahigian virgin prophecy)...
Rating:
Summary: The decline and fall of Christian Apologetics
Review: Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict is probably the most influential book of Christian apologetics to be published in the past half century. And it is irredeemably flawed in every respect from beginning to end. Let's just list some of its major flaws. 1) Irrelevancies. McDowell repeatedly refers to the New Testament documents as eyewitness accounts. By contrast, the scholarly consenus among most historians and non-evangelical Christians is that of the 27 books of the New Testament, we know the authorship of exactly 7, all by Paul. Neither the four gospels, nor Acts, nor the Book of Revelation, nor the other letters were written by the people Christian tradition attributed to them, and they were written 40-80 years after his death. How does McDowell get around this problem? He cites evidence that there are far more copies of the bible and far earlier than any other account from the Classical Age. But this only shows that after Constantine the Church showed much more concern for preserving Christian documents and remarkable callousness towards non-christian ones. He argues that many details about first century Judaea are accurately recorded in the Gospels, but this does not show who wrote them or whether they were written one generation after Jesus' death or two. 2) Argument from authority. McDowell quotes reams of evangelical and nineteenth century authorities, as well as people who tried to refute the resurrection and only became more convinced of its existence. But what is the point of quoting Thomas Arnold's muscular defense of orthodoxy when it didn't really convince his son, the famous poet and essayist Matthew Arnold? To take one example of McDowell's inapt use of authority, consider his discussion of Quirinius on page 63. Quirinius is the governor under whom the census was conducted, that compelled Mary and Joseph to move to Bethlehem. Unfortunately, Quirinius and the census were held a dozen years after Jesus' birth. Mcdowell tries to get around this problem, but all his arguments and every other way of getting around the problem was refuted point by point in Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar's 1973 edition of Emil Schurer's The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Volume I at 399-427. In trying to get around the inconsistent geneologies given to Jesus in Matthew and Luke McDowell doesn't even mention Raymond Brown's The Birth of the Messiah, which says that they can't be successfully rationalized. 3) Ignorance of Judaism. It is not true that Jesus was the first Jew to refer to God as "Abba" or Father (153) It is not true that claiming one's sins are forgiven as part of healing a person (in Mark 2:1-12) is making a claim to divinity. Similar claims were made by other faith healers in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is not true that claiming sinless is equivalent to claiming divinity: the Prayer of Manasseh claims the patriarchs were sinless. 4) Prophetic non-sequiturs. McDowell asserts that Jesus is divine because he fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies. (He lists 61) There are all sorts of problems with this. Some of the prophecies could be fulfilled by anyone because they are or were everyday occurences. There is nothing especially unusual about going to the temple or entering Jerusalem on a donkey. Other Old Testament prophecies are not messianic prophecies, others were not interpreted as messianic prophesies until the Christians cited them as such. Many of the prophecies are merely claims that the gospels made; we have no independent proof of them. Among these are prophecies that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he was born in Bethlehem, and that he was annointed by the Holy Ghost. McDowell claims that Isaiah 7:14 predicts a virgin birth. He argues that the Hebrew world used "almah" means virgin, or is "denoted" by it. It does not, and John P. Meier has pointed out in A Marginal Jew that the term has been applied to pregnant women before giving birth. 5) Other non-sequiturs and logical errors. McDowell argues that miracles are more probable because quantum physics and relativity have upset Newtonian physics. Rubbish. He tries to suggest that the burden of proof lies on those who deny miracles or doubt the inerrancy on the bible when, of course, it lies on him. His discussion of C.S. Lewis' Trilemma shows the same flaw Lewis' did: it is not clear that Jesus claimed he was God, the Gospels do. Since they were written decades after his death they cannot be taken to be eyewitness accounts. Moreover, outside of John, the last Gospel, the claims are ambiguous and McDowell misinterprets the evidence he does have (see problem 3). McDowell does not discuss the fact that Paul's epistles, our earliest writings, do not mention the Virgin Birth, a Physical Ressurection, an Early Tomb, or a prophecy of destroyed Jerusalem. One could go on, but I only have a thousand words.
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