Outlining Lee Strobel's Case for Christ

I am right now listening to the audiobook version of Lee Strobel's A Case for Christ. I am outlining the book as I listen to it. I will flesh out the outline as I progress through the book:

Outline of Lee Strobel's A Case for Christ

By Zeteo Eurisko

The book is comprised of several interviews with many of conservative Christendom's most noted scholars. These are my uncritical notes, taken simply to ensure that I understand the major points of the book.

Part 1. Examining the Record

1. The Eyewitness Evidence: Can the biographies of Jesus be trusted? (Dr. Craig Blomberg)
2. Testing the Eyewitness Evidence: Do the biographies of Jesus stand up to scrutiny? (Dr. Craig Blomberg)
3. The Documentary Evidence: Were Jesus' biographies reliably preserved for us? (Dr. Bruce Metzger)
4. The Corroborating Evidence: Is there credible evidence for Jesus outside his biographies? (Dr. Edwin Yamauchi)
5. The Scientific Evidence: Does archeology confirm or contradict Jesus' biographies? (Dr. John McRay)
6. The Rebuttal Evidence: Is the Jesus of history the same as the Jesus of faith? (Dr. Gregory Boyd)

Part 2. Analyzing Jesus

7. The Identity Evidence: Was Jesus really convinced that he was the son of God? (Dr. Ben Witherington III)
8. The Psychological Evidence: Was Jesus crazy when he claimed to be the son of God? (Dr. Gary Collins)
9. The Profile Evidence: Did Jesus fulfill the attributes of God? (Dr. D.A. Carson)
10. The Fingerprint Evidence: Did Jesus – and Jesus alone – match the identity of the messiah? (Louis Lapides, M.Div., Th.M.)

Part 3. Researching the Resurrection

11. The Medical Evidence: Was Jesus' death a sham and his resurrection a hoax? (Dr. Alexander Metherell)
12. The Evidence of the Missing Body: Was Jesus' body really absent from his tomb? (Dr. William Lane Craig)
13. The Evidence of Appearances: Was Jesus seen alive after his death on the cross? (Dr. Gary Habermas)
14. The Circumstantial Evidence: Are there any supporting facts that point to the resurrection? (Dr. J.P. Moreland)

Conclusion: The Verdict of History

* What does the evidence establish – and what does it mean today?

Why (Ravi Zacharias) is not an Atheist

After not posting for a long time, I'm back. I listened through four 30-minute MP3's worth of Ravi Zacharias' messages on "Why I am not an Atheist, 1 & 2" and "Is Atheism Dead, Is God Alive? 1 & 2". In these two talks he makes the following main points:

1. Without God there is no Law -- How else do we define absolutes?
2. Without God there is no Hope -- Theism answers the question of death.
3. Without God there is no Meaning -- God supplies meaning to our actions while we live.

In the "Not an atheist" talk he adds to these a fourth -- "Without God there is no Recovery." By this he posits the classic Pascal's Wager argument that after guessing against God and being wrong -- going to Hell to burn for all eternity -- there's no chance for recovery.

While listening to both of these, I had the following thoughts, which he never addressed. First, why can we claim that we are owed Law, Hope, or Meaning. Innately, we wish for justice. We want to have eternal hope. We would like to think that our lives mean something.

I agree that the theistic worldview gives answers to these three neatly, but the bigger question is -- are they the right answers? Life is easier with theistic answers, but who says that we are owed Law, Hope, or Meaning? His argument strikes me as this: he wishes it so, it gives his life internal consistency, so it must be. Why, other than wishing, are we owed these three?

A second comment is this: he defines all atheists as positive atheists. It's easy to attack a positive atheist who claims definitively that there is no God. It's harder to address the position of an agnostic who claims we don't know if there is a God.

Finally, a comment on Pascal's Wager. If we bet for God, and there is none, then we have spent our entire lives striving for a false religion while never stopping to appreciate that what we have now is all there is or will ever be. I'm not solving the argument of God/no God, its just an observation.