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Book Review: The Case for the Real Jesus
Who This Book is For: Most Christians should love this book. As with other titles by Strobel, I found this book to be both interesting and easy to read. I would expect that most people in their late teens and onwards would have little difficulty reading it. The Book will be helpful to Christians who would like to have answers for friends and neighbours that may want to discuss these controversial topics. The book will also be helpful to open minded people who are investigating Christianity. Who This Book is Not For: If you are extremely sceptical of the Bible’s portrayal of Jesus and would rather believe any explanation that avoids acceptance of that view then this book is not for you. If you reject the possibility of miracles, such as the resurrection of Jesus, (regardless of how many people witnessed it) then you will not find Strobel’s book helpful. About The Author: Lee Strobel is the author of several books that investigate the evidence for the Christian Faith. Strobel was the legal editor of the Chicago Tribune; he has a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School. Strobel was an atheist but after his agnostic wife became a Christian, he applied his ‘legal training and journalistic experience to systematically search for the real Jesus.’ Strobel says, ‘After nearly two years of studying ancient history and archaeology, I found the evidence leading me to the unexpected verdict that Jesus is the unique Son of God who authenticated his divinity by returning from the dead.’ Outline: The book consists of an introduction followed by six challenges, the conclusion, Appendix A and Appendix B. Appendix A is a summary of the Case for Christ and Appendix B is a list of helpful websites. I highly recommend Lee Strobel’s own website which has numerous videos on various topics that you can watch for free. The six challenges to the Bible’s portrait of Jesus consist of Challenge #1 “Scholars Are Uncovering a Radically Different Jesus in Ancient Documents Just as Credible as the Four Gospels” Interview with Craig A. Evans, Ph.D. Challenge #2 “The Bible’s Portrait of Jesus Can’t Be Trusted Because the Church Tampered with the Text” Interview with Daniel B. Wallace, Ph.D. Challenge #3 “New Explanations Have Refuted Jesus’ Resurrection” Interview with Michael Licona, M.A., Ph.D. (CAND.) Challenge #4 “Christianity’s Beliefs about Jesus Were Copied from Pagan Religions” Interview with Edwin M. Yamauchi, Ph.D. Challenge #5 “Jesus was an Imposter Who Failed to Fulfill the Messianic Prophecies” Interview with Michael L. Brown, Ph.D. Challenge #6 “People Should Be Free to Pick and Choose What to Believe About Jesus” Interview with Paul Copan, Ph.D. Discussion: Strobel looks at the various challenges to Christianity (listed in the outline above) and presents each challenge to a scholar who is well qualified to discuss the challenge. One by one the challenges are exposed as being either a complete fraud, not being based on accurate scholarship or downright speculation. Strobel finds that ‘there are no new disclosures that have cast any doubt on the essential reliability of the New Testament’. The claims that Jesus did not rise from the dead or that his remains have been found is refuted by the fact that there is solid evidence that he did rise from the dead and that the evidence put forward by people like Cameron is extremely flimsy and rejected by reliable scholars. Christianity is extremely unlikely to have borrowed ideas from pagan religions for the simple reason that the idea would be abhorrent to Jewish people and that the dating of the evidence suggests that if anything, it was the pagan religions that stole ideas from Christianity. Many of the challenges to the Biblical Jesus turn out to be based on little more than skepticism and Strobel concludes ‘The truth is that skepticism does not equal scholarship.’ The real Jesus is the Biblical Jesus who claimed the unique position of being God himself. This Jesus suffered and died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day. This Jesus is accurately revealed in the New Testament. He fulfilled too many messianic prophecies for there to be any doubt and if he is not the messiah then no one else can be. While the implications of Jesus claims and words can be demanding in that the real Jesus asks nothing less than our complete devotion and our entire lives, if Jesus is who he claimed to be then ‘Why should we hesitate to give all of ourselves to him?’ Highlight: The highlight of the book for me was Licona’s five minimal historical facts that can be used to show that Jesus rose from the dead. These five facts are accepted by the vast majority of scholars. These five minimal facts can be established even without assuming that God inspired the writers of the New Testament, so long as you are open minded enough to treat the New Testament in the same way as any other historical document. The five facts are as follows Fact 1: Jesus was killed by crucifixion Fact 2: Jesus’ disciples believed that Jesus rose and appeared to them. Fact 3: The conversion of the church persecutor Paul. Fact 4: The conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus half brother. Fact 5: Jesus’ tomb was empty. The vast majority of scholars who are qualified to critically evaluate the historical evidence support those facts. Add those facts together and you have a group of early followers (a group that included former skeptics) promoting the belief that Jesus rose from the dead. That belief was either based on historical fact or something that they knew to be a hoax. They were all prepared to die (and many did actually die) for what they were teaching. So the question that needs to be asked is ‘Who would knowingly die for something that they knew to be false?’ There may be many examples of people who have died for something they believed in but it is hard to find examples where someone knowingly died for a lie. Related Resources: Lee has other good books on related topics including The Case for Christ The Case for The Creator The Case for Faith Lee Strobel’s website has many short videos that you can watch for free. Rating: Thumbs Up. I really like this book and I whole-heartedly recommend it. The book is not a magic bullet, it is not just a matter of getting someone to read it if you want them to become a Christian. There is no magic bullet because we are saved by faith not magic bullets. God does not generally force people to believe in Him if they don’t want to believe. However for anyone who is willing to accept the possibility that someone can rise from the dead and examine the evidence for the resurrection with an open mind, then this book will be very helpful. There are few authors who present the evidence as clearly and do so in as interesting and manner as Strobel does. This book is available on amazon 
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