40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Homerun --- Excellent Essays that deal with Important Issues, June 30, 2009
This review is from: Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors (Paperback)
This collection is wonderful, especially in combination with the previous collection Passionate Conviction. It really does provide excellent essays to rationally and reasonably defend the truth of Christianity.
The best thing about this book is that it deals with numerous contemporary issues and concerns. It is hard since the popularization of Dawkins and Erhman for one to simply jump to the gospel, without first having to sort out "delusional" issues or "mistranslations" or "corruptions."
This book provides some of the necessary tools. Now looking at the essays covered, one will realize that other issues that are important are missing, namely that of relativism or comparative religions. So it is not a complete guide, but if one picks up passionate conviction those issues are addressed.
Therefore one might want to see which issues are of most concern to you and thus pick volumes accordingly.
The minor let down, was getting the book and starting to read Craig's critique of dawkins only to find that it was about 3 pages (other authors give a more substantive analysis). Although it did address some issues, I wanted a lot more. Additionally, if one owns a huge collection of apologetics textbooks, one may ask is it worth it? For example Craig Evans has a chapter on Fabricating Jesus, but he has written a whole book on the issue. There are other instances of this (mostly with the Jesus of History section), in which I owned the book, in which the expert has written and from which the article may have been derived or adapted.
Moments like those made me wonder if I was getting my full money's worth (or if i own too many books !) , but in the end I was pleased as it was a great recap and so there is so much good material in a portable compact volume.
It is an excellent volume, especially recommended for those new to the issues and challenges of the New Athiests.
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OUTLINE OF THE BOOK
Table of Contents:
Preface vii
PART 1 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
Chapter 1 Dawkins's Delusion
William Lane Craig
2
Chapter 2 At Home in the Multiverse?
James Daniel Sinclair
6
Chapter 3 Confronting Naturalism: The Argument from Reason
Victor Reppert
26
Chapter 4 Belief in God: A Trick of Our Brain?
Michael J. Murray
47
Chapter 5 The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism
Mark D. Linville
58
Chapter 6 Dawkins's Best Argument Against God's Existence
Gregory E. Ganssle
74
PART 2 THE JESUS OF HISTORY
Chapter 7 Criteria for the Gospels' Authenticity
Robert H. Stein
88
Chapter 8 Jesus the Seer
Ben Witherington III
104
Chapter 9 The Resurrection of Jesus Time Line
Gary R. Habermas
113
Chapter 10 How Scholars Fabricate Jesus
Craig A. Evans
126
Chapter 11 How Badly Did the Early Scribes Corrupt the New Testament? An Examination of Bart Ehrman's Claims
Daniel B. Wallace
148
Chapter 12 Who Did Jesus Think He Was?
Michael J. Wilkins
167
PART 3 THE COHERENCE OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
Chapter 13 The Coherence of Theism
Charles Taliaferro and Elsa J. Marty
184
Chapter 14 Is the Trinity a Logical Blunder? God as Three and One
Paul Copan
205
Chapter 15 Did God Become a Jew? A Defense of the Incarnation
Paul Copan
218
Chapter 16 Dostoyevsky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution
Steve L. Porter
233
Chapter 17 Hell: Getting What's Good My Own Way
Stewart Goetz
249
Chapter 18 What Does God Know? The Problems of Open Theism
David P. Hunt
265
Contributors
283
Author Index 287
Scripture Index 290
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14 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
You Want To Buy This, Don't You?, September 16, 2009
This review is from: Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors (Paperback)
"Contending With Christianity's Critics" is the second book in a series on "cutting-edge Christian apologetics". It includes 18 essays from various Christian scholars on a number of different subjects. So, how much a person likes or dislikes the book would, in part, be influenced by how interested she is in the topics that are addressed.
If you're considering buying the book, do this: look at the Table of Contents. If this has you longing to explore further then: #1) you're likely to be something of an apologetics book nerd like me--that's the bad news; and 2) go ahead and dive in, you've hit pay dirt.
The book is divided into three parts: 1) The Existence of God; 2) The Jesus of History; and 3) The Coherence of Christian Doctrine.
I found part one on "The Existence of God" to be the most interesting. And the final chapter deals with Open Theism, I found it to be a helpful take on the subject.
If you're even reading this far you might as well get the book because it's clear that you like this stuff. On the other hand, if you're on this page by accident all I can say is: "See what happens when you're not careful with your mouse."
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