Product Description

By focusing on the "hows" and whys" of Christmas, this warm yet journalistic book will help believers reaffirm their faith while guiding seekers as they pursue solid answers about this miraculous occurrence. With material from The Case for Christ as well as new ideas from author Lee Strobel, this book is designed to be an tool to give away to family, friends, neighbors, and others who want to understand what happened at Christmas 2,000 years ago. Padded hardcover.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105958 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310266297
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
A fascinating look into the truth behind the Christmas story The story, recorded in Luke 2:8–18, describes how an angel announced to a ragtag group of shepherds that "a Savior who is Messiah and Master" had been born in the town of David. Was this a hoax? A hallucination? Or was it the pivotal event of human history—the incarnation of the living God? Join journalist and former atheist Lee Strobel as he investigates the Christmas story. Combining material from The Case for Christ with new research, he investigates the mysterious events surrounding Christmas and asks: • Is there any credibility to the accounts about Jesus’ birth—or are they merely legends as skeptics claim? • Does history confirm a Roman census sending Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem? • Did Herod the Great try to destroy his supposed rival by ruthlessly slaughtering the infants in that rural village? The result is the perfect gift for believers that want to reaffirm their faith or seekers looking for guidance as they pursue solid answers about this miraculous occurrence.

About the Author
Lee Strobel, educated at Yale Law School, was the award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and a spiritual skeptic until 1981. He wrote the Gold Medallion-winning books The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith. A former teaching pastor at two of America’s largest churches, he and his wife live in California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Case for Christmas Copyright © 1998, 2005 by Lee Strobel This book is excerpted from The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, copyright © 1998 by Lee Strobel. Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 ISBN-10: 0-310-25476-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25476-8 All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Interior design by Michelle Espinoza Edited by Rebecca Shingledecker Printed in the United States of America 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 /?OPM/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this book to us in care of zreview@zondervan.com. Thank you. THE EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE: CAN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF JESUS BE TRUSTED? When I first met soft-spoken Leo Carter, he was a seventeen-year-old veteran of Chicago’s grittiest neighborhood. His testimony had put three killers in prison. And he was still carrying a .38-caliber slug in his head—a grisly reminder of a horrific saga that began when he witnessed Elijah Baptist gun down a local grocer. Leo and a friend, Leslie Scott, were playing basketball when they saw Elijah, then sixteen years old, slay Sam Blue outside his grocery store. Leo had known the grocer since childhood. “When we didn’t have any food, he’d give us some,” Leo explained to me. “So when I went to the hospital and they said he was dead, I knew I’d have to testify about what I saw.” Eyewitness testimony is powerful. One of the most dramatic moments in a trial is when a witness describes the crime that he or she saw and then points confidently toward the defendant as being the perpetrator. Elijah Baptist knew that the only way to avoid prison would be to somehow prevent Leo Carter and Leslie Scott from doing just that. So Elijah and two of his pals staged an ambush. Leslie and Leo’s brother, Henry, were brutally murdered, while Leo was shot in the head and left for dead. But somehow, against all odds, Leo lived. The bullet, in a place too precarious to be removed, remained in his skull. Despite searing headaches that strong medication couldn’t dull, he became the sole eyewitness against Elijah Baptist and his two cohorts. His word was good enough to land them in prison for the rest of their lives. Leo Carter is one of my heroes. He made sure justice was served, even though he paid a monumental price for it. When I think of eyewitness testimony, even to this day— thirty years later—his face still appears in my mind.2 TESTIMONY FROM DISTANT TIME Yes, eyewitness testimony can be compelling and convincing. When a witness has had ample opportunity to observe a crime, when there’s no bias or ulterior motives, when the witness is truthful and fair, the climactic act of pointing out a defendant in a courtroom can be enough to doom that person to prison or worse. And eyewitness testimony is just as crucial in investigating historical matters—even the issue of whether the Christmas manger really contained the unique Son of God. But what eyewitness accounts do we possess? Do we have the testimony of anyone who personally interacted with Jesus, who listened to his teachings, who saw his miracles, who witnessed his death, and who encountered him after his alleged resurrection? Do we have any records from first-century “journalists” who interviewed eyewitnesses, asked tough questions, and faithfully recorded what they scrupulously determined to be true? I knew that just as Leo Carter’s testimony clinched the convictions of three brutal murderers, eyewitness accounts from the mists of distant time could help resolve the most important spiritual issue of all. To get solid answers, I flew to Denver to interview a scholar who literally wrote the book on the topic: Dr. Craig Blomberg, author of The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. INTERVIEW: CRAIG L. BLOMBERG, PHD Craig Blomberg is widely considered one of the country’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, which are called the four gospels. He received his doctorate in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland, later serving as a senior research fellow for Tyndale House at Cambridge University in England, where he was part of an elite group of international scholars that produced a series of acclaimed works on Jesus. He is currently a professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary. As he settled into a high-back chair in his office, cup of coffee in hand, I too sipped some coffee to ward off the Colorado chill. Because I sensed Blomberg was a get-tothe- point kind of guy, I decided to start my interview by cutting to the core of the issue. “Tell me this,” I said with an edge of challenge in my voice, “is it really possible to be an intelligent, critically thinking person and still believe that the four gospels were written by the people whose names have been attached to them?” Blomberg set his coffee cup on the edge of his desk and looked intently at me. “The answer is yes,” he said with conviction. He sat back and continued. “It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous. But the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of The Eyewitness Evidence 15 the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the New Testament; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul’s ‘beloved physician,’ wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.” “How uniform was the belief that they were the authors?” I asked. “There are no known competitors for these three gospels,” he said. “Apparently, it was just not in dispute.” Even so, I wanted to test the issue further. “Excuse my skepticism,” I said, “but would anyone have had a motivation to lie by claiming these people wrote these gospels, when they really didn’t?” Blomberg shook his head. “Probably not. Remember, these were unlikely characters,” he said, a grin breaking on his face. “Mark and Luke weren’t even among the twelve disciples. Matthew was, but as a former hated tax collector, he would have been the most infamous character next to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus! “Contrast this with what happened when the fanciful Apocryphal Gospels were written much later. People chose the names of well-known and exemplary figures to be their fictitious authors—Philip, Peter, Mary, James. Those names carried much more weight than the names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So to answer your question, there would not have been any reason to attribute authorship to these three less respected people if it weren’t true.” That sounded logical, but it was obvious that he was leaving out one of the gospel writers. “What about John?” I asked. “He was extremely prominent; in fact, he wasn’t just one of the twelve disciples but one of Jesus’ inner three, along with James and Peter.”

Customer Reviews

The identity of the Christ child
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (10/07)

Lee Strobel, award-winning author, journalist and investigative reporter, has written "The Case for Christmas." Stroble presents a logical case to help the reader determine for themselves if the babe in the manger, Jesus, was the person He claimed to be, Son of Man, Son of God, and very God Himself.

From the first paragraph of the introduction to the last paragraph of the conclusion, Strobel's writing is compelling, intellectually challenging, thought-provoking, and convincing. Using eyewitness accounts, archaeological confirmation, and profile evidence Strobel helps the reader to arrive at a conclusion, their own personal verdict.

Stroble's own journey to discover the reality of Christmas led him to seek counsel. He used his experience as an investigative reporter and the tools of his trade in his to find answers. Strobel presents the results of interviews with leading scholars in areas of biographical evidence, and scientific evidence.

In presenting his case Stroble presented fingerprint evidence to answer the hard question, "Did Jesus, Jesus alone, match the identity of the promised Messiah." I personally found this chapter on fingerprint evidence insightful. The fulfilling of Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah gave authenticity to Gospel accounts of Jesus as the Messiah.

Strobel also presented profile evidence to see if Jesus fulfilled the attributes of God. The incarnation, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternality, and immutability all fit in the sketch and are found in the Christmas child. Reflecting on these attributes as a devotional reading offers a rich and rewarding experience.

The book is designed especially for the Christmas and Advent Season. Strobel gives a strong presentation of the Christmas message for anyone seeking understanding of the tenets of the Christian faith, and for thought provoking reflection and mediation for the Christian.

The format and design of this compact, attractive, book - "The Case for Christmas" -- make it an excellent gift for those family members, friends, agnostics, or atheists, who are seeking answers to finding answers in their pursuit for finding personal meaning to the reality of the Christian message of Christmas.

reccomendation
if you're going to buy this, you might as well buy the Case for Christ instead. It has ALL the content in this book and Case for Easter and then some. Much more bank for your buck

The Evidential Case-Maker Provides a Christmas Gift
The Case for Christmas is a darling little book that weaves a solid apologetic throughout its charming writing style. Strobel, as a former investigative reporter (was an atheist at the time), examines the material in the Gospel of Luke regarding the birth of Christ.

Employing rigorous probing into the text and history, Strobel discovers that the birth reports of Jesus in the Bible are accurate, startling, and compelling from an evidentialist's standpoint.

This Christmas book makes for a wonder-filled Christmas for the reader and an excellent Christmas gift to the saved and especially the unsaved (be sure to have them open it a few days before the 25th so that they can enjoy the truth is furnishes during the whole season).

By Mike A Robinson author of God Does Exist! and other Christian books.
The Necessary Existence of God: The Proof of Christianity Through Presuppositional Apologetics