The Case Against the Case for Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel

I should probably have given this a 4 star rating because Price's style is not always easy to follow. But I have given it a 5 to counter the unfair 1 star rating of another reviewer. We are honoured indeed to have such a doughty fighter as Price doing battle with the vast army of Christian apologists. His style is mockery, yes, but the mockery is deserved and often very funny. Earl Doherty's 'Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's "The Case of Christ"' is a worthy companion to this volume.

Obviously the U.K 2011 laws are good and the Bible has many points which agree.This is the sirloin steak of arguments against the supernatural claims of orthodox Christianity. I can remember as a teenager vaguely wishing that someone would explain the reasons why it was safe not to worry about extremist, pentecostal,Christ is going to return any minute now doctrine I was surrounded by . I was paralysed from asking or looking for such reasons by my desperation to believe, no matter what, to "be saved". My desperation was driven by fear. I think Robert M Price is humanities best friend. Price incinerates the arguments of orthodox fundamentalist Christianity. Price writes in a very clear, down to earth, witty, good humoured, easily read way. Sceptical anaylsis of the Bible turns it into a fascinating look at how the writings built up inspired by only a figment of peoples imagination. The sections of this Good book arePart 1. Examining the wreckage .Chapters:1.The Utter lack of eyewitness evidence. The gospels are not Biographies2. Testing the evidence of the gospels. Do the gospels stand up to scrutiny3. The Manuscript evidence; Do we have what the evangelists originally wrote?4. No Corroborating evidence; no reporters covered Jesus Beat5. The stones keep mum. How archaeology digs up a world without Jesus6. A butt-load of evidence. The Jesus seminar and mainstream Biblical researchPart 2 Using Jesus as a ventriloquist's dummy. Chapters:7 The identity crisis. Did Jesus memorize the Nicene creed8 The psychology of heresy. Must Apologists be crazy when they say Jesus Believed he was God9 The piffle evidence. Could a finite Jesus correspond in any way to an infinite God10 The finger-paint evidence. A mess of messianic prophecyPart 3.Rationalizing the Resurrection. Chapters:11 Dead man walking. The swoon theory12 The evidence of the empty argument. Was Jesus body ever in a tomb13 The appearance of evidence. Was Jesus seen in line at Burger King (of kings)14 The circumcision evidence. Is a supernatural resurrection the best explanation for folks no longer trimming their sons' foreskins? Conclusion; the failure of apologetics When I was a child my minister threatened me that if I went away from (his doctrine of ) christianity I would never be able to return and would realise my mistake too late and weep and wail. Well that is mental abuse but I suppose I shouldn't have been so gullible, naive and fearful. Courage brother do not stumble. Robert Price seems to have started off life in a similar Fundamentalist camp but was brave and read through all the arguments for and against. I weep and wail now that I didn't ask a librarian or a bookseller if they knew of books which gave all the arguments against the Bible. I wish I'd said nonsense to the Christian myth when I was a child. Snakes don't talk. The Miracles were fiction. Having said that, what does it mean "to walk away from Christianity"? I believe the UK 2011 laws are the best that man is likely to devise. There are ideas in the Bible which are similar to the UK law. In fact the O.T. puts its laws in a more definite, assertive way than UK law. The O.T. puts the laws as commands, Do not.., You shall not/ should not/ must not... Maybe alot of people like that way of talking and maybe it is something that they didn't hear from their parents. The Bible affirms some of the laws/rules that you believe to be good. It also affirms ideas such as love your neighbour and treat them as you wish to be treated. This could be good for children if they do not have a fully reasoned argument for and against particular behaviours. However why not read the UK laws more often in public, they are the relevant ones for now. I get the feeling from Robert Price that he thinks love is the guiding star and thing to aim for. Price has a great sense of morality. If there is a loving Good God then nothing will separate us from that God, not even believing God doesn't exist. You can get most of the arguments from cheaper books like "Why I became an atheist" by John W Loftus and "Trusting doubt" by Valerie Tarico but this book gives top quality arguments by Price and well worth the price. I think the verdict is that you can relax, there probably is no God. However it is possible to imagine an ideal personality that you aim to be like; loving, caring, strong, intelligent, good at making decisions, creative, patient, kind. Maybe this is what people call Christ, that probably is a good thing. An observation typical of Robert Price is that he notices a contradiction between Matt 28v19 which has Jesus tell the 11 disciples to "make disciples of all nations " but Acts 10 has Peter wonder if the gospel is just for Jews. Acts 10 does not have Peter wonder, "what did Jesus at Matt 28v19 mean ", no, it is as if Matt 28v19 words never happened. Could it be that they hadn't been made up at that point ?

Having read Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ", I wanted to read this book for an opposite viewpoint. However, I was disappointed: the language is too high-brow and difficult to understand. Even though I have a good English O level from a grammar school here in England, work as a technical writer and consider my vocabulary to be wide, I had to refer to my dictionary several times just to understand the blurb on the back cover. I started to read the first chapter but had to give up after a few pages because the language was just too heavy. I think that, if Robert Price wants to address readers of "The Case for Christ", he would do well to take a leaf out of Strobel's book and use plain English. In using pompous and intellectual language, I think that Price may have put off the very readers that he wants to reach.I also think that, in the short section that I read, Price covers a lot of points in quick succession, assuming that the reader is able to keep in mind their New Testament knowledge and what they remember of Strobel's arguments in order to follow his counter-arguments. This gave me the impression that Price was so desperate to put down his thoughts on paper that he didn't bother to spell them out more clearly.Overall, then, I remain to be convinced of a case against.