Customer Reviews

The Case for the Real Jesus---Student Edition: A Journalist Investigates Current Challenges to Christianity (Invert)

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The author, Lee Strobel, a fromer jlurnalist communicates well with his style of writing. He lists six challenges to the Christian view of the historical Jesus.I especially appreciated his arguments based on a common ground of scholarship, which must be respected by his opponents, since he deals on their turf. The tool of inquiry for philosphy, religious as well as non religious has to be human reason. Even in the best cases, the case against the tradional view of the bib-
lical Jesus are conclusions based on probabilities rather than proven facts. An example of that would be the reliability of the Hebrew and Greek documents with their variable readinga by copyists. Those variables don't chamge the essence of their message re the ral Jesus. In the appendix I thought he devasted the poor scholarship of the Jesus Seminar people, who only accept a "spritial" resurrec-
tion of Jesus rather than a physical resurrection. He also shows that this teching was not borrowed and based on pagan myths. He shows how the message of the early Christians concerning Jesus was grounded in verifiable events on the part of reliable witnesses, who are not likely to suffer and die to preserve a lie. One can perceive this in the Apostles Creed (as early as 150 A D.)

An awesome reference for all Christians. The book presents facts-based material to defend the faith.

This book is greatly appreciated for tackling challenging subjects for Christians who may still be ignorant of the facts sorrounding their faith, most importantly, the historical reliability of the New Testament and the reemerging attack on Christianity that its practices and stories are regurgitations of earlier religious myths. I've been tested with challenges such as these myself. These days they are often thrown around quite loosely by skeptics and athiests who are opposed to organised religion, especially - it seems - traditional Christianity.

Lee Strobel specifically addresses whether or not;
1. Scholars are uncovering a radically different Jesus through ancient documents just as credible as the four gospels.
2. The Bible's portait of Jesus can't be trusted because the church tampered with the text.
3. New Explanations have disproved Jesus' resurrection.
4. Christianity's beliefs were copied from pagan religions.
5. Jesus was an imposter who failed to fulfil the prophecies about the Messiah.
6. People should be free to pick and choose what to believe about Jesus.

What is just as appreciated as Lee Strobel's journalistic (unbiased and fairly representative of the opposition perspective) approach, is the highly reknown sholars and authors that are interviewed on topics relevant to their education and specialisation.

Strobel and Vogel don't shy away from any tough questions/challenges in this book which is chuck full of info not only about the reliability and intelligibility of the Christian worldview, but also all about the main challenges to the Faith. This is a book that I would see being used with a high school youth group, in high school (or junior high) religion classes in Christian schools or for anyone else in personal study. Don't think that just because it is a student edition that it is somehow dumbed down or made a little silly or anythign else that would be "pop" fluff. I have not read the non-student edition, but this one is perfect for all adults.

My only main objection, as an Eastern Orthodox, is the way the bible can be treated as this book that exists apart from the community that produced and interprited it, and also the author's use of innerancy for the bible, which is a more akin to quranic notions of scripture than to the Christian view. That aside, and to be it is a big issue when dealing with educated historians and apologists (and Christians who are seeking to ground their faith in history and not myth), the book is spot on.