Case for Christ

The Case for Christ
Lee Strobel

Israel Dominguez

Calvary Chapel Bible College
TH365 Apologetic Evangelism
Joe Holden
June 26, 2013

The Case for Christ is an apologetics written from the perspective of a former critic. Lee Strobel was a hard skeptic until when he set out to disprove Christianity and the Bible, he ended up becoming a believer! This book is his retracing of the logical thoughts on his journey of two years in coming to faith in Christ. Lee Strobel is a journalist, and in this book he interviews twelve experts on points of the Bible and the evidences we have of Jesus. What makes this such an interesting book is the fact that this book was written by a man who once discounted the possibility of God. So through his interviews he looks at the evidences of Christ, the gospels, and Jesus’ claims. This book is the evidence of Christ; Christianity is under attack, and this is the evidence for Him and His claims.

The book looks over 3 sections which we see covered, “Examining the Record” which is the examination of the evidence for Christ. Second was “Analyzing Jesus” which takes a look at the man Jesus, what the record tells us of who He is and what His claims were. The third section “Researching the Resurrection” does just that, it takes a look at the evidence for the resurrection. First let’s take a look at “Examining the Record”. This section take a look at the Gospels, the reliability of the New Testament, and corroborating evidence found from other writers. The gospels were eyewitness accounts of the life of Christ (except Luke) and all are doubted, yet nonetheless authentic. These accounts were written by men who followed Christ fervently, even to the point of violent and gruesome deaths! Would anyone continue to follow something they didn’t truly believe in the face of such adversity? Surely not. We have manuscripts of these gospels from within 100 years of Jesus’ death, which brings us to the Reliability of the New Testament. With the New Testament we have over 24,000 manuscripts, with the closest being around 60 years! The testimony of the evidences we find for New Testament’s reliability is so good that Norman Geisler and William Nix conclude, “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 -- a form that is 99.5% percent pure.”[1] It is the most reliable of all ancient writings, and we can be sure that we are reading what the writers originally wrote. Lastly we see the Corroborating evidence brought for Jesus. Josephus the historian mentions Jesus in his writings, here is his description of Jesus, “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. ... Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonder.”[2] The fact that Jesus was widely known enough to be mentioned by a historian shows us that truly Jesus was a prominently known figure, enough to attract the attention of someone trying to record history! Also we see mention of the disciples claim to his resurrection! Not only do we see mention of Jesus, but of the claim to the Gospel as well! This is all very supportive evidence for Christ. The next section is “Analyzing Jesus” and it takes a look at who Christ was and what He claimed. In this section we see if Jesus really claimed to be God, and if so was he crazy in doing so? Lastly, did Jesus fit the divine nature? Firstly Jesus definitely claimed to be God. We see evidence of it in the way he interacted with other and in what he taught. He spoke of his own authority, and he even asked the disciples what they thought of Him. “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”’[3] He wanted to be sure that His disciples understood who he was, and so he asked them! Jesus wasn’t having an identity crisis, though he did have his identity confirmed to him. At his baptism, the transfiguration, the garden of gethsemane, and many other times. Now was he crazy in thinking he was God? No, he was perfectly sane. Those who called him crazy did so because they could not comprehend the works that he did. He didn’t just make outrageous claims about himself, he backed them up with miracles! If he was crazy he would have made outrageous claims and provided no back up for them, but we know he performed miracles, even to dying on the cross and being raised again! Lastly we will take a look and see if Jesus fit the divine nature. He definitely claimed to be able to do something only God could do, which was to forgive sins. The Jews immediately recognized this as something only God could do, so when Jesus claimed to do it they accused him of blasphemy. In Philippians 2 we see that he “became nothing” and this probably refers to his self-limiting of his attributes rather than being stripped of them. So as he still retained his attributes (healing, forgiveness of sins), he was also unique, begotten not created. He was unlike any other man to ever walk the earth, he was God incarnate. The last section is that of the Resurrection, and has 3 points. The medical evidence, the evidence of the missing body, and the appearances of Christ post-resurrection. First off the medical evidence is the evaluation of the account of the crucifixion and how it matches up with the Roman history of the crucifixion. The fact is that it must be accurate that Jesus was crucified by the Romans, the account is synonymous with the facts we know of the crucifixion. The fact that he was pierced through the hands, one through both feet, that he carried his own cross, and was pierced in his side are all facts we know to be true of Roman Crucifixion. It tells us that the accounts are accurate, and that Jesus was crucified by the Romans. Next is the evidence of the missing body, which we see corroborated by the pharisees themselves. In the gospels we get the account that when the body was found to be missing they accused the disciples! So it was no plot of the Pharisees, and it was not done by the disciples, so the only other conclusion is the one given, which was that Christ was raised from the dead. His body was missing, and the guards who had been posted could not say how he had left. Lastly let’s take a look at Christ’s post-death appearances. So did he really appear? We have to conclude yes. Based upon the disappearance of his body, no one had taken it so he must have been raised! He died on the cross, and then he appeared to people. How does one lead to the other? It must be that he was raised from the dead, because dead people usually don’t appear to living people, and certainly not in a way they can be touched or eat with them! This statement of fact was and is the central proclamation of the Christian faith, that Jesus Christ rose from the grave and is seated at the right hand of the Father!

There were things I liked and didn’t like about the book, i’ll point out 3 of each. I really loved the fact that Strobel had extra credibility, being a journalist, and being a former skeptic gives him a leg up on everyone else. He knows how to research a topic and find answers, and he knows the point of view of a skeptic having himself been one! It also gives us the benefit of extra hard interviews, he knew what he was doing and we know that we go the maximum benefit from the interviews. Secondly we see that all of his points point directly to his conclusion. There is no confusion in what he writes, rather every point he makes is backed up by solid evidence and is clearly stated in correlation to his conclusion. In essence his points are easy to follow. Lastly his style of writing is easy to read. He is clear and concise, and the terminology he uses are descriptive, but not too complicated so as to leave readers lost. He has a very organized structure to his book, and any information you are looking for can easily be found. Now here are the 3 things I didn’t like about the book. First off I did not like his biased stance he took. He claims to be taking this from the perspective of a journalist yet he didn’t interview anyone from the other side of the story, so we only get one side of it. Rather he told us what they would say or what a common argument is, but it would provide much more credibility if he would interview them himself. The second thing I didn’t like was his inability to fit his book into a genre. It was written in novel format yet it is a very difficult book to reference back to. It’s more of a story than it is a reference book, which makes it a hard book to use for study purposes. Lastly, if he wouldn’t interview atheists or those who would oppose his view, I would hope he would at least quote their beliefs more often rather than paraphrase them. For those of us who would like to better understand the unbelievers logic and position it makes us hard to when he doesn’t quote them. Overall this book was very beneficial to me. Though there were things about the book that I wish were different that did not stop me from truly taking things away from this book. It has really brought me to a more structured understanding of the way to defend the life of Christ, how to truly bring up evidences for him. Being able to categorize these evidences into three distinct categories has been very beneficial, and it really helps me remember all these arguments and facts better. It’s very crucial for all of us as believers to truly understand how to defend the faith, if we don’t know how to defend what we believe then how can we be sure that what we believe is really the truth? Coming to a deeper understanding of what we believe is crucial to our walk with the Lord as it reveals to us the wonder and the Sovereignty of God. You begin to see Him in everything, in the Word, in the evidence, and in all the earth. He has chosen to reveal himself to us and we have the privilege to be able to study it! My prayer would be that all (myself included) would come to a deeper understanding of why we believe what we believe and to use that knowledge to answer the questions of skeptics and show that we believe in the truth. We believe not because our parents do so, but because we know it to be true!

Works Cited
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist 's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. Print.
Geisler, Norman L., and Ronald M. Brooks. When Skeptics Ask. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990. Print.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).
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[1] Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist 's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. 65. Print.
[2] Geisler, Norman L., and Ronald M. Brooks. When Skeptics Ask. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990. 204. Print.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001). Mt 16:15–17.

Cited: Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist 's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. Print. Geisler, Norman L., and Ronald M. Brooks. When Skeptics Ask. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990. Print. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001). ----------------------- [1] Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist 's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. 65. Print. [2] Geisler, Norman L., and Ronald M. Brooks. When Skeptics Ask. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990. 204. Print. [3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001). Mt 16:15–17.