Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 03:2 (Fall 1999)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Strobel, Lee. The Case For Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence For Jesus. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998.

Lee Strobel serves as teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago. He earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School and was an award winning journalist for thirteen years at the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. He was a spiritual skeptic before he came to Christ in 1981. Lee has written Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary, What Jesus Would Say, and God’s Outrageous Claims.

In The Case for Christ Lee Strobel recounts cases from his work as a reporter and relates them to different investigative techniques used to solve difficult legal cases. Lee visited several leading evangelical scholars and interviewed them about evidence for the case for Christ. The Case For Christ is broken down into three sections: (1) Examining the Record, (2) Analyzing Jesus, and (3) Researching the Resurrection.

In the Examining the Record section, Strobel seeks to find answers to the following questions: Can the biographies of Jesus be trusted? Do the biographies of Jesus stand up to scrutiny? Were Jesus’ biographies reliably preserved for us? Is there credible evidence for Jesus outside His biographies? Does archaeology confirm or contradict Jesus’ biographies? Is the Jesus of history the same as the Jesus of faith? Strobel interviewed Dr. Craig Blomberg, Dr. Bruce Metzger, Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, Dr. John McRay and Dr. Gregory Boyd to find answers to these questions. The evidence presented is convincing. The gospels do give reliable historical accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The events in the gospels are verified by recent archaeological findings.

In the Analyzing Jesus section, Strobel investigates the following questions: Was Jesus really convinced that he was the Son of God? Was Jesus crazy when he claimed to be the Son of God? Did Jesus fulfill the attributes of God? Did Jesus and Jesus alone match the identity of the Messiah? Strobel interviewed Dr. Ben Witherington III, Dr. Gary Collins, Dr. D. A. Carson and Mr. Louis Lapides to find the answers to these important questions. Jesus did believe that he was the Son of God. He was not a liar or a lunatic, but He is Lord. The Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

In the Researching the Resurrection section, Strobel uncovers answers to the following questions: Was Jesus’ death a sham and his resurrection a hoax? Was Jesus’ body really absent from the tomb? Was Jesus seen alive after his death on the cross? Are...

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