preview

The Case For Christ By Lee Strobel

Better Essays
Open Document

Introduction

Award-winning journalist, Lee Strobel wrote The Case for Christ to retrace and expand his journey toward becoming a Christian. Strobel once declared atheist, and now Christian, shares how he began to look upon the Bible and God. As an atheist, Strobel lived the life of selfishness and only worried to please himself. When his wife began to go to church he wasn’t very pleased until after he saw the positive and attractive change in her. This is the start of his curiosity and investigation about Christianity. To relate with his wife he decided to study about this and attend church services with her. Strobel interviewed thirteen leading scholars who defended their views concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament. …show more content…

126). Next, Strobel writes about his interview with Bruce Metzger concerning the reliability of the text in the New Testament. Since the original books of the New Testament was lost, how do we know that the copied text is identical to the memo? According to Metzger, "the more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like" (p. 76). Also, Strobel asked Metzger why some books weren’t included in the New Testament and his response was that the church did want to portray such pictures of Jesus in the canon, that the church only wanted the New Testament to contain only the best historical stories of Jesus. The next scholar interviewed was Edwin Yamauchi. He was asked about additional biblical proof that confirms the New Testament but he was not very convincing. The question for Strobel’s fourth interview was whether archeology increased or decreased the New Testaments reliability. Three New Testament statements are entirely unsupported by archaeology. First, the three hours of worldwide darkness during the crucifixion (Mark 15:33). Second, the resurrection of the saints, and their following appearance to many in Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53). Finally third, Jesus ' burial in the tomb.

Get Access