Lee Strobel: The Case for the Real Jesus ![]()
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Published by Zondervan
Review by Treebeardp;
What is the truth about Jesus?
Lee Strobel, award-winning legal editor at the Chicago Tribune, was a spiritual skeptic until his agnostic wife's conversion to Christ prompted him to use his legal training and journalistic skills to systematically examine the evidence to find out who Jesus really was. "It wasn't the outcome I was necessarily seeking," he writes, but the evidence convinced him that "Jesus is the unique Son of God who authenticated his divinity by returning from the dead."
The result of that investigation was published in 1998 as "The Case for Christ". But since that time the Jesus of historic Christianity has come under fierce attack from all around, and not least from within the Christian Church. This latest book of Strobel is an attempt to deal with this attack in its various forms by first explaining the challenge, then examining the evidence for and against its main theses in a scholarly responsible, and finally relating his investigations and its results in a book for "normal people".
The attack on the identity of the historical Jesus consists of 6 challenges which, on the surface, appears to be devastating to the Christian faith:
1. "Scholars Are Uncovering a Radically Different Jesus in Ancient Documents Just as Credible as the Four Gospels"
2. "The Bible's Portrait of Jesus Can't Be Trusted Because the Church Tampered with the Text"
3. "New Explanations Have Refuted Jesus' Resurrection"
4. Christianity's Beliefs about Jesus Were Copied from Pagan Religions"
5. Jesus Was an Imposter Who Failed to Fulfill the Messianic Prophecies"
6. People should be Free to Pick and Choose What to Believe about Jesus"
These challenges are presented in the media, on the Internet, even in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as facts supported by cutting edge scholarship - but is it true?

By Treebeard