The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
I finished this book on April 1, 2017. By sheer coincidence, I finished this book a week before the movie was released. So last night we went to see the movie. I wasn't sure how they'd pull off a movie based on the book, but it was remarkably well done, and it's such a powerful film to see the journey Lee took from atheism to Christianity. People often wonder how I started my journey with Christ, and specifically why after I've established my faith in Christianity that I continue to go deeper, particularly with books about the history of Jesus Christ, the authenticity of the New Testament, and the proof that God not only exists, but gave his one and only Son, to live the life we should have lived, die the death we should have died, and on the third day was resurrected, and that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. It's really quite simple. I got a late start in my faith journey. So I have a lot of catching up to do from a standpoint of educating myself. But more than that, I find it extremely powerful to see that even for those without faith, or are struggling in their faith, that if you follow the historical evidence, without presumption of prejudice, the facts will undoubtedly build the case for Christ, and you'll be left with the decision that Lee had to make — when is enough proof enough? The New Testament is without question the most studied and scrutinized texts in history, and I encourage anyone, regardless of where they are in their spiritual journey, to dig deeper, and to study and research the Gospels and Jesus for themselves, and start asking the hard questions, until you find the truth. Start with the New Testament, and read it. It's amazing how many people refuse to believe something they have decided before even reading it or researching it themselves. It might be messy at first, it might be painful too, and inevitably you may walk away with more questions than you started with. But wouldn't you want to know if all this Jesus stuff was true? Don't take it from me, read the book, read the quotes below, and more importantly — read the Bible! Why not start your journey today?
"They were willing to live out their beliefs even to the point of ten of the eleven remaining disciples being put to grisly deaths, which shows great character."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"There is enough of a discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them; and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction."
― Simon Greenleaf
"These disciples had nothing to gain except criticism, ostracism, and martyrdom. They certainly had nothing to win financially. If anything, this would have provided pressure to keep quiet, to deny Jesus, to downplay him, even to forget they ever met him — yet because of their integrity, they proclaimed what they saw, even when it meant suffering and death."
― Craig L. Blomberg, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must... declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied — a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for its holy words... The New Testament [is] unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use."
― Benjamin Warfield
"For me, the historical evidence has reinforced my commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God who loves us and died for us and was raised from the dead. It's that simple."
― Edwin M. Yamauchi, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The physician and historian Luke authored both the gospel bearing his name and the book of Acts, which together constitute about one-quarter of the entire New Testament... And given the large portion of the New Testament written by him, it's extremely significant that Luke has been established to be a scrupulously accurate historian, even in the smallest details."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Those who know the facts now recognize that the New Testament must be accepted as a remarkably accurate source book."
― Clifford Wilson
"I don't want to base my life on a symbol. I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality."
― Gregory A. Boyd, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"It's like this: if you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, but it's rooted in the facts about that person."
― Gregory A. Boyd, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"To have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it's rooted in the historical facts about him. I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical facts about him. I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence, but my relationship with Jesus goes away beyond the evidence. I have to put my trust in him and walk with him on a daily basis."
― Gregory A. Boyd, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The real issue is, what happened after the crucifixion of Jesus that changed the minds of the disciples, who had denied, disobeyed, and deserted Jesus? Very simply, something happened to them that was similar to what Jesus experienced at his baptism — it was confirmed to them that what they had hoped Jesus was, he was."
― Ben Witherington III, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Jesus believed he was on a divine mission, and the mission was to redeem the people of God. The implication is that the people of God were lost and that God had to do something — as he had always done — to intervene and set them back on the right track. But there was a difference this time. This was the last time. This was the last chance."
― Ben Witherington III, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"And here's where the paradox gets as quizzical as it can possibly get: the way God was going to save the world was by his Son dying. The most human of all human acts — to die."
― Ben Witherington III, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Why is there no other first-century Jew who has millions of followers today? Why isn't there a John the Baptist movement? Why, of all first-century figures, including the Roman emperors, is Jesus still worshiped today, while the others have crumbled into the dust of history? It's because this Jesus — the historical Jesus — is also the living Lord. That's why. It's because he's still around, while the others are long gone."
― Ben Witherington III, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"He was loving but didn't let his compassion immobilize him; he didn't have a bloated ego, even though he was often surrounded by adoring crowds; he maintained balance despite an often demanding lifestyle; he always knew what he was doing and where he was going; he cared deeply about people, including women and children, who weren't seen as being important back then; he was able to accept people while not merely winking at their sin; he responded to individuals based on where they were at and what they uniquely needed."
― Gary R. Collins, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Jesus didn't just claim to be God — he backed it up with amazing feats of healing, with astounding demonstrations of power over nature, with transcendent and unprecedented teaching, with divine insights into people, and ultimately with his own resurrection from the dead, which absolutely nobody else has been able to duplicate. So when Jesus claimed to be God, it wasn't crazy. It was the truth."
― Gary R. Collins, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Justice is not always done in this world; we see that every day. But on the Last Day it will be done for all to see. And no one will be able to complain by saying, 'This isn't fair.'"
― Donald A. Carson, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"He came to free men and women from their sins. And here's my point: what his message does is transform people so they begin to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbor as themselves."
― Donald A. Carson, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"If you want lasting change, you've got to transform the hearts of human beings. And that was Jesus' mission."
― Donald A. Carson, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"That's the difference between you and the true God. When God creates something, everyone can see it. It's objective, not subjective."
― Louis S. Lapides, MDiv, ThM - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"I realized that if I were to accept Jesus into my life, there would have to be some significant changes in the way I was living."
― Louis S. Lapides, MDiv, ThM - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"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? That wouldn't make any sense."
― Louis S. Lapides, MDiv, ThM - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The pain was absolutely unbearable. In fact, it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word: excruciating. Literally, excruciating means 'out of the cross.' Think of that: they needed to create a new word, because there was nothing in the language that could describe the intense anguish caused during the crucifixion."
― Alexander Metherell, MD, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"What could possibly have motivated Jesus to willingly allow himself to be degraded and brutalized the way that he did?"
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"It would have been simply a contradiction of terms for an early Jew to say that someone was raised from the dead but his body still was left in the tomb. So when this early Christian creed says Jesus was buried and then raised on the third day, it's saying implicitly but quite clearly: an empty tomb was left behind."
― William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The core of the story is the same: 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."
― William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"True, the discovery of the empty tomb is differently described by the various gospels, but if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was, indeed, found empty."
― Michael Grant - Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels
"The differences between the empty tomb narratives suggest that we have multiple, independent attestation of the empty tomb story."
― William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Jesus was in the tomb Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning — under the way the Jews conceptualized time back then, this would have counted as three days."
― William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Women's testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren't even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of law. In light of this, it's absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women who were friends of Jesus. Any later legendary account would have certainly portrayed male disciples as discovering the tomb — Peter or John, for example. 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, even if it was embarrassing. This bespeaks the historicity of this tradition rather than its legendary status."
― William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"I would argue that the hypothesis 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. That, I would agree, is outlandish. 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. All it requires is the hypothesis that God exists, and I think there are good independent reasons for believing that he does. As long as the existence of God is even possible, it's possible that he acted in history by raising Jesus from the dead."
― William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Because science is all about causes and effects. We don't see dinosaurs; we study 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. So, 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? If you can establish those two things, you've made your case, because dead people don't normally do that."
― Gary Habermas, PhD, DD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Even the more skeptical historians agree that for the primitive Christianity... the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was a real event in history, the very foundation of faith, and not a mythical idea arising out of the creative imagination of believers."
― Carl Braaten
"Sometimes people just grasp at straws trying to account for the appearances. But nothing fits all the evidence better than the explanation that Jesus was alive."
― Gary Habermas, PhD, DD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"When Jesus was crucified, his followers were discouraged and depressed. They no longer had confidence that Jesus had been sent by God, because they believed anyone crucified was accursed by God. They also had been taught that God would not let his Messiah suffer death. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks. Then, after a short period of time, we see them abandoning their occupations, regathering, and committing themselves to spreading a very specific message — that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God who died on a cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by them. And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view. It's not as though there were a mansion awaiting them on the Mediterranean. They faced a life of hardship. They often went without food, slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned. And finally, most of them were executed in torturous ways. For what? For good intentions? No, because they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead. What you can't explain is how this particular group of men came up with this particular belief without having had an experience of the resurrected Christ. There's no other adequate explanation."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The apostles were willing to die for something they had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands. They were in a unique position not to just believe Jesus rose from the dead but to know for sure. And when you've got eleven credible people with no ulterior motives, with nothing to gain and a lot to lose, who all agree they observed something with their own eyes — now you've got some difficulty explaining that away."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"People will die for their religious beliefs if they sincerely believe they're true, but people won't die for their religious beliefs if they know their beliefs are false. While most people can only have faith that their beliefs are true, the disciples were in a position to know without a doubt whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead. They claimed that they saw him, talked with him, and ate with him. If they weren't absolutely certain, they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be tortured to death for proclaiming that the Resurrection had happened."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
(Regarding Saul) "As a Pharisee, he hated anything that disrupted the traditions of the Jewish people. To him, this new countermovement called Christianity would have been the height of disloyalty. In fact, he worked out his frustration by executing Christians when he had a chance. Suddenly he doesn't just ease off Christians but joins their movement! How did that happen? Well, everyone agrees Paul wrote Galatians, and he tells us himself in that letter what caused him to take a 180-degree turn and become the chief proponent of the Christian faith. By his own pen he says he saw the risen Christ and heard Christ appoint him to be one of his followers."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"How can you possibly explain why in a short period of time not just one Jew but an entire community of at least ten thousand Jews were willing to give up these five key practices that had served them sociologically and theologically for so many centuries? My explanation is simple: they had seen Jesus risen from the dead."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Keep in mind that this is an entire community of people who are abandoning treasured beliefs that have been passed on for centuries and that they believed were from God himself. They were doing it even though they were jeopardizing their own well-being, and they also believed they were risking the damnation of their souls to hell if they were wrong. What's more, they were not doing this because they had come upon better ideas. They were very content with the old traditions. They gave them up because they had seen miracles that they could not explain and that forced them to see the world another way."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Believe me, these changes to the Jewish social structures were not just minor adjustments that were casually made — they were absolutely monumental. This was nothing short of a social earthquake. And earthquakes don't happen without a cause."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Baptism was a celebration of the death of Jesus, just as Communion was. By going under the water, you're celebrating his death, and by being brought out of the water, you're celebrating the fact that Jesus was raised to the newness of life."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it with?"
― C. F. D. Moule
"Remember, there's no doubt these facts are true; what's in question is how to explain them. And I've never seen a better explanation than the Resurrection."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt."
― Sir Lionel Luckhoo
"There's one other category of evidence you haven't asked about. It's the ongoing encounter with the resurrected Christ that happens all over the world, in every culture, to people from all kinds of backgrounds and personalities — well educated and not, rich and poor, thinkers and feelers, men and women. They all will testify that more than any single thing in their lives, Jesus Christ has changed them. To me, this provides the final evidence — not the only evidence but the final confirming proof — that the message of Jesus can open the door to a direct encounter with the risen Christ."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Use your mind calmly and weigh the evidence, and then let experience be a confirming piece of evidence."
― J.P. Moreland, PhD - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The harmony among the gospels on essential facts, coupled with divergence on some details, lends historical credibility to the accounts. What's more, the early church couldn't have taken root and flourished right there in Jerusalem if it had been teaching facts about Jesus that his own contemporaries could have exposed as exaggerated or false."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The modern New Testament is 99.5 percent free of textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrines in doubt. The criteria used by the early church to determine which books should be considered authoritative have ensured that we possess the best records about Jesus."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Against astronomical odds — one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion — Jesus, and only Jesus throughout history, matched this prophetic fingerprint. This confirms Jesus' identity to an incredible degree of certainty."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"The empty grave is reported or implied in extremely early sources — Mark's gospel and in 1 Corinthians 15 creed — which date so close to the event that they could not possibly have been products of legend. The fact that these gospels report that women discovered the empty tomb bolsters the story's authenticity. The site of Jesus' tomb was known to both Christian and Jew alike, so it could have been checked by skeptics. In fact, nobody, not even the Roman authorities or Jewish leaders, ever claimed that the tomb still contained Jesus' body. Instead, they were forced to invent the absurd story that the disciples, despite having no motive or opportunity, had stolen the body — a theory that not even the most skeptical critic believes today."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"First, the disciples were in a unique position to know whether the Resurrection happened, and they went to their deaths proclaiming it was true. Nobody knowingly and willingly dies for a lie. Second, apart from the Resurrection, there's no good reason why skeptics like Paul and James would have been converted and would have died for their faith. Third, within weeks of the Crucifixion, thousands of Jews began abandoning key social practices that had critical sociological and religious importance for centuries. They believed they risked damnation if they were wrong. Fourth, the early sacraments of Communion and baptism affirmed Jesus' resurrection and deity. And fifth, the miraculous emergence of the church in the face of brutal Roman persecution “rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection”."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"There was simply nowhere near enough time for mythology to thoroughly corrupt the historical record of Jesus, especially in the midst of eyewitnesses who still had personal knowledge of him."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"Yes, I had to take a step of faith, as we do in every decision we make in life. But here's the critical distinction: I was no longer trying to swim upstream against the strong current of evidence; instead I was choosing to go in the same direction that the torrent of facts was flowing. That was reasonable, that was rational, that was logical. What's more, in an inner and inexplicable way, it was also what I sensed God's spirit was nudging me to do."
― Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic... or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
― C. S. Lewis
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