The Case For Christ

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commentator Paul Harvey likes to say, "the rest of the story." I needed to know if there was any credible rebuttal evidence to refute these troubling and widely publicized opinions. Were the Jesus Seminar's findings solidly based on unbiased scholarly research, or were they like Passeri's ill-fated testimony: well meaning but ultimately unsupported? For answers, I made the sixhour drive to St. Paul, Minnesota, to confer with Dr. Gregory Boyd, the Ivy League-educated theology professor whose books and articles have challenged the Jesus Seminar head-on. THE FIFTH INTERVIEW: GREGORY A. BOYD, PH.D. Boyd first clashed with the Jesus Seminar in 1996, when he wrote a devastating critique of liberal perspectives of Jesus, called Cynic Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies. The heavily footnoted, 416-page tome was honored by readers of Christianity Today as one of their favorite books of the year. His popular paperback Jesus under Siege continues the same themes on a more introductory level. Boyd's other books include the award-winning Letters from a Skeptic, in which he and his then-doubting father wrestle through tough issues involving Christianity (culminating in his father becoming a committed Christian), and God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict. In addition, he was a contributing scholar to The Quest Study Bible, which was designed for people who are asking intellectual questions about the Christian faith. After receiving a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Minnesota, Boyd earned a master of divinity degree (cum laude) from Yale University Divinity School and a doctorate (magna cum laude) from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is not, however, a stereotypical ivory tower intellectual. With wavy black hair, a wiry frame, and a wry smile, Boyd looks like the academic counterpart of comedian Howie Mandell. And like Mandell, he is pure kinetic energy. Words gush from him like water from a ruptured pipe. He spins out sophisticated ideas and theological concepts at a dizzying rate. He fidgets, he gestures, he squirms in his chair. There's no time to tuck in his shirt all the way, to file the flurry of papers strewn about his office, or to shelve the books that sit in untidy stacks on his floor. He's too busy thinking, debating, questioning, wondering, dreaming, contemplating, inventing-and tackling one project after another. In fact, one career can't
contain him. In addition to his position as professor of theology at Bethel College, he's also a pastor at Woodland Hills Church, where his passionate preaching has helped attendance grow from forty-two in 1992 to twenty-five hundred today. This real world environment helps anchor him in the reality of everyday life. For fun, he debates atheists. He grappled with the late Gordon Stein on the topic "Does God Exist?" He and pastor-turned-skeptic Dan Barker sparred over "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?" And in a program sponsored by the Islamic Center of Minnesota, he challenged a Muslim on the issue "Is God a Trinity?" Boyd's agile mind, quick wit, empathy with people, and deep reservoir of biblical and philosophical knowledge make him a formidable foe. What's more, he blends popular culture and serious scholarship as well as anyone I know. He knows football as well as footnotes. He can start a sentence with an offhand observation about a new movie and end it with a stratospheric reference to a profound philosophical conundrum. He's as comfortable reading Dilbert or watching Seinfeld as he is writing his impressive book Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne Di-Polar Theism towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics. His casual and colloquial style (what other biblical scholar gets away with words like "funky" and "wacko"?) quickly made me feel at home as we squeezed into his second-floor office. It was soon clear that Boyd was wound up and ready to go. WRITINGS FROM THE RADICAL FRINGE I decided to start from the perspective of the average consumer of news. "People pick up a magazine or newspaper, read the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar, and assume that this represents the mainstream of New Testament scholarship," I said. "But is that really the case?" "No," he said, looking as if he had just bitten into something sour. "No, no, that's not the case. But you're right-people get that impression." He rocked in his chair until he got comfortable enough to tell a story. "When Time came out with its first major article on the Jesus Seminar," he said, "I happened to be in the process of talking about Christianity with a guy whom I was building a relationship with. He was very skeptical by nature and quite inebriated with New Age ideas. We had a mutual friend who was hospitalized, and when I went to visit him, this other guy was already there, reading Time. As I walked into the room, he said
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The Case For Christ By: Lee Strobel
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CONTENTS Introduction: Reopening th
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assistance; Chad Meister and Bob an
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"Check out the evidence yourself,"
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make mistakes. Looking through thos
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ooks, college professors, family me
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and yanked the trigger. The gun roa
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Blomberg's books include Jesus and
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granted that exception, the rest of
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that gave meaning to a period of hi
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crowd of journalists that once corn
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merely emphasizing that 'he was a f
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Holocaust. But it has been the Jewi
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was written before Paul was put to
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which is cited by Christians as the
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they couldn't find one. They questi
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going to be returning during their
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actually, scrolls of papyrus-were r
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3. THE CHARACTER TEST This test loo
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about Mark and Luke saying that Jes
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ever met him yet because of their i
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"In addition, we can learn through
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us the full story about Jesus? I lo
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But the most eye-popping cache of d
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Theological Seminary and both a mas
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"Quite so," he replied. "And this i
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Page 90 and 91: People thought Josephus was wrong,
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Page 94 and 95: Still, there were some matters I ne
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Page 114 and 115: athed in its blood and guts. Then t
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Page 118 and 119: But your love goes beyond that. You
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Page 134 and 135: 146 THE CASE FOR CHRIST Shock; Can
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Page 140 and 141: I laughed. "I told you it was an in
Page 142 and 143: it's quite another to embody the ch
Page 144 and 145: Now, Jesus claims to be God. But do
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Page 148 and 149: type of thing. That's getting Close
Page 150 and 151: "If you're going to quote Colossian
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e done for all to see. And no one w
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followed by the 'new man.' Trouble
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himself and being born into humble
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validate the credentials of the aut
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I shook my head, saddened at the th
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throwing Eastern philosophy at them
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though he had done no violence, nor
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that God objectively spoke to my he
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would respond. 1. The Coincidence A
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issued a decree for the Jewish peop
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For Further Evidence More Resources
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stabbing of Jesus by the Roman sold
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specifically, to the Garden of Geth
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that day and went on to the cross-w
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tension on the muscles would be eas
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to the cross by ropes.' Won't you c
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A QUESTION FOR THE HEART Convincing
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McDowell, Josh. The Resurrection Fa
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gaze, Craig still looks the role of
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Bible in my lap and quickly reviewe
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the Jews would gather the bones of
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the disciples faking one, this woul
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contradiction says, 'This cannot be
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"Jesus said in Matthew 12:40, 'For
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Essentially, he said a major argume
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the empty tomb. In other words, the
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But I had heard the tapes of the de
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a car, drive to Lynchburg, and make
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"When I was young, I was reading a
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convinced," he insisted indignantly
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willing to be interviewed. Now, sto
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people in the gospels and Acts-some
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MARKS MISSING CONCLUSION When I fir
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central proclamation of the earlies
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Christians-how did they get talked
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death in 1995. And do you know what
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Ask Timothy McVeigh. He may have th
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eaten, imprisoned. And finally, mos
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Muhammad's conversion to Islam as b
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they could be in right standing wit
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together to celebrate his teachings
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and the amazing emergence and growt
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willing to lay down your life for a
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IS THERE CREDIBLE EVIDENCE FOR JESU
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DID JESUS-AND JESUS ALONE-MATCH THE
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evidence that Jesus is the unique S
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Evidence? By November 8, 1981, my l
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cross of Jesus to bridge that gulf.
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case for Christ is conclusive. The
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Boyd, Gregory A. Cynic Sage or Son
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Gruenler-Royce Gordon Cruenler, New
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O'Collins-Gerald O'Collins, The Eas
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NOTES INTRODUCTION: REOPENING THE I
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Press, 1996), 196-97. 10. Paul L. M
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1. Leland H. Gregory 111, "Fop Ten
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The Case For Christ

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