The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus

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.

Rating:
Summary: A Catastrohpic Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: On page 26 of the paperback: "It's important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous. But the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew ... was the author of the first gospel of the New Testament; that John Mark ... was the author of the gospel of Mark; that Luke ... wrote the gospel of Luke...." In other words, the gospels are anonymous, but because the early church fathers said they were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then they must have been. BRILLIANT!!! Everyone should read this book to see HOW LAME CHRISTIAN APOLOGECTICS REALLY IS. The rest of this book beyond page 26 is a stinking corpse. Breathe deeply if you dare.