A Seasoned Journalist Chases Down the Biggest Story in History
Is there credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God?
Retracing his own spiritual journey from atheism to faith, Lee Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examines a dozen experts with doctorates from schools like Cambridge, Princeton, and Brandeis who are recognized authorities in their own fields.
Strobel challenges them with questions like “How reliable is the New Testament?” “Does evidence for Jesus exist outside the Bible?” “Is there any reason to believe the resurrection was an actual event?”
Strobel’s tough, point-blank questions make this Gold Medallion-winning book read like a captivating, fast-paced novel. But it’s not fiction. It’s a riveting quest for the truth about history’s most compelling figure.
What will your verdict be in “The Case for Christ”?
That’s from the back cover. It makes it sound like the author takes a skeptical and even-handed approach to the evidence and the witnesses that provide it.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite his claims to the contrary, Strobel is neither a skeptic, nor am I convinced that he was ever actually an atheist. From his own introduction:
For much of my life I was a skeptic. In fact, I considered myself an atheist. To me, there was far too much evidence that God was merely a product of wishful thinking, of ancient mythology, of primitive superstition. How could there be a loving God if he consigned people to hell just for not believing in him? How could miracles contravene the basic laws of nature? Didn’t evolution satisfactorily explain how life originated? Doesn’t scientific reasoning dispel belief in the supernatural?
As for Jesus, didn’t you know that he never claimed to be God? He was a revolutionary, a sage, an iconoclastic Jew -- but God? No, that thought never occurred to him! I could point you to plenty of university professors who said so -- and certainly they could be trusted, couldn’t they? Let’s face it: even a cursory examination of the evidence demonstrates convincingly that Jesus had only been a human being just like you and me, although with unusual gifts of kindness and wisdom.
But that’s all I had ever really given the evidence: a cursory look. I had read just enough philosophy and history to find support for my skepticism -- a fact here, a scientific theory there, a pithy quote, a clever argument. Sure, I could see some gaps and inconsistencies, but I had a strong motivation to ignore them: a self-serving and immoral lifestyle that I would be compelled to abandon if I were ever to change my views and become a follower of Jesus.
This is manipulation, pure and simple. And the giveaway is the “fear” of having to give up a self-serving and immoral lifestyle. That’s his Christian ethos poking through. Strobel isn’t talking about himself in this section. He’s talking about you, dear reader. And you, dear reader, aren’t a skeptical atheist, because skeptical atheists don’t pick up The Case For Christ except on a lark. His audience, his serious audience is the casual Christian, and his goal to convert you into a committed one.
Okay? Are we on the same page? Good. Let’s dig in.
The Rhetorical Two-Step
The arguments in this book fall into a couple of obvious categories, many of them faulty. Here’s an example of a category that I came to call the rhetorical two-step.
“Tell me this,” I said with an edge of challenge in my voice, “is it really possible to be an intelligent, critically thinking person and still believe that the four gospels were written by the people whose names have been attached to them?”
Blomberg set his cup of coffee on the edge of his desk and looked intently at me. “The answer is yes,” he said with conviction.
He sat back and continued. “It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous.”
Strobel will do this two-step again and again in his “narrative.” Using his interviewees as his mouthpiece, he will have them say one thing unequivocally, and then have them say the exact opposite in a supporting paragraph that follows. Was the Gospel of Matthew written by Matthew? Yes, absolutely. Wait, I mean, strictly speaking, no.
Want another example?
“Rabbis became famous for having the entire Old Testament committed to memory. So it would have been well within the capacity of Jesus’ disciples to have committed much more to memory than appears in all four gospels put together -- and to have passed it along accurately.”
“Wait a second,” I interjected. “Frankly, that kind of memorization seems incredible. How is that possible?”
“Yes, it is difficult for us to imagine today,” he conceded, “but this was an oral culture, in which there was great emphasis placed on memorization. And remember that eighty to ninety percent of Jesus’ words were originally in poetic form. This does not mean stuff that rhymes, but it has a meter, balanced lines, parallelism, and so forth -- and this would have created a great memory help.
“The other thing that needs to be said is that the definition of memorization was more flexible back then. In studies of cultures with oral traditions, there was freedom to vary how much of the story was told on any given occasion -- what was included, what was left out, what was paraphrased, what was explained, and so forth.
“One study suggested that in the ancient Middle East, anywhere from ten to forty percent of any given retelling of sacred tradition could vary from one occasion to the next.”
Did you catch the rhetorical two-step? Are the gospels an accurate description of what actually happened? Yes, absolutely. Wait, I mean, strictly speaking, no. Maybe 60% came from Jesus, the other 40% came from the storyteller, who had the freedom to vary the story as circumstances dictated. From that I would assume that whatever discrepancies there were in the four gospels would come from the 40% that are being added by the storyteller, and which could be eliminated as inaccurate. I mean, if they’re disagreeing, then how do you know which one is right?
And what’s that about Jesus speaking in poetic form? He spoke that way? Or people wrote his sayings down that way so they would be easier to memorize? Seems like we should have some greater clarity on that one.
The Early Church
Another common crutch Strobel can’t seem to do without is the early church and how, evidently, we can safely assume that everything it purported to be true is actually true. Remember that rhetorical two-step about who wrote the gospels? Strobel’s interviewee went on to say this:
“But the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the New Testament; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul’s ‘beloved physician,’ wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.”
“How uniform was the belief that they were the authors?” I asked.
“There are no known competitors for these three gospels,” he said. “Apparently, it was just not in dispute.”
So there you go. The early church believed it. Must be true! I mean, it’s not like they got anything else wrong.
Frankly, it’s a little surprising how much of his house of cards is built on this foundation of what the early church believed. Acknowledging that there were a lot of writings and a lot of books floating around in those early years, Strobel appears rational when he asks:
“How did the early church leaders determine which books would be considered authoritative and which would be discarded?” I asked. “What criteria did they use in determining which documents would be included in the New Testament?”
“Basically, the early church had three criteria,” he said. “First, the books must have apstolic authority -- that is, they must have been written either by apostles themselves, who were eyewitnesses to what they wrote about, or by followers of apostles. So, in the case of Mark and Luke, while they weren’t among the twelve disciples, early tradition has it that Mark was the helper of Peter, and Luke was an associate of Paul.
Sorry. Got to interrupt there. Early tradition says Mark was written by Mark, and early tradition says Mark was a helper of Peter, and early tradition said Peter was one of the twelve disciples. Any evidence other than “early tradition” in that tenuous chain? Back to the except:
“Second, there was the criterion of conformity to what was called the rule of faith. That is, was the document congruent with the basic Chirstian tradition that the church recognized as normative? And third, there was the criterion of whether a document had had continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large.”
There’s a lot of words there. But if you boil them down, I’m pretty sure they are saying that the early church decided certain books were true because they said what they wanted them to say. That’s the standard I should put my “faith” in? The storyteller likes the story?
And that’s evidently a sword that cut both ways. Because not only do they keep what they like, they evidently also reject what they don’t.
I asked, “What about the charge that [the Gospel of] Thomas was purposefully excluded by church councils in some sort of conspiracy to silence it?”
“That’s just not historically accurate,” came Metzger’s response. “What the synods and councils did in the fifth century and following was to ratify what already had been accepted by high and low Christians alike. It is not right to say that the Gospel of Thomas was excluded by some fiat on the part of a council; the right way to put it is, the Gospel of Thomas excluded itself! It did not harmonize with other testimony about Jesus that early Christians accepted as trustworthy.”
Confirmation bias, anyone? Any evidence that runs counter to my narrative will be rejected, not because I can show that it is inaccurate, but because it runs counter to my narrative.
Building on a Shaky Foundation
Getting Strobel’s foundation solid is important because his whole book is structured in such a way that one argument builds on the conclusions of the one previous. But when the one previous leaves the reader feeling sketchy, not solid, it causes all the subsequent conclusions to be questionable. For example:
[The Character Test] looks at whether it was in the character of these writers to be truthful. Was there any evidence of dishonesty or immorality that might taint their ability or willingness to transmit history accurately?
Blomberg shook his head. “We simply do not have any reasonable evidence to suggest they were anything but people of great integrity,” he said.
This one is referring to the gospel writers. Forget that we don’t have any evidence that the men for whom they are named actually wrote them, let’s just take that as given so we can now focus on how much integrity they had.
Interpolation? What Interpolation?
Again and again throughout Strobel’s narrative, I found myself underlying passages and dog-earing pages whenever he knit Bible verses together in such a way as to make a particularly irrefutable point. I mean, once he convinces me that the Bible is accurate, then anything the Bible says must be true, right?
Except Strobel fails to mention that there are many passages in the Bible which are interpolations -- little snippets that weren’t present when the book in question was originally written, but which were added later, typically by scribes, believers, or early church fathers, who wanted to help harmonize one part of the Bible with another. How many of Strobel’s Bible clinchers, I wondered, were or were disputed to be interpolations?
Turns out, quite a few of them are. The first I came across was 1 Corinthians 15, which Strobel uses to clinch two arguments: one, that the oral tradition that most Bible writers used could be relied on for an accurate transmission of facts, and two, that Jesus was crucified sometime around A.D. 30. Here’s the relevant section:
“But perhaps the most important creed in terms of the historical Jesus is 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul uses technical language to indicate that he was passing along this oral tradition in relatively fixed form.”
Blomberg located the passage in his Bible and read it to me.
‘For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.’
“And here’s the point,” Blomberg said. “If the Crucifixion was as early as A.D. 30, Paul’s conversion was about 32. Immediately Paul was ushered into Damascus, where he met with a Christian named Ananias and some other disciples. His first meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem would have been about A.D. 35. At some point along there, Paul was given this creed, which had already been formulated and was being used in the early church.
“Now, here you have the key facts about Jesus’ death for our sins, plus a detailed list of those to whom he appeared in resurrected form -- all dating back to within two to five years of the events themselves!”
Wow. Very convincing. Except, of course, 1 Corinthians 15 is disputed by Bible historians as likely containing an interpolation. The earliest manuscript copy we have of 1 Corinthians dates to about A.D. 200, so there’s no telling what an “original” version of 1 Corinthians would look like and what parts of it were added as interpolations. But 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 is suspected because it contains information not contemporaneous with other writings of its supposed period, and it makes unsubstantiated claims (like Jesus appearing after death to more than 500 people) that not even the gospel writers thought important enough to include in their works.
What’s even more surprising is that even when one of Strobel’s experts acknowledges that something is an interpolation -- they still use the text as proof that what it says about Jesus is true (interpolation and all). Here’s the remarkable section where Strobel and his puppet discuss that famous passage by Josephus.
“But today there’s a remarkable consensus among both Jewish and Christian scholars that the passage as a whole is authentic, although there may be some interpolations.”
That’s a curious turn of phrase. The passage as a whole is authentic. What, exactly, does that mean? But Strobel doesn’t get hung up there. He asks a different question.
I raised an eyebrow. “Interpolations -- would you define what you mean by that?”
That means early Christian copyists inserted some phrases that a Jewish writer like Josephus would not have written,” Yamauchi said.
He pointed to a sentence in the book. “For instance, the first line says, ‘About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man.’ That phrase is not normally used of Jesus by Christians, so it seems authentic for Josephus. But the next phrase says, ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man.’ This implies Jesus was more than human, which appears to be an interpolation.”
I nodded to let him know I was following him so far.
“It goes on to say, ‘For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.’ That seems to be quite in accord with the vocabulary Josephus uses elsewhere, and it’s generally considered authentic.
But then there’s this unambiguous statement, ‘He was the Christ.’ That seems to be an interpolation--”
“Because,” I interrupted, “Josephus says in his reference to James that Jesus was ‘called the Christ.’”
“That’s right,” said Yamauchi. “It’s unlikely Josephus would have flatly said Jesus was the Messiah here, when elsewhere he merely said he was considered to be the Messiah by his followers.
“The next part of the passage -- which talks about Jesus’ trial and crucifixion and the fact that his followers still loved him -- is unexceptional and considered genuine. Then there’s this phrase: ‘On the third day he appeared to them restored to life.’
“Again, this is a clear declaration of belief in the Resurrection, and thus it’s unlikely that Josephus wrote it. So these three elements seem to have been interpolations.”
“What’s the bottom line?” I asked.
“That the passage in Josephus probably was originally written about Jesus, although without those three points I mentioned. But even so, Josephus corroborates important information about Jesus: that he was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem and that he was a wise teacher who had established a wide and lasting following, despite the fact that he had been crucified under Pilate at the instigation of some of the Jewish leaders.”
So, in other words, the passage as a whole isn’t authentic, since only some of it was actually written by its original author. And those bits that weren’t written by him? Why, what do you know, they are the ones that support the narrative that Jesus was more than a man, was the Jewish Messiah, and was resurrected from the dead.
But it’s still evidence for all that somehow because, you know, the whole passage is authentic.
It’s True BECAUSE It’s Unbelievable
This one really makes my head hurt. Time and again, when something seems out of place or unbelievable in the Jesus narrative, Strobel and his stable of experts don’t view that as evidence against their contention. In fact, they view it as evidence FOR the contention.
“Jesus’ baptism is another example. You can explain why Jesus, who was without sin, allowed himself to be baptized, but why not make things easier by leaving it out altogether? On the cross Jesus cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ I would have been in the self-interest of the writers to omit that because it raises too many questions.”
And therefore they must be true. What other explanation could there be? I mean, after all, if they were concocting a story, why would they include such obviously troubling information?
Here’s another example, in response to the fact that many other ancient rabbis were reported to have worked miracles -- performing exorcisms and praying successfully for rain. Isn’t it possible that Jesus was “merely another example of a Jewish wonder worker”?
“...the radical nature of [Jesus’s] miracles distinguishes him. It didn’t just rain when he prayed for it; we’re talking about blindness, deafness, leprosy, and scoliosis being healed, storms being stopped, bread and fish being multiplied, sons and daughters being raised from the dead. This is beyond any parallels.”
See. It’s true because the claims are miraculous. How could such stories possibly be made up?
Here may be the stupidest one of them all.
First, I asked Lapides whether it’s possible that Jesus merely fulfilled the prophecies by accident. Maybe he’s just one of many throughout history who have coincidentally fit the prophetic fingerprint.
“Not a chance,” came his response. “The odds are so astronomical that they rule that out. Someone did the math and figured out that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion. That number is millions of times greater than the total number of people who’ve ever walked the planet!”
Wow. Impressive. But Strobel can go one better.
I had studied this same statistical analysis by mathematician Peter W. Stoner when I was investigating the messianic prophecies for myself. Stoner also computed that the probability of fulfilling forty-eight prophecies was one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion!
Our minds can’t comprehend a number that big. This is a staggering statistic that’s equal to the number of minuscule atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the size of our universe!
“The odds alone say it would be impossible for anyone to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies,” Lapides concluded. “Yet Jesus -- and only Jesus throughout all of history -- managed to do it.”
So in other words -- it’s impossible, yet it happened. And, of course, it happened because it’s impossible.
And speaking of the impossible.
“I would argue that the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead is not at all improbable. In fact, based on the evidence, it’s the best explanation for what happened. What is improbable is the hypothesis that Jesus rose naturally from the dead. That, I would agree, is outlandish. Any hypothesis would be more probable than saying the corpse of Jesus spontaneously came back to life.
“But the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead doesn’t contradict science or any known facts of experience. All it requires is the hypothesis that God exists, and I think there are good independent reasons for believing that he does.”
With that Craig added this clincher: “As long as the existence of God is even possible, it’s possible that he acted in history by raising Jesus from the dead.”
With that Craig added this clincher: “As long as I say the impossible is possible, I can make up any explanation I want.”
Don’t Be Silly
Here’s the other end of that spectrum. When the miraculous supports what we want they must be true, but when it runs counter to our preferred narrative, then please, be serious.
Crossan also gives credence to what he calls the Cross Gospel. “Does that fare any better?” I asked.
“No, most scholars don’t give it credibility, because it includes such outlandishly legendary material. For instance, Jesus comes out of his tomb and he’s huge -- he goes up beyond the sky -- and the cross comes out of the tomb and actually talks! Obviously, the much more sober gospels are more reliable than anything found in this account.”
Yeah, those sober gospels. You know, the ones where Jesus simply raises people from the dead and walks on water.
Here’s another take on this theme:
I pointed out that Ian Wilson, in suggesting that Jesus may have used hypnosis to cure people who only believed they were possessed, said dismissively that no “realistic individual” would explain a state of possession “as the work of real demons.”
“To some degree, you find what you set out to find,” Collins said in response. “People who deny the existence of the supernatural will find some way, no matter how far-fetched, to explain a situation apart from the demonic.”
Yes, those who only believe the things that actual evidence supports (what Collins calls denying the existence of the supernatural) come up with all kinds of far-fetched ways to explain the phenomena around them. Because remember, proposing causes that align with evidence is far-fetched. Demons are not.
A Vessel For His Holy Will
“Jesus thought he was the person appointed by God to bring in the climactic saving act of God in human history. He believed he was the agent of God to carry that out -- that he had been authorized by God, empowered by God, he spoke for God, and he was directed by God to do this task. So what Jesus said, God said. What Jesus did was the work of God.”
Strobel spends an entire chapter on this assertion -- that Jesus believed he was an agent of God. I’m not sure why, since history is replete with people who believed they were an agent of God who even Strobel would go out of his way to say were mistaken. Muhammed, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, etc.
But Strobel will spend another chapter making sure the argument is made that Jesus couldn’t possibly be deluded or crazy (or, I guess, reviewing that list above, a con-man).
“Other deluded people will have misperceptions,” he added. “They think people are watching them or trying to get them when they’re not. They’re out of contact with reality. They misperceive the actions of other people and accuse them of doing things they have no intention of ever doing. Again, we don’t see this in Jesus. He was obviously in contact with reality. He wasn’t paranoid, although he rightfully understood that there were some very real dangers around him.
“Or people with psychological difficulties may have thinking disorders -- they can’t carry on a logical conversation, they’ll jump to faulty conclusions, they’re irrational. We don’t see this in Jesus. He spoke clearly, powerfully, and eloquently. He was brilliant and had absolutely amazing insights into human nature.”
Yeah. So did Hamlet. And that’s kind of my point. The evidence points more logically to a fictional character embodied with this kind of clarity, power, and eloquence. And how can you say with a straight face that Jesus both believed he was an agent of God and that he was “in contact with reality”?
If It Ain’t In the Book, It Didn’t Happen
This one is maybe the most insidious of them all.
“Of course,” he quickly added, “that doesn’t explain all of Jesus’ healings. Often a psychosomatic healing takes time; Jesus’ healings were spontaneous. Many times people who are healed psychologically have their symptoms return a few days later, but we don’t see any evidence of this. And Jesus healed conditions like lifelong blindness and leprosy, for which a psychosomatic explanation isn’t very likely.
We’re deep into Strobel’s rabbit hole by this point -- and he believes he has already put to rest any question about whether or not we can trust the veracity of the things written in the New Testament. If it’s in the book, it happened.
But this one goes even farther than that. But we don’t see any evidence of this. Meaning, I guess, that if something isn’t in the book, that we can now say that it did not happen. Obviously everyone Jesus healed stayed healed, right? I mean, if the healing didn’t stick for someone, certainly they would have documented that in the book. Cause, you know, the author is an unbiased reporter of everything that happened.
Apologetics
Eventually, perhaps inevitably, Strobel’s book decays into pure apologetics -- making up convoluted answers to get around really simple philosophical challenges to God’s benevolence or existence.
Hell
“Having said that, hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good blokes but just didn’t believe the right stuff. They’re consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their Maker and want to be at the center of the universe.”
Really? Please explain to me the difference between someone not believing the right stuff and someone who is defying his Maker. If he’s pretty good bloke who doesn’t believe God is real, doesn’t that mean he’s defying his Maker?
“Hell is not filled with people who have already repented, only God isn’t gentle enough or good enough to let them out. It’s filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be at the center of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion.”
Is it? How did you determine that? And if true, does that mean that if I repent after being tortured with God’s red hot poker that He’ll let me out of hell? And that there are therefore people still in hell who still “want” to defy God after being tortured with His red hot poker?
“What is God to do?”
Yes, what is God to do? I can see how hard it must be for the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe to have his hands tied like this by all these pesky humans.
“If he says it doesn’t matter to him, God is no longer a God to be admired. He’s either amoral or positively creepy. For him to act in any other way in the face of such blatant defiance would be to reduce God himself.”
I love it when the apologist comes so close to the inescapable conclusion but still can’t leap across that final distance. Yes, such a situation would reduce God completely out of existence, wouldn’t it?
Slavery
How can Jesus’ failure to push for the abolition of slavery be squared with God’s love for all people?
Since when does God love all people? Read the Old Testament.
“Why didn’t Jesus stand up and shout, ‘Slavery is wrong’?” I asked. “Was he morally deficient for not working to dismantle an institution the demeaned people who were made in the image of God?”
Carson straightened up in his chair. “I really think that people who raise that objection are missing the point,” he said. “If you’ll permit me, I’ll set the stage by talking about slavery, ancient and modern, because in our culture the issue is understandably charged with overtones that it didn’t have in the ancient world.”
Overtones. Carson is about to argue that biblical slavery wasn’t as bad as the slavery of the American South, but before he does that, let me plant this flag. Wouldn’t Jesus know that the worse form of slavery was coming? Isn’t it kind of like letting the burning house that will spread to burn down the whole neighborhood continue to burn because, you know, one house burned down isn’t as big a deal as a whole neighborhood? Someone with the knowledge that the whole neighborhood is at risk, and who has the means to put the original housefire out, and who does not act is, oh, what the phrase? Either amoral or positively creepy?
I gestured for him to continue. “Please go ahead,” I said.
“In his book Race and Culture, African-American scholar Thomas Sowell points out that every major world culture until the modern period, without exception, has had slavery,” Carson explained.
Really. Huh. If only there was a God that could’ve put an end to all of that.
“While it could be tied to military conquests, usually slavery served an economic function. They didn’t have bankruptcy laws, so if you got yourself into terrible hock, you sold yourself and/or your family into slavery. As it was discharging a debt, slavery was also providing work. It wasn’t necessarily all bad; at least it was an option for survival.”
It wasn’t necessarily all bad. Does that mean good? Or still bad? It's kind of hard to tell from all the shade you’re throwing over it. I mean, if slavery serves an economic function, and provides work, how bad could it be? Right?
“Please understand me: I’m not trying to romanticize slavery in any way. However, in Roman times there were menial laborers who were slaves, and there were also others who were the equivalent of distinguished Ph.D.’s who were teaching families.”
Okay, good. Glad we cleared that up. So as long as your slave is well educated and is teaching your family, then it’s okay to own him. Right?
“In American slavery, though, all blacks and only blacks were slaves. That was one of the peculiar horrors of it, and it generated an unfair sense of black inferiority that many of us continue to fight to this day.
“Now let’s look at the Bible. In Jewish society, under the Law everyone was to be freed every Jubilee. In other words, there was a slavery liberation every seventh year. Whether or not things actually worked out that way, this was nevertheless what God said, and this was the framework in which Jesus was brought up.”
There go those pesky humans again. God wanted all the slaves freed every seventh year, but those damn humans just wouldn’t do it!
And what’s that thing at the end about Jesus being “brought up”? Was he not God? Did he not have an understanding of the universe that transcended the specific cultural milieu of his century and geography?
“But you have to keep your eye on Jesus’ mission. Essentially, he did not come to overturn the Roman economic system, which included slavery. He came to free men and women from their sins. And here’s my point: what his message does is transform people so they begin to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbor as themselves. Naturally, that has an impact on the idea of slavery.
No, I guess not. But then again, He wasn’t God, and Strobel is more or less admitting that here. He -- like us all -- was a product of his century and geography.
Three Days and Three Nights
I wanted to ask about one other commonly cited discrepancy. “Jesus said in Matthew 12:40, ‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ However, the gospels report that Jesus was really in the tomb one full day, two full nights, and part of two days. Isn’t this an example of Jesus being wrong in not fulfilling his own prophecy?”
“Some well-meaning Christians have used this verse to suggest Jesus was crucified on Wednesday rather than on Friday, in order to get the full time in there!” Craig said. “But most scholars recognize that according to early Jewish time-reckoning, any part of a day counted as a full day. Jesus was in the tomb Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning -- under the way the Jews conceptualized time back then, this would have counted as three days.
Uh huh. But still not three nights, right? Unless by “early Jewish time-reckoning” Friday nights count as two nights.
“Again,” he concluded, “that’s just another example of how many of these discrepancies can be explained or minimized with some background knowledge or just by thinking them through with an open mind.”
The Jesus Seminar
I think the most laughable part of Strobel’s book is when he attempts to address the criticisms of The Jesus Seminar.
Now that I had heard powerfully convincing and well-reasoned evidence from the scholars I questioned for this book, I needed to turn my attention to the decidedly contrary opinions of a small group of academics who have been the subject of a whirlwind of news coverage.
Strobel then goes on the describe The Jesus Seminar, which he calls a “self-selected group that represents a miniscule percentage of New Testament scholars,” which set out to determine which quotes attributed to Jesus in the New Testament could be supported with evidence that a man named Jesus had actually said them.
In the end they concluded Jesus did not say 82 percent of what the gospels attribute to him. Most of the remaining 18 percent was considered somewhat doubtful, with only 2 percent of Jesus’ sayings confidently determined to be authentic.
But Strobel is a journalist, remember? He’s going to ruthlessly cross-examine the witnesses and let only the truth emerge.
I needed to know if there was any credible rebuttal evidence to refute these troubling and widely publicized opinions. Were the Jesus Seminar’s findings solidly based on unbiased scholarly research, or were they like Passeri’s ill-fated testimony: well meaning but ultimately unsupported?
Passeri is a witness in one of the legal proceedings Strobel covered as a court reporter -- a pastiche he uses throughout the book to support his contention that he is tackling this Jesus question with the same kind of rigor and scrutiny. Except…
For answers, I made the six-hour drive to St. Paul, Minnesota, to confer with Dr. Gregory Boyd, the Ivy League-educated theology professor whose books and articles have challenged the Jesus Seminar head-on.
That’s right. Rather than interview someone from the Jesus Seminar, in order to determine if the Jesus Seminar assertions were true, Strobel decided to interview someone who thinks they are not.
I frankly should have stopped reading right there.
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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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