I am halfway through the investigative novel The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel, who, writing from a legalistic and journalistic background, structures his book like an attorney gathering evidence for an upcoming trial. The case? Whether Jesus is really the Son of God. He doesn’t seek to prove the claim, which sounds odd at first, but in fact his goal is provide a wealth of evidence, and ask you, the reader, the ‘juror’, to “weigh the evidence and come to the best possible conclusion”: whether it is a credible claim or not.

What an interesting book! I love the idea of it, and the plethora of famous experts he calls in, and the fascinating recounts of real-life trials he uses to illustrate certain things in his case for Christ. Also I think I have played way too much Phoenix Wright on my DS not to be excited by legal proceedings.

I am trying however to develop a personal response to the pro-Christian things I read, so I’m not just calmly swallowing everything as if facts taken for granted. So I am having a few issues with the book, mainly with identifying with the narrator and the way his mind works.

For instance, he talks about the susceptibility of Christianity to Pagan influences by pointing out the parallels of the story of Jesus and ‘mystery religions’ (like the mystical cult stuff that arise even today), an issue which an expert diffuses by saying many of the ‘mystery religions’ came later, borrowing from Christianity. He goes on to say:

“...the Jews carefully guarded their beliefs from outside influence. They saw themselves as a separate people and strongly resisted pagan ideas and rituals.” (p.161)

My first query would be, “What about Christmas? The trees, the mistletoe, the holly and the ivy, Yule logs? What about the Jewish and Christian symbols of the Star of David and the fish, marks of Pagan gods?” This argument of course could’ve been shot down with a simple hark back to the previous response – the timing of these ‘new’ traditions that come after the Gospels, merely rituals created post-Biblical era influenced by pre-Christian beliefs (Pope Julius I officially confirmed Christmas on the 25th Dec A.D. 350, coinciding with, and eventually assimilating with, Pagan festivities), but the message guarded by the Jews remained accurate and undiluted. But that was the problem – the journalist simply wasn’t asking the questions I/ would ask, and just when he was on the cusp of something ready to be cleared up in my head, he would say something like, “That made sense to me,” and move on. I would have to sit, think about my objections, and then think about why they would have been dismissed so as to not have been worth bringing up in his questioning. I have no doubt that the author’s knowledge of biblical criticism and apologetics far surpass mine, and perhaps that’s why every time I had to put the book aside for a while, I left it with a niggling feeling that the evidence had not been presented as entirely conclusively to this juror.

The Christmas query wasn’t a biggie, but I remembered what Michael Onfray wrote in The Athiest Manifesto. Strobel talks about the reports of Paul written “so early that nobody can make a credible claim that they had been seriously distorted by legendary development” (p.115), but Onfray questions the legitimacy of Paul’s word, offering the possibility that he was in fact mad as a hatter. In Chapter 8, Strobel deals with the question of whether Jesus was crazy (megalomaniac, hello!) and though I like the fact he decisively sifts through and dismisses that issue and had previously established the authority and reliability of the Gospel writers, he did not deal with Paul, surprisingly since he did write a good chunk of the New Testament! (Note: However, he might deal with this more later in the book, since so far he’s been focusing on the canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

The educated experts found by Strobel have generally been officially recognised by prominent institutions, highly lauded recipients of respectable prizes, achieving high honours in their fields. However, when they offer a fact – but without the statistic and the reference – it reminds me of Richard Dawkins’ generalisations; “Many theologians believe…” For instance, to argue against the idea that demonic possession is a generally unacceptable possibility in the psychiatric and psychological field, one professional unequivocally states:

“ Whereas twenty-five years ago the suggestion of demonic activity would have been immediately dismissed, many psychologists are beginning to recognise that maybe there are more things in heaven and earth than our philosophies can account for.” (p. 205)

I would like to know who these mental health professionals are! It’s not that I doubt his words, and I realise that in a put-on-the-spot interview, one can only give general summation of their studies, it being more difficult to accurately quote specific information from the top of one’s head. But when I’m being told that the ‘prosecution’ are full of false facts, misunderstandings and misinterpretations, it doesn’t strengthen the case when their own testimonies are a little imprecise. To Strobel’s credit though, he does include a list of resources at the back of each chapter (as well as some citations as endnotes) where readers can further investigate the topic, which I haven’t looked into much.

This might sound all very negatively critical, but this isn’t so much a serious review as my own personal response to the book, and I’m trying to be as honest as I can. There are thousands of positives to it, and if I wasn’t so intrigued I wouldn’t keep reading – that the experts make statements about the reliability of the Gospels and the people who wrote them, about the non-Biblical, even non-Christian historical sources validating Jesus’ existence and power, about the fair dismissal of the ‘extraneous’ books (‘psuedepigrapha’) from the final collating of the Bible, about the corroborative evidence surrounding Jesus’ resurrection, strengthens my faith because it means there are answers to be found to the uncertainties that even Christians find rising unbidden in their minds. Even if I feel this investigation is personal and more compelling to the author, it suggests there is an investigation to be had, and it’s proof enough that we should actively strike out and take our own.

The Case For Christ
AUTHOR: Lee Strobel
PUBLISHER: Zondervan
PUBLISHED: 1998