Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5
Enjoyability: 5 of 5
Oddly, I can't really think of much to say about this book. It's an overview of the various aspects and claims surrounding the issue of whether Jesus was really God, and whether he really rose from the dead.
In order to prove these things, Strobel travels around to speak with various experts; philosophers, scientists, medical experts and so forth, asking questions like "could Jesus have survived crucifixion?" "Could the New Testament documents be mere legends, which developed over time?" "Can we prove that Jesus really appeared to people after his death?" and so forth. Ultimately, he finds that the evidence is firm and strong, in favor of Jesus being exactly who he said he was.
The book is structured in a rather non-standard way, comparing the various questions about Jesus to types of evidence that might be brought forth in a courtroom. Legal proceedings are rarely objective in terms of their approach to the evidence, and in terms of whether the evidence is accepted or rejected, so I don't personally find the analogy all that helpful, but the question that matters is whether the evidence presented in this book is good and strong. It certainly is.
Argument by argument, Strobel poses the typical skeptic and atheistic responses to these experts, and finds that there are good answers for every last one.
As a Catholic, I of course believe that there are other good reasons to believe in Jesus, aside from just these, but these are the reasons that I think will sync with most people, and all things considered, I have no problem with that. This book does what it claims to do; lay out a strong case for Christ, and it does it very well and professionally.
I've also heard that some folks have taken issue with this book; saying that it doesn't sufficiently address the opposing case, and I have two things to say about that.
The first is that the book is called "the Case -For- Christ." From the title, anyway, there's no reason to pick it up and expect to see a debate, or any other form of two-sided argument. That said, if you want to read a debate, the book does cite a couple of excellent ones in book form, which can still be picked up and read today.
The second thing I have to say is that in fact, for the most part, contrary arguments against the divinity of Jesus tend to take the form of asking questions, intended to disprove it, and I would argue that Strobel asks many of these questions himself. In fact, this is what drives the book. Questions are asked, and those same questions are answered, so I would say that much of the book consists of the answering of atheistic and skeptical objections to the claims of Christianity, and therefore, there's no reason to not see the book as two-sided or fair, just because it arrives at a decisive conclusion.
Others may object that the book won't "convince" certain people. Of course it won't. It's just a book. You need to be willing to learn from it if you're going to be convinced by it, regardless of how good the evidence is.
Still others have claimed that this kind of issue shouldn't even be decided on the basis of evidence, which is rather like saying "I'm irrational in my faith, and if you want to believe in God, you need to be irrational too." There's no better way to scare honest thinkers out of the church, which sadly, may be part of the point of such objections. When you've got people there, who are good at thinking about what's right and what's wrong, you often find it much harder to do whatever you feel like.
For the record, nothing about faith requires a lack of evidence, or God forbid, an irrational philosophy of knowledge. Thinkers won't be forced out of Heaven for being thinkers. Only for being impenitent sinners.
So, in summary, this book is about presenting a convincing case for the divinity of Jesus, and it does an excellent job. There's not much more to say about it than that.
