The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is a missionary tool for the converted. It is not written to convert, but rather, to convince the faithful, and those who want to become faithful, of the correctness of their faith. Each section begins with an application of the style of evidence presented. For example, when he talks about testimony, he draws on his experience as a reporter to show the value of testimony in criminal investigation. Each section ends with study questions. In between, he interviews theologians, whose academic credentials he lists extensively. The interviews are informative, if soft, and readable, the application sections and study questions were annoying asides.

It is my intention to write an opinion that can be seen as an assault on all similar magical thinking and not just Christianity. For while the particual book is pro-Christian, the lessons drawn are general to the claims for historicity of all forms of spirituality.

Each chapter's summary discuss the reliability of some aspect of the New Testament record. Either the testimonies, some details, the non-Biblical records, or the characters are argued to be reliable. But the record is a record of the earliest Christian opinion of Jesus. Whether or not the people who believed Jesus to be Christ thought he was divine is not at question, of course they did. The germane question is whether Jesus, or any other similar religiious hero, can be reliably said to be divine.

To Strobel, this more relevant question is answered "yes" based on the Gospel record's historical proximity to Jesus. In fact, the proximity is "what clenched it" (p. 357) for Strobel. Strobel quotes the work of A. N. Sherwin-White to show that too short a time passed between the time of Jesus and the writing of the records (the New Testament scriptures) to have mythologized Jesus into the recorded Christ. Since the records are reliable, then Jesus is Christ.

Of course, Sherwin-White's area of expertise is history and the work Strobel sites (Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament) is a study of Roman law and customs extant in the relevant period, not a study on myth creation. Sherwin-White goes to great detail to show the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles reflect what is known about Roman and Jewish society in the first century B.C.E. through the third century C.E. and, primarily, the first and early second centuries C.E. Sherwin-White's statement that not enough time elapsed to mythologize Jesus into Christ is not expert testimony (to borrow the legalized method Strobel uses), but, rather, is non-expert opinion (in the matter of myth). An expert on mythology, Joseph Campbell, makes a similar claim to Sherwin-White's. On page 162 of volume one of the great Masks of God series Campbell reasons, that is, logically supports, that a tale recorded in 1912, the "Legend of the Destruction of Kash", could be almost unchanged from it's likely inception in the third century B.C.E. A story being retold, nearly in its original form from 2200 years in the past! By Strobel's and Sherwin-White's criteria that has got to be a true record of an event...but that doesn't change that the story is a myth.

For this writer's purpose, these are the flaws in Strobel's argument:1) the opinion that historic records, written in or near their subject time, are obviously accurate; and 2) that a long period of time must elapse to make a myth.

These flawed arguments are not only in the Christian stories. I imagine ancient Egyptians and Greeks used to think their stories were similarly evident and historical. How can Osiris' story be doubted? Who can doubt Herakles' was here? Do you question the priests' wisdom? Such strict reliance on authority extends, probably, back before Egypt, and definitetly into today.

Sherwin-White, speaking to the second point, writes "...however strong the myth-forming tendency, the falsification does not automatically and absolutely prevail..." and "...those who had a passionate interest in the story of Christ, even if their interest was parabolical and didactic rather than historical, would not be led by that very fact to pervert and utterly destroy the historical kernal of their material" (both quotes from page 191 of the 1963 Oxford University Press edition of "Roman Society"). This strikes this writer as a very definite "maybe" (see note below) from Strobel and Sherwin-White to which I write: No religious hero is unassailable, except to the followers of that hero.

Although Lee Strobel is diligent in his attempt to take faith out of the realm of personal faith, and place it (faith) in the column marked "obvious truth", he doesn't, and, in fact, can't. See the following file of mine for a short and general discussion on religious history from elsewhere within this web space.

Note:
Sherwin-White's argument is very different as an historical criticism then Freud's in Moses and Monotheism or Jaynes' The Origin of Conscious in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. The latter two take historical writing and develop theories around those writings, expanding their meanings by synthesis of multiple sources. The former, Sherwin-White, does not synthesize a new criticism of the New Testament. Rather he proves the writings are from a definite and narrow historical period and accepts them as objectively writen history. It is this acceptance that removes the criticism, the synthesizing, and the objectivity, leaving a "definite maybe".

Last update: 5/30/01