Author: ephreal

This has been a lot of typing, but I’m finally almost done with this book.

This chapter opens with a story of how compelling circumstantial evidence can be at a trial. Unfortunately, we’re treated to more arguments from the bible rather than any evidence being put forth. In case it’s not obvious, I’m sick of this book by this point. This may be a short post because I’m just sick of dealing with the same arguments over and over. This chapter can be skipped because it’s very obvious that Strobel isn’t even bothering to write for a non-Christian by this point. There is no evidence provided at all.

In this chapter, Strobel interviews Dr. J. P. Moreland.

Exhibit 1: The Disciples Died For Their Beliefs

No actual evidence is provided in this section. All things mentioned presuppose the historical reliability of the bible. I’m really getting tired of having to say this, but see the problems with chapters 2 and 3 for reasons why we shouldn’t take the gospels as good historical fact.

Dr. Moreland claims, without furnishing any evidence for it, that “[Dr. Moreland:] …the apostles were willing to die for something they had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 268). I need some evidence for this to be furnished in order to believe it. Telling me that the bible or church says so is not adequate evidence.

There’s another statement I’m getting tired of saying but applies here. Just because you were willing to die for your beliefs does not mean that those beliefs are correct, factual, or in any way accurate to what happened. People have died because they were lied to and believed the lie wholeheartedly. For example, the heaven’s gate cult. Are we supposed to believe that they knew the truth because so many were willing to die?

Exhibit 2: The Conversion of Skeptics

Again, the bible is not a reliable source and should not be treated as such. Stop referring to it if you want to convince anyone of a claim. See the Problems with Chapters 2 and 3 again. Just because the bible claims someone was skeptical and then changed their mind after the (supposed) resurrection does not mean that person existed OR was even skeptical at all.

Dr. Moreland claims that Muhammad’s and Paul’s revelations are completely different because “[Dr. Moreland:] Muhammad claims he went into a cave and had a religious experience in which Allah revealed the Koran to him. There’s no other eyewitness to verify this. Muhammad offered no publicly miraculous signs to certify anything.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 270). How very convenient that Dr. Moreland ignores the point that there would have been no one around to see Paul have his conversion either. In fact, the only record we have of how Paul was converted is through his own words. This is literally the same as Muhammad, Paul even managed to twist a religion that was getting started into his way of thinking and become a central figure because of it.

This chapter also presumes that a person called Saul who became Paul actually existed. That viewpoint is under heavy debate due to lack of historical evidence for Paul^[1]. If Paul didn’t exist, then it appears that someone used Paul as a pseudonym and made up a great SOB backstory for him to lend credibility for why he was so fanatical.

Exhibit 3: Changes to Key Social Structures

This section is atrocious. There is no evidence brought forth that the claims are true, and again, some of the things stated are directly contradictory to things that Strobel’s own experts have told us before. Some of these things are also contradicted by historical documents.

To start off with, Dr. Moreland appears to equate the relaxing of Jewish laws with Jesus and the Christianity movement. (Strobel, CFC, P. 272-273). This may be the cause for stopping animal sacrifices and changes in thought regarding Moses law, and I’m willing to grant that.

What is flat out wrong is when Dr. Moreland states Jews would “[Dr. Moreland:] …not doing anything except religious devotion every Saturday… …after the death of this Nazarene carpenter, this fifteen-hundred-year tradition is abruptly changed.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 272). Contrary to what Dr. Moreland implies, Jews still worship on Saturday even today. They have had no change on this point. Christians might worship on Sunday because they believe Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, but that is not evidence for the claim.

Dr. Moreland also says “[Dr. Moreland:] Yet Jews begin to worship Jesus as God within the first decade of the Christian religion.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 273). This is blatantly false and even disputed by the same documents Strobel’s other experts have pointed out: The Talmud. In the references given by Strobel’s experts, the Jews certainly didn’t worship Jesus. They certainly don’t today either.

Dr. Moreland also says “[Dr. Moreland:] …Christians pictured the Messiah as someone who suffered and died for the sins of the world, whereas Jews had been trained to believe that the Messiah was going to be a political leader…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 273). Perhaps that’s because the prophecies of a Messiah all point towards a political leader rather than a spiritual one, and Jesus did not fulfill any of them?^[2]

Dr. Moreland claims that “[Dr. Moreland:] …an entire community of at least ten thousand Jews were willing to give up these five key practices…” (Strobel, CFC, P.273 ) shortly after Christianity got started. Like most claims, he furnished no evidence for this. Without any evidence to back this claim up, the claim seems most likely made up and pulled in to lend credence to a story. In fact, if, as Dr. Moreland claims, “[Dr. Moreland:] …they had seen Jesus risen from the dead” (Strobel, CFC, P. 273), we could expect to see far more mention of Jesus in historical texts along with much strong corroborating evidence for his existence outside of church propaganda. Instead, we have nothing to back up any of these claims.

The claims that Jewish people changed their viewpoints provides no evidence for anything that Strobel is trying to prove. All this proves is that the Jews changed their social structures at some point.

Exhibit 4: Communion and Baptism

Dr. Moreland points to communion and baptism as evidence for the resurrection story somehow. All that communion shows is that the early Christians at the time believed it to be important. As for baptism, both the Jews and the Essene cult had something similar that Christianity pulled from. The fact that “[Dr. Moreland:] people were baptized in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 275) just means that early Christians believed it was the correct way to do things.

Dr. Moreland makes the same logical fallacy that every other expert Strobel interviews has done when he says “[Dr. Moreland:] …these two sacraments can be dated back to the very earliest Christian community-too early for the influence of any other religions…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 275). Just because something goes back to the earliest sources doesn’t mean it wasn’t influenced by another religion. By Dr. Moreland’s own admission, “[Dr. Moreland:] The early church adopted a form of baptism from their Jewish upbringing…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 275). This is one influence already, and I’m sure there are more.

Dr. Moreland also claims that “[Dr. Moreland:] …there’s no hard evidence that any mystery religion believed in gods dying and rising, until after the New Testament period.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 275). The theme of a god dying and coming back to life again is the staple of many religions, many of which predate Christianity. It’s such a big religious trope that it has it’s own wikipedia page^[3]. Having a god come back to life is certainly nothing new for a religion by the time that Christianity hit the religious scene.

Exhibit 5: The Emergence of the Church

Dr. Moreland argues that “[Dr. Moreland:] …this movement triumphed over a number of competing ideologies and eventually overwhelmed the entire Roman empire.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 276). He overlooks the fact that a religion spreading doesn’t prove the correctness or truth of the religion. The only conclusion that we can draw from this is that the people believed the message of Christianity. The same thing could be said of other faiths, such as Islam. This causes no problems for a naturalistic view of history.

Dr. Moreland starts to tie things up by saying “[Dr. Moreland:] …if someone wants to consider this circumstantial evidence and reach the verdict that Jesus did not rise from the dead-fair enough. But they’ve got to offer an alternative explanation that is plausible for all five of these facts.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 276). Given that none of Dr. Moreland’s points have any evidence for any of the claims made, then the best explanation is still that no resurrection ever took place with the burden of proof resting firmly on those who make extraordinary supernatural claims.

For Strobel to claim “[Strobel:] Given all five uncontested facts, I had to agree with Moreland that the Resurrection, and only the Resurrection, makes sense…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 276) is madness. Drawing this conclusion in such a way that tries so hard to make you believe it is just dishonest. We have been given no facts, no evidence, and merely been told that the resurrection story is true. Strobel, as stated before, is clearly not writing for a skeptical audience. He is writing for people who already believe in Christianity.

Taking the Final Step

Dr. Moreland offers “[Dr. Moreland:] …the ongoing encounter with the resurrected Christ that happens all over the world…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 277) as one more piece of “evidence” for the resurrection. This is not evidence. This only proves people believe in Christianity and discounts religious experiences from any other religion. To any Christian readers who made it this far, do you think other religions don’t also have spiritual experiences? Are we to believe in Hinduism because millions of people feel the presence of their lord Krishna?

Interestingly, Dr. Moreland tries to address my last point. He states “[Dr. Moreland:] I’m not saying, ‘Just trust your experience.’ I’m saying, ‘Use your mind calmly and weigh the evidence, and then let experience be a confirming piece of evidence…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 278). I’ve weighed the (lack of) evidence provided here and let the experience be a confirming piece of evidence that these claims are worthless.

Citations

1. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paul_of_Tarsus#Historicity_of_Paul
2. https://jewsforjudaism.ca/why-jesus-is-not-the-jewish-messiah/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying-and-rising_deity

This chapter opens with another tale and has the accurate statement “[Strobel:] …an empty grave does not a resurrection make.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 245). While I’m not sold on the story Strobel has told so far, I can at least, agree with the sentiment. Sadly, in the next sentence, Strobel makes a claim that I cannot agree with, that “[Strobel:] …Dr. William Lane Craig has already elicited powerful evidence that the tomb of Jesus was empty” (Strobel, CFC, P. 245).

In this chapter, Strobel interviews Dr. Gary Habermas. As with any intro, Strobel spends several pages giving filler on who this guy is.

Dead People Don’t do That

To determine whether Jesus had resurrected, Dr. Habermas says “[Dr. Habermas:] …here’s how I look at the evidence for the Resurrection: First, did Jesus die on the cross? And second, did he appear later to people?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 248).

By now, I have shown multiple times that I do not believe the gospels to have been reliable, and this chapter also appears to be leaning heavily into gospel narrative. Reread the problems with chapters 2 and 3 for my take. Because the second claim by Dr. Habermas is new, I’m going to examine that rather than the first.

First, Dr. Habermas tries to equate sciences with what he is about to do by saying “[Dr. Habermas:] We don’t see dinosaurs; we study the fossils. We may not know how a disease originates, but we study its symptoms. Maybe nobody witnesses a crime, but police piece together the evidence after the fact.” (Strobel, CFC, P.248 ). This is called looking at physical evidence to reach a conclusion. We can be assured that dinosaurs did exist because we can examine the physical evidence for them. Dr. Habermas offers no physical evidence throughout this entire chapter which makes this a terrible analogy.

Dr. Habermas cites other parts in the new testament as proof that Paul saw Jesus after he died, and so did the disciples. However, seeing people after they have died is not a phenomenon specific to the bible, nor is seeing people after they died evidence that they really came back to life. The fact that people claimed to see Jesus after he supposedly died doesn’t even provide proof that Jesus existed or died. It merely establishes that people thought they saw, or claimed to see, Jesus after he died.

To use a contemporary figure that people claim to have seen, let’s examine Elvis Presley. Elvis died in 1977 with the earliest known sighting of him being in 1980^[1]. Since then, till at least 1999, people have claimed to see him walking around, talking to people, giving things to people, etc. Do these appearance constitute evidence of a risen king? And yes, pun very intended.

Based on Dr. Habermas’ line of reasoning, we should believe that Elvis has been resurrected “[Dr. Habermas:] …because dead people don’t normally do that.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 248). Obviously, this would be a ridiculous conclusion. The claims of seeing Elvis do not provide any evidence that Elvis was resurrected. They show that people who were familiar with Elvis, possibly even obsessed over Elvis like the disciples are shown to do over Jesus, believe they have seen Elvis walking around after his death.

Dr. Habermas attempts to lend credence to Paul’s story, saying “[Dr. Habermas:] …he encountered the resurrected Christ. …he says…. ….”Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? And he says… …Last of all, he appeared to me also.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 249). What Dr. Habermas fails to tell is that all encounters that Paul had with Jesus were visions. Paul never directly met Jesus meaning his entire narrative is suspect.

Much of the “evidence” in this book rests on the claim that it takes decades, if not centuries, for legendary development to happen. The tale of Elvis is a counter example that shows that it does not take long.

Convince me it’s a Creed

Strobel asks Dr. Habermas to prove that 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 is truly a creed. This is a bit pointless as the only thing the proving this is a creed would do is prove that the people preaching believed that Jesus was resurrected. This does nothing to prove that anyone was really resurrected.

Also, claiming that Paul is a firsthand eyewitness does not hold water. Visions of Jesus are not the same as having met Jesus. Just because “[Dr. Habermas:] …Paul personally affirms that Jesus appeared to him as well…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 251) does not mean Paul ever met Jesus. I could have a vision of Elvis, but that does not make me an eyewitness to anything related to Elvis related. If I formed a creed based off my “Elvis revelations”, people should rightly think I went mad. Paul may have talked to others who knew Jesus, but he is not an eyewitness or firsthand account. He is a preacher basing his creed off of a vision, not a disciple.

Claiming “[Dr. Habermas:] …the evidence in support of the creed is so strong that it ‘may be considered as a statement of eyewitnesses.’ ” Strobel, CFC, P. 251) is going to require some proof and evidence of that statement. It does nothing to provide any proof for the story of the resurrection, only that people believed it at the time. Just because Dr. Habermas thinks someone else made a compelling case for the creed being reliable doesn’t mean I should accept that. I’d like to review the documents he appears to be referencing. If he has none, then he shouldn’t make this claim.

The Mystery of the Five Hundred

This section tries to show how likely it is that Jesus appeared to a crowd of 500 people. Once again, Strobel’s own authorities give us reasons to their authority on the subject, doubt the historical reliability of the gospels, and doubt the story that Strobel has tried to craft. Let’s look at why.

Dr. Habermas makes three claims as to why the tale must be true.

1. “[Dr. Habermas:] …even though it’s only reported in one source, it just so happens to be the earliest and best-authenticated passage of all!” (Strobel, CFC, P. 252)
2. “[Dr. Habermas:] … ‘most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.’…you would never include this phrase unless you were absolutely confident that these folks would confirm that they really did see Jesus alive.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 252)
3. “[Dr. Habermas:] …when you have only one source, you can ask, ‘Why aren’t there more?’ But you can’t say, ‘This one source is crummy on the grounds that someone else didn’t pick up on it.’ ” (Strobel, CFC, P. 252)

Dr. Habermas’ first claim is problematic precisely because there is only one source with no corroborating evidence for it and it is in a book that is known to be historically unreliable. What evidence does Dr. Habermas have for this book being well authenticated? And when he says authenticated, bear in mind that only means it’s accurate to the source material… not that the claim contained inside are true.

When reading about claims of dead people being resurrected and showing up to hundreds of people, the default response should not be “This must be so!” Instead, one should look for evidence for those claims, and, when finding no reference to it outside that book, disregarding the claims as bunk.

As to the second point, if this event truly did happen, and people did take up Paul’s offer “[Dr. Habermas:] …to check it out for themselves…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 252), then we would see mention of it somewhere. This would render no need for point number 1 to even exist. I can make any claims I want about supernatural phenomenon and claim that thousands saw it. If I never provide any particular people to go talk to, though, it’s impossible interview anyone who saw it. Especially if I just made up a large number to strengthen my claim like millions of propagandists do. See what I did there?

The third point also ties into the first somewhat. When we only have one source for a claim, it’s natural to want corroborating evidence for that claim, especially when that claim is about an extraordinary, supernatural occurrence. Trying to “downgrade” the single source simply because no one else picked up on it is not what happens. Instead, you look at the source and try to determine if the things claimed are likely to have happened, have any reasonable cause for have happened, and if there is any reason to doubt the narrative.

With the single source in this case, the claims are unlikely to have happened, have no reasonable cause, and seem to be written as religious propaganda. Of course I’m going to discard the supernatural claims within, and by extension, additional works by the same author that show the same problems.

Way back in chapters 1 and 2, Dr. Blomberg assured us that an oral tradition is an adequate way to preserve a story for a long time (I forget exactly how long he claimed). Here, Dr. Habermas tells us “[Dr. Habermas:] How long do local stories circulate before they start to die out?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 253). If we’re to believe Dr. Habermas, writing 60 years after an event is plenty of time for stories to die out or be changed. So which is it, a long time or 60 years?

The Testimony of the Gospels

Given that there is no reason to believe the mythical accounts in the bible, there is no reason to believe that the appearances in the bible are anything more than claims made to further the religious propaganda. Dr. Habermas claims that we can trust the sightings in the gospels because they are “[Dr. Habermas:] …lacking in many typical mythical tendencies.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 254). If, as Dr. Habermas says, we can believe things that lack mythical tendencies, should we believe Elvis sightings as evidence that Elvis rose from the dead? They lack mythical tendencies too. Therefore, we should give them just as much weight as the gospel account of sightings.

Rather than Acts providing any evidence for the resurrection story as Dr. Habermas claims, it merely provides evidence that the preachers at the time certainly believed it to be true. No evidence for the resurrection has been brought forth so far.

Marks Missing Conclusion

I’ve stated many many times already that Mark is missing verses 16:9-20 in the oldest manuscripts. Strobel brings this up to Dr. Habermas, who says “[Dr. Habermas:] I don’t have a problem with that whatsoever.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 257). It appears that Dr. Habermas sees no problem putting faith in these gospels that he understands contain later fabrications.

Dr. Habermas wins Strobel by corroborating the order of appearances saying “[Dr. Habermas:] This agrees with 1 Corinthians 15:5, which confirms that Jesus did appear to Peter, and Luke 24:34…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 257)The fact that the gospels corroborate with 1 Corinthians is no surprise either. 1 Corinthians came before the gospels were written which means the gospels could have drawn on their information for source material.

Are There any Alternatives?

Strobel opens this by saying “[Strobel:] …if you were to call each one of the witnesses to a court of law to be cross-examined for just fifteen minutes… …listening to 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony, who could possibly walk away unconvinced?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 258). Ignoring the fact that we don’t have any eyewitnesses to give testimony of Jesus, let’s apply the same logic to Elvis sightings. Say we only have 120 people who have seen Elvis since his death. After listening to 30 hours of evidence, who couldn’t be convinced? 30 hours of corroborating evidence is still quite a lot!

Possibility 1: The Appearances Are Legendary

Dr. Habermas argues that the appearances are not legendary, stating “[Dr. Habermas:] …you’re forgetting that the I Corinthians 15 creed predates any of the gospels, and it makes huge claims about the appearances” (Strobel, CFC, P. 259). This argument uses the same fallacious argument that early sources can’t have legendary material. Rather than allowing Dr. Habermas to claim “[Dr. Habermas:] That creates problems for the legendary-development theory” (Strobel, CFC, P. 259), this supports the legendary development theory strongly. It is a direct admission that legendary development of Jesus happened before the gospels were written.

Dr. Habermas also mentions that “[Dr. Habermas:] …not everybody believes Mark is the earliest gospel… …admittedly in the minority, who believe Matthew was written first.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 258) The fact that Matthew and Luke use Mark as a source^[2] provides evidence against this claim.

Dr. Habermas dismisses the idea that the resurrection story itself is indication of legendary development without providing any evidence. He does this by saying “[Dr. Habermas:] …it only proves that legends grew up over time-it can’t explain away the original belief that Jesus was risen from the dead.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 259). I can provide a reasonable explanation that doesn’t require any supernatural claims: The originator simply made the story up and hid the dead body. That would provide immediate legendary development and the belief that Jesus was resurrected. Other theories exist as well, but I’m moving on.

As to the “[Dr. Habermas:] …what about the empty tomb?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 259) “proof” that Dr. Habermas proffers, I’d like to have proof offered that an empty tomb even exists. As shown in the last chapter, no evidence for the empty tomb has been provided so far. So, what about the empty tomb? Did it exist? Did it not? Can you point me to it? If so, how was it verified? No claims that actually refute the legendary development theory were offered in this section, but Strobel continues on.

Possibility 2: The Appearances were Hallucinations

Dr. Habermas hands a note from Gary Collins, a psychologist, that makes the claim that “…hallucinations are individual occurrences… Neither is it possible that one person could induce a hallucination in someone else… others cannot witness it” (Strobel, CFC, P. 260). If we take this as fact, then the appearances to 500 people are quite clearly a matter of legendary development.

Rather than deciding, as Dr. Habermas does that we can trust “[Dr. Habermas:] …the gospel accounts as being reliable…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 260), we should be throwing the entire story into question. If hallucinations are not a reliable answer, no evidence for the tomb or resurrection given, and no additional sources telling us that appearances happened, then there is no reason to take any of the appearances as fact.

Dr. Habermas also states “[Dr. Habermas:] …there are several reasons why the disciples couldn’t have talked each other into this. As the center of their faith, there was too much at stake; they went to their deaths defending it.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 261). As I’ve pointed out before, just because someone dies for their beliefs does not mean that belief is right. It is merely an indication that the person believes the belief to be right. It’s entirely possible that the disciples could have been honestly deluded. The only “evidence” we have telling us the disciples were martyred are the bible and church traditions. Furnish some proof of this claim from external sources.

As a plea to Dr. Habermas, and other Christians, please stop bringing up the empty tomb. What about the empty tomb? Unless you can direct me to it, there is no sense in shouting “What about the empty tomb?” all the time. Repeating this meaningless phrase ad nauseum is starting to annoy me a lot.

Dr. Habermas claims that “[Dr. Habermas:] Even the more skeptical historians agree that for primitive Christianity … the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was a real event in history…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 261). I’d like to know which historians he is referring to. Once again, if Dr. Habermas is going to continue making this claim, he must put forth some evidence for it. Theorizing based on textual analysis of the bible is not a valid way to provide evidence.

No Rational Doubt/The Resurrection of Debbie

Strobel closes this off with yet another heartwarming, anecdotal story to give you them Christian feels. Nothing in this section adds any actual evidence, and Strobel tries his hardest to lead you to the conclusion that he has already drawn for you. However, drawing conclusions based on a simple textual analysis of the bible without providing conclusive evidence is meaningless. In this chapter, Dr. Habernas has simply assumed the authority and accuracy of the scriptures and argued from there without providing any evidence. Strobel the Objective did not challenge him on any of it.

Citations

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sightings_of_Elvis_Presley
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20200902153126/http://assets.bakerpublishinggroup.com/processed/esource-assets/files/543/original/05-02.pdf?1417301746

This chapter opens talking about how some murder cases have remained unsolved due to the inability to find a body. Strobel immediately reveals the perspective he is going to be taking throughout this chapter by saying “[Strobel:] If we believe the gospel accounts, this isn’t a matter of a missing body…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 223). As I’ve been saying since chapter 2, we can’t take the gospels to be accurate.

In this chapter, Strobel interviews Dr. William Craig. Strobel goes to great lengths to show that Dr. Craig is a convincing speaker. Strobel also brings up a debate and fails to mention the circumstances of the debate.

The debate was moderated by Strobel himself^[1], and took place at the Willow Creek Community Church^[1] in 1994 while Strobel himself was the Pastor of the church^[2]. It is hardly surprising that a majority of the audience would have voted for the Christian side of the debate. Most of the audience would have been Christian and chose the side that didn’t present challenges to their worldview. The type of argument presented here is the fallacious argumentum ad populum, where an author argues that a majority of an audience in agreement indicates the truth of something. Without convincing evidence to back up that claim, there is no reason to believe the audience.

Based on the fact that Strobel was a Pastor for Willow Lake Community Church since 1987, this book was written at minimum a decade after Strobel’s conversion to Christianity. No wonder this book has trouble showing any objective viewpoint. By the time of writing and publishing (1998), Strobel had bought into Christianity so hard that he was a pastor at a mega church.

There are a lot of problems in this chapter. Strap yourself in for a long ride.

Was Jesus Really Buried in the Tomb?

Strobel asks of Dr. Craig “[Strobel:] …crucified criminals were left on the cross to be devoured by birds or thrown into an common grave… wouldn’t you admit this is most likely what happened?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 226). Dr. Craig says “[Dr. Craig:] …that would ignore specific evidence in this case.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 227) and immediately points to other parts in the new testament as evidence.

While I have shown that the evidence to trust the gospels themselves aren’t reliable, I haven’t checked 1 Corinthians yet. I’ll do that here. Suffice it to say that pointing to another place in the new testament, which is known to contain many contradictions and interpolations by later authors, does nothing for Dr. Craig’s case. The gospels are problematic, and as the look into 1 Corinthians shows, so too are other books in the new testament. Check the end of this post to see my look into the reliability of 1 Corinthians.

Dr. Craig also states that “[Dr. Craig:] This creed is incredibly early and therefore trustworthy material.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 227). This claim is meaningless. Just because a claim is from an early source does not mean it was true. Paul, who gives the creed here, does not ever meet Jesus. His account of everything is based off of hearsay. Far to many arguments in this book rely on the assumption that legendary development of a figure can’t happen quickly.

Amusingly, Strobel’s expert interviewee gives us more reason to doubt the gospels, saying “[Dr. Craig:] …when you get to the last week of Jesus’ life-the so-called passion story-then you do have a continuous narrative of events in sequence. This passion story was apparently taken by Mark from an even earlier source…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 228) Let’s overlook the claim that there is a Pre-Markian source and let another person do the speaking^[6] on the claim that Jesus was really buried in a tomb.

Even if we take the pre-Markian source as a fact, then we are forced to conclude that many parts of Mark are not based on eyewitness evidence. Rather than being written by an eyewitness as Dr. Blomberg would have us believe in chapter 1 and 2, the gospel of Mark would be firmly relegated to the realm of interpreting and compiling hearsay. Nothing about Dr. Craig’s claims here are remotely convincing.

Is Joseph of Arimathea Historical?

Before I even read this chapter, I must point out that Joseph of Arimathea is most likely made up. He is introduced as a literary device to move the narrative along and provide a reason for the Romans to give Jesus’s body to someone. The name “Arimathaia is probably an invented word, meaning ‘Best Doctrine Town’ (ari- being a standard Greek prefix for ‘best’, math- being the root of ‘teaching’, ‘doctrine’, and ‘disciple’ and aia- being a standard suffic of please).”^[7] (Richard, Carrier, On the historicity of Jesus, P. 439). Calling someone “Joseph of Best Doctrine Town” or “Joseph of Best Disciple Town” does not build a case for this person having existed.

Dr. Craig makes the audacious claim that “[Dr. Craig:] …the majority of New Testament scholars today agree that the burial account of Jesus is fundamentally reliable.” (Strobel, CFC, P. ). This overlooks the fact that many scholars are in complete conflict with Dr. Craig’s claim. If the only evidence Dr. Craig is referring to is the bible, then we must call into question every fact about the narrative due to how unreliable the gospels are.

Dr. Craig also argues that “[Dr. Craig:] …if this burial by Joseph were a legend that developed later, you’d expect to find other competing burial traditions about what happened to Jesus’ body.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 229). Does Dr. Craig not know that there are additional competing stories in the apocryphal gospels? Alternative theories about what happened to Jesus’ body do exist, they are simply discounted because they weren’t codified into the bible narrative when the bible was codified. I’m certain that if some book that is currently apocryphal had been included in the gospel, Dr. Craig would argue in it’s defense just as hard as he currently argues for the 4 gospels currently in the bible.

Dr. Craig also assumes that at the time, “[Dr. Craig:] …people could check out for themselves and ask about this. So Joseph is undoubtedly a historical figure.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 229). This claim is similar to any claim that the story of Jesus emerged early enough to prevent legendary development due to people being motivated to correct the story. We have no evidence for this claim or Joseph of Arimathea. Claiming he is historical because of gospels which are known to be unreliable say he existed is faulty reasoning.

Strangely, the fact that some random dude showed up who was apparently a Jew, member of the Sanhedrin, and a follower of Jesus, who took Jesus’ body to prepare it for burial, is not given any consideration for an empty tomb story by Dr. Crag and Strobel. Handing off the body to someone who is a follower of Jesus is not the best way to ensure a good chain of evidence. Even if we assume Joseph did exist, how do we know he wouldn’t have hidden Jesus’s body elsewhere and simply pretended to bury it?

Some additional one off arguments that could be presented against Joseph, if he existed, requesting the body are

• A Jew would not have been able to handle the dead body without becoming unclean before the Passover.
• As a member of the Sanhedrin, giving respect to a heretic would have gone badly for Joseph
• The Sanhedrin unanimously condemned Jesus to death despite Joseph being on the Council
  • Dr. Craig claims Joseph happened to be out of town at the time. If so, then how was it unanimous?
  • If it was unanimous, the Talmud rules that a unanimous verdict by the Sanhedrin (Jewish court) must be thrown out and the defendant must be exonerated^[8]. The author of the gospel didn’t know Jewish law.

How Secure was the Tomb?/Were There any Guards Present?

Strobel and Dr. Craig talk about how likely it was that someone could have stolen Jesus’ body. Overall, this is a pretty moot point. The gospels diverge and contradict each other whether or not guards were even present. Dr. Craig admits that whether or not guards are present is “[Dr. Craig:] …too disputed by contemporary scholarship.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 230). This sounds like a clear admission that there are parts of the gospels that are unreliable and potentially completely made up, and this is from someone Strobel is presents to us as an authority. It’s interesting that Dr. Craig is willing to let something as incidental as the existence of guards be explained away as being too disputed while ignoring how disputed Joseph of Arimathea is. It appears that the reliability of the gospels only matters when he wants it to.

Whether or not guards were present, the fact that Jesus was handed off to Joseph creates the possibility that his body would have never made it to the tomb in the first place. Even if we take everything up to this point, fantastical elements and all, to be real, handing off Jesus’ body to Joseph was a terrible mistake that the Romans never would have done.

What About the Contradictions?

To paraphrase Dr. Craig in this section, a careful historian would view the contradictions as meaningless because the core of the story agrees with itself. Dr. Craig claims the core story that we can believe is “[Dr. Craig:] …Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus, puts it in a tomb, the tomb is visited by a small group of women followers of Jesus early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, and they find that the tomb is empty. They see a vision of angels saying that Jesus is risen.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 234). Let’s examine if a careful historian would make that claim.

We have 4 works. All of them contain references to supernatural things that have no evidence of ever having happened. One of the works appears to be the first and a direct source for 2 of the works, and the 4th work takes inspiration from the other 3. Given the shared source material, would any historian make the claim that 4 documents, 3 of which share sources, provide good evidence for someone coming back from the dead? It seems the far more likely conclusion would be that 3 of the documents share the original source rather than a reliable historical core. There are too many fantastical elements to believe the gospels are historically accurate.

For additional reading on just how much of a mess the story is when trying to reconcile all stories, check the end of this essay for The Crucifixion and Resurrection Mess^[9]. The author of the essay stops after several paragraphs of problems because he believes the point has been made well enough.

If one views the bible as the inerrant word of god, then finding even a single problem in it should change that viewpoint, not lead to rationalizations of how to explain the inconsistencies or claiming they don’t matter.

Can Discrepancies be Harmonized?

Strobel once again repeats the point that “[Strobel:] …if all four gospels were identical in all their minutiae, that would have raised the suspicion of plagiarism.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 235). This the exact same claim that came up in chapter 2. This sets up a bad logical argument of

1. Books that are similar in their minutia are suspect
2. The gospels are not similar in their details
3. Therefore, the gospels are not suspect

This is terrible reasoning. Having the gospels show more consistency between each other rather than being flatly contradictory at times would lend more credence to them, not less.

Dr. Craig, attempting to provide evidence for his claims that we can discount inconsistencies, says “[Dr. Craig:] We have two narratives of Hannibal crossing the Alps to attack Rome, and they’re incompatible and irreconcilable. Yet no classical historian doubts the fact that Hannibal did mount such a campaign.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 235).

The fact that Dr. Craig overlooks here is that the accounts of how Hannibal crossed the alps do not dive into supernatural explanations such as flying elephants, chariots of fire, the divine hand of god lifting him over the mountains, that Hannibal died and returned to lead his army to victory, or any other such rubbish. Additionally, we have other sources that provide corroborating evidence that such an event took place, unlike Strobel’s attempts at providing corroborating evidence for the bible. Crossing the alps as Hannibal did is a highly remarkable claim, but not an impossible claim. The resurrection of Jesus, however, is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence that it is lacking.

Dr. Craig also claims “[Dr. Craig:] …with these multiple and independent accounts, no historian would disregard this evidence just because of secondary discrepancies.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 235). No historian, that is, except for someone who is unconvinced of the possibility of someone returning to life. I think I speak for many people when I say that I have never seen any evidence for a claim like that to be true. The extraordinary claims speak of mythologizing more than an attempt to accurately record a history.

Can the Witnesses be Trusted?

Dr. Craig makes a long and eloquent argument for why women were not viewed well in Jewish society at the time, finishing with “[Dr. Craig:] The fact that women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly explained by the reality that-like it or not-they were the discoverers of the empty tomb! This shows that the gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 237). This claim could be rewritten as

1. Women were considered unreliable at the time
2. Women were recorded finding no body
3. Therefore, the gospels are reliable because they mentioned women finding no body.

First, despite the women being mentioned there, we don’t actually have any record of what they saw because they offer no testimony nor did they release any writings. Second, it’s entirely possible that the gospels have women there precisely because their testimony would be considered suspect at the time. That is to say, the gospel writers wanted to hide behind the fact that it was all based on a woman’s testimony if they were challenged on it.

Why did the Women Visit the Tomb?

Dr. Craig offers no real explanation here, instead claiming people who make this claim have “[Dr. Craig:] …not known the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus [and] have no right to pronounce cool judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 237). Rather than accusing others of being unfeeling, why not offer some better reasons for why they were there? Even better yet, why not just admit that you don’t know? I’m quite willing to admit that myself.

Why Didn’t Christians Cite the Empty Tomb?

Strobel asks an excellent question in this section saying “[Strobel:] We would expect the early Christian preachers to have said: ‘You don’t believe us? Go look in the tomb yourselves! It’s at the corner of Fifth and Main, third sepulcher on the right.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 238). This is exactly what should have happened, but it did not.

Rather than answer this question, Dr. Craig evades by answering with some bible verses that support the idea of Jesus being resurrected. Just because Dr. Craig says Christians believed he was resurrected doesn’t mean the question, as stated, was answered. Dr. Craig should have answered with an honest “I don’t know” rather than a dishonest evasion.

What’s the affirmative evidence?

Dr. Craig offers 6 points in affirmation of the Tomb being empty.

1. “[Dr. Craig:] …the empty tomb is definitely implicit in the early tradition that is passed along by Paul in I Corinthians 15” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
2. “[Dr. Craig:] …the site of Jesus’ tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
3. “[Dr. Craig:] …we can tell from the language, grammar, and style that Mark got his empty tomb story- actually, his whole passion narrative-from an earlier source…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
4. “[Dr. Craig:] …there’s the simplicity of the empty tomb story in Mark.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 239)
5. “[Dr. Craig:] …the unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was discovered by women argues for the authenticity of the story…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 240)
6. “[Dr. Craig:] …the earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the historicity of the empty tomb.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 240)

Rebuttals to these points follow.

1. This assumes that legendary material can’t build up quickly. It certainly can.
2. Then where is it? Why was it’s location never recorded? Why didn’t Dr. Craig answer the question in the previous section?
3. Debatable. Early sources of Mark have less material than we have in our current gospel of Mark, a clear sign of interpolations
4. Everything from Mark 16:9-20 is an interpolation, which means it really ends with Mary leaving and telling no one. If that’s the case, how did the post-resurrection story come to be?
5. Alternatively, the writers wanted a scapegoat to throw blame on for that part of the story if they were challenged later on it’s reliability.
6. They would have been reporting off of hearsay. Do they ever mention where the tomb is?

What About Alternative Theories?

Dr. Craig and Strobel dispense with a couple of alternative theories and then zero in on “disproving” one that Strobel must have felt was conclusive: “[Strobel:] …that the empty tomb was a later legend.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 241). In response, Dr. Craig states “[Dr. Craig:] …we’ve focused so much on this legendary hypothesis by showing that the empty tomb story goes back to within a few years of the events themselves. This renders the legend theory worthless.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 241).

No. Once again, D. Craig makes the unfounded assumption that legendary material can’t build up within a few years of an event. We have no reason to believe that legendary development wouldn’t happen, and we have clear evidence that legendary development did happen. If Jesus was truly around and did some amazing things, I we should expect to see legendary development show up rather quickly from his worshippers.

Dr. Craig finishes this section by arguing for the existence of miracles claiming “[Dr. Craig:] …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… …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.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 242).

To this, I once again say no. If, as Dr. Craig states, “[Dr. Craig:] Any hypothesis would be more probable than saying the corpse of Jesus spontaneously came back to life” (Strobel, CFC, P. 241), then why not assume that Jesus did not come back to life? That contradicts no science or facts of experience whereas assuming god exists and does stuff like this does.

To show how bad the logic of Dr. Craigs argument, we could make any claim we wanted, no matter how fanciful and still be just as accurate as him. For example, we could even claim that aliens came down and yoinked Jesus from the tomb, gave him a makeover, performed some cellular rejuvenation, modified his genetics to make him taller, and then resuscitated him from a state of near death and healed him. This doesn’t contradict science or any known facts of experience either.

Conclusion: The Tomb was [Not] Vacant

This section title irks me so much that I had to insert the Not into it. There is no evidence put forth for the claim the Strobel makes about the tomb, and Dr. Craig was unable to back up any of his positions with well thought out reasons or provide evidence. The only reason Strobel would title the section this is because he has obviously bought the story of Christianity hook line and sinker. The only reason I presume he presses on is to try quell any objections to his narrative.

Strobel goes on to say of those who debate Craig that “[Strobel:] They flounder, they struggle, they snatch at straws, they contradict themselves, they pursue desperate and extraordinary theories to try to account for the evidence.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 242).

Desperate and extraordinary theories you say? As desperate and extraordinary as claiming that someone was literally the son of (the Christian) god, walked on earth, performed miracles, died, was resurrected, and literally ascended into heaven in front of a crowd? Each time the case for christ tries to make a point, it merely points out how much of a fantasy Christianity seems to be.

Checking the Reliability of 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians is held to have been written in 57-58 CE^[3], predating all gospels. 1 Corinthians is regarded as one of the genuine Pauline letters^[3] and holds few interpolations^[4]. Therefore, the accuracy of modern translations to the original seems to be higher than the gospels. The author was writing with the specific intent to call for unity in the church and provide a reason for unity, as shown in 1 Corinthians 1:1-11. I’ll stick with the scholarly consensus here and assume the writer is indeed Paul or and author writing with a pseudonym of Paul.

Paul appears to be writing with a particular theological bent to put one’s faith in god and uses the creed mentioned in the Case for Christ as a way to provide a doctrine to follow. There are multiple calls to continue believing even when facts do not line up with what they have seen (1 Corinthians 2:4-5 as one example).

Interestingly, there are some verses, such as 1 Corinthians 2:8, that contradict the gospels. Often times they read as though Paul hasn’t read the gospels (not a big surprise if 1 Corinthians predates them) by contradicting the reasons given in the gospels. For example, in 1 Corinthians 2:8, Paul asserts that there was no reason for those outside his followers to believe that Jesus was a god. In the gospels, Jesus is singled out specifically for doing god-like miracles, such as healing, raising the dead, etc. There would be reason to believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be if he was observed doing these things.

Reading through the assertions in 1 Corinthians and the constant calls to ignore reason and just believe is very reminiscent of a cult where calls to believe in everything the cult teaches, especially contradictory claims, is forced upon the members. Based on the obvious leanings towards propaganda, and the fact that Paul never actually met Jesus due to being converted after Jesus’s death (Acts 9:3-9), it seems likely that anything written in his letters are hearsay and his interpretations of that hearsay.

Ultimately, there is little reason to believe that anything within the chapter is authoritative, as Paul did not meet Jesus, was not a disciple, was not present for the crucifixion, and is basing his narrative off of a vision, interpreting that vision, and hearsay. In fact, the only evidence we have that a guy named Saul became Paul is the bible itself. No records of Paul exist outside the old testament^[5]. The Pauline letters were clearly written by the same person, but evidence for a person named Paul is scant.

Based on this, I would conclude that, much like the gospels, the letters of Paul (or at least, 1 Corinthians so far) are most likely written with a similar intent to the gospels. That is to say, the writer would have been fine adding elaborations providing it served the propaganda and drove people to believe in Jesus.

Citations

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20200701142818/https://www.worldcat.org/title/atheism-versus-christianity-a-debate-between-william-lane-craig-and-frank-zindler/oclc/47077778
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Creek_Community_Church#Notable_members
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible#Table_IV:_New_Testament
4. https://web.archive.org/web/20200701145306/https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199564156.001.0001/acprof-9780199564156-chapter-16
5. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paul_of_Tarsus#Historicity_of_Paul
6. https://web.archive.org/web/20200704133110/https://infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/rebuttal1.html
7. https://archive.org/stream/mythicism/Richard%20Carrier%20-%20On%20the%20Historicity%20of%20Jesus%20Why%20We%20Might%20Have%20Reason%20for%20Doubt#page/n451/mode/2up
8. https://web.archive.org/web/20200701170649/https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=pilronline
9. http://www.bidstrup.com/bible2.htm

This chapter opens with an anecdote about how a coroner can learn things from someone who is dead. The tie in by Strobel ignores the fact that a coroner requires a dead body to learn what has happened, and there’s no body for him to examine.

Strobel interviews Dr. Alexander Metherell M.D. in this chapter.

The Torture Before the Cross

This section requires the obligatory point out that the gospels are unreliable. Read my problems with chapter 2 and 3 to see why. Throughout this entire chapter, Dr. Metherell relies heavily on the gospels as evidence for his claims.

Strobel questions Dr. Metherell, saying “[Strobel:] The gospels tell us he began to sweat blood at this point. …isn’t that just a product of some overactive imaginations?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 211). While Dr. Metherell correctly points out that hematidrosis, or sweating blood, is a well known medical phenomenon, he does not mention that the gospels they are basing this on contains an interpolation. Jesus sweating blood is an interpolation that is not included in the earliest manuscripts^[1]. Taking the gospels as reliable and making any guesses (educated or otherwise) is not going to provide a reliable answer.

Dr. Metherell also provides a very graphic description of what a Roman beating would have been like and points to the gospels as evidence of Jesus having low blood pressure after the beating. While the description does match somewhat, the fact that the evidence being used comes from the bible with no additional corroborating evidence makes this suspect. The gospels are not reliable historical documents, and as such, they require additional material to back up their claims.

The Agony of the Cross

Strobel states his confidence in Jesus, saying “[Strobel:] That’s because historians are unanimous that Jesus survived the beating that day…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 213). Rather than a unanimous agreement the Strobel attempts to portray here, historians are in quite a bit of disagreement about whether Jesus even existed at all. The only way you can make the claim that Jesus survived the beating and get a unanimous agreement is if you take the gospels as fact. As I’ve said before, the gospels are not to be trusted.

Dr. Metherell makes the claim that Jesus was crucified to “[Dr. Metherell:] …[fulfill] the Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 22, which foretold the Crucifixion hundreds of years before it took place” (Strobel, CFC, P. 214). As with Isaiah, a reading of the passages surrounding Psalm 22:14 shows a different story. It appears to be the wailing of someone who is going through a rough time. There is no mention that this was intended to be a prophecy, no mention that this was referring to anyone besides the author, and no mention of Jesus at all. Psalm 22 contains no prophecies.

The Cause of Death

The fact that, after all of this, Dr. Metherell thinks “[Dr. Metherell:] with his heart beating erratically, Jesus would have known that he was at the moment of death, which is when he was able to say, ‘Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ ” (Strobel, CFC, P. 215) is a bit absurd.

First off, Jesus would have needed the knowledge of how this would be affecting him ahead of time to know this would happen, which would require some medical knowledge not available at the time. Second, by Dr. Metherell’s own admission, “[Dr. Metherell:] crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 215). How Jesus could have been able to get enough air into his lungs to cry out anything, much less converse with the thieves that are there, is a conundrum. Far more likely, the accounts of the gospels are fabricated.

Answering the Skeptics

Dr. Metherell makes the unreasonable claim that Roman Soldiers “[Dr. Metherell:] …were experts in killing people-that was their job, and they did it very well. They knew without a doubt when a person was dead, and really it’s not so terribly difficult to figure out.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 218). Being a trained soldier does not make one an expert on whether or not someone is dead. Mispronouncing someone as dead is a problem that still happens today even with significant advances in medical knowledge. Saying that a soldier from the first century knows enough to make a pronouncement that doctors today can still get wrong is ludicrous.

Dr. Metherell also claims that Jesus’s legs weren’t broken due to “[Dr. Metherell:] …another Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah, which is that his bones would remain unbroken.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 217). Unfortunately for Dr. Metherell, there is no such prophecy in the bible, nor does Dr. Metherell point to any verses that he believes would back this claim up. Rather than there being a prophecy, John 19:36 is simply making up nonsense in order to lend credence to it’s claim… just like any good propaganda book would do.

The Final Argument

Strobel opens with this section with a dubious statement: “[Strobel:] Appealing to history and medicine, to archaeology and even Roman military rules, Metherell had closed every loophole” (Strobel, CFC, P. 218). To this I say: No. This tells us that a doctor pronounced someone dead based on a textual analysis of the gospels, which are themselves highly suspect.

Dr. Metherell also dismisses the claims that Jesus perhaps just fainted on the cross and woke up in the tomb without any appeal to logic. He instead appeals to reasons that require supernatural intervention to be true, such as Jesus’s appearances to people shortly after being buried. Rather than reading the narrative in the gospel and dismissing the fanciful claims as having no evidence for them, Dr. Metherell uses the fanciful claims as an excuse to justify other fanciful claims that he finds in them.

I should point out that I have no issue with Dr. Metherell himself, but his methodology. Dr. Metherell’s assessment of what might have happened is reasonable, but drawing any conclusions based off the gospel texts is unreasonable. We have no records to corroborate what happened, and without additional mentions from other scholars at the time, it seems unlikely that this ever happened.

A Question for the Heart

Strobel closes this story with a talk to Dr. Metherell and finishes off tying everything up into a nice little package for the aspiring Christian, saying “[Strobel:] Those who seek to explain away the resurrection of Jesus by claiming that he somehow escaped the clutches of death at Galgotha need to offer a more plausible theory that fits the facts.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 220-221).

If that’s not a challenge, I don’t know what is. I’ve got a more convincing theory for you. One that doesn’t rely on supernatural, incredible, and unsubstantiated claims.

Jesus didn’t go to the cross or do any of the things the gospels tell us he did. If he existed, he was just a guy who might have said some revolutionary things at the time. The gospels sprung up around his teachings many years later and were written with the intent to convince others to believe in them, the gospel of John even admits this. The character of Jesus was mythologized with a narrative to give early Christians a sense of purpose, an a clear progression of this can be seen when read in the order of Mark, Matthew/Luke, John. All together, even if someone named Jesus did exist, it is highly unlikely that the gospels would give us a good sense of who that person was and what happened to him.

Citations

1. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_interpolation#Footnotes_included_in_NIV

This chapter opens with an example of how fingerprints, which are unique identifiers on a human, can tie in with other evidence to give a better picture of who was at a crime scene. Strobel argues that, much like fingerprints can provide conclusive evidence for a crime scene, there is evidence that “[Strobel:] …establishes to an astounding degree of certainty that Jesus is indeed the Messiah of Israel and the world.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 187).

I’d like to draw attention to the fact that Strobel, within the first few paragraphs of this chapter, has already drawn the conclusion that we should be take from this chapter. Being led by the nose this way feels very condescending to anyone who reads this book with the intent to draw their own conclusions. If you’re reading through the book, watch for how he presents leading questions to work towards the foregone conclusion rather than present evidence for the case he is trying to make. Much like a young earth creationist will refuse to show evidence that does not support their worldview, Strobel does not not show the evidence against his case.

In this chapter, Strobel interviews Louis S. Lapides who appears to be a Christian turned Jew. Presumably, this is to gather evidence of Jesus’s prophecy fulfillment.

A Spiritual Quest Begins

This section can be skipped if you’re not interested in hearing about Lapides’ journey from Judaism to Christianity. I certainly started skimming it after a couple paragraphs. Including this much background on the person he’s interviewing seems very unnecessary. I’d prefer if the every chapter started off by presenting evidence for it’s case rather than an unnecessary biography each time.

I Can’t Believe in Jesus

This is a continuation of the above section. The only thing of interest here is that Louis received a bible and began looking through scriptures to find evidence of Jesus.

Pierced for our Transgressions

This section starts out talking about how prophecy after prophecy in the old testament keeps talking about someone who will come. Some “[Lapides:] …prophet greater than Moses who will come and whom we should listen to.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 193). Lapides claims to have been “[Strobel:] …stopped cold by Isaiah 53” (Strobel, CFC, P. 193) due to it’s predictions of the Messiah. He claims “[Lapides:] Here was a picture of a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of Israel…”(Strobel, CFC, P. 193). The book helpfully includes the part of Isaiah that is supposed to show this prophecy.

Here’s a quick rundown of the common verses used to support or refute the prophecy for Jesus.

• Isaiah 53:1 is quoted in John 12:37-38 where it’s shown that Jesus is not going to be believed in.
  • Given that the gospels were written with the intent to persuade and show prophecy fulfillment, this sounds like someone inserted a verse to give “authority” to John.
• Isaiah 53:4 is incorrectly quoted in Matthew and alleges it refers to Jesus.
  • Similarly to John 12:37-38, it seems likely that the writer was seeking for prophecy fulfillment and had to twist some verses.
• Isiah 53:5-6 are often quoted by Christians as evidence for Jesus, but they are not mentioned elsewhere in the bible.
  • This is because many parallels to Jesus are seen. Wounded for Transgressions, bruised for iniquities, etc
• Isaiah 53:7-8 are quoted in Acts 8:32-35 where the writers imply that Isaiah was speaking of Jesus.
• Isaiah 53:9 is inaccurately quoted in 1 Peter 2:22 where it is alleged to speak of Jesus.
• Isaiah 53:10 is a strong objection that Isaiah 53 is referring to Jesus at all
  • “…he shall see his seed…”, implying the person in this verse has children
  • “…he shall prolong his days…”, implying the person in this verse lives a long life
  • Both of these phrases are in direct conflict with Jesus who, according to the gospels, died young and childless.
• Isaiah 53:12 is partially quoted in Luke 22:37
  • Reading the entire verse does not show any clear indications of a prophecy, especially in context of the entire chapter

Strobel states that Lapides, a devout Jew turned Buddhist, “[Strobel:] Instantly… ….recognized the portrait…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 194) painted by Isaiah in chapter 53 as being Jesus. This is done without any knowledge of Jesus or the New Testament because Lapides, when he received the bible from a pastor, said “[Lapides:] I’ll read the Old Testament, but I’m not going to open up the other one” (Strobel, CFC, P. 194).

The Jewishness of Jesus

This section cherry picks just as much as the previous chapter. The genealogy mentioned in Matthew is immediately contradicted by Luke, a fact that Strobel does not mention here. Lapides cites Isaiah 7:14 as further proof of prophecy fulfillment, which is misrepresented in Matthew.

Isaiah 7:14 is often quoted out of context to provide proof of Jesus. Reading chapter 7 in it’s entirety tells us this is a prophecy that is given to King Ahaz to give him a sign that the Assyria-Israeli alliance will not defeat him. The original Hebrew word that was incorrectly translated as virgin, “almah“, actually translates to “maiden” or “young woman”. Virgin, would be “bethulah“.

Just like we have words in English to distinguish between sexual virginity and a maiden, so to does Hebrew have words to distinguish between them. As shown here^[1], Isaiah was referring to a young woman, not a virgin. Attempting to use this as a prophecy for Jesus shows cognitive bias, reliance on incorrect translation, and an inability to read Isaiah in it’s entirety. Isaiah 7 does not mention Jesus, and in Isaiah 8:1-8, it appears that Isaiah fulfills the prophecy with a young prophetess.

Lapides goes on to talk about how much fulfillment he finds in the new testament from the old. There is a very common problem in how he presents this though. He completely ignores the possibility that the writers of the new testament knew about Jewish scriptures as well. The writers of the new testament would be greatly motivated to try twist the old testament to suit their ends as is shown in Matthew in particular. It makes much more sense to assume that the gospels were written with this intent rather than try to see prophecy fulfillment in everything.

Epiphany in the Desert

This is an anecdotal story of how powerful Jesus is in the life of Lapides. Unfortunately, there are millions of people around the globe of different religions, or even those in no religion at all, who have all had similar experiences. Are we to discount their experiences as less powerful simply because Christianity says we should? I’m certain that any Christian who had grown up as an Indian in India and was heavily involved in Hinduism would be saying similar things about Krishna as they do Jesus. Anecdotal spiritual experiences are not evidence for or against a religion. Many atheists have even had them, try talking whit one about how they view it sometime.

Responding to Objections

This section is pretty much a rehash of “The Jewishness of Jesus” trying to explain why Jews don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. Rather than having me do the explaining, here’s some additional reading that explains why Jews don’t believe that^[2].

Strobel then asks Lapides to explain some “difficult arguments” that he brings up.

The Coincidence Argument

As Strobel asks, “[Strobel:] [Is it] possible that Jesus merely fulfilled the prophecies by accident” (Strobel, CFC, P. 198). This question is misleading and misses the important part of a prophecy: that prophecies are supposed to come true whether action or inaction is taken. This means that prophecies, if you believe in them, are literally all fulfilled by coincidence anyways.

Lapides states “[Lapides:] …that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion…” (Strobelm CFC, P. ). That is obviously a large number^{[citation needed]}. If this number could be believed, the improbability of a prophecy happening by coincidence is a better argument against Jesus having actually fulfilled many of them at all.

The Altered Gospel Argument

The altered gospel argument is finally where Strobel almost asks the right question. It’s close enough that the omission itself speaks volumes about whether or not he is truly being objective here. Strobel asks “[Strobel:] Isn’t it possible that the gospel writers fabricated details to make it appear that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 199).

Lapides mentions “[Lapides:] When the gospels were being circulated, there were people living who had been around when all these things happened.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). This makes the same argument that the gospels were written early enough that no legendary development would have been possible, a claim which we have no evidence for. It also assumes that people would have been motivated to correct any issues. What would it matter to many people if they hear tales of this Jesus fellow being circulated by a small cult?

Also, while it is true that people could have lived through the years, the gospels were circulated many years after the events they claim to describe. The gospel of John in particular would have been far enough removed from events that almost anyone old enough to have been there and remembered it would be approaching their 70’s. Given that human lifespans started increasing with the advent of modern medicine, it seems safe to say that there would not have been many, if any, voices that would have added conflicting information or additional mythologizing…. exactly like we see in the gospel of John.

Lapides also asks “[Lapides:] …why would Matthew have fabricated fulfilled prophecies and then willingly allowed himself to be put to death for following someone who he secretly knew was really not the Messiah?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). To accurately make this claim, we need some evidence for who the writer of Matthew was. As stated in the problems with Chapters 2 and 3, Matthew was released anonymously, and we don’t have any information on how the writer died. Unless Lapides can furnish some evidence of this claim, there is no basis to believe it.

Lapides finishes this section by saying “[Lapides:] …the Jewish community would have jumped on any opportunity to discredit the gospels by pointing out falsehoods…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). This assumes the Jewish community would have cared enough to try correct the views of a heretical cult that started up. In a way, the Talmud, which Lapides does reference, does some discrediting in a round about way by mentioning that Christianity was viewed as a heresy.

Overall, the problems in this section are very similar to the problems in chapter 2 and 3, and I will not rehash them here.

The Intentional Fulfillment Argument

This section argues that it is impossible for Jesus to have intentionally fulfilled any prophecies because, “[Lapides:] When you interpret Daniel 9:24-26, it foretells that the Messiah would appear a certain length of time after King Artaxerxes 1 issued a decree… ” (Strobel, CFC, P. 200). This prophecy is based on an interpretation and never once mentions King Artaxerxes 1. While it something would not be possible to prearrange, it would be nice of Lapides to furnish proof of his claims. Unless we take the gospels as being true, there’s no evidence anywhere for this.

In addition, all intentional fulfillment that Lapides attempts to explain away here as being impossible to intentionally fulfill could be explained by the Altered Gospel argument, which Lapides has failed to provide a compelling case against.

Let’s also take a moment to appreciate that if Jesus did not fulfill prophecies by accident, and he did not fulfill them intentionally, what other way could he fulfill prophecies? Maybe we should simply draw the conclusion that prophecies are not real.

The Context Argument

According to Lapides, “[Lappides:] …every single time, the prophecies have stood up and shown themselves to be true.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 201) when read in context. This, as evidenced in the “Pierced for out Transgressions” section, is blatantly false. No amount of reading the prophecies in their context will help, especially when you find reliable translations based on the oldest surviving works.

Everything Must be Fulfilled

Strobel once again finishes off with a tidy wrap up of Christian feel-good anecdotes. Strobel pulls in some quotes to try show just how solid his foundations are by saying “[Strobel:] Ironically, concluded Greenspan, ‘I think I actually came to faith in Y’shua [Jesus] by reading what detractors wrote.’ ” (Strobel, CFC, P. ). Even more ironically, that quote wraps back around and applies to atheists. By reading the un-researched works of people like Strobel, I have had my own belief in the falsity of Christian fundamentalist biblical inerrantists push strengthened considerably. The lack of evidence compels me!

Citations

1. Hebrew-English translation of Isaiah: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1007.htm
2. Why Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah: https://jewsforjudaism.ca/why-jesus-is-not-the-jewish-messiah/

This chapter opens with a brief analogy of how sketch artists can assist in tracking down the perpetrators of a crime. Strobel then goes on to describe how “[Strobel:] The Old Testament provides numerous details about God that sketch out in great specificity what he’s like” (Strobel, CFC, P. 170). He then proceeds to list off the following characteristics that he finds in the old testament. I’ve provided commentary in parenthesis on where you’ll find this refuted.

• Omnipresent (Not according to Genesis)
• Omniscient (Also not according to Genesis)
• Omnipotent (Maybe, but not likely. Genesis shows him flexing very little power overall)
• Immutable (Changes his mind often in the Old Testament, has a makeover in the New)
• Loving (The genocidal flood in Genesis would like to disagree)
• Righteous (By god’s definition only….)
• Wise (Not according to Genesis. Would a wise being flood the earth, or find another way?)
• Just (More like endorses wholesale slaughter and murder of nonbelievers in Genesis)

Much like many other Christians I’ve talked with, Strobel is presuming the authenticity of the bible and going on a massive cherry picking expedition.

Strobel goes on to say “[Strobel:] …if we examine Jesus carefully, does his likeness match the sketch of God that we find elsewhere in the bible? If it doesn’t, we can conclude that his claim to being God is false.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 170). This sounds like a pretty open and shut case then. The god of the old testament is shown to be god who is fickle, doesn’t explain things, sets up people to fail, is not omniscient, is genocidal, is unwise, despises communication, punishes people for things that aren’t their fault, and condemns thousands to slavery… all within the first 15 chapters of the old testament.

Rather than this being a “[Strobel:] …complex and mind-stretching issue” (Strobel, CFC, P. 170), this is primarily an attempt to persuade the reader with just as much evidence and effort as he put into the last 2 chapters. All the “issues” that Strobel brings up are explained away by saying Jesus intentionally limited himself while here on earth.

In this chapter, Strobel interviews Dr. Donald A. Carson.

Living and Forgiving Like god

When asked why he believes Jesus is divine, Dr. Carson says “[Dr. Carson:] Once could point to such things as his miracles… … but other people have done miracles, so while this may be indicative, it’s not decisive.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 171). I’d like to see what sorts of things Dr. Carson considers a miracle if they’re common enough that many people besides his deity have done them. As far as I’ve seen in my life, the amount of miracles performed by anyone is exactly 0.

The rest of the chapter is taking the historical reliability of the gospels as a fact. As shown in the problems with chapters 2 and 3, we can not take the gospels to be historically reliable. Any proof furnished must come from outside sources. I’ll go over a few of the issues in this chapter anyways.

Dr. Carson quotes the gospels as “evidence” that Jesus is god saying “[Dr. Carson:] ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ To my mind, that is one of the most striking things Jesus did.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 172). To someone who is not a believer in Christianity or any sort of theism, this is a very unconvincing argument. You’re telling me that the made up god who says you’re bad is the only one who can forgive you? And because the bible says Jesus could, he’s the same guy? This requires several unsubstantiated leaps of logic.

Not only does the argument ignore perspectives outside of Christianity, but Strobel helps Dr. Carson out by saying “Not only did Jesus forgive sin… …but he asserted that he himself was without sin. And certainly sinlessness is an attribute of a deity.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 172). This continues the made up sin narration and shows that Strobel is fully committed to Christianity at this point. The only reason we have to believe this claim of “sinlessness” is a book written by people who literally worshiped this guy. Of course there’s going to be some far out claims.

Mystery of the Incarnation

Strobel asks Dr. Carson “[Strobel:] …how in the world could Jesus be omnipresent if he couldn’t be in two places at once? … the bible itself seems to argue against Jesus being god.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 172). Dr. Carson gives two ideas to try explain this. To paraphrase, that Jesus was fully human and simply lived in accordance with god’s desires, or Jesus simply limited his powers while here.

Dr. Carson overlooks the simplest explanation of all that we should have started the interview off with: that we should start with the idea of a human like any other and search for proof of any outlandish claims rather than assuming the claims true. Strobel decides that a limited form of divinity that “…finite minds couldn’t totally comprehend…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 175) is good enough for him and moves on.

Creator or Created?

This section is a theological debate over whether or not Jesus was created by god, or if Jesus is god himself. It sets up an either-or fallacy which is ultimately worthless because it still presupposes the historical accuracy of the bible… how exciting! Based on the leading question, this section is intended to set up a case for evidence for Jesus as god… something that is called into severe question if the bible is not historically accurate.

Was Jesus a Lesser God?

This section doesn’t really make a clear case for whether or not Jesus is a lesser god or equal to the god of gods that the bible says made everything. It’s a trivial interpretation of the phrase “the Father is greater than I” that could really be taken in several different ways. Given what Christians believe, which interpretation do you think was cherry picked?

The Disquieting Question of Hell

This section shows how far Dr. Carson will go to rationalize viewpoints that have no support for them. Jesus in Luke 13:24-28, states that many people will seek to be in heaven, but few will achieve it. AKA: Many will end up in hell. Dr. Carson makes a theological argument against that without any evidence and literally speaks for God throughout a lot of the chapter.

Dr. Carson, with no evidence provided, states “[Dr. Carson:] …I’m not sure that god simply casts people into hell because they don’t accept certain beliefs.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 179). He further states a little later about hell that “[Dr. Carson:] 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” (Strobel, CFC, P. 180).

There is no mention of this throughout the bible. In Matthwew 13:51, it certainly sounds like beliefs are required to escape from the punishment of hell. According to John 10:7-18, it certainly sounds like a belief in Jesus specifically is required to escape hell. Having “certain beliefs” certainly seems to be a prerequisite to receiving your “get-out-of-hell free card”.

Dr. Carson also argues that, even if people do get sent to hell, “[Dr. Carson:] …that there are different degrees of punishment…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 180). Even if this is the case and carried out in the bible, is it truly a good or just thing to have someone being tormented for all of eternity? In the end, there’s no good reason that a truly just god wouldn’t be able to find a better method than hell.

As an aside, Dr. Carson appears to hold the belief that “[Dr. Carson:] [Hell is] …filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be at the center of the universe…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 180). Weirdly, Strobel, who claims to be an atheist, doesn’t counter this claim. One of the most life changing realizations many atheists have had is the feeling that, in the grand scheme of things, they are nothing more than a speck living atop a floating marble in the vast emptiness of space. Atheism actually promotes the worldview that you are not the center rather than the special individual centric religious viewpoint Christianity offers.

To give an analogy of how ridiculously stupid the concept of hell is, just imagine sentencing a child to being beaten for the rest of their life because they took a cookie from a cookie jar once without asking. In the grand scheme of an eternity, all of a person’s lifetime mess-ups would be just as inconsequential a few thousand to a few million years down the line. Could you truly say “[Dr. Carson:] …no one will be able to complain by saying, ‘This isn’t fair’ ” (Strobel, CFC, P. 180) about such a punishment?

Jesus and Slavery/Overthrowing Oppression

These two are so closely tied together that they may as well be in the same section.

Strobel brings up the fact that Jesus never denounced slavery, which seems to be a method of supporting it. He asks Dr. Carson “[Strobel:] Why didn’t Jesus stand up and shout, ‘Slavery is wrong’?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 181). Dr. Carson proceeds to gloss over why Jesus didn’t end slavery because “[Dr. Carson:] …he did not come to overturn the Roman economic system, which included slavery. He came to free men and women from their sins.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 182). Dr. Carson concludes that, while Jesus didn’t come to free slaves, the abolition of slavery today was because “[Dr. Carson]: Christians rammed abolition through Parliament in the beginning of the nineteenth century” (Strobel, CFC, P. 183)

This doesn’t hold much water when you look at it from outside the romanticized Christian worldview that Strobel (Through Dr. Carson) is trying to push on us. If ending slavery was a long term goal of coming to preach, then why is that that, after only a few centuries of the Enlightment era starting, slavery was stopped? Christians had control of Britain and large portions of Europe for a long time before then. Why wasn’t slavery abolished within a few centuries of Christianity starting rather than almost 2000 years? Why was it that only after the age of enlightenment started did abolition arguments start to gain traction?

Strangely, Dr. Carson leaves out other references to slavery coming from Paul, such as in Ephesians 6:5, where Paul says “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would show to Christ”. I don’t know how Dr. Carson would interpret this, but to me, it sounds very much like an endorsement of slavery.

Matching the Sketch of God

The conclusion for this chapter takes the gospels as a fact. Strobel’s claim that “[Strobel:] …according to the Bible, the fact that it [Jesus’s Incarnation] did occur is not in any doubt. Every attribute of God, says the New Testament, is found in Jesus Christ.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 184).

Contrary to Strobel’s claim, there is great doubt to believe any of this still. He has failed to present a clear case in any chapter so far, and this chapter continues to be just as ineffective.

This chapter opens with a somewhat confusing anecdote, that Strobel tries to tie in by saying this “[Strobel:] …naturally raises the issue of whether Jesus was crazy when he made those assertions.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 158). Overall, this chapter appears to be as unnecessary as the previous one and has just as much credibility as the rest of the book.

Because I’ve been calling Strobel out for several chapters now, it’s extremely obvious at this point that he is writing with an agenda in mind. At no point does he strongly challenge Dr. Collins on matters of textual accuracy, demonic possession, the practicality of exorcism in helping mental health patients, or how justifying insane beliefs because you think others believe things that are crazier is a valid viewpoint.

The Seventh Interview

Strobel interviews Dr. Gary R. Collins in this chapter to analyze whether Jesus may have been insane. Dr. Collins insists that Jesus is not. Whether or not Strobel or Dr. Collins wants to admit it, this is all text analysis and not an analysis of the person himself. There is no way to adequately perform a psychoanalysis based off of propaganda about a person. Despite this problem, Strobel pushes Dr. Collins into doing an analysis.

Dr. Collins mentions that people with mental problems can “[Dr. Collins] …show inappropriate depression, or they might be vehemently angry….. …But look at Jesus: he never demonstrated inappropriate emotions.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 159-160). Despite this claim, there are clearly times when Jesus DID demonstrate inappropriate emotions. For example, in Mark 11:12-25 and Matthew 21:18-22, Jesus curses a fig tree for not having fruit on it despite frigs being completely out of season.

Strobel has abandoned any pretense that the gospels must have some evidence to be true. The only way that any textual analysis is going to yield any results that might have some use is if the gospels are accurate, which is debatable.

Raving Mad

Strobel opens this section by saying “[Strobel:] …as we look back through history, we don’t see obvious signs of delusion in Jesus.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 161). This is Strobel making this assertion, not Dr. Collins, and I’d like some evidence to back this assertion up. If we read through the gospels and the claims therein, Jesus is suffering from a great delusion of believing himself to be the son of god. This sounds very much like something a heavily Schitzotypal person with delusions of grandeur might say and believe.

Dr. Collins argues that the claims of Jesus being ‘demon-possessed and raving mad’ (Strobel, CFC, P. 161) were because other people were “[Dr. Collins:] …reacting because his assertions about himself were so far beyond their understanding of the norm…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 161). Just like I’d call anyone who claimed to be the son of god and capable of doing great miracles mad without some evidence, I’d expect the people of the time to do the same. If Jesus was truly backing up what he said with healing, changing water to wine, and other miracles, especially if he was not raving, it would lend some credibility to what he was saying (even if a very little bit).

Dr. Collins also makes a circular argument that Jesus couldn’t be mad because the claims he made about himself were true. He argues for this saying “[Dr. Collins:] …if I claimed to be the president of the United States, that would be crazy. You’d look at me and see none of the trappings of the office of president… …But if the real president claimed to be president, that wouldn’t be crazy, because he is president and there would be plenty of confirming evidence of that.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 161). The supporting evidence that Dr. Collins refers to in regards to Jesus are the gospels. And how do we know the gospels are true? We don’t.

Jesus the Hypnotist

Rather than talk to someone who is an expert on hypnotism, Strobel asks Dr. Collins whether hypnotism could play a role in explaining how Jesus performed some of his miracles. Strobel argues that “Largely responsible for any hypnotist’s success rate are the awe and mystery with which he surrounds himself, and these essential factors would have been entirely lacking in Jesus’ home town.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 164).

Strobel does not take into account the gospels could have very easily been mythologized and have had “alternative truths” added in by others who DID view him as a miracle worker. Just because someone would fail at hypnotism in their home town due to a lack of “awe and mystery” doesn’t mean writings about that person would only come from there. Without giving any evidence that the gospels were written by someone close to Jesus, such as his father, brother, or mother, then this is a moot point.

Dr. Collin’s arguments against hypnotism being a good explanation do make sense, but they also fall into the same trap as Strobel’s. The gospels are not a reliable source, contain claims that are more akin to religious fiction than fact, and simply can’t be trusted due to the propaganda they contain. As always, read through the problems with chapters 2 and 3 for a more in depth explanation to why this is so.

Dr. Collins finishes this section by saying “[Dr. Collins:] It’s just amazing to me… …how people will grasp at anything to try to disprove Jesus’ miracles.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 165). In doing so, he attempts to shift the burden of proof from those who make a supernatural claim (turning water to wine) to those who would say it didn’t happen. To me, what is more amazing, is how people will grasp at anything to try prove that Jesus’s miracles happened. They tie their own view of the world into knots to make it comply with the bible while telling people that their view is correct.

Rather than having the burden of proof rest with the ones making naturalistic claims, we should pressing those making supernatural claims for proof, such as Dr. Blomberg, Dr. Metzger, Dr. Yamauchi, Dr. McRay, Dr. Boyd, Dr. Witherington, Dr. Collins, and presumably every other person Strobel interviews in this book.

Jesus the Exorcist

Dr. Collins starts off with an assertion that, once again, is a statement of faith over evidence. He says “[Dr. Collins:] From my theological beliefs, I accept that demons exist…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 165). He continues a little later to say that “[Dr. Collins:] …you find what you set out to find…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 166). In a nutshell, Dr. Collins has just provided the basis for events such as the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody every suspects) and the Salem witch trials.

There is one key difference between supernatural and naturalistic beliefs though. Belief in the supernatural will usually lead one to a supernatural explanation where nothing supernatural exists. Belief in a naturalistic explanation will lead to an attempt to find a naturalistic explanation and an admission of inadequate knowledge if no suitable explanation can be found. That is to say, belief in the supernatural causes one to forgo inquiry into naturalistic explanations, but naturalistic beliefs will not cause a lack of inquiry into supernatural ones.

Dr. Collins continues with his belief in exorcisms by bringing up cases of mental illnesses that are not helped by medicine to further “proof” of demonic possessions (Strobel, CFC, P. 166). All this tells us is that we do not currently know how to treat people suffering from those particular mental illnesses. What about other illnesses that used to be considered demonic possessions? For example, the cause of Epilepsy was commonly believed (and, unfortunately, still believed by some people today) to be caused by demonic possession.^[1] Are we to believe that other cases are demonic then?

Dr. Collins closes this section saying “[Dr. Collins:] Our society today is caught up in ‘spirituality.’ That’s a term that can mean almost anything, but it does recognize the supernatural. It’s very interesting what psychologists are believing in these days.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 167). Does this mean that Dr. Collins is justifying a belief in exorcisms by claiming “Look at what these other people are believing, is exorcism really that far fetched?”.

If so, then why stop at exorcism when it comes to believing ludicrous claims? Why not believe the bible is literally true and tie yourself in knots to rationalize contradictions? Why not believe the world is flat as the bible teaches and that colloidal silver is the cure all for all diseases? There’s a whole host of other ludicrous beliefs you can get behind if all it takes is saying “It’s very interesting what psychologists are believing in these days.” (Strobel, CFC, P. ). Comparing one insane and crazy belief to another in order to justify your belief in another insane and crazy belief is just as crazy as the original insane and crazy belief.

Preposterous Imagination

Based on the incredibly biased and unchallenged interviews that Strobel has conducted, he concludes “[Strobel:] Jesus claimed to be God. Nobody is suggesting he was intentionally deceptive.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 167) and that, upon rereading the “discourses of Jesus”, he could “[Strobel:] …detect no sign of dementia, delusions, or paranoia…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 167).

In short, this is someone who has convinced himself that Christianity is correct and will not be dissuaded even if evidence to the contrary would pop up. It’s impossible to convince a religious zealot that any problems exist within their religion. As soon as they are confronted by such evidence, they usually reinterpret the evidence to mean something entirely different. As Dr. Collins said, “[Dr. Collins:] …you find what you set out to find…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 166). Strobel has done just that.

Citations

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy#History

This chapter opens with the thrilling tales of how an FBI agent can profile people based on evidence from a crime scene. Strobel then asks if we can do profiling of who Jesus was based on what we have about him. Given that, by this point, Strobel has already bought wholeheartedly into the idea that the gospels are historically accurate, is there really any need to write this chapter?

Strobel interviews Dr. Ben Witherington in this chapter. Dr. Witherington mentions mentions that “[Dr. Witherington:] …there were already a host of expectations about what the messiah would look like…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 146) when talking about the difficulty of the Jewish people at the time to accept that Jesus is the Messiah. This is because Jesus does not meet the criteria^[1] of being the Jewish messiah. Christians will claim that the Jews are being pedantic and ignoring what Jesus said, but the Jews can point to the written works in the bible (rather, their holy books, but bible is close enough for most people) that describe what the messiah will be like.

Exploring the Earliest Traditions

This section does nothing to add to or strengthen the case Strobel is trying to make. Strobel claims that Dr. Witherington has gone back to “[Strobel:] …the most primitive material, unquestionably safe from legendary development…” (Strobel, CFC, p. 146). As we’ve seen from the gospels, legendary development can happen quickly. Especially if the writers are intending this to be the foundation for a new religion.

Rather than telling us what documents Strobel refers to so we can cross reference their reliability ourselves, all that Dr. Witherington brings up in this is some references in the gospels. Dr. Witherington points to how Jesus is continually depicted as being in positions of godhood throughout the gospels. As shown in the problems with chapters 2 and 3, the gospels are, at best, unreliable when it comes to the narrative about Jesus. At best, we can get the impression that the gospel writers considered Jesus to be very important.

By the Finger of god

Dr. Witherington draws again from the gospels here to prove his points. Just reread the last paragraph of the section above for my reply. We still haven’t been referred to any new material.

John’s Portrait of Jesus

Interestingly, Dr. Witherington tells us that he believes “[Dr. Witherington] When you’re dealing with the gospel of John, you’re dealing with a somewhat interpreted picture of Jesus…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 151). While Dr. Witherington gives no reasons to indicate why this is so, this means he has to have some doubts about the accuracy of John. Why, then, would he not have similar reservations about other gospels? Because they agree on most points more? Because Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source to draw from whereas John drew on the other 3?

I and the Father are one

Strobel cites the book “Reasonable Faith” by Williman Lane Craig for justification that Christology started up soon after Jesus is held to have died. A quick read of the book reveals that the book is making the same claim that anyone who reads the gospels would: That Jesus claimed to be god and the messiah. There’s no doubt that the gospels, written several decades after Jesus’s death, would have the same claims as the mythology at the time. Pointing to the gospels and claiming that it’s obvious that Jesus viewed himself as god only tells us what the writers of the gospels believed Jesus was and what they believed he said.

Dr. Witherington wonders towards the end of the section “[Dr. Witherington:] Why is there no other first century Jew who has millions of followers today?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 154). He concludes the only explanation is “[Dr. Witherington:] It’s because this Jesus – the historical Jesus – is also the living Lord.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 154). There are alternate theories that would provide an explanation far better.

First, one could theorize that religions tend to propagate through societies in a manner similar to a virus. Read through this brief essay^[2] if you’re curious about this position. If we take this position to be a good enough explanation, then it appears that Christianity has created some very strong controls over the people who believe in it. While these controls were still in their initial development when they religion began, they were suitably strong enough to motivate early believers in Christianity to stick to their guns… er…. spears?… when pressed to recant their beliefs. These controls were refined throughout the centuries to the point where they are incredibly effective methods to control large swaths of the population.

Alternatively, we could look at decisions that changed how Christians reacted to the events around them. The bible taught that the savior of the world suffered and died terribly, and many Christians themselves took this to mean that they should persevere through persecution. This gave the early Christians, and many today, a persecution complex where they believe being persecuted is a sign that their beliefs are right (hint: It’s not).

Because of this, the early persecution of the Christians had the opposite effect intended. In 313BCE, the roman emperors signed the Edict of Milan^[3], making religious tolerance the default stance of the roman empire. Because the Christians were no longer being persecuted as heavily, this was viewed as a massive victory, and many started to convert to Christianity due to the extreme evangelizing efforts to recruit more followers. This continual recruitment effort despite persecution has brought us to where we are today.

In the Very Place of god

This chapter tries to put together a narrative that people claim Jesus never believed he was divine. This chapter then uses the gospels, which were written to prove Jesus’s divine status to the world, to make the case that Jesus believed he was. At no point does Strobel give any questions or counterexamples that could prompt further discussion. Overall, this chapter seemed to be pretty forced into the book.

Citations

1. https://jewsforjudaism.ca/why-jesus-is-not-the-jewish-messiah/
2. http://www.bidstrup.com/virus.htm
3. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan

In this chapter, Strobel is seeking for rebuttal evidence for the Jesus Seminar and interviews Dr. Gregory Boyd. In other words, Strobel is seeking for evidence that agrees with his views and the views of those who agree with him by interviewing one of the most outspoken critics of the Jesus Seminar. Let’s hope he watches out for confirmation bias.

Amusingly, Strobel notes that “[Strobel:] The Jesus Seminar paints itself as being on an unbiased quest for truth, as compared with religiously committed people…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 125) as though to paint the seminar in a negative light. As someone who values an honest attempt to find the truth in an unbiased manner, I don’t believe Strobel’s work shows an unbiased quest compared to those who are not religiously committed.

Writings From the Radical Fringe

Dr. Boyd scoffs at the idea of the 7 pillars of scholarly wisdom, as though anyone who would consider following them is just wrong. He states “[Boyd:] …a lot of scholars, from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, would have serious reservations about one or even most of these pillars.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 124). This presumes that his viewpoint is right while everyone else is wrong.

While I personally disagree with one of the pillars (number 5) because I’ve not seen evidence for it yet (I might just need to do more research), they seem very well thought out to me. Strobel never asks what these 7 pillars are. Because they’re not in the book, let’s examine these things that Boyd scoffs. Below is a copy of them as they were on Wikipedia on 2020-06-26.

1. Distinguishing between the historical Jesus and the stories that the gospels tell about him. Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) started the historical Jesus project and David Friedrich Strauss established it as part of biblical criticism with his book Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835).
2. Distinguishing between the Synoptics and John. Since the 1800s, Bible scholars have distinguished between the Jesus of the Synoptic gospels ( Mark, Matthew, and Luke) and the Jesus in John, generally favoring the synoptics as more historical and seeing John as more spiritual.
3. Identifying Mark as the first gospel. By 1900, critical scholars had largely concluded that Mark came before Matthew and Luke and served as a source for each.
4. Identifying the hypothetical Q document. By 1900, scholars had hypothesized this lost collection of Jesus’ sayings, thought to be the source of material found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark.
5. Questioning eschatological (apocalyptic) Jesus. In 1906, Albert Schweitzer portrayed Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet, and this analysis virtually put an end to historical inquiry into Jesus. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, critical historians returned to the topic of historical Jesus. Some of these scholars identified the apocalyptic imagery in the gospels as originating with John the Baptist, and not authentic to Jesus.
6. Distinguishing between oral and print cultures. Since Jesus lived and preached in an oral culture, scholars expect that short, memorable stories or phrases are more likely to be historical.
7. Reversing the burden of proof. In his day, Strauss had to offer evidence to question the historicity of any part of the gospels because his audience assumed that the gospels were historical. Today, the assumption is nearly the opposite, with the gospels understood to be so thoroughly embellished that one needs evidence to suppose that anything in them is historical.

Overall, these are very reasonable things to hold to if you are going to try make any claim about a historical Jesus.

Discovering the “Real” Jesus

Dr. Boyd critiques the Jesus Seminar as finding exactly “[Boyd:] what they set out to find…. …there’s a lot of diversity.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 124-125). Amusingly, we could make the exact same claims about this book and the gospels. Let’s look at what the gospels show us.

Mark saw a miracle worker, a man who was divine who healed the sick, raised the dead, and then died (if we ignore later Christian interpolations). Matthew saw a guy who fulfilled Jewish prophecy after Jewish prophecy, no matter how much he had to twist the old testament to show it. Luke saw a man who performed miracle after miracle, filling up pages of all the miracles Jesus did. And John saw the literal manifestation of god on earth, here to save everyone.

Given that we know the gospel writers had different views of Jesus, we could pose a similar question to Dr. Boyd’s statement. Did the gospel writers also find exactly what they set out to find? If so, doesn’t that cast doubt on their reliability? I’ve already gone over that, though, so check the problems with chapters 2 and 3.

Giving Evidence a Fair Hearing

Dr. Boyd does not agree with the Jesus Seminar, stating “[Dr. Boyd:] Their major assumption… …is that the gospels are not even generally reliable” (Strobel, CFC, P. 125). Unfortunately, Strobel does not press Dr. Boyd to furnish evidence that the gospels are reliable in the events that they recount. Research does show the gospels to be highly modified throughout history to suit church doctrine¹ and, even still, contradictory on that doctrine² just to name a few problems. Without Dr. Boyd furnishing evidence for the gospel’s historical reliability, we have no reason to believe the gospels are reliable.

Dr. Boyd further complains about the naturalistic assumptions Jesus Seminar saying “[Boyd:] …the gospels include things that seem historically unlikely, like miracles… … These things, they say, don’t just happen.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 125). We find out shortly after that Dr. Boyd is not a fan of Naturalism when he states “[Dr. Boyd:] …what I can’t grant is the tremendous presumption that we know enough about the universe to say that God – if there is a God-can never break into our world in a supernatural way…”(Strobel, CFC, P. 126). In other words, Dr. Boyd wants to take the assumption that god is real and believes that we will find evidence of that.

Unfortunately for Dr. Boyd, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far, he has provided no evidence for his claims that the new testament is reliable. Naturalists have provided plenty of evidence for their unreliability which is precisely why the 7th pillar of scholarly wisdom from above is so important. There are many reasons to doubt the claims made in the gospels, and they need supporting evidence if they are to be believed.

When asked how Dr. Boyd would proceed, he states “I would grant that you shouldn’t appeal to the supernatural until you have to.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 126). Coming from Dr. Boyd, the man who appears to think we should start with a supernatural explanation for Jesus and then then look at history, this is a startling statement. Starting with a supernatural explanation for Jesus and immediately applying that to any history is starting with an appeal to the supernatural before it is needed.

Why, then, does he believe the new testament to be reliable? Arguing that Jesus is supernatural is a tremendous assumption. Why shouldn’t we believe that a naturalistic Jesus is the best explanation until we receive definite evidence for a supernatural one? Strobel does not question Dr. Boyd on this, nor does Dr. Boyd provide any evidence for a supernatural Jesus.

Critiquing the Criteria

Dr. Boyd starts by critiquing the assumption that “[Dr. Boyd:] …the latter church put these sayings into the mouth of Jesus, unless they have good evidence to believe otherwise” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127). Unfortunately for Dr. Boyd, the “latter church” has both a motivation for, and a history of, doing just that. This is precisely why we should argue for double dissimilarity instead of believing that the gospel tales “[Dr. Boyd:] …should be considered credible, even if it can’t be confirmed by other sources.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127).

As an example of why we can’t take the gospel’s reliability as fact, the tale of Jesus and the women taken in adultery is not found in the earliest texts of John³. This was probably added in later to enhance the narrative of forgiveness throughout John. This is but a single example, but many others do exist. Therefore, two questions that should be asked are:

• How do we separate what Jesus said from later interpolations?
• If Dr. Boyd disagrees with a need for “good evidence” to determine what Jesus said, then what do we use to determine what Jesus said?

Despite Strobel never raising these with Dr. Boyd, but it’s very likely that Dr. Boyd would skip answering. If he accepts the answer to the first to be “find sources as close to the time of Jesus as possible”, then he is arguing for good evidence because the church has modified the gospels over time. If he says he bases his views of Jesus as shown in the gospels, then he must furnish proof that the gospels are historically accurate, that is to say, he has good evidence for the gospels as they are today. Either way, we require good evidence to accept the gospels at all.

Another odd turn of phrase used by Dr. Boyd is “[Dr. Boyd:] Historians usually operate with the burden of proof on the historian to prove falsity or unreliability since people are generally not compulsive liars. Without that assumption, we would know very little about ancient history.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127). This seems to imply that Dr. Boyd believes we should proceed forward by assuming what Jesus said is true because people “[Dr. Boyd:] …are generally not compulsive liars.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127). In other words, he wants to treat the gospels like historical records. Again, the gospels are not historical records. Rather then repeat my arguments against this yet again, refer back to the problems with chapters 2, and 3.

Strobel finishes this section stating how the Jesus seminars used “[Strobel:] …loaded criteria, like weighted dice, inevitably bring the results that were desired from the beginning.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 128). This accusation of loaded criteria is hilarious in this context. It’s apparent that rather than accepting the most likely conclusion, that the gospels are full of myth and legend, Strobel has created his own loaded criteria by accepting Jesus is as the gospels say he is, and then looking at history with that assumption in mind.

Jesus the Wonder Worker

Dr. Boyd wows Strobel with examples of how Jesus is greater than any other miracle worker. “[Dr. Boyd:] …the sheer centrality of the supernatural in the life of Jesus has
no parallel whatsoever in Jewish history…. …the radical nature of his miracles distinguishes him…. ….Jesus’ biggest distinctive is how he did miracles on his own authority…”(Strobel, CFC, P. 128-129).

This statement is utterly meaningless and actually contradicts the narrative Strobel has been trying to deliver since chapter 2. The strong supernatural presence, radical nature of his miracles, and having his own authority to perform miracles sounds very familiar. Is this what Dr. Blomberg claims doesn’t exist when he said “[Dr. Blomberg: ]You don’t find the outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing that you see in a lot of other ancient writings…” (CFC P. 43)?

Rather than go over the other problems in this yet again, check out the problems with chapters 2, and 3. Dr. Boyd and Strobel are, once again, presupposing that the gospels are historically accurate.

Jesus and the Amazing Apollonius

Strobel states “[Strobel:] I wasn’t going to let Boyd’s debating skills intimidate me.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 129). It’s clear that he is not intimidated, rather, Strobel is playing along by this point. He feeds Dr. Boyd a leading question about Apollonius, someone who has some parallels to Jesus. Dr. Boyd claims that “[Dr. Boyd:] …if you do the historical work calmly and objectively, you find that the alleged parallels just don’t stand up.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 129).

As proof of this, Dr. Boyd states about Apollonius “[Dr. Boyd:] Philostratus, was writing a century and a half after Apollonius lived… …The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development… …With Apollonius we’re dealing with one source…. …On top of that, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to Apollonius” (Strobel, CFC, P. 129-130).

Dr. Boyd’s first point can be countered with the gospels themselves. The gospels have blatant mythologizing in them, which makes it apparent that even being in close temporal proximity to the event does not guarantee we won’t get legendary development.

Dr. Boyd’s second point is strange when he claims that we shouldn’t argue against a source merely because it’s the only source. In a sense, the bible gospels are all based off the same source of mark. Doesn’t that mean we should discount them as well? What makes the bible so special that we should accept single source information in a gospel, such as Herod’s infanticide, as fact?

Finally, he seems unable to think of any other motivations that could cause someone to mythologize someone. While financial motivations are reasonable, there are many others. To name just two, the writer(s) could want to spread a religion and write some propaganda for it, or the writers could be recording things based off of second hand tales believing them to be fact.

In comparing Appolonius to the gospels, Dr. Boyd says “[Dr. Boyd:] we have four gospels, corroborated with Paul, that can be cross-checked to some degree with non-biblical authors, like Josephus and others.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). Sadly, most of the non-biblical authors had their works modified by Christian scholars later on to push a pro-Christian view into works that never had them. As mentioned problems with the Case for Christ chapters 3 and 4, the references to extra-biblical works to Christ should be discounted.

Dr. Boyd further states “[Dr. Boyd:] …the gospels pass the standard tests used to assess historical reliability…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). I would like to know what tests Dr. Boyd is using here because my research, and apparently the research of the Jesus Seminar, shows the gospels to be lacking in historical reliability and riddled with myths and legends inserted at later dates.

In another comparison to Appolonius and the gospels, Dr. Boyd states “[Dr. Boyd] …the writers of the gospel had nothing to gain-and much to lose-by writing Jesus’ story, and they didn’t have ulterior motives such as financial gain.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). The former statement, as I’ve covered before, does not lend any credence to the gospels as a reliable source. Just because they had much to lose doesn’t mean they had nothing to gain, and people can be honestly mistaken about something they believe. Dr. Boyd’s latter statement is false given the blatant mythologizing the gospel writers did in creating a document for their new religion.

In a final comparison to the gospels, Dr. Boyd states “[Dr. Boyd:] The gospels have a very confident eyewitness perspective, as if they had a camera there.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). To me, given the structure and narrative of the gospels, this sounds like something that should raise a bigger red flag over the historical reliability of the gospels. Writing in an authoritative voice about miracles and magic would only serve the gospel writer’s agenda of driving recruits to their new religion. If you are creating a mythology, of course you can project yourself as an authority.

Despite no one making the claim that Jesus was adapted from Appolonius, Dr. Boyd feels it necessary to ensure us that “[Dr Boyd:] …any borrowing would have been done by him, not by Christians.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). This seems pretty obvious when one considers that tales of Christianity predate Appolonius by a few centuries. Whether or not they were borrowed would still need some supporting evidence though.

Jesus and the “Mystery Religions”

Dr. Boyd tries to argue that any parallels between Christianity and other religions should be “[Dr. Boyd:] …from the direction of Christianity to the Mystery Religions…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 131). This makes the terrible assumption that Christianity, which came to be in the mid to late first century, is the influence for religions that came before it. He then goes on to cite a few specifics such as differences between baptism and the Mithra cult’s parallel to communion. This is problematic because not only is the ritual so different, it completely misses the actual originator of baptism: Judaism and the Essene cult.

Dr. Boyd also claims that parallels such as gods dying and rising agricultural societies are not truly parallels because “[Dr. Boyd:] Christianity has nothing to do with life cycles or the harvest. It has to do with a very Jewish belief… …about the resurrection of the dead and about life eternal and reconciliation with god.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 131). The point that Dr. Boyd misses is that gods, such as those dealing with agriculture, have the common theme of gods dying and coming back to life. Comparing Christianity to the gods who came before it has nothing to do with what those gods were used to represent. The way Dr. Boyd compares this is like getting into a debate about whether toasters and ovens heat things up and saying “a toaster is nothing like an oven because ovens don’t have anything to do with making toast”. It completely misses the point.

Unfortunately, Strobel does not press Dr. Boyd on themes rather than specifics. Many of the Mystery Religions have themes that are running through them that Judaism, and by proxy Christianity, may or may not have borrowed. While complaining that Christianity has nothing to do with life cycles or the harvest is very good, it is hard to deny that the central theme of the gods in those religions, death and rebirth, is seen prominently in Christianity. The story of Jesus’s death and resurrection, which is a primary example of these sorts of stories that are seen as mythical, should be seen as another of these stories.

Some themes from the epic of Gilgamesh and Zoroastrianism, which both predate Christianity, could be used as examples. For example

• (Zoroastrian): A Good god with an adversary⁴
• (Epic of Gilgamesh): A great flood⁵
• (Zoroastrian): Extreme punishments for “unnatural intercourse”⁶
• (Zoroastrian): Heaven and Hell⁷
• (Zoroastrian): Apocalyptic end times⁷
• (Zoroastrian): Virgin birth of a savior⁷

There are more, but they can be found with a quick search. I would be willing to bet that there is little in Christianity that can’t be traced back to earlier religions.

Secret Gospels and Talking Crosses

Strobel asks Dr. Boyd about the “Cross gospel”, which Dr. Boyd shoots down “[Dr. Boyd:] …because it includes such outlandishly legendary material.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 133). This “outlandishly legendary material” does not sound much more outlandish than other claims made in what Dr. Boyd refers to as “…the much more sober gospels.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 133). Specific instances that Dr. Boyd references as “Outlandishly legendary” are

• Jesus comes out of his tomb and he’s huge (Strobel, CFC, P. 133)
• The cross comes out of the tomb and actually talks (Strobel, CFC, P. 133)

These two scenes sound no more outlandish to me than

• Virgin impregnation by god
• Miracles being worked
• Voices from the sky proclaiming Jesus to be the son of god
• Jesus dying and coming back to life
• Jesus being in the desert for 40 days without food or water
• Jesus being able to see the entire world by being brought high up by the devil

It seems quite clear that the “sober” gospels have plenty in them that are “outlandishly legendary”. If the cross gospel was codified in the gospel many years ago, I believe Dr. Boyd would be just as convinced by it as he is the other gospels.

History Versus Faith

Dr. Boyd argues that “[Dr. Boyd:] …Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he is rooted in history” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135). To try back up his claims that the Jesus people believe in is historical, he cites the Nicene creed, saying “[Dr. Boyd:] The Nicene Creed doesn’t say, ‘We wish these things were true’.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135).

Unfortunately for Dr. Boyd, the Nicene Creed is even less of an argument for Jesus of the bible existing historically than the gospel of Thomas that he so quickly dismissed. The Nicene creed wasn’t written until 325⁸, was later amended in 381, and it starts with the statement “We believe” rather than “We know”. The Nicene creed does not show that Jesus as shown in the bible existed anymore than the book The Case for Christ does.

Dr. Boyd cites Paul as saying “[Dr. Boyd:] …if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, our faith is futile, it’s useless, it’s empty” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135). Dr. Boyd does not furnish any additional proof that this claim is so. Instead, he simply states “[Dr. Boyd:] I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135). These statements show some hypocrisy. He appears to want reality only if it conforms to the gospels, and he’s done a great job of forcing the gospels to conform to his views of history.

Combining History and Faith

Dr. Boyd claims “[Dr. Boyd:] I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 136). If Dr. Boyd has any actual historical evidence to base this assertion on, it would be prudent of him to furnish such evidence now. As it is, the only evidence we will ever see from Dr. Boyd is the gospels. There are good reasons to doubt the myths in the gospels. Dr. Boyd is making the circular argument of “I believe in Jesus because the gospels tell me these things. I can trust these things because the gospels are reliable. The gospels told me they are reliable, therefore things these are true!” This is not good reasoning.

Dr. Boyd states that “[Dr. Boyd:] There’s no competition” (Strobel, CFC, P. 136) for attributing the “evidence” of what Jesus did to any other person. There are many other explanations, especially if one starts with the idea that any mythic claims in the gospels need proof to be believed. Given that that gospels lack proof for the mythic claims it contains, it seems far more likely that the reason there is “no competition” is because the tales told are greatly exaggerated or the person it tells the tale about did not exist.

The overall narrative that Dr. Boyd in this section comes down to “Believe in what you love because you love to believe in it”. That is a perfect combination to give confirmation bias in everything you see when it is tied to history and the gospels. Love of a belief without evidence for that belief is a fools errand, and Dr. Boyd has shown that he has large amounts of love towards his belief in the gospels.

Presumably, Strobel assumes the reader has been wowed over by how “accurate” the gospels have been shown to be. Because of this, any attempts to reconcile the gospels with any historical accuracy seem to have been dropped. I would like to think that presume any thinking reader would recognize the problems pointed out since chapters 2 and 3 have not yet been resolved, but that may not be the case.

A Chorus of Criticism

Strobel ends the chapter with a couple “feel good” phrases and continues throwing doubt on the Jesus Seminar by citing more people who disagree with the outcome. Because so much of this chapter is aimed at attacking the Jesus seminar, let’s look at what the Jesus Seminar truly was and add some criticism of my own about the Case for Christ.

The Jesus seminar was made up of about 50 bible scholars and 100 laymen that was founded in 1985.⁹ It rigorously attempted to find evidence for an accurate picture of a historical Jesus and used the seven pillars to keep them from starting with a biased picture of the past. Rather than being the view of a “radical fringe” group, it’s a well establish group that used scholarly methods to research the past.

Throughout the entire chapter, Dr. Boyd lays ad hominem attacks and criticism on the group, calling them “left-wing” and “liberal”. Many of the views expressed by the group, however, are not very liberal in the grand scheme of things. What about others who argue very persuasively and with much supporting evidence that a historical Jesus never existed? Why were their claims never covered? Wouldn’t that be further out into the “radical fringe” that Strobel was trying to depict the Jesus Seminar as being? It seems likely to me that Strobel highlighted a single group that dared to make their views public, and attempted to use this book as a means to try slander their methodology…. and that Dr. Boyd was all to willing to join in.

Citations

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20200626185200/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_interpolation
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20200626185355/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_contradictions#Faith_vs._works
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery#Textual_history
4. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Theological_Aspects_of_Avesta
5. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Gilgamesh,_Epic_of
6. http://www.avesta.org/mp/saddar.html#chapter9
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism#Eschatology:_Renovation_and_judgment
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar

This chapter opens with the narrative of a conviction that had to rely on science and hard evidence to sentence a killer to death. Strobel wants us to believe that he is going to follow a hard scientific method to determine if there truly is a case for Christ. In this case, he’s going to rely on the scientific discipline of archaeology.

This chapter is an interview with Dr. John McRay. Like the others, Strobel spends a large amount of time ensuring we are awed with credentials and books that have been written. An important fact mentioned by Dr. McRay, which Strobel should have paid attention to, is “[Dr. McRay:] Spiritual truths cannot be proved or disproved by archaeological discoveries.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 102). Strobel appears to ignore that sentiment throughout this chapter and the rest of the book though, so why did he leave it in the book?

Digging for the Truth

Strobel spends an inordinate amount of time explaining why having facts line up is important in order to sell us on the idea that archaeology may provide some evidence here. While Dr. McRay is certain the “[Dr. McRay:] …credibility of the New Testament is enhanced” (Strobel, CFC, P. 104) due to archaeological evidence, he does not provide any examples just yet.

Luke’s Accuracy as a Historian

I just want to mention here that, based on the arguments presented in Chapter 1 and 2, it’s very likely that Luke did not author the gospel of Luke OR the book of Acts. Check the problems with chapters 1 and 2 to see why. Rather, someone published works anonymously claiming to be Luke. Strobel has already begun to parrot Luke’s authorship as a fact.

Strobel leads Dr. McRay with a few easy questions to get things started. The sorts of things that Dr. McRay mentions here are mostly trivialities such as roman titles of officials. One piece that bears examining is Dr. McRay trying to resolve a contradiction between Mark and Luke where Mark claims Jesus was leaving Jerico while Luke claims Jesus entered Jericho.

Putting aside the fact that this contradiction is very minor, Dr. McRay says”[Dr. McRay:] The city was destroyed and resettled… …The point is, you can be coming out of one site where Jericho existed and be going into another one” (Strobel, CFC, P. 105-106). While this could be an explanation, it does not explain why, without warning, one gospel would refer to what I’ll call the “contemporary” site while another would refer to an older one.

The Reliability of Mark and John

Strobel makes the claim that some incidental archaeological evidence “[Strobel:] …challenges the allegation that the gospel of John was written so long after Jesus that it can’t possibly be accurate” (Strobel, CFC, P. 107). This appears to be based on the fallacious belief that early writing must be free from legendary development.

Evidence points to the gospel of John being written sometime around 90-110CE. In terms of geography and archaeology, not much would have changed in the 60-80 years since Jesus is held to have died. Just because we find archaeological evidence that some buildings mentioned in the text do exist does not prove that the writer was accurate on other matters. It could simply be that these buildings were commonly known at the time and the writer drew on his own knowledge of these locations when writing or went to visit them.

Even if we grant the new testament the benefit of the doubt for all archaeological and geographical statements in it, it still does not bolster any supernatural claims. Just because someone goes to great lengths to keep their geography straight does not mean they can be relied upon for other claims. For example, I know several locations in my hometown well and can reliably tell my friends and family about these locations. If I tell my friends that I developed magic powers overnight and these parts in town have huge spiritual significance, should my friends believe me? The answer is clearly no. My past track record of keeping facts about locations straight should not lead my friends to believe me for sudden supernatural claims.

Strobel repeats the dating of a scrap from the gospel of John here. See the problems with chapter 3 for the discussion on that.

Examine minor issue from mark

Puzzle 1: The Census

Strobel brings up the questions of “[Strobel] How could the government possibly force all of it’s citizens to return to their birthplace?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 108). The document cited by Dr. McRay says “…it is necessary to compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are living outside their provinces to return to their own homes.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 108). This does not provide any evidence for returning to the homes of your ancestors. To paraphrase the quote, it merely makes the statement that “If you’re not at home, please go home. It’s time for a census”.

Additionally, returning to your “ancestral home” would present great problems. How does one define their ancestral home? How far back would one go? If, as according to Genesis, Abram is the father of the Jews, shouldn’t the Jews go to the ancestral lands of Canaan, which were given to Abram? Or how about to the lands where Noah first landed his fairy tale ark? Or all the way back to wherever Adam and Eve first stepped out of the magic garden?

The story of the census has other problems with it as well. To get the story happening as according to Luke, you would have to

• Go to the ancestral home as shown in Luke
  • In order to fulfill a misinterpreted prophecy from Micah
  • Done by torturing poor genealogies and creating an artificial need to travel to the location some guy supposedly lived thousands of years prior.
• Shut down the economy for weeks to months to have thousands of people travelling the roads causing delays as people inevitably deal with other people
• Coordinate with everyone to have a census taker in different towns for months to ensure everyone is counted
• Get a Census that is in no way accurate to how many people live in which city
• Throw out the results and take a census a second time to figure out who lives in what city.

Dr. McRay references Jerry Vardman in an attempt to reconcile problems with Herod dying in 4BCE while Quirnius wasn’t governor until 6CE. “[McRay:] He has found a coin with the name of Quirinius on it in very small writing, or what we call ‘micrographic’ letters. This Places him as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 B.C. until after the death of Herod.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 109). There are, however, problems with Jerry Vardman’s work.

First and foremost, Jerry did not submit his work to the scientific community for peer review, which leaves cross examination of his claims mostly uncontested. Because he did not submit his findings, nor bring forth any evidence for his findings, it seems more likely that his religious convictions as a Baptist influenced him to find results that are not there.

Some “micrographic letters” that Jerry “found” on the coin show the name “Jesus” very prominently. Unfortunately, the letter “J” was not added into the Greek or Latin alphabet until 1524 by an Italian man named Gian Giorgio Trissino who wanted to reform the Italian alphabet^[1] (Trissino, Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana, 1524).

Jerry was known to have regarded the scriptures as infallible, and the well known problem of Herod’s death and Quirnius’s governorship must not have sat well with him. In addition, he has shown himself to act in an unscholarly and deceptive manner that involved criminal behaviour to try push through an expedition that could have jeopardized relationships with Israel and Jordan^[2].

In conclusion on the census problem, the fact that Luke states the census happened during Herod’s reign (up to 4BCE) but while Quirnius was the governer (6BCE) is still a problem. Strobel ends this section without offering additional challenges to to Dr. McRay.

Puzzle 2: The existence of Nazareth

Strobel seems to be building a narrative that tells us that we can trust the gospels as being historically accurate because they had accurate geography. That is roughly the same as saying the Iliad is a historically accurate document because it mentions cities that used to exist or that Spider Man is accurate because New York exists.

Whether or not Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus is not particularly important. If it didn’t, it would merely be one more piece of evidence that the gospel writers were not as accurate as biblical scholars would like us to believe. Strobel accepts the word of Dr. McRay without question to show us that Nazareth exists as stated in the bible. That said, here are some opposing reasons, mostly from the new testament, to suspect Nazareth as depicted in the new testament is more fiction more than fact.

• Matthew, Luke, and John all refer to Nazareth as a city
• According to John, the city of Nazareth is well known (John 1:45-46)
• It’s well known enough that Matthew invents a prophecy about it (Matthew 2:22-23)
• Matthew 2:23 claims people from there are called “Nazarenes”
  • This is based on a misunderstanding of the word Nazarite.
  • “Prophecy Fulfillment Matthew” misunderstood a “prophecy” from Judges 13:5
• Archaeologists (such as Jerry Vardman) with a pro-Christian bent have not only interpreted findings in accordance with their beliefs, but have also planted evidence to “prove” their beliefs.
• Christian historians have a history of adding to the bible and older written works.

Based on the points above, concluding that “[McRay:] Nazareth as being a very small place” (Strobel, CFC, P. 112) is wrong. Clearly, Nazareth was supposed to have been a large city that was known well enough that people from the city were identified by a particular name.

Puzzle 3: Slaughter at Bethlehem

To start off, the gospel of Matthew is the only gospel to mention this slaughter. If this slaughter was such a big deal, you would expect to see mention of it in the other gospels as well, Luke in particular. Also, Matthew states that the slaughter was far more widespread than just Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16) as Strobel claims (Strobel, CFC, P. 113). Something of that magnitude would have attracted the eye of scholars including Josephus.

Drawing the conclusion that this event happened requires the apriori assumption that the gospels are accurate. Without trying to map a foregone conclusion onto history, the lack of references anywhere draws it’s own conclusion of this event never having happened.

Amusingly enough, Dr. McRay claims that there is no reference to this event because it wasn’t very important. He tries to support that view saying “[Dr. McRay:] Bethlehem was probably no bigger than Nazareth” (Strobel, CFC, P. 114). This comes a section after Dr. McRay argues that we should expect to see nothing Nazareth precisely because it was so small. If Nazareth was so small that we should expect to find nothing in the historical record of it, and Bethlehem was “no bigger”, then why would we expect to find anything related to Bethlehem in the historical record?

Finally, Strobel does not mention the fact that similar stories of slaughtering babies to stave off a prophecy exist in other religions as well. For example, the story of Krishna from Hindu mythology starts off with a baby massacre as well. In fact, examining the account of Krishna’s birth shows additional similarities as well.

• Both scare a king because he thinks the baby will remove him from power
• Once born, both kings start a massacre of babies in the land
• A messenger appears telling someone to flee with the baby
• Everyone rejoices at the birth
• People bring gifts to the baby

We see one additional piece common to religious fiction in Krishna’s story as well, the prison doors opening up for the person leaving. That sounds very similar to Paul’s miraculous escape from prison.

Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The only argument made in this section is that the dead sea scrolls show that scribes didn’t copy things accurately throughout the ages. Something that was missing from modern texts for the book of Isiah was found in the dead sea scrolls. Because Jesus references it in the gospels, Strobel and Dr. McRay draw the conclusion that archaeology has “[Strobel:] …finally unlock[ed] the significance of a statement in which Jesus boldly asserted nearly two thousand years ago…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 116).

Unfortunately for Strobel, this section does nothing to do with build the case for christ or lend any credibility to him. Just because the gospels mention something that we had missing from texts today does not mean there is any special significance that should be added to finding out that the reference did exist.

A far more likely explanation is that the writer of the gospel of “Prophecy Fulfillment” Matthew knew the scriptures to a certain degree. When he wrote his gospel, the copies of Isiah available to him still had that phrase in it. It is not unreasonable to think that Matthew read Isiah, found the reference, and inserted it to lend credibility to his story. Some time later, a scribe accidentally omitted a small phrase from Isiah, and that phrase was found in the dead sea scrolls because the scribes who wrote them did not make the error.

A Remarkably Accurate Source Book

Strobel sets up another straw man and compares the bible to the book or mormon as a book that has no archaeological evidence for it. This is problematic because the accepted authors of the gospels DID live closer to the events that they write about. They lived in the area that they wrote about, and they even traveled through the areas they wrote about. Of course the bible would have some archaeological evidence for it.

It would be far more surprising for the book or mormon to be shown as accurate. The book of mormon was written by a farm lad in the 1800’s who was separated by thousands of years and miles from the place it purports to document.

Citations

1. Trissino, Gian Giorgio, Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana, 1524
   Read about Gian on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gian_Giorgio_Trissino
   
2. Wright, Ernest G, Letter to Dean William E. Hull about Jerry Vardman, 1972
   View online: https://web.archive.org/web/20200626145822/http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2013/08/25/vardaman-6/