By John Sykes
As I stumbled up the narrow path, my two earliest and ever faithful disciplers, Bob and Susan Gallion, gave me my first Lee Strobel book. I proceeded to read everything Lee Strobel had written on his quest to face the many questions facing doubters and new Christians. He made my journey much easier. I had vowed to re-read at least 2 of his books every year. I didn’t!
So now, hoping that some doubter or needy Christian like me will get something out of these posts, I am going to periodically offer selections from his books that I hope will cause you to read the whole, wonderful book and help you up that wonderful path!
From The Case for Christ, here is one of the issues he investigated:
• CAN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF JESUS BE TRUSTED?
I once thought the gospels were merely religious propaganda, hopelessly tainted by overactive imaginations and evangelistic zeal. But Craig Blomberg of Denver Seminary, one of the country’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, built a convincing case that they reflect eyewitness testimony and bear the unmistakable earmarks of accuracy. So early are these accounts of Jesus’ life that they cannot be explained away as legendary invention. “Within the first two years after his death,” Blomberg said, “significant numbers of Jesus’ followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament.” A study indicates that there was nowhere near enough time for legend to have developed and wiped out a solid core of historical truth.
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