The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus

by Lee Strobel

A good case can be made for saying that Christian belief in the Resurrection, though not yet written down, can be dated to within two years of that very event.

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.

“Ironically,” I pointed out, “if the gospels had been identical to each other, word for word, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired among themselves to coordinate their stories in advance, and that would have cast doubt on them.”

“Besides, 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.”

“I don’t believe so,” Blomberg replied. “We have a picture of what was initially a very vulnerable and fragile movement that was being subjected to persecution. If critics could have attacked it on the basis that it was full of falsehoods or distortions, they would have. “But,” he emphasized in conclusion, “that’s exactly what we don’t see.”

Before a journalist can publish their contents or a prosecutor can admit the documents as evidence in a trial, steps must be taken to make sure they’re genuine.

“The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book—a form that is 99.5 percent pure.”

“For example, although the Gathas of Zoroaster, about 1000 B.C., are believed to be authentic, most of the Zoroastrian scriptures were not put into writing until after the third century A.D. The most popular Parsi biography of Zoroaster was written in A.D. 1278. “The scriptures of Buddha, who lived in the sixth century B.C., were not put into writing until after the Christian era, and the first biography of Buddha was written in the first century A.D. Although we have the sayings of Muhammad, who lived from A.D. 570 to 632, in the Koran, his biography was not written until 767—more than a full century after his death.

As authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon concluded in a book on the topic, “In other words, no Book of Mormon cities have ever been located, no Book of Mormon person, place, nation, or name has ever been found, no Book of Mormon artifacts, no Book of Mormon scriptures, no Book of Mormon inscriptions . . . nothing which demonstrates the Book of Mormon is anything other than myth or invention has ever been found.”

They want to take their findings out of the ivory tower and bring them into the marketplace to influence popular opinion. And what they have in mind is a totally new form of Christianity.”

Well, first, his biographer, Philostratus, was writing a century and a half after Apollonius lived, whereas the gospels were written within a generation of Jesus. The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development, for error, or for memories to get confused.

Plus the gospels pass the standard tests used to assess historical reliability, but we can’t say that about the stories of Apollonius.

Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to Apollonius. She was a follower of Apollonius, so Philostratus would have had a financial motive to embellish the story and give the empress what she wanted. On the other hand, 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.

“As for the suggestion that the New Testament doctrines of baptism or communion come from mystery religions, that’s just nonsense. For one thing, the evidence for these supposed parallels comes after the second century, so any borrowing would have come from Christianity, not the other way around.

“As for Q, it’s not a discovery but a theory that has been around for one and a half centuries, which tries to account for the material that Luke and Matthew have in common. What’s new is the highly questionable way that left-wing scholars are using their presuppositions to slice this hypothetical Q into various layers of legendary development to back up their preconceived theories.”

“So Secret Mark is a nonexistent work cited by a now nonexistent text by a late second-century writer who’s known for being naive about these things. The vast majority of scholars don’t give this any credibility. Unfortunately, those who do get a lot of press, because the media love the sensational.

“If the Twelve represent a renewed Israel, where does Jesus fit in?” he asked. “He’s not just part of Israel, not merely part of the redeemed group, he’s forming the group—just as God in the Old Testament formed his people and set up the twelve tribes of Israel. That’s a clue about what Jesus thought of himself.”

“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.”

What’s more, the Jewish community would have jumped on any opportunity to discredit the gospels by pointing out falsehoods.