The Case for Christ

The Case for Christ, A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1998


Lee Strobel is a former investigative journalist who had a hand in some major revelations, such as the famed Ford Pinto explosion cover-up. Using his experience as an investigative reporter, he attempts to deal with the historical accuracy of the account of the life of Jesus given in the Bible. He does this through a series of interviews in which he plays a benevolent "Devil's Advocate" sort of role.

To be brutally honest, for anyone who has done more than a cursory study of the evidence, his book is fairly much a surface skim. He does not delve deeply into topics which any serious researcher will cover. He does, however, provide a jumping off point.

He starts out by establishing the reliability of the authors. He argues that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are found reliable due to their accuracy in names, places, relationships, and other verifiable facts. This reliability lends credence to their writings as they were established to be men of integrity.

He also examines a few of the more frequently referenced passages with Bible critics call contradictions and examines whether they are, in fact, contradictions. Unsurprisingly, in each case the answer he comes up with is they are not.

He deals with many issues, but one of the most fascinating is perhaps his examination of the "fingerprint of Jesus". Anyone who studies the Bible in even the most cursory fashion will rapidly come across numerous prophecies in the Old Testament and references to those prophecies as fulfilled in the New Testament. Strobel points out that mathematician Peter W. Stoner concluded that for one person to have directly fulfilled just 48 of those prophecies has odds against it of 1 in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion (p. 183).

He makes one point that is perhaps even better. The Apostles were martyred in horrific, painful fashions. They could have avoided those deaths simply by recanting their testimony yet they refused. Strobel differentiates their dying for their belief from the dying for their beliefs of cult figures such as the Koresh followers or the members of Heavens Gate with this quote.

"It had been put to me this way: People will die for their religious beliefs if they sincerely believe they're true, but people won't die for their religious beliefs if they know their beliefs are false." (p. 247)

In other words, the fact that eyewitnesses to the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus were so convinced they had experienced those events they were willing to die rather than deny.

He deals with many other topics, though in an introductory or cursory way. He briefly touches on the topic of manuscript evidence, yet the brief chapter he devotes to it cannot begin to explain the vast store of documentary evidence that the Scripture has, thus his conclusion as to its accuracy and reliability is not as strong as it would be if someone studied the works of, say, Geisler and Nix, yet it does provide a starting point and other books to check out.

And he concludes with a flawed plan for becoming a Christian.

Perhaps I am too cynical. I have studied the things he talks about here in far more detail than he had space in this book. I agree with virtually every one of his conclusions, yet do not believe it would convince me if I did not already believe. However, since I do already believe these things and have studied most of them a bit more extensively, this book did not blow me away with shocking new insights. It also was pretty one-sided. I did not find his benevolent Devil's Advocate objections particularly strong or mind-changing.

And it saddened me to see him avoid the two most important steps to becoming a Christian.

Be that as it may, for those who have not studied the evidence for the existence of Christ and a general overview of proofs and evidences, a survey in collegiate terms, this is an excellent starting point.