Lógos Sokratikós

I guess this has already been discussed in BC&H, but I'm not a regular on it, so...

I read a few months ago Lee Stroebel's "A Case for Faith (or via: amazon.co.uk)". I recommend this book to you all, it's loaded with interesting stuff. Anyway...


I feel that the whole book's structure of belief rests upon the empty tomb argument. In a way, I subjected the book to a REBT-style debate where for every argument I'd go "How do you know that?" until I arrived at this conclusion (that it all rests on the empty tomb), because, in the end the question why believe in Christ is because he shows some signs which are miraculous.

The empty tomb argument in the book goes something like (correct me if it doesn't) the Jews' reaction to the claim presumes that the tomb was empty. This is as far a piece of evidence you will have in antiquity (in the absence of artifacts of course). Let's suppose it's true: there was such a Jewish reaction, and that this might serve as truth.

Nevertheless, it just occurred to me a serious objection: The Jews could have been vicitms of the complex question fallacy.

They would have been rhetorically "forced" to answer the question, and no matter how the question was answered ('yes' or 'no') it will always appear as if they assumed it was empty.

Therefore, even under "light" criteria of what can be accepted of evidence, the empty tomb still doesn't pass the test.

spamandham

So, we have Jews being depicted as supporting the concept of an empty tomb, in books written and promulgated by Christians, and this is seen by Strobel as some kind of argument!?

Is it possible to be more laughably biased than this?

The simplest explanation is, that the stories regarding the Jews saying these things, are simply not true.

Chris Weimer

Why read Strobel? I had a hard enough time tearing C. S. Lewish apart for his inanity, I couldn't imagine struggling through Strobel. Every other sentence of his could contain a page's worth of refutation.

Dean Anderson

When discussing things on other boards, I regularly get people (i.e. fundamentalists) telling me to read Strobel because they think it will miraculously convert me - or asserting that Strobel's book "proves" that Jesus is who he says he is.

I am very tempted to read the book and write a review/refutation that I can stick online somewhere and point people at when they make these demands and assertions.

So the reason to read Strobel - even though everything I have heard about the book indicates that it would be a fruitless and frustrating endeavour - is because regardless of what we think of its quality, it is a very popular book amongst evangelicals and reading it means that we can discuss (and dismiss) it with authority rather than from hearsay.

The thing that is stopping me is that I don't want to buy the damn thing and give money to this two-bit charlatan - and it is not so popular here in the UK, so my local libraries don't have copies I could borrow.

Chris Weimer

You could buy it second-hand, or ask a Christian to give it to you as a gift. It was given to me as a gift...

ughaibu

Inter-library loan system, very convenient.

Doug Shaver

I read his Case for Christ and Case for Faith because so many Christians were assuring me that he had all answers.

Then I wrote a critique of each book and posted it on my Web site. Now, when Christians tell me how good he is, I refer them to my critiques and I ask them to tell me where I went wrong. So far, I've never gotten a response.

Except for one. In my critique of Case for Christ, I call Strobel to task for pretending to do journalism. A Christian once tried to tell me the book was not really bad journalism.

Dilettante

I haven't read a 'A Case for Faith', but I did read 'The Case for Christ', which appears to be essentially the same book. It was given to me as a gift. It's worth a read, because it is a compendium of the most common popular apologetics. It was painful for me to read, because Stroebel mentions dozens of times how he's a trained journalist with an unquenchable thirst for truth and a sharp-minded, unswerving devotion to rational inquiry. He's so self-congratulatory, it's sickening. The book itself is a compendium of 'Liar, Lord, or Lunatic'-type fallacies and historically inaccurate assertions that will get you laughed out of any serious discussion.

The really pernicious part of the book is the psuedo-journalistic tone that he continually reinforces. He goes to great lengths to convince the reader he's giving both sides of the story, however, the experts he interviews only come from Christian-sources. He presents and summarily rejects all non Christian claims without any serious analysis or expert testimony (he essentially dismisses all modern biblical scholarship, calling them 'just theories').

The result is, to someone who has no background knowledge of the biblical history and takes his claim of 'hard-minded fairness' at face value, his results seem very plausible. Upon closer scrutiny, it's really crappy, second-rate apologetics. You can get more plausible explanations on online these days, his books were written pre-Internet. One positive note, at least, is that he doesn't seem to present an anti-scientific message. He doesn't talk about creation science or evolution as a fraud (though I think he does briefly present the basic arguments of intelligent design).

All in all, a worthwhile read for those really interested in knowing what mainline and conservative Christians are taught is the backing of their religion. It is not at all useful as a serious apologetic.

Cheerful Charlie

Because may people do read Strobel. And buy his arguments.

CC

Cheerful Charlie

You don't have to. Google "strobel, debunked" and you will find numerous websites that have done the work for you.

CC