Challenging the Verdict

Book excerpt: In the face of modern critical scholarship, which is steadily eroding the historical reliability of the Gospels and their presentation of Jesus, conservative writers have been making valiant attempts to re-establish confidence in the Christian record and doctrine. The most prominent of these, in popular exposure and commercial success, has been Lee Strobel, in his 1998 book 'The Case for Christ'. In that book, Lee Strobel, an ex-court journalist, conducts a series of 14 interviews with well-known conservative and evangelical scholars of the New Testament, such as Craig Blomberg, William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas, in an attempt to establish the reliability of the Gospel account and the truth of the Resurrection. Within the context of a scholarly critique, Earl Doherty, author of 'The Jesus Puzzle' takes quotations from those interviews and sets up his own dialogue with them, as though cross-examining Strobel and his witnesses in a courtroom before judge and jury. This makes for gripping reading, a strong atmosphere and an effective way to present the case in favour of a more rational and coherent view of the Christian record and the origins of Christianity. This book exposes the deficiencies, the fallacies, the selective and misleading use of evidence inherent in 'The Case for Christ', and offers more reasonable alternatives.