66 pages • 2 hours read
Lee StrobelThe Case For Christ
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Analyzing Jesus”
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “The Identity Evidence,” with Dr. Ben Witherington III
This chapter marks the beginning of Part 2 of The Case for Christ, titled “Analyzing Jesus.” Strobel begins by introducing readers to John Douglas, the original psychological profiler for the FBI. Douglas pioneered using crime scene evidence to extrapolate information about the person who committed the crime. More importantly for Strobel’s purposes, Douglas proves that a person can deduce an “individual’s psychological makeup” (186) from their actions. Strobel wants to know whether Jesus thought of himself as a rabbi, or teacher, or whether he truly believed himself to be the Son of God.
Strobel turns to Dr. Ben Witherington, a profess or at Asbury Theological Seminary, for answers. Witherington has spent most of his career researching the life of Jesus, so when Strobel asks whether Jesus thought he was the Son of God, Witherington answers in the affirmative. He walks Strobel through multiple pieces of evidence from the gospels and explains that Jesus rarely called himself the Son of God in public to avoid charges of blasphemy, which would have been “counterproductive to […] his efforts to get people to listen” (178). But Jesus clearly thought of himself as both separate and above even his closest followers, the twelve disciples, which Witherington says exemplifies Jesus’s belief in his own divinity.
He follows this argument up with a discussion of Jesus’s preaching. Witherington explains that his message shows that Jesus “sees himself as the one in whom and through whom the promises of God come to pass,” which is “a not-too-thinly-veiled claim of transcendence” (181). Not only that, but Jesus repeatedly bases his teaching on his own authority; this is in direct contrast to Judaism, which required multiple witnesses to establish the truth. Jesus makes that claim because he boasts an intimacy with God that comes from being his son. Witherington tells Strobel that Jesus calls God “Abba,” meaning father, at a time when Jews believed the name of god was “the most holy word you could speak” (182). This familiarity reinforces Witherington’s belief that Jesus fully believed he was the Son of God.
As a consequence, Witherington argues that Jesus’s ministry—and even his death—reveal that Jesus considered himself “the agent of God” who had been “appointed by God to bring in the climactic saving act of God in human history” (187). In other words, Jesus believed that as the Son of God, his job was to serve as the salvation for humanity. Ultimately, Witherington tells Strobel that the evidence points to Jesus’s legitimate belief in his divine heritage.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “The Psychological Evidence,” with Dr. Gary Collins
Although Strobel buys Witherington’s argument that Jesus believed he was divine, Strobel also realizes this begs another question: was Jesus insane? Strobel explains this is a critical legal question as well, which is why psychiatrists and psychologists often testify to a defendant’s mental competency. Strobel decides to meet with a trained psychologist, Dr. Gary R. Collins, to further investigate Jesus’s sanity. Collins was a professor of psychology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and now serves as the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. Strobel begins their interview by asking Collins whether Jesus suffered from delusional psychosis. Collins does not believe so and explains that Jesus does not demonstrate the inappropriate emotions or detachment from reality that characterize mental illness. More importantly, Collins asserts that Jesus’s claim to be the Son of God is not unfounded. Collins explains that Jesus “backed [his claim] up with amazing feats […] So when Jesus claimed to be God, it wasn’t crazy. It was the truth” (198).
Strobel challenges Collins’s assertion with two counterpoints. The first comes from a famous skeptic named Charles Templeton, who believes that Jesus’s ability to heal the sick was the placebo effect. Because people believed they could be healed, they got better. To Strobel’s surprise, Collins’s agrees with Templeton and believes that some of Jesus’s miracles could absolutely be psychosomatic. However, Collins’s points out that not all of them could be, especially those instances where the sick recovered immediately and completely. The second counterpoint Strobel introduces is from British author Ian Wilson, who believed Jesus was nothing more than a master hypnotist. Hypnosis “could explain the supposedly supernatural aspects of his life” (215), including exorcisms, healing, and even the resurrection. Collins is much less willing to concede ground to this point, and he explains that hypnotism does not work on everyone. Additionally, Collins says that hypnotism cannot affect a large crowd—like the one that witnessed Jesus transform water into wine—nor could it have convinced an entire populace that Jesus’s burial tomb was empty.
For his final question, Strobel asks about Jesus’s exorcisms and questions whether it is “rational to believe that evil spirits are responsible for some illnesses and bizarre behavior” (203). Collins calmly replies that while he has not witnessed any demonic possessions himself, some of his colleagues—who Collins believes are “not people who are inclined to see a demon behind every problem”(204)—have. More to the point, Collins does not believe demonic possession is an irrational belief. He explains to Strobel that psychology has begun to embrace spirituality as a whole as a legitimate practice. In fact, Collins argues that “many psychologists are beginning to recognize that maybe there are more things in heaven and earth than our philosophies can account for” (205). At the end of their interview, Strobel concludes that based on Collins’s “thirty-five years of psychological experience” and Strobel’s own reading of the gospels, Jesus was conclusively “not mentally impaired” (206).
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “The Profile Evidence,” with Dr. D. A. Carson
In Chapter 9, Strobel takes Jesus’s assertions of divinity and checks them against the attributes of God listed throughout the Bible. He equates this to what a forensic artist does when they take separate details about a person’s appearance and create a complete image. Strobel believes that if Jesus does not match “the sketch of God that we find elsewhere in the Bible […] we can conclude that his claim to being God is false” (209).
To better understand the nature of God, Strobel meets with Donald A. Carson, a research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Strobel begins by asking Carson why he believes Jesus is divine, and Carson offers a surprising answer: Jesus’s forgiving of sin. He explains that Jews believed the only person who could forgive sin was God. For Jesus to claim to do the same was, in Carson’s view, “one of the most striking things Jesus did” (212). Strobel continues to probe this idea by presenting Carson with some the biggest challenges to Jesus’s divinity, which include moments in the gospels that seem to argue against Jesus’s omniscience and omnipresence. Carson explains that these questions have been at the heart of theological debate and that there is no clear answer. However, he does offer a few theories, including ascribing contradictory passages to Jesus’s human side rather than his divine side. The most convincing argument is “some form of kenosis”(214), or emptying. The idea is that in becoming mortal, Jesus emptied himself of the “independent use” (215)of his Godly attributes; in other words, he could only use his divine power with God’s permission.
Another counterargument to Jesus’s divinity comes from two passages in the Bible that imply that Jesus was created, not the Creator. Strobel references John 3:16, which calls Jesus the “begotten” son of god, and Colossians 1:15, which calls him the “firstborn” of creation (216). Carson responds by saying that this is a translation issue, and that Jesus is better understood as God’s “supreme heir” rather than his created son (218). Furthermore, Carson points out that other passages, like Colossians 2:9, reiterate the idea that Jesus is deity in bodily form. Additionally, Carson explains that this does not make Jesus a “lesser” god. Despite passages that refer to God the Father as greater than Jesus, Carson says “the comparison is only meaningful if they’re already on the same plane” (220). In other words, Jesus is hampered by his mortal body, but that does not make him any less powerful than God.
Strobel’s last line of questioning has to deal with the perceived difference between Jesus’s and God’s compassion. Strobel specifically wants to understand how God can send people to Hell—or allow for slavery—and still be as compassionate as Jesus says he is. Carson begins with the question of Hell, explaining that it must exist as consequence to sin. People end up in Hell for defying God, and Carson explains that without consequences for sin, “God is no longer a God to be admired” (222). Furthermore, Carson points out that the Bible assures readers that “at the time of judgement” there will be no one will be able to say that “they have been treated unfairly by God” (223). In terms of slavery, Carson tells Strobel that Jesus came to free men and women from their sins. Doing so transforms people from the inside out, which puts Christians in moral conflict with the practice of slavery. Carson concludes that Jesus demonstrates the five key characteristics of God—omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternality, and immutability. Thus, Jesus does more than just claim to be God: he also embodies God’s qualities.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “The Fingerprint Evidence,” with Louis Lapides, M.Div., Th.M.
Strobel begins this chapter with the story of Clarence Hiller’s murder. Hiller, a Chicago resident, was murdered while checking on a burned-out light by his daughter’s bedroom. Unfortunately, Hiller’s murder happened in 1910, long before forensic science became commonplace. Luckily for Hiller’s family, detectives found fingerprints at the scene. That evidence led to the conviction of a man named Thomas Jennings, who was hanged for the crime. Strobel says that fingerprint evidence is not unlike the evidence provided for the Messiah in Old Testament prophesies. By comparing the prophesies to Jesus and his life, Strobel believes he can shed light on whether Jesus was actually the Jewish messiah.
He visits with Louis S. Lapides to answer this question. Interestingly enough, Strobel’s interview takes on a different format than in any of the previous chapters. Instead of asking Lapides a series of questions, Strobel opens by asking him about his life story. Lapides’s story is also his testimony, or conversion story. Lapides grew up Jewish in New Jersey, and he spent most of his life highly suspicious of Christianity. After abandoning his Jewish identity during the Vietnam War, Lapides begins investigating the Jewish prophesies that predict the messiah. Through his research, he becomes convinced that Jesus is the messiah and converts to Christianity. He tells Strobel that his conversion changed his life: he starts attending church, marries another Christian, and founds “Beth Ariel Fellowship, a home for Jews and Gentles who also are finding wholeness in Christ” (245).
Once Lapides finishes his testimony, Strobel asks him about four common challenges to the Jewish prophesies in the Bible: that they are a coincidence; that the gospels fabricated details about Jesus’s life to make it fit the prophesies; that Jesus intentionally tried to fulfill the prophesies; and that Christians fail to understand the context. Like Carson, Lapides tackles each criticism, starting with coincidence. He tells Strobel that one mathematician calculated that the “probability of fulfilling forty-eight prophesies,” which Jesus did, “was one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion” (247). In terms of the gospel writers fabricating Jesus’s life to make it retroactively fulfill the Jewish prophesies, Lapides returns back to the arguments Blomberg makes in earlier chapters. Namely, if the gospel writers lied about Jesus’s life, why would they be willing to die defending it?
Lapides then turns to the intentional fulfillment argument, which says that “Jesus merely maneuvered his life in a way to fulfill the prophesies” (248). Lapides concedes that while some events could have been orchestrated, others—like the events of Jesus’s birth, ancestry, and execution—could not. Lastly, Lapides addresses arguments that Christians misidentify the messianic prophesies, “rip them out of context,” and “misinterpret” (249) them. Lapides explains that in his research, the prophesies continually “show themselves to be true” (250). The chapter concludes with Lapides challenging Jewish people to do their own research into the messianic prophesies, and Strobel provides a list of Jewish people who investigated the claims of Christianity and converted.
Part 2, Chapters 7-10 Analysis
This section pivots in terms of topic. The first section dealt with evidence about the Bible and its legitimacy, like its authorship and historical accuracy. This section now turns to Jesus, and specifically, it questions whether he existed and if he did, if he was in any way supernatural. In that way, Strobel is basically working up an argumentative pyramid. He starts with his most convincing, easily proven arguments, then works up to trickier territory. This is a common argumentative method designed to earn the reader’s trust. If a writer can convincingly prove at least one part of his argument, the reader is more likely to buy into the rest of it, even if the evidence is not quite as strong.
More importantly, this section—and especially Lapides’s personal testimony in Chapter 10—signals a shift in Strobel’s argumentative tactics. According to Aristotle, a good argument has to contain three elements: logos (logic), ethos (ethics), and pathos (emotion). Logical appeals carry the most weight in that their job is to provide hard facts, data, and logical evidence. For example, the evidence that Dr. Yamauchi and Dr. McRay provide in the earlier section serve as strong logical arguments. They provide concrete, provable examples that the historical references in the Bible are correct. Logical appeals carry the most amount of weight in an argument because they appeal to the reader’s ability to reason. So going back to the previous example, Yamauchi and McRay’s evidence is convincing because it stands to reason. In other words, it makes logical sense that if historical texts or archeological sites verify what is in the Bible, then those parts of the Bible must be true.
Ethical appeals focus on a person’s character and/or trustworthiness. Ethical appeals establish credibility and character, which is important to creating believability. Earlier in The Case for Christ, Strobel explains that a witness’s testimony is only as good as the witness himself, which is to say that a witness’s credibility directly affects what he has to say. This is an example of ethos at work, and Strobel employs this technique every time he credentials one of his experts. For instance, consider how Strobel introduces Dr. Gary Collins. First, he presents Collins’ education: a “master’s degree in psychology from the University of Toronto and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University” (194). These are excellent schools, and Collins’s graduate-level degrees establish that he has an expert knowledge in his field.
Once Strobel shows readers that Collins is well-educated, he focuses on his experience. Collins is no new graduate: he has been “studying, teaching, and writing about human behavior for thirty-five years” (194). Now, Collins is not just book smart, he has real-world experience to back up his assertions. Next, Strobel gives readers a laundry list of Collins’s publications and books, including Christian Counseling: A Comprehensive Guide, which shows that both his peers and publishers recognize his expertise as well. Finally, Strobel tells readers hat Collins is the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors, which solidifies his respectability. By presenting all of Collins’s qualifications and accolades, Strobel shows that he is of excellent pedigree; in other words, Strobel wants to convince readers that Collins is not only a true expert, but that whatever he says carries weight. He builds trust between the reader and Collins, which in turn makes readers more likely to buy Collins’s arguments.
The third element of a compelling argument—emotional appeals—play on readers’ emotions. Up until this point, Strobel has been careful to stick primarily with logos and ethos in his chapters since these two techniques are often considered the strongest tactics. But emotions are powerful things, and while emotional appeals are not the strongest evidence, they are often the most convincing. Consider how advertisements rely on emotions over reason. If an anti-smoking advertisement shows lists of smoking-associated risks or someone who has lost part of their jaw to cancer, which might make a person more likely to give up cigarettes? Because emotions affect people on an individual level, they tend to have the most impact when it comes to swaying someone to a particular point of view.
That is what Strobel works toward in Chapter 10 with Louis S. Lapides’s personal story. He shares his own fear, despair, and heartache in a way that moves readers, so when Lapides starts explaining why he found the biblical prophesies convincing (using logos), readers already sympathize with him. Sympathy is a powerful tool that makes logical and ethical arguments even more potent, and Strobel uses it to help readers connect more strongly with the case he is building for Christ. Thus, Strobel employs all three elements of an effective argument to help present the facts to readers—and persuade them to buy his interpretation of the evidence.
