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Rebuttal by Paul Jacobsen</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-100743559758704838'><a href='/janssenjacobsen-discussion-round-2.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Janssen/Jacobsen Discussion, Round 2</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-285319650235509843'><a href='/janssenjacobsen-discussion-round-3.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Janssen/Jacobsen Discussion, Round 3</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-451257722465058576'><a href='/janssenjacobsen-discussion-round-4.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Janssen/Jacobsen Discussion, Round 4</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-852947684733474236'><a href='/janssenjacobsen-discussion-round-5.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Janssen/Jacobsen Discussion, Round 5</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-949004297842078910'><a href='/on-wes-janssen---c-r-drost.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>On Wes Janssen - C. 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Brady Lenardos Debate</span><span class='wsite-menu-more'>&gt;</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'><li id='wsite-nav-809397595464767398'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-1.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 1</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-331783382669044411'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-2.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 2</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-447618642799198535'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-3.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 3</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-161443257424798675'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-4.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 4</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-283106452871951850'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-5.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 5</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-918220856760764005'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-6.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 6</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-191274068309681875'><a href='/lenardosjacobsen-debate---round-7.html'><span class='wsite-menu-title'>Lenardos/Jacobsen Debate - Round 7</span></a><div class='wsite-menu-wrap' style='display:none'><ul class='wsite-menu'></ul></div></li><li id='wsite-nav-278516292864317326'><a 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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: center; "><font style="font-weight: bold;" size="5">The Case for Christ</font><br /><span></span><font style="font-weight: bold;" size="3">by Lee Strobel </font><br /><span></span><font style="font-weight: bold;" size="3">Reviewed by Taylor Carr - June 1st, 2011</font><span></span><br /><span></span><br /><a title="" target="_blank" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/books-dvds/case-for-christ_pg1.html">Originially published on GodlessHaven.com</a><br /><span>Reprinted with permission.</span><br /><span></span><a title="" style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/books-dvds/case-for-christ_pg2.html#CH5"><br /><span></span></a></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">Chapter 1: The Eyewitness Evidence<br /><span></span>Chapter 2: Testing the Eyewitness Evidence<br />Chapter 3: The Documentary Evidence<br />Chapter 4: The Corroborating Evidence<br /> Chapter 5: The Scientific Evidence<br />Chapter 6: The Rebuttal EvidenceChapter 7: The Identity Evidence<br />Chapter 8: The Psychological Evidence<br />Chapter 9: The Profile Evidence<br />Chapter 10: The Fingerprint Evidence<br /><span></span>Chapter 11: The Medical Evidence<br />Chapter 12: The Evidence of the Missing Body<br /><span></span>Chapter 13: The Evidence of Appearances<br /><span></span>Chapter 14: The Circumstantial Evidence<br /><span></span>Conclusion<br /><br /><span></span><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span></span> When I was a young Christian seeking answers to questions of faith and struggling with challenges to my beliefs, <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>  was the first recommendation I received that seemed like it might fit  the bill. Back cover promises of taking on big issues like the  reliability of the New Testament, the historical evidence for Jesus, and  the reasons for believing in the resurrection appealed to my sense of  curiosity about the confidence one could have in the Christian religion.  The tagline of the book as an 'atheist' journalist's investigation into  Christianity that resulted in his conversion practically sealed the  deal for me. Yet upon finishing my reading, I was left disappointed and  disillusioned, because <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> is investigative writing at its worst. <br /><br /> Lee Strobel is one of the best known names in Christian apologetics, and the author of other bestselling books such as <em style="">The Case for a Creator</em>, <em style="">The Case for Faith</em>, and <em style="">The Case for the Real Jesus</em>. Strobel holds a Law degree from Yale Law School, worked as a journalist for <em style="">The Chicago Tribune</em>, and served as pastor at Willow Creek Community Church from 1987 to 2000 and at Saddleback Church from 2000 to 2002. <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> was a breakthrough in success and popularity for Strobel, and it is arguably his most well-known work. <br /><br /> <strong style="">Setting the Stage</strong> <br /><br /> Before we begin, a few important matters must be addressed. First,  Strobel's pre-Christian persona is suspect, but ultimately irrelevant.  Since atheism is merely the rejection of theism, simply being an atheist  does not tell us anything about <em style="">why</em> someone is an atheist. Being  a former atheist who converted to Christianity earns Strobel no  credibility by itself; his reasons for changing his mind are what should  be of interest. Even so, when we look at what's brought to the table in  <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>, it strongly suggests that Strobel was not a  very informed atheist. As he says himself in the book, "I had read just  enough philosophy and history to find support for my skepticism - a  fact here, a scientific theory there, a pithy quote, a clever argument" <span style="font-weight: bold;">[1]</span>.  It sounds as if he was less concerned with knowing why he didn't  believe and more concerned with countering the advances of others who  wanted to evangelize to him. <br /><br /> Secondly, Strobel's inspiration to convert may have been less about the  evidence and the investigation than he lets on. What did bring him to  faith in Christ? It wasn't reading Josephus or talking to bible  scholars, it was his wife's own conversion. Although initially scoffing  at the decision of his wife, Strobel describes being "pleasantly  surprised - even fascinated - by the fundamental changes in her  character, her integrity, and her personal confidence" (p. 14). A  difference of opinion as radical as that between an atheist and a  Christian can be tumultuous in a relationship, but love for a  significant other can put great pressure on reconciling that difference,  even if conversion seems to be the only viable option. It is certainly  not unheard of for a spouse to change his/her religion in accordance  with their partner. Did Strobel really want to study Christianity to  learn about the shifts in his wife's behavior or did he want to find a  reason to stay with the woman he loves? <br /><br /> Finally, we can see these issues reflected in the sincerity and  objectivity with which Strobel conducts his investigation. When I say <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>  is investigative writing at its worst, I mean that it presents a  terribly one-sided view of the discussion. Of all the scholars,  historians, and experts that could have been interviewed, every single  one of the thirteen featured in the book is an Evangelical Christian.  Strobel hand picks statements from a few skeptics to present to his  conservative scholars, but much of the time the opposing view is given  by the author himself, who often throws soft balls and sets up strawman  arguments. We will see all of this and more as we examine Strobel's  case, chapter by chapter. <br /><br /> <strong style="">Introduction</strong> <br /><br /> To begin, there are some statements worth noting in the introduction  that will be referred to elsewhere in this critique. These statements  demonstrate great confidence on the part of the author, who seems to  believe firmly in the strength of his case. We are first met with the  story of James Dixon. The facts of the case all seem to point toward  Dixon being guilty, but when new evidence comes to light, the verdict  drastically changes. I find this to be very indicative of a problem most  apologists appear to suffer from - one which Strobel and his pals  frequently fall into throughout the book. The time to believe a  proposition is when the evidence supports it, <em style="">not</em> before, not even if initial presumptions turn out to be wrong. As Strobel explains, "the key questions were these: <em style="">Had the collection of evidence really been thorough? And which explanation best fit the totality of the facts?</em>" (p. 12) <br /><br /> If the collection of evidence was not thorough, Dixon would have been  wrongfully convicted. But this is not a reason to believe in spite of  evidence, it's merely a reason to be meticulous and diligent in one's  investigation - it's a reason to value evidence all the more!  Approaching things as thoroughly as possible is the only way to get the  totality of facts, and successfully determining the best explanation is  more difficult without the complete picture. Strobel has set a good  standard with this, which he thinks his case for Christ lives up to. He  even charges atheists - under the guise of his former self - with  ignoring such standards: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.05071%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.9493%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><br /><span></span><span style="font-style: italic;">"I could see some gaps and inconsistencies,  but I had a strong   motivation to ignore them: a self-serving and immoral  lifestyle that I   would be compelled to abandon if I were ever to change  my views and   become a follower of Jesus." (p. 13)  </span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">This myth is  entirely reliant on Christian dogma, however. There is   nothing  preventing an atheist from being selfless and moral, nor does   being a  follower of Jesus mean one is living free from sin. The   difference  between a Christian working on being a better person and an   atheist  working on being a better person is that the atheist does it   only for  their benefit and the benefit of those around them, whereas  the   Christian also does it as part of an obligation to god. Strobel  doesn't   tell us what horrible things he did as a non-Christian, but  his remark   is a common evangelizing practice too, making it hard to  buy that he  was  as devoted to self-serving immorality as he pretends.  On the other   hand, we see religious devotees ignore the facts quite  often when they   conflict with cherished beliefs. From faith healers to  young earth   creationists, 'god's truth' is frequently placed above  any naturalistic   evidence found disconcerting. <br /><br /> And what of the scholars consulted in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>?   Do  they show an openness to all the facts or an aversion to   uncomfortable  ones? As already mentioned, all thirteen of them are   Evangelical  Christians, which provides a very narrow scope to begin   with. But what's  more is that Strobel assures us they are "leading   authorities who have  impeccable academic credentials" (p. 14). No   attempt to justify this is  made, perhaps because these are scholars of   one particular denomination  among the thousands within Christianity.   Strobel tries to give the  impression of his book being based on cutting   edge information given by  the top experts speaking for the majority  in  biblical and historical  scholarship, but don't be fooled. Even if  this  were true and we were not  being given such a biased sliver of   opinions, the arguments and  evidence are what matter most. With that   said, let's see what Strobel  and company have to offer. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 1: The Eyewitness Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Strobel kicks off his investigation by looking at the four gospels,  specifically who wrote them, when they were written, and how trustworthy  they are. When researching a historical person and trying to get to the  core of who they were and what they were about, it seems that we should  start at the very beginning, looking at the hard evidence of  archaeology and the historical record. Instead, our author saves this  approach for chapters four and five, after extensive discussion of the  gospels. Why go about it that way? Strobel hopes to persuade his readers  of the reliability of the gospels first and foremost, so that by the  time history and science come into the picture, they will merely be  adding support to a pre-existing conception of Jesus. What we are being  given here is not exactly the case for Christ, but the case for the  Christ of the gospels. Considering the value of the gospels to  Christians and the amount of faith Evangelicals invest in them, this is  not so surprising. <br /><br /> Eyewitness testimony is very valuable in investigations, Strobel tells  us, and it can even be useful for the issue of "whether Jesus Christ is  the unique Son of God" (p. 20). Although eyewitnesses can add some  additional information or credibility to a case, their testimony is not  nearly as trustworthy as Strobel - who I will remind you is a seasoned  journalist and Law school graduate - tries to make it seem. False  memories can be introduced by a third party, by language cues, or by  even retelling a story, as studies have shown. In a talk given at  Stanford Law School, professors Barbara Tversky and George Fisher  explain that "when misleading information is given, witness confidence  is often <em style="">higher</em> for the incorrect information than for the correct information" <span style="font-weight: bold;">[2]</span>.  Bias is a big influence on how we report an event, they also noted, and  unfortunately it often "creeps into memory without our knowledge,  without our awareness." Thus, even if the gospels are eyewitness  accounts, that does not promise any greater sense of reliability,  especially with their overt bias. <br /><br /> For his first interview, Strobel talks to Craig Blomberg, a New  Testament scholar with an affinity for writing about the gospels.  Blomberg admits that, "strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous,"  yet he goes on to cite "the testimony of the early church" in defending  traditional authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (p. 22). These  members of the early church, such as Irenaeus and Papias, wrote their  comments 60 to 100 years after the gospels were allegedly written, and  more interestingly, they don't actually do much in telling us what  gospels were by which authors. As an example, consider Irenaeus'  comment, which Strobel also quotes in the book: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.63042%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.3696%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in  their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome  and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple  and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the  substance of Peter's preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a  book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the  Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while  he was living at Ephesus in Asia." <span style="font-weight: bold;">[3]</span></span><br /><br /><span></span></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">All the information Irenaeus really provides is that these four men  supposedly each wrote a gospel. How does he know this? Although he  doesn't disclose his source, further insight may be gained from another  passage where Irenaeus speaks of the gospels. Explaining why there are  only four authentic gospels, he states: <br /><span></span><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.4855%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.5145%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more  or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the  world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is  scattered throughout all the world, and the 'pillar and ground' of the  Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she  should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and  vivifying men afresh." -<em style="">Against Heresies</em>, 3.11.8.</span><br /><span></span><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Obviously, Irenaeus was prone to inventing explanations to settle the  heresies against which he was fighting. Writing in the late 2nd century  C.E. against Marcion and others who had created their own canons of  'unacceptable' gospels and scriptures, Irenaeus had to find some way to  justify his position. His account of the four gospel authors is the  earliest we have, when only 30 years before, Justin Martyr had felt  comfortable leaving the gospels in anonymity, referring to them simply  as the <em style="">Memoirs of the Apostles</em>. Other problems also exist in  Irenaeus' comment. As Bart Ehrman and other New Testament scholars have  pointed out, the gospel of Matthew that we possess today is in Greek,  not Hebrew, and there is no evidence that it has been translated from  Hebrew <span style="font-weight: bold;">[4]</span>.  Ehrman additionally states that there is nothing in Mark's gospel to  indicate a reliance on Peter. It's even more puzzling to note that  Irenaeus suggests that Mark composed his gospel <em style="">after</em> Matthew composed his, which cannot be the case, since the text of Matthew very clearly borrows elements from Mark. <br /><br /> The two-source hypothesis holds that Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a  source in their writings, as well as a lost sayings gospel named Q. Not  surprisingly, Blomberg writes off the theory as "nothing more than a  hypothesis" and attempts to argue that Matthew used Mark because Mark  used Peter as a source (p. 26,27). The two-source hypothesis is strongly  supported in an article by New Testament scholar Daniel B. Wallace <span style="font-weight: bold;">[5]</span>,  and it ought to be asked why an alleged eyewitness like Matthew would  use Mark even out of deference to Peter, rather than giving his own  unique testimony. Blomberg's theory makes far less sense than accepting  the anonymity of the gospels and considering other authors aside from  the traditional four, yet it's a good example of the mental gymnastics  that conservative apologetics are often forced into. <br /><br /> To embark on a brief tangent about Q, Blomberg claims that the  hypothetical gospel contains miracle stories, such as Luke 7:18-23 and  Matthew 11:2-6 (p. 27). The early circulation of miracle stories for  Jesus would not be unusual, but neither would it provide any support to  the belief that miracles were actually performed. New Testament scholar  Burton Mack has suggested that miracle stories were among the early  traditions ascribed to Jesus <span style="font-weight: bold;">[6]</span>,  and an interesting fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls known as 4Q521  may serve as evidence that some ancient Jews believed the coming messiah  would be a miracle worker. What makes it interesting is the similarity  in structure to what Jesus says of himself in the Luke and Matthew  passages that Blomberg cites. These miracle stories in Q may just be  another case of messianic fulfillment attributed to Jesus by the  movements that sprang up around him, as Mack argues. <br /><br /> In perhaps the most absurd portion of the chapter, Strobel asks about  the uniformity of belief among the early church fathers regarding the  authorship of the gospels, to which Blomberg responds that there "are no  known competitors." Having seen this touted as an argument for  traditional authorship before, I feel the need to emphasize just how  ridiculous it is. When we can examine a text and determine if it's a  forgery based on the language, style, the subject matter, the author's  description of his environment, knowledge of history, and so many other  factors, we do NOT need to know the forger's actual name to rest assured  that it is a forgery. However, in the case of the anonymous gospels,  we're not even talking about forgery, because no names were attached to  the documents! But based on the descriptions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and  John in Christian sources, we can tell just how much or how little the  gospels attributed to them resemble their identities. Thus, we need not  know any competitors to cast sufficient doubt on traditional authorship. <br /><br /> Next we find Blomberg trying to show that Jesus didn't just make divine  claims in John's gospel, but in the synoptic gospels too. The use of "I  am" in Mark 6:50, he argues, is Jesus equating himself with god, whose  name is "I Am that I Am" in Exodus 3:14 (p. 29). Amusingly, though, the  Greek word Jesus uses for "I am" in Mark 6:50, <em style="">eimi</em>, is elsewhere  used by men who Christians would certainly not consider to be making  divine claims, such as Paul in Romans 1:14 and even a Roman centurion in  Matthew 8:8-9! If those men could make "I am" statements without being  found guilty of blasphemy, then maybe <em style="">eimi</em> was simply common  language that wasn't seen as a claim of divinity in itself. In similar  fashion, Blomberg contends that "son of man" was a divine title (p. 30),  as an allusion to Daniel 7:13-14, yet he conveniently omits the use of  the term in Psalm 144:3, Numbers 23:19, Job 25:6, and other passages  where mortals are called sons of man. <br /><br /> Mark's gospel may be some 40 years after the supposed death of Jesus,  but there is still reason to think it's reliable, according to Blomberg,  because "hostile eyewitnesses... would have served as a corrective if  false teachings about Jesus were going around" (p. 33). I'm somewhat  astonished and dismayed at how common this line of argument is among  Christians. As numerous historians have observed, the early Christian  movement was not particularly notable in the midst of Judea. To think  the small sect that formed around Jesus would have stood out among other  messianic figures like Judas of Galilee, Theudas, and Athronges, during  the intense upheaval of the first century among Jews and Romans seems  to be imaginative thinking. It's like suggesting that Sathya Sai Baba  really did all those miracles his followers attributed to him, or else  skeptics would've been able to disprove them. In such confined cases,  there's just not usually any interest in bothering. <br /><br /> Blomberg makes another fallacious assertion that seems to be common  among Christian apologists. He dates the book of Acts to sometime before  62 C.E. on the grounds that it does not mention the death of Paul, and,  as he argues, that must mean Acts was composed before Paul's death (p.  33). While the author of Acts may not have specifically described how  Paul met his end, there is reason to think he knew about it. In Acts  20:25, Paul tells his followers that "none of you among whom I have gone  about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again." The final  encounter with Paul is part of the author's plan for the narrative, as  New Testament scholar Joseph A. Fitzmyer elaborates: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.4855%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.5145%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"...it may seem strange that the reader is not told  anything about the death of Paul, the hero of the second half of Acts.  Yet the ending, such as it is, may not be as puzzling as some think,  because it does record that Paul continued to preach the kingdom of God,  even in Rome, 'with all boldness and without hindrance' (28:31). That  is the note of triumph on which Luke wanted his story to end. The gospel  was thus being preached at Rome, the 'end of the earth' (1:8), 'and  without hindrance' (28:31). The reader of Acts already knows that Paul's  personal end was not far off; the Lucan Paul intimated as much in his  speech at Miletus, and so Luke felt no need to recount it." <span style="font-weight: bold;">[7]</span></span><br /><br /><span></span></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">Since Blomberg uses this presumption about the dating of Acts to try and  date the gospels even earlier, his argument crumbles when the  presumption is undermined. Nonetheless, he proceeds with three so-called  "early creeds" in Paul's writings that support an early tradition of  resurrection, he believes (p. 34-35). One of the creeds is from a  disputed epistle, Colossians, which features stylistic differences from  the authentic letters of Paul, and even theological differences such as  the belief that Christians were already "raised with Christ" by baptism  (Col. 2:12-13), in contrast to Paul's insistence that believers are not  raised until some future event (1 Corin. 15:50-54). Given that some  scholars have dated Colossians as late as 80 C.E., it cannot be assumed  to be an early creed. The other two creeds cited are Philippians 2:6-11  and 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. While each has its peculiarities (the  "emptying" of Jesus in Phil., the 12 in 1 Corin. after Judas died and  his replacement had not been named yet), the critical thing to consider  is what evidence there is that any of these passages are early creeds.  No church fathers or early Christians name these scriptures creeds, and  even if they are pre-Pauline in origin, determining exactly when they  date from is another matter not likely to be definitively settled.<br /><br /><br /><span></span> </div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a style=""><strong style="">Chapter 2: Testing the Eyewitness Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Having attempted to establish the traditional authorship of the four  gospels, Blomberg moves on to arguing in favor of their historical  reliability. Why is Luke to be trusted as a historically accurate  picture of events, for example? Well, because Luke says he "carefully  investigated everything" (Luke 1:3), and this appears to be enough for  Blomberg (p. 39-40). Regarding the other two synoptic gospels, Blomberg  uncritically says "it seems reasonable that Luke's historical intent  would closely mirror theirs" (p. 40). How can this be a reasonable  supposition when Matthew's gospel shows a clear agenda of fitting Jesus  to the Old Testament and Mark's gospel presents a perspective that has  been called the messianic secret? Each of the four gospels has its own  unique bias, but Evangelicals like Blomberg are fond of downplaying  these differences and mashing the texts together to argue for agreement  among them. <br /><br /> In a stunning display of nonsense, Blomberg claims that if one is to be  "convinced enough to believe, the theology has to flow from accurate  history" (p. 40). Beliefs defy the evidence of history all the time,  however, and some groups like the Mormons seem to have no trouble being  convinced to the point of believing in theology that is rooted in  significant historical errors. Contrasting his statement to the gospels,  Blomberg asserts that the gospels do not have the "outlandish  flourishes and blatant mythologizing" of other ancient writings (p. 40).  What about the virgin birth, the star over Bethlehem, the miracles  performed by Jesus, the opening of the graves at his crucifixion, the  resurrection of Jesus, the angels at his tomb, and the postmortem  appearances where he suddenly materialized in locked rooms, just to name  a few? It's not as if these aren't common mythological devices, either.  Blomberg's statement is clearly special pleading. <br /><br /> Blomberg doesn't seem to have any problem with accepting that the  gospels came from earlier oral traditions, but he's not so inclined to  accept the errors that naturally come from such a format of  transmission. If the Jews could commit to memorizing the Torah, he  ponders, then maybe the early Christians did the same with their  stories. Ancient practices of memorization allowed for 10-40% variation,  Blomberg states, and this is about the same variation that the synoptic  gospels have between each other (p. 43-44). No sources are provided for  either of these statistics, but it's worth noting that Blomberg is  admitting to faulty memories accounting for the inconsistencies in the  synoptics, even if he does regard this is as the result of standard  memorization practices in the ancient world. 10-40% variation is not an  insignificant range of differences either, yet the strength of the  two-source hypothesis really makes memorization a superfluous notion  without good evidence. <br /><br /> The telephone game is very often used as an analogy against the  reliability of passing on information by word of mouth. It is perhaps  the most effective way to emphasize the errors and mistakes that can be  made, typically through no intentional deception. But in his quest to  vindicate the conservative view of the gospels, Blomberg is forced to  fight the telephone game. "The [Christian] community would constantly be  monitoring what was said and intervening to make corrections along the  way," he states (p. 44). This response presumes that there was one  unified community of believers all with the same goal of reporting and  preserving the historically accurate occurrence of events in Jesus' life  and ministry. However, in the earliest documents we have from those 'in  the community,' like Paul, we see tensions and factions coming into  conflict with one another. Paul intervenes with his 'corrections,' James  intervenes with his (Gal. 2:12), and through the reprimands of Paul we  find other Christians passing on other ideas, like spiritual gifts (1  Corinthians 14), the timing of Christ's return (1 Thessalonians), the  need for circumcision (Galatians 5), and more. There is no reason to  think the early Christians had unified enough to lay down any system of  checks and balances like Blomberg believes they had. <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.05071%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.9493%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"We simply do not have any reasonable evidence to suggest  [the gospel authors] were anything but people of great integrity." (p.  45)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Blomberg bases the above statement on Christ's calling for his followers  to be of good integrity, as well as "ten of the eleven remaining  disciples being put to grisly deaths, which shows great character."  Jesus' calling to the disciples is totally irrelevant, since instruction  is not always followed, even by disciples of an esteemed leader. I have  written about the martyrdom of the disciples in a separate article, <a style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/disciples-martyrdom.html">Did the Disciples Die For a Lie?</a>,  and I am amused and puzzled by where this "ten of the eleven" figure  comes from (of course, Blomberg doesn't bother to cite his source), when  the earliest sources on the deaths of the disciples report that four of  them died of natural causes. Even so, dying a grisly death, or a  martyr's death, does not show character or integrity by default. It only  shows conviction, which can be either praiseworthy or condemnable. <br /><br /> Moving on to address some of the alleged contradictions in the bible,  Strobel begins by tossing a couple of ridiculously weak examples at  Blomberg which I have yet to see on skeptic's lists (p. 46-47). For the  third and final example, Strobel brings up the conflicting genealogies  of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Our 'expert' scholar attempts to dismiss  the contradiction with the tired old proposal that one genealogy traces  Jesus' lineage through Mary and the other traces it through Joseph. But  Mary is mentioned nowhere in Luke's gospel and only incidentally in  Matthew's, as the wife of Joseph. Luke specifically says, "Jacob the  father of Joseph" and Matthew says, "Joseph, the son of Heli".  Additionally, Numbers 1:18 explains that genealogies were assembled, "by  ancestry in their families, by their <em style="">fathers'</em> households," and  there is no genealogy traced through the mother anywhere in the entire  bible. The Mary lineage explanation just doesn't fly. <br /><br /> Next, Blomberg issues a whopper of a comment, explaining that if we've  reconciled contradictions in the vast majority of a text, "we can give  [it] the benefit of a doubt when we're not sure on some of the other  details" (p. 48). The overwhelming amount of Christian reconciliations  of contradictions involve possibilities and speculation. It could be  that Mary's lineage is one of the genealogies. Maybe Luke 7:3 says the  centurion sent the elders because it was common to attribute actions to  subordinates in those days. Perhaps Gerasa was a town in the province of  Gadara (all these 'solutions' are proposed by Blomberg in p. 46-47). If  we could trust a text based on speculative reconciliations like these,  we could make up excuses to consider any document as historically  reliable. The other problem with this comment lies in presuming the  accuracy of OTHER details based on the ability to reconcile some  separate contradictions. This is poor scholarship. Each individual claim  needs to be examined on its own merits. An apparent resolution of one  contradiction cannot be expanded to blind trust in the rest of the text. <br /><br /> Strobel asks Blomberg if the gospel authors "included any material that  might be embarrassing" or if they covered it up "to make themselves look  good" (p. 49). With such an obvious leading question, one wonders how  Strobel got his law degree. Embarrassment is relative - what you find  embarrassing, I may not, and vice versa. This means that Blomberg's  answers will certainly boil down to speculation once more, and he comes  up with three grand ones: (i) the hard, ethically challenging sayings of  Jesus; (ii) apparent limitations on Jesus' power; and (iii) the  depiction of the disciples as dim-wits. For (i), we need only point out  the same in Buddhism, Judaism, and other religions that value piety. In  fact, piety seems a common element of concern for nearly every religion,  as it is generally a part of the sacred. Living up to high moral  standards was probably neither unusual nor embarrassing to first century  people. (ii) can be better understood with the context of each gospel  author's unique agenda, i.e. Jesus crying out Psalm 22:1 suits Mark's  recurring theme of tragic irony. If authors used these 'limitations' to  fit their agendas, they obviously were not embarrassed by them. The same  goes for (iii), in addition to the fact that the role of the disciples  depends on which gospel is read (Mark portrays them as more aloof than  in John). <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:7.90579%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:91.0942%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span></span>"In later Jewish writings Jesus is called a sorcerer who  led Israel astray - which acknowledges that he really did work marvelous  wonders, although the writings dispute the source of his power." (p.  51)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Although not stated in the book, this appears to be a reference to a passage in the Jewish Talmud. I cover this in my article, <a style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/jesus-evidence.html">Did Jesus Really Exist?</a>,  and while my conclusion on the historicity of Jesus has changed, the  argument against the Talmud as a source for Jesus Christ has not. The  information provided is vague, mentioning a man named Yeshu who was  stoned to death and then hung from a tree for the crimes of witchcraft  and idolatry. In the Talmud alone, there are numerous references to men  named Yeshu, each quite different from the others. Blomberg's suggestion  that condemning a man for sorcery acknowledges that he works miracles  is also premature. The central concern in the Talmud appears to be with  Yeshu enticing Israel to idolatry, and "practicing witchcraft" does not  imply that someone was successfully working miracles, only that they  were trying. Regardless, the passage notes that Yeshu was "close to the  government," which sounds very unlike the Jesus of the gospels. <br /><br /> Throughout the first two chapters, Blomberg makes frequent appeals to  the hostile witness argument - that the enemies of Christianity could  have easily exposed the religion as a lie if it was in fact a lie. I've  already pointed out that Christianity was a fairly small sect in its  early days and it was often fighting battles against itself with the  various opinions circulating in Paul's time. But it's also important to  realize the lateness of the Christian mission, which Blomberg doesn't  seem to appreciate. As we find in Acts 2, the disciples did not begin  preaching the risen Christ until seven weeks after his ascension. At  such a late point, digging up and producing a body to dispel a fledgling  religion would have been fruitless. Even the earliest writings of the  Christian movement come 20-25 years after the death of Jesus. There is  just no reason to think the Romans or Jews would have had the motive to  hound Christians over something with which they were not exactly  forthcoming in the first place. <br /><br /> Closing his lengthy interview with Blomberg, Strobel asks him whether  his years of research have helped or hindered his faith. This concluding  question is posed to all of Strobel's interviewees, reinforcing the  idea that people will believe if they only know the evidence.  Predictably, Blomberg says his faith has been strengthened, and he goes  on to say that there are "plenty of stories" of non-believing bible  scholars converting through the course of their studies (p. 53), though  he doesn't name a single one. Of what use is this little comment, other  than misleading people into thinking that the evidence is so convincing  as to compell conversion? With other scholars losing their faith through  study of the bible, like Bart Ehrman, Robert M. Price, Michael Goulder,  and John W. Loftus, Blomberg's implication here is devoid of any real  substance. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 3: The Documentary Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> For chapter three, Strobel interviews Bruce Metzger, a renowned New  Testament scholar from Princeton Theological Seminary. Strobel's purpose  here is to establish the textual reliability of the gospels, or show  that the text of the gospels has not been corrupted. As both men admit,  copies of copies of copies are all that we currently have of Matthew,  Mark, Luke, and John. Have these copies been altered or are they still  as accurate as the originals? Even the more conservative bible  translations like the NIV now recognize that certain familiar stories  like Jesus forgiving the adulteress in John and the miraculous ending of  Mark's gospel (16:9-20) are not in the earliest manuscripts. There have  been changes to the bible, but what Strobel and his fan club are  wanting to know is how significant these changes have been. <br /><br /> One of the most popular ways to endorse the textual reliability of the  New Testament seems to be by simply citing the number of manuscripts in  existence. Josh McDowell has done this in too many apologetic propaganda  pieces to count, and Metzger lays out the same information in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>,  noting that there are around 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament.  To his credit, though (and unlike McDowell), Metzger illuminates the  fact that the majority of these come from later times. Uncial  manuscripts, of which we have 306, date to the 3rd century C.E. and  later (p. 62-63). Minuscule manuscripts, of which there are 2,856, came  into use around 800 C.E., Metzger states. Then there are 2,403  lectionaries, which started to emerge by the 8th century, and  8,000-10,000 Latin manuscripts, and 8,000 more in Ethiopic, Slavic, and  Armenian, all of which originated from the medieval era and later.  Although not mentioned in the book, there are 127 New Testament papyri,  the oldest dating to 125 C.E. <span style="font-weight: bold;">[8]</span>.  Altogether, these account for the 24,000 manuscripts Metzger refers to.  This provides a very different picture, for if we want to keep things  within the first three or four centuries of Christianity, we are left  with a mere 433 manuscripts at the most. <br /><br /> With this new number, it's not so impressive to stack up the New Testament next to <em style="">The Iliad</em>'s  650 Greek manuscripts. By the time of Constantine, canons of scripture  were being commissioned, and with the expanse of Christianity through  the world, an increased demand for copies of the bible meant more  manuscripts would be produced in the medieval era than any other period  of Christian history before. Perhaps why the bible's overall count of  manuscripts drowns out most other texts is simply because it carried an  ideology with it that grew by conquest, as opposed to other literary  works of the ancient world that had no such ideology attached to them.  This has devastating implications for a quote Strobel gives of Norman  Geisler: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:7.90579%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:91.0942%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span></span>"The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more  manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a  purer form than any other great book - <em style="">a form that is 99.5% pure</em>." (p. 65)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> It is arguably misleading to contrast the New Testament to other works  of antiquity that did not experience the high demand for copies and fell  out of production until the modern era. One should also bear in mind  that certain pagan texts deemed heretical would possibly even have been  prohibited from production in the Middle Ages (Odysseus is found in the  eighth circle of hell in Dante's <em style="">Inferno</em>). The circumstances  surrounding the creation of manuscripts for the New Testament are vastly  incomparable to those surrounding most other ancient texts. As for the  "99.5" purity, it's not clear what constitutes purity of the text in  this case, but Daniel B. Wallace has taken on Geisler's downplaying of  the New Testament variations in an article where he reveals a difference  of 200,000 versus <em style="">8 million</em> variants <span style="font-weight: bold;">[9]</span>. <br /><br /> However, the textual reliability of the New Testament adds nothing to  the case for Christ in the first place. I might even agree with Frederic  Kenyon that "the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they  were written" (p. 63). But all that this proves is that the text of the  New Testament has not changed much since it was originally written - it  does not vouch for the historicity or truth of the content, only for the  mode of its transmission. The authors of the Christian canon could have  written false information into the original writings, and all the  copies and internal consistency in the world wouldn't make a difference. <br /><br /> When I was first introduced to apologetics, the criteria used in  constructing the canon was of great interest to me. Why did the church  exclude certain texts but allow others? Was the process fair or had the  Christian council "squelched equally legitimate documents because they  didn't like the picture of Jesus they portrayed," as Strobel puts it (p.  65)? Metzger offers three criteria by which the texts that made it into  the canon were evaluated: (i) it had to be written by an apostle or the  follower of an apostle; (ii) it had to be congruent with what the  church and Christians believed; (iii) and it had to have had continuous  acceptance and usage by the church at large. There should be little  doubt that these criteria did indeed squelch unwelcome documents,  regardless of their legitimacy. (i) filters out non-apostolic and  non-Christian testimony by default; (ii) excludes texts that are not  supported by the majority opinion; and (iii) rules out all but the books  that were popular and approved by the church. The New Testament seems  more like a greatest hits compilation than the divinely-inspired 'word  of god.' <br /><br /> Strobel proceeds to ask Metzger about the Gospel of Thomas, which  Metzger dates to 140 C.E. (p. 68). The primary reason for giving it a  later dating is its incompatibility with the canonical gospels, but this  seems to be a biased kind of filtering, given that John's gospel so  differs from the other three that Mark, Matthew, and Luke earned the  synoptic title to distinguish them. For an alternate opinion supporting  an earlier dating, Stephen J. Patterson writes: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:7.90579%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:91.0942%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"While the cumulative nature of the sayings collection  understandably makes the Gospel of Thomas difficult to date with  precision, several factors weigh in favor of a date well before the end  of the first century: the way in which Thomas appeals to the authority  of particular prominent figures (Thomas, James) against the competing  claims of others (Peter, Matthew); in genre, the sayings collection,  which seems to have declined in importance after the emergence of the  more biographical and dialogical forms near the end of the first  century; and its primitive christology, which seems to presuppose a  theological climate even more primitive than the later stages of the  synoptic sayings gospel, Q. Together these factors suggest a date for  Thomas in the vicinity of 70-80 C.E." <span style="font-weight: bold;">[10]</span></span><br /><br /><span></span></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Metzger's argument for a late dating of Thomas really isn't an argument  so much as it's religiously-based intuition. "[The Christian believers]  could hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in the gospel of John," he  says, "they could hear it only in a muffled and distorted way in the  Gospel of Thomas" (p. 69). This is not the critique of a thoughtful  scholar - at best it's stating the obvious: the early Christians didn't  feel that Thomas was inspired. Of course, that's one reason why it  didn't become part of the canon. Metzger may be a renowned bible  scholar, but his contributions to <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> are mundane  and disappointing, especially his remark that Syrian churches  "impoverish themselves" by not accepting the intensely paranoid and  violent book of Revelation as canonical scripture (p. 69)! <br /><br /> In closing chapter three, Strobel comments on the pseudepigrapha, or  falsely attributed writings that were not included in the canon, such as  the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Gospel of Bartholomew, and others. Having  accepted Metzger's 'challenge' to read them, he dismisses the texts over  their "mythical qualities" that "disqualify them from being  historically credible" (p. 70). But why is a talking cross mythical and  disqualified from historical credibility, while a talking snake is just  fine? Why is it mythical for Jesus to talk figuratively about making  Mary into a male in the Gospel of Thomas, and yet it's natural for Jesus  to talk figuratively about eating his body and drinking his blood in  the canonical gospels? <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 4: The Corroborating Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> After building up the gospels as believable eyewitness accounts, Strobel  at last turns to the testimony of the historical record to try and  further establish the reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His  third interview is with Edwin Yamauchi, a scholar of biblical languages  and Mediterranean studies. For the first extra-biblical evidence of the  New Testament, Yamauchi brings up the two passages in Josephus, one  known as the <em style="">Testimonium Flavianum</em>, and the other an alleged  reference to James the brother of Jesus (p. 79-80). I have discussed  these accounts at length in my article, <a title="" style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/jesus-evidence.html">Did Jesus Really Exist?</a>,  and although my conclusion on the historicity of Jesus has changed, as I  mentioned before, the arguments against the Josephan passages have not.  Yamauchi freely concedes that the <em style="">Testimonium</em> has been  interpolated, as the vast majority of scholars believe, but Strobel does  not bother to interview or quote any of the scholars who argue against  partial authenticity. The most he gives is a statement by Michael  Martin, who questions why Josephus would go into such detail on John the  Baptist and not Jesus (p. 81). <br /><br /> Yamauchi dismisses the Jesus myth theory as "a lost cause," "vacuous and  fallacious," and claims that Josephus reported more of John because he  was considered a bigger threat to Rome than Jesus was (p. 81). Josephus  does state that Herod Antipas had John executed because "he feared  John's teachings could lead to unrest" <span style="font-weight: bold;">[11]</span>, however, there is another facet to the Jesus passages to be contemplated. The <em style="">Testimonium</em>  breaks into the text amidst discussion of Pontius Pilate's unfavorable  interactions with the Jews. According to the New Testament, the Jews  were not so receptive of Jesus' teachings, and even appealed to Pilate  for him to be executed. This is an unusual shift in tone in the  interaction between Pilate and the Jews in Josephus' writing, which may  point to the entire <em style="">Testimonium</em> being an interpolation, as some  skeptics have claimed. But if authentic, it seems to indicate that Jesus  was enough of a trouble-maker among the Jews to be considered a  political threat, making Yamauchi's response on John the Baptist look  like a weak excuse. <br /><br /> Tacitus, Pliny, and Thallus are raised as extra-biblical evidence for  the gospels too (p. 82-85). Again, I cover each of these accounts in my  article mentioned above, so they will not be scrutinized here. What is  worth saying is that all of the passages cited by Yamauchi may be mere  commentaries on the early Christian sect and its beliefs, not  necessarily testaments to the historical person named Jesus. This seems  to be true especially in the case of Tacitus, where Pilate is  incorrectly labeled a "procurator," when he was actually Prefect of  Judea <span style="font-weight: bold;">[12]</span>.  Tacitus, as a historian and member of the senate, would have known the  difference, and so it is likely that his account relies on reports other  than Roman records, possibly even the Christians' own legends. <br /><br /> At this point, it's important to note that Yamauchi and Strobel have  introduced nothing to corroborate the central theological claims about  Jesus, like his divinity, miracles, or resurrection. The most that the  'corroborating evidence' can offer is support for the historicity of a  Jesus who had disciples and was crucified. Whether or not this Jesus was  the same one as we find in the gospels is not discernible from these  extra-biblical sources. <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.19564%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.8043%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style:italic; ">"How can you explain the spread of a religion based on  the worship of a man who had suffered the most ignominious death  possible? ...alternative explanations, which try to account for the  spread of Christianity through sociological or psychological reasons are  very weak" (p. 82,90).<br /><br /></span></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">No attempt is made to demonstrate the weakness of these alternative  explanations, but Yamauchi's question is phrased to mislead. The death  of Jesus may not have been appealing in itself, yet the promise of  eternal life, the notion of equality in the eyes of god, and other  factors would certainly have drawn interest. The Greeks had the idea of  the noble death long before Jesus, and Jews did not seem to mind their  heroes having flaws (David being an adulterer and murderer, for  example), so it is not necessarily true that the Jesus' death would have  put off people in the first century. The "alternative explanations" are  backed by the experiences of many, the evidence of the historical  record, and basic logic. Christianity spread by missionary work at  first, but it really began to grow when Constantine adopted it as the  official religion of the empire. There is nothing supernatural about a  message spreading by preaching and spreading by imperial endorsement and  conquest. <br /><span></span><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 5: The Scientific Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Finally, after four chapters of analyzing the gospels, we get to learn  the archaeological evidence. But don't expect this to be evidence for  Christ, despite the book title. What we get instead is more  'confirmation' of the gospels, in background areas that bear extremely  little relation to Jesus. Nonetheless, John McRay, Strobel's fourth  interviewee, starts off on a good foot. "Spiritual truths," he states,  "cannot be proved or disproved by archaeological discoveries" (p. 95).  Unfortunately, Strobel insinuates the exact opposite only four pages  later, asking, "[i]f Luke was so painstakingly accurate in his  historical reporting, on what logical basis may we assume he was  credulous or inaccurate in his reporting of matters that were far more  important" (p. 99). As previously noted, a claim needs to be evaluated  on its own merit, not assumed true on the basis of other claims. The  time to believe in something is when the evidence supports it, not  before. If we grant Strobel his insinuation, then the supernatural  claims of Islam could be trusted based on the historical accuracy of  trivial details in Muslim scriptures, and somehow I doubt Strobel or  McRay would appreciate such a conclusion. <br /><br /> As the first bit of archaeological evidence, McRay points to Lysanias  the tetrarch mentioned in Luke 3:1. According to McRay, scholars  initially balked at this passage - because the only Lysanias known at  the time was the ruler of Chalcis from half a century prior - until it  was later discovered that there were two government officials named  Lysanias (p. 97). McRay is not providing the full story, though.  Josephus speaks of a Lysanias that ruled a tetrarchy centered on a town  called Abila <span style="font-weight: bold;">[13]</span>,  yet the dating of his reign is 40-36 B.C.E., decades before the  Lysanias in Luke's gospel, who is a contemporary of Herod the tetrarch.  The discovery McRay refers to is a temple inscription naming "Lysanias  the tetrarch," and some have dated it to the time of Tiberius (14-29  C.E.) because of the title "August lords" in the inscription. However,  this title, or a similar one, seems to have also been used to refer to  Augustus and Livia, as a coin from 10 B.C.E. indicates <span style="font-weight: bold;">[14]</span>. Thus, this 'discovery' of a second Lysanias that vindicates Luke's gospel is a hasty conclusion that is still open to debate. <br /><br /> Moving on, McRay cites the term "politarchs" in Acts 17:6 as another  case of an unsupported assertion that was initially doubted by scholars  (p. 98). But, as I've said, the time to believe a claim is when there is  evidence for it, not before, and an inscription using the term  "politarchs" was found in the 19th century. The evidence McRay and  Strobel cite is quite outdated. How many skeptics were challenging the  bible on this point prior to the discovery? It's hard to say, since  archaeology of the 1800s was very different from modern archaeology, and  the early days of the field were plagued with Christian adventurers  like William F. Albright, rather than liberal skeptics, like Strobel and  McRay imagine. This contention is, therefore, another suspect one, not  in the corroboration, but in the implications it is framed with. <br /><br /> Next, Strobel prods McRay to defend the historical reliability of John's  gospel, specifically against the charge that "John must not have been  close to the events of Jesus' life" (p. 99). McRay names the Pool of  Bethesda, the Pool of Siloam, Jacob's Well, and other historical sites  to counter this charge, but I fail to see how this accomplishes  anything. That archaeologists have found these sites still in existence  today means that they were certainly around in the late 1st and early  2nd centuries, when John's gospel is thought to have been written. The  author of the text could have been writing a hundred years or more after  the death of Jesus and still reported accurately on these artifacts! If  McRay wants to argue for an earlier dating of John's gospel using  archaeology, he should at least find examples that were no longer  existing after a given time, like by the end of the first century. <br /><br /> To top off the investigation of the 'scientific evidence,' Strobel and  McRay look at three significant challenges to the historical credibility  of the gospels: (i) the census of Quirinius found in Luke; (ii) the  absence of Nazareth from early sources; and (iii) Herod's massacre of  the innocents in Matthew. Regarding (i), McRay produces a document from  104 C.E. to argue that Roman censuses required citizens to return to  their ancestral homes. The document reads: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.4855%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.5145%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"Gaius Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt [says]: Seeing  that the time has come for the house to house census, it is necessary to  compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are residing out of their  provinces to return to their own homes, that they may both carry out  the regular order of the census and may also attend diligently to the  cultivation of their allotments." (p. 101)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> This does not say what McRay wants it to say, however. The document encourages citizens "<em style="">residing out of their provinces</em> to return to their own homes" for the census, where they can also "attend diligently to the <em style="">cultivation of their allotments</em>."  The Prefect of Egypt is not ordering a citizen to return to his/her  birthplace, but only to return to where they currently live, if they are  not residing there at the time. Further indication of this is observed  in the remark about tending to land and allotments. What would Egyptian  citizens have had to cultivate in their ancestral home of Macedonia, for  example? That neither Strobel nor McRay pick up on this is evidence of  either dumbfounding ignorance or an agenda to mislead. <br /><br /> In an attempt to resolve the dating conflict between Matthew's birth of  Jesus during the reign of Herod (died in 4 B.C.E.) and Luke's birth of  Jesus during the census of Quirinius (taken in 6/7 C.E.), McRay claims  that an archaeologist named Jerry Vardaman discovered "micrographic  letters" on Roman coins that speak of a census of Quirinius from 11  B.C.E. until after the death of Herod (p. 101). At the outset, this  should raise suspicion, because microscopic lettering has never been  found on any Roman coinage and seems out of place for minting practices  of the time. Richard Carrier, a historian well versed in ancient  studies, has exposed the bizarre claims of Vardaman and thoroughly  disputed his micrographic letter theory in an article in <em style="">The Skeptical Inquirer</em> <span style="font-weight: bold;">[15]</span>, available online. <br /><br /> Going on to (ii), McRay mentions a list of various towns that Jerusalem  priests relocated to after the fall of the temple, and among this list  is allegedly Nazareth (p. 103). But unfortunately, no source is given  for this information, and neither is any date attached to the mysterious  list. Strobel and McRay are well aware that there is no mention of  Nazareth before the 4th century C.E., not in the Old Testament, not in  the Talmud, and not in Josephus. Yet all we get in response is a  non-descript reference to a list that does mention Nazareth, without any  comment on the antiquity of the list itself. This makes it quite  comical when McRay says that the burden of proof "ought to be on those  who dispute [Nazareth's] existence" (p. 103). Nazareth has no more met  its burden of proof than Atlantis has. <br /><br /> Finally, for (iii) McRay tries to argue for the historicity of Herod's  slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem. That the majority of biographies  on Herod the Great reject this myth <span style="font-weight: bold;">[16]  </span>does not seem to matter to McRay. No one would've seen the use in  reporting the murder of a few babies in a small town by a bloodthirsty  king, he suggests (p. 104). Silence in the historical record is no  argument for the historicity of something, though, so at most McRay's  theory serves as speculation on the possibility of the massacre. But  even Strobel finds it "difficult to imagine" that Herod sanctioning the  mass murder of infants would've slipped the interest of historians and  writers of the time (p. 105). Indeed, if Josephus saw fit to report on  Herod's murder of his own two sons, it seems that McRay's explanation  won't suffice. <br /><br /> As important as these challenges to gospel historicity are, I would've  liked to see Strobel include a few more that pack a bigger theological  punch. In a chapter on biblical archaeology, it's disappointing (but not  so surprising) to see that no attention is given to the fact that we  still have not found the tomb of Jesus. The opening of the graves during  Jesus' crucifixion (Matthew 27:52-53) is also not covered, nor is the  global darkness, the casting out of the money lenders from the temple,  and other details. Most of what McRay and Strobel discuss as  archaeological evidence is very loosely related to Jesus. As such, none  of it can be taken as confirmation of the divinity of Jesus, or even the  gospel portrait of him. The archaeological corroboration of the  reference to the Pool of Bethesda in John's gospel cannot tell us  anything about who Jesus really was or what he did. All this chapter  actually does is try to answer some historical challenges to the  gospels. We are still not any closer to a case for Christ. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 6: The Rebuttal Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Chapter six of <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> is devoted entirely to  criticism of a group of scholars known as the Jesus Seminar. Founded in  1985 by Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan, and comprised of around  150 members, the seminar has drawn substantial heat from conservative  critics over its rejections of biblical inerrancy, the divine view of  Jesus, and other faith-based doctrines. Gregory Boyd, Strobel's fifth  interviewee, attacks the Jesus Seminar as "radical-fringe scholars who  are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking" (p. 114). This  chapter is the epitome of Strobel's poor investigative writing. Not a  single member of the Jesus Seminar is interviewed, but worse still, none  of their arguments are quoted either. Conclusions are quoted and  paraphrased without even a summary of the arguments behind them.  Solidifying the bias, we have Boyd - a ferociously outspoken enemy of  the Jesus Seminar. <br /><br /> Boyd begins his tirade against the seminar by arguing that they "rule  out the possibility of the supernatural from the beginning, and then  they say, 'Now bring on the evidence about Jesus'" (p. 116). Continuing,  Boyd argues: "I think there should be a certain amount of humility in  the historical investigation to say, 'You know what? It is just possible  that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead.'" Interestingly, most of the  assertions made by Strobel and Boyd about the methods of the Jesus  Seminar are completely unsourced, and - not surprisingly - appear to be  contradicted by the members' actual statements. Robert Funk has stated  that "Nothing is impossible, unless we exclude logical impossibilities,  such as square circles" <span style="font-weight: bold;">[17]</span>, while Crossan has likewise said, "I leave absolutely open what God <em style="">could</em> do" <span style="font-weight: bold;">[18]</span>. <br /><br /> Proceeding, Boyd attempts to dispute the criteria for authenticity used  by the Jesus Seminar, but first we are given a particularly intriguing  statement. "Historians usually operate with the burden of proof on the  historian to prove falsity or unreliability, since people are generally  not compulsive liars," Boyd explains. "Without that assumption we'd know  very little about ancient history" (p. 117). The problem with this  approach is that it doesn't appreciate the biases that we all have, nor  does it take into account the faulty nature of memory, which I  elaborated upon in my critique of the first chapter. The job of the  historian is to gather data, examine the facts, and then piece things  together in a way that best fits those facts. Recall the questions  Strobel pondered during the Dixon case in the introduction: "<em style="">Had the collection of evidence really been thorough? And which explanation best fit the totality of the facts?</em>"  (p. 12). We may be justified in accepting some natural and  unexceptional claims without resorting to such rigorous standards of  evidence, but, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, the more extraordinary a claim,  the more extraordinary the evidence should be. As incredible as the  truth behind the Dixon case was, it was nothing but the wild pleas of a  desperate man until the supporting evidence came in to verify the story. <br /><br /> The criteria used by the Jesus Seminar are portrayed by Boyd as  definitive rules for assessing the reliability of the gospels, yet they  are more like rules of thumb or helpful tools in increasing or  decreasing the case for authenticity. For example, the criterion of  multiple attestation simply states that the more independent sources  there are for something, the more likely it is to be part of the early,  original tradition. Boyd seems confused on this and asks, "why argue in  the other direction - if it's only found in one source, it's not valid?"  (p. 117). The criteria for authenticity are like a gauge of  probability, though, and so the existence of a story in only one source  does not absolutely mean the story is invalid, it just means the story  is not as reliable as other stories that <em style="">are</em> multiply attested.  Christian apologists use this criterion all the time when citing  extra-biblical sources for the historicity of Jesus (Strobel does it in  chapter four). The more independent confirmations of his existence, they  think, the better. <br /><br /> "[A]n increasing number of scholars are expressing serious reservations  about the theory that Matthew and Luke used Mark," Boyd tells us on page  118. But yet again, no sources are provided and no explanation is given  for why the two-source hypothesis should be rejected. Boyd makes  numerous appeals to majority consensus in his attacks on the Jesus  Seminar, even going so far as to use the two words that every critical  thinker hates hearing: "<em style="">Everyone concedes</em> that [the Gospel of  Thomas] has been significantly influenced by Gnosticism" (p. 123).  What's worse is that there are many scholars who do NOT concede to these  blanket statements made by Boyd. As one example, there are reputable  scholars like Stephen J. Patterson, Stevan Davies, Ron Cameron, and  Paterson Brown who argue against Gnostic influence in the Gospel of  Thomas. At the very least, Boyd should refrain from fallaciously  appealing to consensus and making gross exaggerations to the same  effect. <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.19564%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.8043%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"...the radical nature of [Jesus'] miracles distinguishes  him... we're talking about blindness, deafness, leprosy and scoliosis  being healed, storms being stopped, bread and fish being multiplied,  sons and daughters being raised from the dead. This is beyond any  parallels." (p. 118)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Ironically, many of these miracles were performed centuries before Jesus  by prophets of the Jewish faith, according to the Hebrew scriptures.  Elisha healed a leper in 2 Kings 5, Moses parted the Red Sea in Exodus,  Elisha multiplied twenty loaves in 2 Kings 4:42-44, and Elijah and  Elisha each raised someone back from the dead (1 Kings 17:8-23, 2 Kings  4:25-35). The parallels go deeper than the surface too, with entire  Greek phrases shared between the Septuagint passages and the stories of  Jesus in the gospels (i.e. "<em style="">kai edoken auton te metri autou</em>" is  found in both the LXX version of 1 Kings 17:23 and Luke 7:15). The  miracles of Jesus were not radical, they were very Jewish, and that's  exactly what the gospel authors were counting on their audiences to  notice - that Jesus had an authority equal to, if not greater than, the  Jewish prophets of antiquity. <br /><br /> Boyd tries to distance Christianity from parallels with other myths and  cults based on datings, dissimilarities, and even ridicule. If anything,  the 3rd century reports of Apollonius of Tyana being a miracle-working  savior would have been inspired by Jesus, he argues, not the other way  around (p. 120). This is a <em style="">post hoc</em> fallacy; because reports of  Apollonius' miracles are later than Jesus', they must have been inspired  by Jesus' miracles. This conclusion does not follow, for it could be  that these legends of Apollonius were already circulating in his time  and simply not written down until later. And what about the  miracle-workers reported in Josephus that pre-date Jesus, like Onias?  Ought we to assume, based on Boyd's reasoning, that these figures  inspired the stories about Jesus? Mystery religion parallels are  dismissed as "once upon a time" stories that have "nothing in common"  with the mythologized stories of the gospels, and the occasional  variance of certain details of the myths is wielded as an excuse to  ignore any similarity whatsoever (p. 121). <br /><br /> Wrapping up the chapter, Boyd draws an analogy of loving someone in a  way that goes beyond the facts, but is still rooted in the facts about  the person (p. 125). This he compares to his relationship with Christ. I  find this fitting in how it communicates something else, though. When  we feel very strongly about a person, we are often prone to  misperceiving the facts, or even refusing to acknowledge them. Boyd has  demonstrated this tendency in his interview with Strobel, as he rails  against people like the Jesus Seminar who, in his mind, slander his  beloved. Like an infatuated lover, he won't face the real facts, and  when others try to inform him of his delusional perspective, he strikes  back at them with pointed accusations - "highly questionable,"  "left-wing scholars," "following a pipe dream," with "their own brand of  fundamentalism," "blah, blah, blah." Someone has an axe to grind. One  wonders how Boyd would respond to a critique of his work that does not  interview him, does not quote him, inaccurately summarizes his  conclusions without stating the arguments, and coats the entire thing in  similarly derisive rhetoric. Thus far, we have found the worst  interview in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 7: The Identity Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Chapter seven begins a new section in the book called "Analyzing Jesus."  This section proceeds on the assumption that the reader has found the  arguments for the reliability of the gospels to be persuasive, and so  the focus can shift to considering the implications of the gospel  portrait of Christ. In the style of C.S. Lewis' famous trilemma  argument, Strobel wants to establish that Jesus was not a liar or a  lunatic. The reliability of the gospels hardly counts for squat if Jesus  was a mere madman or impostor. So, interviewing a theologian by the  name of Ben Witherington III, Strobel investigates to find out what  Jesus might have thought of himself. According to our author,  Witherington consults the earliest sources, "unquestionably safe from  legendary development," to determine the matter (p. 134). Considering  that the earliest report of a postmortem sighting of Elvis was only two  days after his death <span style="font-weight: bold;">[19]</span>, it seems unlikely that any source, no matter how early, would be "unquestionably" free from mythicizing. <br /><br /> Witherington first cites Jesus' place among the 12 disciples as evidence  of his status. "He's not just part of Israel, not merely part of the  redeemed group, he's forming the group - just as God in the Old  Testament formed his people and set up the twelve tribes of Israel" (p.  134). Disciples would not be disciples without some sort of teacher or  figurehead discipling them, though, and it would be ludicrous to suggest  that every leader with disciples must have thought of himself as god,  the messiah, or anything similar. But perhaps the symbolism of 12  disciples is a part of the argument for Witherington too, as he notes  the connection to the 12 tribes of Israel. Yet the number of 12  disciples seems to be a literary motif of religious importance that may  not have been the truth of the matter. Inconsistencies pop up at several  junctures, such as the 1 Corinthians 15 'creed,' wherein Jesus is said  to have appeared to 12 disciples, though Peter is named separately and  Judas had died before the resurrection, with Matthias not chosen as his  replacement until later. Jesus' remark about the 12 disciples sitting  upon 12 thrones in Matthew 19:28 is also suspect, since Judas arguably  would not have inherited a throne. <br /><br /> That Jesus used the word "Abba," for father, in prayer is another  indication of his divinity, according to Witherington (p. 137). But as  Strobel notes, the disciples also prayed in the same way and were not  considered divine. Witherington attempts to weasel out of the problem by  observing that Jesus initiated the practice, but this kind of  speculation doesn't offer any real support to his contention. <br /><br /> Witherington further argues that Jesus was considered divine by citing  Matthew 16:15-17 and a string of early Christian sources (p. 137-138).  The problem with all of this evidence is that none of it is capable of  telling us who Jesus believed he was. These accounts only tell us who  other people thought he was - and why take them at their word? Strobel  put five entire chapters worth of effort into arguing for their  credibility, but even if every point in my rebuttal fails to convince,  nothing has been introduced that gives the slightest support to the  supernatural and divine claims of the New Testament. And this will  remain the case even after we look at the arguments for the resurrection  in chapters twelve and thirteen. <br /><br /> Perhaps the most interesting comment made by Witherington is a question that he answers himself: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:9.35506%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:89.6449%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><font style="font-style: italic;" size="2">"Why, of all first-century figures, including the Roman 
emperors, is Jesus still worshiped today, while the others have crumbled
 into the dust of history? It's because this Jesus - the historical 
Jesus - is also the living Lord. That's why." (p. 141)</font><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">These three sentences perfectly summarize <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>. It  is Evangelical Christianity framing and answering its own questions  about the historical Jesus. The concern is not on cutting to the truth,  following the evidence where it leads, or promoting critical reflection  on a controversial subject. The purpose is to confirm the  presuppositions of Evangelical believers, plain and simple. Hardly even  an attempt at pretense is made, as we can see from the transparency of  such arguments. Jesus is worshiped still today because Christianity had  three important things on its side that few, if any, other messianic  cults of the time had: the gospels, Paul's letters, and the power of the  Roman empire under Constantine. With the proliferation of documents  rather than oral traditions, the work of diligent propagandists like  Paul, and the subsequent adoption of the beliefs into the official  religion of Rome by one of its emperors, it would be an understatement  to say Christianity gained significant advantage. That Witherington,  fully knowledgeable of these things, prefers to attribute the success of  Christianity to the supernatural shows that I am not mistaken about the  purpose of this book. <br /><span></span><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a style=""><strong style="">Chapter 8: The Psychological Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> The charge that Jesus was mentally insane has not been leveled against  Christianity by any serious critic for a long while, but this is what  Strobel seeks to 'debunk' in chapter eight. As ridiculous as the  bombardment on the Jesus Seminar is in chapter six, the premise of  evaluating the psychological state of a man who lived 2,000 years ago  makes for a far more absurd chapter. Though Strobel begins by  referencing the over-use of the insanity plea in courtcases, and agrees  that psychology is "an inexact science," he and his interviewee,  psychologist Gary Collins, act as if there is a concrete definition for  madness, when there is not. That we are expected to believe Collins -  who is president of the American Association of Christian Counselors -  will be unbiased and objective in determining Jesus' mental state is yet  another part of the farce. <br /><br /> Much of what Collins has to say in evaluation of the psychology of Jesus  presumes the historical accuracy of the gospels. "He spoke clearly,  powerfully, and eloquently," Collins believes (p. 147). This comes after  Strobel notes that "people suffering from delusional psychosis may  appear rational much of the time yet can have grandiose beliefs that  they are superlative individuals" (p. 146). So what does it matter if  Jesus was well-spoken or seemed to be a rational being? Clear, powerful,  and eloquent speech has come from countless figures thought to suffer  from some form of mental illness, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Friederich  Nietzsche, and Hans Christian Andersen. Collins continues: "[Jesus]  didn't have a bloated ego, even though he was surrounded by adoring  crowds" (p. 147). If Jesus thought himself to be god, and believed he  had the authority to forgive and punish people for things they hadn't  done against him, his ego would seem to be quite bloated. Of course,  Collins and Strobel presume that Jesus really was all those things, so  it 'doesn't count.' <br /><br /> In a bizarre comment, Collins says he has "no problem" with the  possibility that Jesus used the placebo effect in his miracles, or cured  people by the power of suggestion. However, he's quick to clarify that,  "regardless of how he did it, Jesus did heal them" (p. 149). According  to this logic, Benny Hinn really heals people too. But the placebo  effect seems misunderstood here. When a person is given a sugar pill and  they 'recover' from an imagined condition, we can say that the placebo  worked, but the sugar pill itself was not the reason for the recovery.  To downgrade Jesus' miracles to interactions with suggestible people  with imagined illnesses seems like it would strip the power of his  healings of any value. Nonetheless, Collins argues that not all of the  miracles in the gospels could be chalked up to the placebo effect. I  won't disagree on that, but there's still no evidence that miracles were  performed in the first place. <br /><br /> Concluding the chapter, Strobel and Collins move into discussing demonic  possession. Although Collins has never encountered a demon, he states,  he does have "friends" - who are skeptics, of course - that have  encountered "demons" in their clinical work (p. 152). Despite there  being no arguments or evidence of any kind for the existence of demons  in the chapter, and despite Collins never having seen a demon, he adds  that, "People who deny the existence of the supernatural will find some  way, no matter how far-fetched, to explain a situation apart from the  demonic" (p. 152). There's just something ironic about a Christian  psychologist declaring the reality of demons he's never witnessed, while  trying to maintain a professionalism and objectivity in his advocacy of  Jesus Christ's mental health. Collins dismisses the opinion of the  Jews, who thought Jesus to be "demon-possessed and raving mad,"  according to John 10:20. Their opinion is "hardly a diagnosis by a  trained mental health professional," he quips (p. 148). I wonder why  Collins trusts that the New Testament authors believed their messiah was  sane, then, since they were no more 'qualified professionals' than  first century Jews. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 9: The Profile Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Strobel begins chapter nine by asking, "if we examine Jesus carefully,  does his likeness closely match the sketch of God that we find elsewhere  in the Bible?" "If it doesn't," he explains, "we can conclude that his  claim to being God is false" (p. 156). Here Strobel attempts to show  that Jesus had all the divine attributes of god, and therefore was god.  But things don't get far before significant problems are revealed in  that endeavor. How could Jesus be omnipresent if he was limited to being  in one place at a time? How could he be omniscient when Mark 13:32  implies that even he didn't know the hour of judgment day? How could he  be omnipotent when Mark 6:4-5 plainly states that he could not work many  miracles in his hometown? <br /><br /> Our author presents all these questions to D.A. Carson, a Christian theologian and the eighth interview in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>. Carson offers two responses: (i) the separation of divine and human traits by Benjamin Warfield, and (ii) the <em style="">kenosis</em>,  or emptying, of Jesus in Philippians 2:5-8. As Strobel points out for  (i), the picture such a theory creates is one of a schizophrenic Jesus,  and "you want to avoid a solution in which there are essentially two  minds," Carson concedes (p. 159). The separation of divine and human  traits is also a case of cherry-picking done to make the challenges to  Christ's divinity seem less problematic. With (ii), Carson argues that  Jesus had emptied himself of "the independent use of his attributes,"  and only "functioned like God when his heavenly Father gave him explicit  sanction to do so" (p. 160). <br /><br /> To his credit, Carson notes that "there is a sense in which the eternal  Son has always acted in line with his Father's commandments" (p. 160),  and so this explanation doesn't offer much at all. The incarnation has  long been one of the great mysteries of Christianity for theologians,  and in postulating these kinds of speculation as a response to  challenges against the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of  Jesus, Carson is simply addressing questions with a mystery that only  yields more questions. All of this seems to rest on the doctrine of the  Trinity, too, which is a controversial subject not accepted by all  Christians. Thus, neither of Carson's replies provide any actual  solution. <br /><br /> How can a loving god send people to hell? Carson paints god as a caring  father who we have defied out of a desire to be "the center of the  universe" (p. 165), and it is this desire that consigns us to the  flames. Christianity has so distorted the portrait of an ideal father  that most believers don't seem to recognize that a truly loving dad  would not punish his children for going their own way. Quite the  opposite, a responsible father <em style="">wants</em> to raise independent,  self-reliant children who are capable of carrying on without him. This  is not to say that a good father pushes his kids out the door or  abandons them, but that he teaches and respects independence, and when  his children eventually come to him of their own accord, it is all the  more meaningful. The god of the bible is a father who threatens his  children if they don't utterly depend on him and follow his every  instruction. <br /><br /> Christians often draw things to the extreme when discussing the morality  of hell, and Carson makes this mistake himself in the chapter: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.92028%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.0797%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"What is God to do? If he says it doesn't matter to him,  God is no longer a God to be admired... if God took his hands off this  fallen world so that there were no restraint on human wickedness, we  would make hell." (p. 165).</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Are the only two options really eternal torment or hands-off chaos? This  is a false dilemma that so many believers construct because there is no  way to justify the punishment of hell. It's often said that, like a  loving father, god has to discipline his children to reinforce good  behavior, but discipline comes in many forms, and physical abuse is not  the most common or the most effective. For a brief lifetime of sin, we  face an eternity of suffering? It's hardly a punishment that fits the  crime, which is how responsible parents usually go about disciplining  their kids. Could god not effectively discipline by some temporary,  non-abusive means? Humans do it all the time, with far more success than  punishment that is cruel overkill. <br /><br /> Lastly, Strobel takes on slavery as an incompatibility with "God's love  for all people" (p. 167). This is strange, given that god gave  instructions for buying and owning slaves in the Old Testament  (Leviticus 25:44-46). If god loves all people, why would he allow the  Israelites to enslave their fellow human beings - to own others as  property? Carson mentions that the Hebrew Law commands the freeing of  slaves every seven years, but how is the enslavement of someone for  seven years justifiable from a god that loves all people? Furthermore,  Carson neglects to cite the source of this law, which is Exodus 21:2-6.  Reading the passage, we get a fairly different picture than Carson  provides, as it instructs that only <em style="">male Hebrew</em> slaves are to be freed every seven years. Women and Gentiles could be kept indefinitely. <br /><br /> Carson additionally credits abolitionism to Christianity (p. 168). Having covered this in a separate article on <a style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/christianity-and-slavery.html">Christianity's Role in Slavery</a>,  I won't discuss it here, except to call attention to the ridiculous  hypocrisy of making a case from abolitionist Christians while ignoring  the numerous Christians who used the bible to fight abolitionism (George  Whitefield, Reverend Richard Furman, and George Fitzhugh, for example). <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 10: The Fingerprint Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Next up, Strobel speaks with Louis Lapides, a Jewish convert to  Christianity, about Jewish objections to Jesus and the messianic  prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures. In the sort of nonsense we've come  to expect from Strobel by now, the messianic prophecies are compared to  fingerprint evidence. Although Strobel believes these prophecies are  like 'fingerprints' of the messiah that only Jesus fits, the analogy is  awful when considering the strength and reliability of actual  fingerprint evidence, versus the vague and disputable nature of the  so-called bible prophecies. Lapides also doesn't seem very qualified for  such a subject, since he admits that he wasn't even told about the  messiah when he was a Jew (p. 173), and he somehow developed some  heavily anti-Christian beliefs (p. 174). <br /><br /> Several factors appear to have influenced Lapides' loss of Jewish faith.  He describes the impact of the divorce of his parents, his experiences  in the Vietnam war (and the anti-Semitism he encountered even from his  fellow G.I.s), and his descent into drug use (p. 174-176). Lapides then  began exploring other religions, he says, and his reasons for rejecting  certain ones are interesting. "Chinese Buddhism was atheistic, Japanese  Buddhism worshiped statues of Buddha, Zen Buddhism was too elusive...  Hinduism believed in all these crazy orgies that the gods would have and  in gods who were blue elephants" (p. 176). These disturbingly  simplistic reductions make it hard to believe that Lapides honestly  investigated those religions. The way he frames it, it sounds more like  he was shopping at a buffet of spiritual flavors, for something that  would satisfy his personal appetite. <br /><br /> Lapides later encounters street preachers who challenge him to read the  Old Testament prophecies about the messiah. Coming upon Isaiah 53 [<a title="" style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/isaiah53.html">Why Isaiah 53 is Not About Jesus</a>],  he's "stopped cold" (p. 177-179). What I find especially suspect about  this is how a Jewish child, who was never really taught anything about  the messiah, could read Isaiah 53, which he had apparently never read  before, and immediately recognize Jesus in it. It seems like Lapides  knew more about Christianity than he knew about Judaism! Amusingly,  Lapides speculates that the reason why more Jews don't accept Jesus is  because "there's a lot of ignorance" about Christianity among them (p.  182). One could easily say the same about why Lapides didn't remain a  Jew - perhaps he had a lot of ignorance about his own religion at the  time. <br /><br /> Strobel raises four categories of objections to the prophecies of Jesus:  (i) coincidence; (ii) fabrications in the gospels; (iii) intentional  fulfillment; and (iv) out of context distortions. (i) is unlikely for  the volume of prophecies and how some were 'fulfilled,' so I will agree  with Strobel and Lapides that this objection doesn't fly. For (ii),  Lapides argues that the early community would have prevented  fabrication, he asks why Matthew would've let himself be martyred over a  lie, and notes that the Jews would've "jumped on any opportunity to  discredit the gospels" (p. 184). I have dealt with the 'checks and  balances' argument already, and there's just no evidence that opponents  were concerned enough to call out Christianity, nor is there evidence  that early believers were organized enough to control accuracy of the  reports. Hippolytus, the earliest source on the disciples' deaths,  states that Matthew died of natural causes, not from martyrdom <span style="font-weight: bold;">[20]</span>.  And lastly, the Jews likely did not know some of the narratives or  stories of Jesus were intended as prophetic fulfillment, since  Christians had developed alternate intepretations of those passages that  differed from Jewish understanding (Origen reports as much on Isaiah  53). There is also no evidence that the Jews "jumped" to discredit <em style="">any</em> messianic movement in the first century. <br /><br /> (iii) is another unlikely objection, though it is plausible in some  cases. Lapides mentions Daniel 9:24-26 as a prophecy of Jesus' birth (p.  184), but neglects to inform his audience that we do not know the  actual date of Jesus' birth, and the gospels give two different answers  that have not been reconciled, as we saw in chapter five. Nonetheless, I  don't find it probable that Jesus lived his life with the purpose of  pretending to fulfill prophecies, so I won't defend this contention. By  far, the most compelling objections are (ii) and (iv). I've just shown  that Lapides' responses to (ii) don't hold up, but amazingly, nothing  but a bald-faced assertion is offered for (iv). "[T]he prophecies," he  declares without elaboration, "have stood up and shown themselves to be  true" (p. 185). I have debunked 60 so-called prophecies of Jesus used by  apologists like Strobel and Lapides, and I have also written separate  articles analyzing Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. In numerous cases, there is  no remote indication that these passages are intended as prophecy. The  'out of context' objection to messianic prophecies is powerful, but  Lapides can't even be bothered to deal with the arguments in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 11: The Medical Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Chapter eleven begins a new section called "Researching the  Resurrection." After defending the reliability of the gospels and the  divine view of Jesus, Strobel again shifts the tone to focus on the  resurrection. Presuming that his readers now believe the gospels are  trustworthy and that Jesus was a sane individual who made extraordinary  claims about himself that stand up to scrutiny, the final puzzle piece  is put into place: the "linch-pin," Strobel calls it, that seals the  deal and closes his case. <br /><br /> Alexander Metherell, M.D., is Strobel's tenth interviewee, and the  purpose of this chapter is to determine that Jesus really died by  crucifixion. If he had not died, how could he be raised from the dead?  The "swoon theory" - that Jesus only fainted on the cross and was  revived later by the cool air of the tomb - is the major issue here, and  Metherell addresses it by crafting a picture of the severity of  crucifixion, the detail of which would please Mel Gibson. There's not  much worth saying here, except that I do not find the swoon theory  remotely probable, and so I agree with Strobel and Metherell, that if  Jesus was in fact crucified, it's extremely unlikely that he somehow  survived. <br /><br /> Metherell makes a couple of questionable comments, though, as he  explains what Jesus might have experienced, based on the gospels. In an  attempt to provide a scientific basis for the sweating of blood in the  garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44), Metherell states that, "This is a  known medical condition called hematidrosis" (p. 195). Though case  studies have been done on this phenomenon, it has not yet been confirmed  scientifically <span style="font-weight: bold;">[21]</span>.  Hematidrosis is also reported to be extremely rare, with only a few  examples in the clinical literature. Jesus sweating blood in the gospel  of Luke is most likely a literary device to emphasize the stress he was  under and foreshadow the redeeming value of his blood. Chalking it up to  a case of hematidrosis is sheer speculation.  <br /><br /> Metherell also speculates on the blood and water that comes out of Jesus  when his side is pierced by the spear in John's gospel. This, he  argues, is evidence of heart failure from hypovolemic shock (p. 199).  However, this explanation ignores the much more likely meaning that  blood and water had as symbols of life and spirit. Passages like 1  Corinthians 10:4 and 12:13 show that water was a symbol of the holy  spirit and the spirit of Christ, whereas blood is the symbol of life,  which is necessary for the remission of sins, according to Hebrews 9:22.  That the early Christians reading John 19:34 would recognize the blood  and water as symbolic of the power of Christ's sacrifice and redemption  is far more plausible than a 'coded' reference to heart failure. <br /><br /> Regardless, there is nothing in Metherell's medical explanation of the  crucifixion to give the impression that the gospel authors had  miraculous or advanced knowledge. As common as the punishment of  crucifixion was in Roman times, all of the information in the gospels  could easily be gained from simply witnessing crucifixions and observing  the standard process of death. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a title="" style=""><strong style="">Chapter 12: The Evidence of the Missing Body</strong></a> <br /><br /> To build a case for the resurrection, Strobel interviews William Lane  Craig, an apologist and well-known Christian debate star. Strobel's  introduction of Craig is less than objective journalism, as he mentions  first seeing him in action at a debate where he "dismantl[ed] the  arguments for atheism" and won by "no contest," causing forty-seven  nonbelievers to leave as Christians (p. 206). Curiously, we're not told  the specifics about this polling, but since debates generally tally up  votes for which side performed the best, and don't actually gather  information on changes in belief, Strobel's conclusions are misleading.  <br /><br /> William Lane Craig likes to pretend that he holds the most rational  position, that he defends a 'reasonable faith.' He assures us in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>:  "I find it's prudent to base my arguments on evidence that's most  widely accepted by the majority of scholars" (p. 212). Yet Craig is more  than willing to cast aside evidence and reason when they don't support  the presuppositions of his faith:  <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:7.61593%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:91.384%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy  Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based  on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take  precedence over the latter, not vice versa." </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">[22]</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> This is very relevant to Craig's attempt at establishing the  resurrection as the best explanation for the evidence of the tomb, the  earliness of the reports, etc. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:17,  "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile". Strobel and Craig  both believe the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity, the  "fundamental truth of the Christian faith". Craig's explanation of the  evidence is that Christ was raised from the dead, and this is an  explanation that Craig is unwilling to see falsified. Any evidence or  reasoning that undermines Craig's explanation - which is the fundamental  truth of the Christian faith - ought to be discarded, according to  Craig. Real debate and open discussion cannot be had with someone who  holds such an irrational position. And not surprisingly, Craig's case  for the resurrection is built on shifting sands. <br /><br /> What is the evidence for the empty tomb? Craig names six pieces: (i) the  1 Corinthians 15 'early creed'; (ii) detractors' knowledge of Jesus'  tomb; (iii) the earliness of Mark's passion narrative; (iv) the  primitive nature of Mark's empty tomb story; (v) the embarrassing detail  of the women at the tomb; and (vi) the presupposition of the empty  tomb's historicity in the "earliest Jewish polemic" (p. 220-221).  <br /><br /> I have discussed the 1 Corinthians 15 'creed' many times by now, but  aside from uncertainty on its earliness, there is also no empty tomb in  the passage. The closest it comes is in a short note that Jesus "was  buried," and somehow Craig finds this enough to presume that the  gospel's empty tomb story was what Paul had in mind. But Paul doesn't  say anything about an empty tomb or any of the characteristics of it  that we find in the gospels (no women, no angels, no stone). Quite  simply, there is nothing in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 that indicates  knowledge of the empty tomb legend. Craig has to look outside the bible  for support of his presumption, and he finds it in the idea of a  physical resurrection had by the Jews (p. 211). Yet even if this means  Jesus was physically raised, according to the creed, it does not tell us  where or how he was buried. What's more important is that the passage,  while it may <em style="">imply</em> an empty tomb, could also mean that the empty tomb was not <em style="">witnessed</em>  by any, hence the absence of it in the creed. That the creed refers to  Peter as the first to encounter the risen Jesus may be of interest too,  given that Peter did not meet Jesus at the empty tomb in any gospel  story, but met him elsewhere. <br /><br /> (ii) has been covered to death throughout this review, so I will simply  say that the disciples lateness in proclaiming the resurrection (seven  weeks after his supposed ascension, as Acts tells us) would have made it  a moot point for the Jewish or Roman authorities to exhume the body in  order to disprove the rumors coming from a small sect of fanatics. (iii)  and (iv) focus on the alleged antiquity of Mark's empty tomb story and  passion narrative, but Craig doesn't justify the earliness of these  reports - which he believes come from before 37 C.E. - beyond vague  references to language, grammar, and style of the text, as well as the  simplicity and the fact that they are "unadorned by theological  reflection" (p. 220). The crucifixion in Mark's gospel shows a fair  amount of theological adornment, though, such as the darkness, the veil  in the temple tearing, the centurion's statement, and other symbols. All  that Craig points out for the empty tomb story may merely be the  evidence of a legend that was in the process of developing. <br /><br /> (v) is an interesting feature in Craig's evidence line-up, since women  are not mentioned in the 1 Corinthians 15 creed. Their presence in Mark  (and in the subsequent gospels that used Mark as a source) may be part  of the recurrent theme of tragic irony that helped to conceal the  messianic secret (Mark 3:21, 4:13, 6:1-6, 15:34). Embarrassing details  surrounded Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, but this was god's  plan, to save the secret of his messiah for only the chosen (8:27-30).  This puts a very different spin on the appearance of women at the tomb,  as a device intentionally used by Mark, not an embarrassing fact  included for accuracy's sake. That the entire gospel of Mark seems to  conform to this style doesn't help Craig's theory. The "earliest Jewish  polemic" that Craig speaks of in (vi) is actually from Matthew 28:11-15,  and Matthew's gospel is certainly not unbiased or friendly in its  portrait of the Jews, having them cry out for Jesus' blood to be upon  them and their children (Matthew 27:25). Craig's "earliest Jewish  polemic" is highly suspect, then. <br /><br /> On the issue of the inconsistencies between the empty tomb accounts in  the gospels, Craig makes the extremely redundant argument that the "core  of the story" remains the same (p. 215). I've never understood why  Christians seem to think this is an adequate response. If the core of a  story changes, we are no longer talking about the same story. The film <em style="">Apocalypse Now</em> is based on the story <em style="">The Heart of Darkness</em>  by Joseph Conrad, and because the setting, characters, and other  elements were altered enough, the stories diverged into different tales.  Christianity structured itself around the resurrection of Jesus, and so  any change to this core of the story would result in something arguably  not Christian. Seeing how Christians were the primary, if not  exclusive, distributors of the Jesus story at first, it's not surprising  that the empty tomb story is in all the gospels, but neither does this  mean the empty tomb was more reality than myth. <br /><br /> Despite all of this, and even if we concede all his points for the sake  of argument, William Lane Craig's evidence for the empty tomb is not  best explained by resurrection. Jeffery Jay Lowder has written an  erudite essay that proposes a natural, alternative explanation for the  empty tomb accounts and everything in Craig's arsenal <span style="font-weight: bold;">[23]</span>.  The truth is that an empty tomb has many possible explanations, most of  which are unextraordinary and thus more probable than resorting to  extraordinary and non-falsifiable claims of the supernatural. All of  Craig's arguments in favor of an early tomb tradition assume the  reliability of the New Testament authors and the factual accuracy of  their reports. These assumptions were 'dismantled,' as Strobel might  say, in my critique of the first five chapters, and Craig has offered no  additional defense of them here. <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.05071%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.9493%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"...the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead...  [is the] best explanation for what happened... [it] doesn't contradict  science or any known facts of experience." (p. 222)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">Experience will tell us, at the very least, that people are not usually  raised from the dead. It will tell us that many false claims of  resurrection have been made before. It will also tell us that people who  are deeply emotionally invested in leaders, movements, and beliefs are  often susceptible to confirmation bias. Science will tell us that a  corpse that has been brutally beaten and crucified and buried in a tomb  for three days will not return to life after the brain has died and  decay has begun to dissolve away organs like the heart and lungs. It  will tell us that supernatural explanations have been supplanted by  natural ones many times, but never the other way around. It will also  tell us that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and  the extraordinary claims of religion have not once met their burden of  proof. But one wouldn't expect Craig to admit to any of this. Against  the fundamental truth of the Christian faith reality can never prevail. <br /><span></span><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a style=""><strong style="">Chapter 13: The Evidence of Appearances</strong></a> <br /><br /> Because "by itself an empty grave does not a resurrection make,"  Strobel's next endeavor centers around the postmortem appearances of  Jesus. Yet this has trouble of its own too, since reports of sightings  after death do not a resurrection make either. Gary Habermas, Strobel's  interview subject for the chapter, relies primarily on the earliness of  the stories, but there are problems with such a simplistic approach that  can best be illustrated by referring to the king of kings. As I  previously noted, the earliest reported postmortem sighting of Elvis  Presley was a mere two days after his death. The 'witness' believed they  saw Elvis filling up his car at a gas station in Georgia - nothing  fantastically mythical or legendary. Do the earliness and primitivity of  this report make it likely that Elvis really did survive death?  Apologists may protest on the grounds that the king's grave is not  empty, but this fact simply goes to show what people are willing to  believe. Earliness and primitivity are not sufficient to establish the  reliability of a report of a postmortem appearance. <br /><br /> That said, let's have a look at Habermas' performance anyway. Strobel  introduces him in a very unjournalistic fashion similar to his  introduction of William Lane Craig. A debate between Habermas and Antony  Flew is commented on, with a number of quotes from questionably biased  personalities. As one example, a judge of the debate stated, "Since the  case against the resurrection was no stronger than that presented by  Antony Flew, I would think it was time I began to take the resurrection  seriously" (p. 226). Debates are not a contest to determine the truth of  a proposition, despite the way many of them are formatted. A  representative of one side of the argument engages a representative of  another side of the argument in discussion, and most intelligent folks  understand that these representatives do NOT speak for all the people on  their side, but do try their best to accurately reflect the gist of the  position. To conclude based on one debate that the case against the  resurrection is no stronger than the delivery of it given by the  representative is a grossly under-informed presumption. <br /><br /> Habermas explains how he fashions an argument for the resurrection: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.63042%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.3696%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style="font-style: italic;">"First, did Jesus die on the cross? And second, did he  appear later to people? If you can establish those two things, you've  made your case..." (p. 228)</span><br /><br /></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> Unfortunately for Habermas, there's no way to actually establish that  Jesus appeared to people. The best he can offer are reports of  appearances, and these are suspect by nature of the fact that "dead  people don't normally [appear to others after their death]," as he says  himself. So what does he provide to defend these reports? First on the  list is the 'creed' in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, which Strobel <em style="">finally</em>  asks for his guest scholar to support. Claiming the passage as an early  creed, Habermas gives us five arguments: (i) the words "received" and  "delivered" are 'technical rabbinic terms' used for holy traditions;  (ii) the text's parallelism and stylized content; (iii) the use of the  Aramaic name "Cephas" for Peter; (iv) primitive phrases like "the  Twelve," "the third day," and "he was raised"; and (v) the "use of  certain words is similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of  narration" (p. 229). <br /><br /> Though not sourced, (i) bases itself on the work of Joachim Jeremias,  who is quoted by Habermas for another purpose on page 230. The  connection of "received" and "delivered" with rabbinic practices of  passing on traditions comes from the assumption that the Greek word <em style="">paralambano</em>, for "received," is associated with the Hebrew <em style="">qibel</em>,  which is taken as always referring to the reception of a tradition.  However, as Hyam Maccoby has shown, this is not always the case, as the  Mishna uses <em style="">qibel</em> in stating that "Moses received the Torah from Sinai" <span style="font-weight: bold;">[24]</span>.  Obviously, Moses was not handed down the Torah as a tradition, but he  was given it through a revelation from god himself, as the story tells.  This also corresponds to Paul's own profession in Galatians 1:12 that he  did not receive [<em style="">paralambano</em>] his gospel from any man, but by a revelation from Jesus Christ. Habermas' first argument holds no water. <br /><br /> (ii) is given no elaboration, and it's difficult to rebut a vague  statement that has no examples or details to support it. Even so,  grammatical structure just means that Paul was well-educated in Greek  composition, which shows in many of his writings. There's no reason to  assume this means a greater chance of antiquity or reliability. For  (iii), why should use of the Aramaic name for Peter mean anything other  than that Paul knew Peter's Aramaic name? This is unexceptional, and the  fact that the later gospel of John uses "Cephas" (1:42) also makes this  irrelevant as an argument for an earlier dating. With (iv), Habermas  claims that the three phrases listed above are ones "Paul would not  customarily use" (p. 229). But how is this an argument for anything? We  only have seven undisputed epistles from Paul to judge his vocabulary  by, and every writer will occasionally use words that are not common to  the rest of their writing. (v) is almost too pointless to bother with.  Paul certainly knew Aramaic, and Mishnaic Hebrew was a dialect in use  until at least the 4th century C.E. <br /><br /> To summarize, Habermas' case for the 1 Corinthians 15 passage being an  early creed is built on faith more than any conclusive evidence. A  couple of additional problems with his view are touched upon by Strobel,  such as the 500 witnesses that aren't mentioned in the gospels and the  absence of women from the appearances in the 'creed.' In defense of the  five hundred, Habermas claims that Paul was "inviting people to check it  out for themselves," (p. 232) though I don't see how they could've done  this when Paul didn't name any names, not to mention the difficulty of  traveling and researching such a thing in the first century. As  apologists are so fond of doing, he also argues that the passage doesn't  say Peter was "first" to see Jesus, so the women are invisibly implied,  especially because women were not allowed as witnesses in those days  (p. 233). It's interesting, then, that "sisters" are mentioned among the  500 witnesses, who Habermas believes Paul intended for people to  investigate. <br /><br /> I want to look at one last statement Habermas makes before moving on to the final chapter: <br /><br /></div>

<div ><div class="wsite-multicol"><div style='padding-right:1.2%'><div class='wsite-multicol-table-wrap' style='margin:0 -5px'><table class='wsite-multicol-table'><tbody class='wsite-multicol-tbody'><tr class='wsite-multicol-tr'><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:8.4855%;padding:0 5px'></td><td class='wsite-multicol-col' style='width:90.5145%;padding:0 5px'><div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><span style='font-style:italic; '>"Legend can't explain those initial eyewitness accounts.  In other words, legend can tell you how a story got bigger; it can't  tell you how it originated when the participants are both eyewitnesses  and reported the events early." (p. 238)<br /><span></span><br /></span></div>

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<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">So often this seems to be the thinking of apologists, but the truth is  that legend is not the only way of saying that a report has left the  realm of factual reality and become something else. Historical facts  don't suddenly spring up into an assortment of colorful mythic  distortions. The first step in that direction is usually very small, and  disconfirming events - like the death of a beloved figure - are  translated into spiritual experiences by followers all the time (for a  recent example, Harold Camping responded to his failed doomsday  prediction by reinterpreting it as a 'spiritual' judgment day <span style="font-weight: bold;">[25]</span>). It also deserves to be noted that we <em style="">don't</em>  have multiple accounts of postmortem appearances. We may have Paul's  testimony, but we do not have the testimonies of Cephas, James, the 500  witnesses, or anyone else until Matthew's gospel, some 30-50 years after  Paul. What we have, then, for the earliest postmortem appearances is  one man's statement about his own experience and the experiences of  others. It hardly constitutes reliable evidence for a resurrection. <br /><span></span><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; ">  <a style=""><strong style="">Chapter 14: The Circumstantial Evidence</strong></a> <br /><br /> Strobel attempts to bolster the appearances with five pieces of evidence  for the resurrection "that are not in dispute by anybody" (p. 246).  J.P. Moreland, the final interview in the carnival of Evangelical  affirmation, gives the five pieces: (i) the disciples died for their  beliefs; (ii) skeptics like James and Paul were converted; (iii) changes  to key Jewish social structures were made; (iv) communion and baptism  celebrate Christ's resurrection; and (v) the emergence of the church (p.  246-255). Scholars do dispute some of these 'facts,' though, like James  being a skeptic <span style="font-weight: bold;">[26]</span> and the disciples being martyred <span style="font-weight: bold;">[27]</span>, but we may grant Moreland these claims and still find his argument lacking. <br /><br /> In their discussion of (i), Strobel observes that "people won't die for their religious beliefs if they <em style="">know</em> their beliefs are false" (p. 247). In my article, <a style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/disciples-martyrdom.html">Did the Disciples Die For a Lie?</a>,  I point out the difficulty of assessing who among the disciples could  have known it if they were following a lie. Strobel claims that they  were in a position to know, having lived with Jesus, but this presumes  the accuracy of the gospel stories, and ignores the truth that we have  NO accounts of martyred apostles who were eyewitnesses to the  resurrection, as I explain in the article. That Moreland paints the  disciples as "eleven credible people with no ulterior motives, with  nothing to gain and a lot to lose" (p. 247) should cast suspicion on his  own motives. How he can judge the credibility of eleven people, most of  whom we have not a single preserved account from, is truly phenomenal,  not to mention his knowledge of their unique minds and the motives they  might have had (or rather did not have, according to Moreland). But most  importantly, there is no reason to think the disciples died for beliefs  they knew to be false. <br /><br /> On (ii), Moreland tries to claim that the conversion of alleged skeptics  James and Paul makes... some sort of case for... something. "Remember,"  he says, "it's not the simple fact that Paul changed his views. You  have to explain how he had this particular change of belief that  completely went against his upbringing" (p. 249). As someone who made a  change of belief that went against his Evangelical Christian upbringing,  I find Moreland's comment to be especially amusing. A drastic change of  mind does not imply the truth of one's position, nor does it suggest  the involvement of the supernatural.  <br /><br /> (iii) through (v) also cannot get us anywhere close to an inference of  resurrection. Regarding (iii), Jews were already beginning to change  their social structures before Christianity came on the scene, as the  presence of various sects like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes can  testify. Some of Moreland's 'evidences,' like the end of sacrifices,  have a very simple natural explanation too, such as the destruction of  the temple in 70 C.E. - the only place where sacrifices were allowed  under Jewish Law. For (iv), rather than strict symbols of resurrection,  communion may represent commemoration and baptism may represent rebirth  or cleansing. Such practices could be part of a belief system that saw  Jesus' resurrection as non-physical, so this piece of the evidence is  irrelevant to Moreland's aim. Lastly, on (v), the emergence of the  Christian church was no special event, as I've explained before. It does  not demonstrate the truth of Christianity anymore than the emergence of  the Mormon church demonstrates the truth of Mormonism. <br /><br /> As "the final confirming proof," Moreland cites the "ongoing encounters"  of Jesus by people of various backgrounds living throughout the world  today (p. 255). I have addressed <a style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/articles/argument-religious-experience.html">The Argument From Religious Experience</a>  in another article, but I will say that even if we were to suppose that  these individuals have good reasons for believing in the experiences  they've had, their experiences do not demonstrate the truth of the  resurrection. The diversity of religious experience also builds a strong  case against the use of such experience to support any specific  religion. Yet this final 'proof' is saved until the last point of the  last chapter for a reason of its own. Strobel and crew prime the reader  for conversion by getting him/her to think about the experiences of the  numerous believing Christians. With so many people claiming to have  experienced something, they can't all be wrong, can they? <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "> <a style=""><strong style="">Conclusion: The Verdict of History</strong></a> <br /><br /> In the book's conclusion, Strobel finally reveals that <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>  is his recounting of his conversion some seventeen years ago. But even  more than this, he explains that during his actual experience, he  "primarily studied books and other historical research instead of  personally interacting with scholars" (p. 259). This puts to rest the  rumor that Strobel was an atheist when he began work on the book, and  since we don't know what "books" and "historical research" he studied in  1981, it also certainly calls into question the reasons for his  conversion. <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> is a mass-marketed propaganda  piece of Christian apologetics, intended to inspire conversion. It  purports to be a journalistic investigation of the evidence for  Christianity, but it is far from that. Nonetheless, Strobel claims that  in light of the case he presents, it would've taken more faith for him  to remain an atheist than to trust in Jesus (p. 265). Let's return to  the questions Strobel asked of the Dixon case. <br /><br /> <em style="">Has the collection of evidence really been thorough?</em> The only  honest answer can be: absolutely not. Strobel fails to interview a  single skeptic - atheist or of some belief besides Evangelical  Christianity. Though quotes of dissenting parties are sometimes offered,  they seem cherry-picked for Strobel's scholars to knock down, and often  times they don't accurately summarize the opponent's position, such as  with the chapter on the Jesus Seminar. Some of the known, relevant  evidence is also omitted, like the studies on the unreliability of  eyewitness evidence, the Pilate stone with his actual title of  "Prefect," the accounts of anti-abolitionist Christians who relied on  the bible for support, and other details that would drastically  challenge, if not entirely overturn, several of the statements made in  the book. As said of the Jesus Seminar in chapter six, the results of <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>  were "already determined ahead of time," and the cast of characters,  the arguments, and the structure were all chosen with that conclusion in  mind. "This is not responsible, or even critical, scholarship. It is a  self-indulgent charade" (p. 127). <br /><br /> <em style="">Which explanation best fits the totality of the evidence?</em> Even if  taken at face value, the arguments made by Strobel and his 13 scholars  do not establish the divinity or resurrection of Christ. Perhaps Jesus  did claim to be god and perhaps he sincerely believed he was. Perhaps  the apostles did claim shortly after Jesus' death that he had risen from  the grave and perhaps they sincerely believed he had. The problem with  using any of this to endorse resurrection or divinity is that belief  claims, no matter how sincere, are not testaments of actuality. Even if  we had no alternative explanations of these claims, no rebuttals of  them, and so forth, the fact remains that belief does not always  correlate to what is real. Resurrection is not the only possibility for  an empty tomb, and as a miraculous event, it is improbable by its very  nature. But since we don't have an actual empty tomb - just believers'  stories of it - the apologists are back at square one. Josephus, the  Pool of Bethesda, and other such arguments are insufficient to support  the divinity or resurrection of Jesus, yet no one in <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> provides anything of greater substance. <br /><br /> Thus, Strobel's case is an abject failure in journalism and scholarship.  However, the real intent of the book is to provide some  semi-intellectual basis for believing the claims of Christianity, and  that is perhaps the only audience that will find the case compelling.  For those who are interested in the truth or both sides of the debate,  Strobel's work will likely hold nothing of value, other than possible  entertainment. I give <em style="">The Case for Christ</em> 2 out of 5 clown courts. <br /><br /></div>

<div  class="paragraph editable-text" style=" text-align: left; "><strong style="">Sources:</u></strong>  <br /><br /><span></span><a style="">1.</a> Strobel, L. (1998) <em style="">The Case for Christ</em>. p. 13. Zondervan: Grand Rapids.<br /> <a style="">2.</a> Fisher, G. &amp; Barbara Tversky. (1999) <a style="" href="http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&amp;tversky.htm" target="blank">The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony</a>. <em style="">The Stanford Journal of Legal Studies</em>.<br /> <a style="">3.</a> Irenaeus. <em style="">Against Heresies</em>. 3.1.1.<br /> <a style="">4.</a> Ehrman, B. (2011) <a style="" href="http://www.godlesshaven.com/books-dvds/forged.html">Forged: Writing in the Name of God</a>. p. 227. HarperCollins: New York.<br /> <a style="">5.</a> Wallace, D. <a style="" href="http://bible.org/article/synoptic-problem" target="blank">The Synoptic Problem</a>. Bible.org. Retrieved May 29, 2011.<br /> <a style="">6.</a> Mack, B. (1995) <em style="">Who Wrote the New Testament?</em> p. 64. HarperCollins: New York.<br /> <a style="">7.</a> Fitzmyer, J. (1998) <em style="">The Acts of the Apostles</em>. p. 791-792. Doubleday: New York.<br /> <a style="">8.</a> <a style="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri" target="blank">List of New Testament papyri</a>. Wikipedia.org. Retrieved June 1, 2011.<br /> <a style="">9.</a> Wallace, D. <a style="" href="http://bible.org/article/number-textual-variants-evangelical-miscalculation" target="blank">The Number of Textual Variants: An Evangelical Miscalculation</a>. Retrieved June 1, 2011.<br /> <a style="">10.</a> Patterson, S. (1994) <em style="">The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus</em>. p. 120. Polebridge Press.<br /><a style="">11.</a> Josephus. <em style="">Antiquities</em>. 18.2-9.<br /> <a style="">12.</a> Wroe, A. (1999) <a style="" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/historical-notes-pontius-pilate-a-name-set-in-stone-1084786.html" target="blank">Historical Notes: Pontius Pilate: a name set in stone</a>. The Independent. Retrieved June 1, 2011.<br /> <a style="">13.</a> Josephus. <em style="">Antiquities</em>. 19.5,1; <em style="">Jewish War</em>. II. 12:8.<br /> <a style="">14.</a> Anonymous. <a style="" href="http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/augustus/RPC_2466.1.jpg" target="blank">Augustus &amp; Livia AE21 of Ionia, Smyrna.</a> Wildwinds.org. Retrieved June 1, 2011.<br /> <a style="">15.</a> Carrier, R. (2002) "<a style="" href="http://business.highbeam.com/5799/article-1G1-83585959/pseudohistory-jerry-vardaman-magic-coins-nonsense-micro" target="blank">Pseudohistory in Jerry Vardaman's magic coins: the nonsense of micro graphic letters</a>." <em style="">The Skeptical Inquirer</em>.<br /> <a style="">16.</a> Maier, P. (1998) "Herod and the Infants of Bethlehem." <em style="">Chronos, Kairos, Christos II</em>. p. 170. Mercer University Press.<br /> <a style="">17.</a> Funk, R. (1996) <em style="">Honest to Jesus</em>. p. 60. HarperCollins: San Francisco.<br /> <a style="">18.</a> Crossan, J. (1996) <em style="">Who is Jesus?</em> p. 76. HarperCollins: New York.<br /> <a style="">19.</a> Anonymous. <a style="" href="http://www.angelfire.com/celeb2/elvishouse/sightings.html" target="blank">Elvis Sightings</a>. The Jailhouse. Retrieved June 2, 2011.<br /><a style="">20.</a> Hippolytus. "On the Twelve Apostles of Christ." <em style="">Ante-Nicean Fathers</em>. Vol. 5.<br /> <a style="">21.</a> Rapini, R.; Bolognia, J. &amp; Joseph Jorizzo. (2007) <em style="">Dermatology: 2-Volume Set</em>. Mosby: St. Louis.<br /> <a style="">22.</a> Craig, W. (1994) <em style="">Reasonable Faith</em>. p. 36. Crossway: Wheaton.<br /> <a style="">23.</a> Lowder, J. (2001) <a style="" href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/empty.html" target="blank">Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig</a>. The Secular Web. Retrieved June 3, 2011.<br /><a style="">24.</a> Maccoby, H. (1991) <em style="">Paul and Hellenism</em>. p. 91-92. Trinity Press International.<br /> <a style="">25.</a> Herbert, G. (2011) <a style="" href="http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/harold_camping_may_21_judgment_day_end_still_coming.html" target="blank">Harold Camping says May 21 was a 'spiritual' Judgment Day..</a>. Syracuse.com. Retrieved June 5, 2011.<br /> <a style="">26.</a> In <em style="">James the Brother of Jesus</em>,  Robert Eisenman argues that passages like Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 were  added by the Pauline community to smear the image of the historical  James.<br /> <a style="">27.</a> Robert M. Price questions the martyrdom of the apostles in an article: <a style="" href="http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_apostle_lie.htm" target="blank">Would the Apostles Die for a Lie?</a><br /></div>

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