Evidence for the Resurrection
by Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $22.98 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Josh McDowell, Sean McDowellEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-02
ISBN: 0830747850
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Regal
Book Reviews of Evidence for the Resurrection
Book Review: Evidence for Non Sequitur Arguments
Summary: 1 Stars
February 3, 2010
A Review of EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION by Josh and Sean McDowell
An evangelical friend of mine with offered a collection of online quotes referencing Josh McDowell's works in order to justify his own arguments for a divine biblical creation of the world. While these quotes seemed both devotional and illogical, I wanted to find out more about McDowell and his apologetics. I snagged a copy of EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION and read it.
I was expecting a collection of the same sort of devotional and illogical arguments that I saw referenced to McDowell online. I was not disappointed, but I did see a couple of surprises. It is fairly obvious to me that he does not write for skeptics or scholars, but for the faithful (following P.T. Barnum's and L. Ron Hubbard's formulas for getting rich). This review is actually from a letter that I have written to Mr. McDowell and have sent to him via snail mail, as he does not offer any email contact info on his ministry's website. I am an atheist, a humanist, and a skeptic. But my evangelical friend has provoked me by claiming that I am afraid to send my counter-arguments and questions directly to the apologetics and so-called creation scientists who--I think--seem to enjoy taking full advantage of his (and others') gullibility and deluded faith.
If you wish to respond Josh, cool. If not, I won't be surprised at all. So here goes:
EVIDENCE FOR THE RRESURRECTION:
Based on this title, one expects solid evidence and logical argument, along with, of necessity, a certain amount of devotional argument. After all, you are writing this book as part of your ministry. However, some objectiveness and some use of logic would be expected, unless you really believe that your audience is as dumb as a box of rocks.
Your arguments from the devotional side seem to be as follows:
1) The world is crappy and we (humanity) NEED the Resurrection to be true. Therefore, the Resurrection must be true.
A: Come on, Josh. Even if your premise here is true (and I would argue that from the philosophical side, we really do NOT need the Resurrection, but that is for a philosophical argument which is not what this letter is about), "need" does not necessarily equate to "true", "make true", or "make happen". The world is filled with people with unfulfilled needs. You know that this is a non sequitur ("does not follow")argument.
2) The Resurrection must be true, otherwise the Christian Religion would be stupid.
A: I actually kinda agree with this argument, but on the basis that I do think that Fundamentalist Christianity is kinda stupid, so therefore, the Resurrection must NOT have happened! Now, of course, my argument is just as non sequitur as yours. Simply put, just because something seems to be stupid, or doesn't seem to be stupid, does not necessarily make that thing true or not true. Certainly, churches do good works, but every good thing that we see a church doing (feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, alms to the poor, etc etc.) is also being done by non-Christian churches and non-religious organizations. So being good or stupid has nothing to do with whether the underlying premise is true or untrue. Example: if the story of the Resurrection was true, that would not negate any of the truly evil things that have been done in the name of your religion. Conversely, if the Resurrection was not true, that fact would not negate any of the many good things that specific churches and church groups have done.
3) The Bible says he rose from the dead and since the Bible doesn't lie, he must have risen from the dead.
A: This is of course an unarguable argument. I tell you X. I tell you that I do not lie. Therefore, X must be true. The variable here is "I tell you". One quarter of a college level logic course--heck one day--will show you the fallacy of this argument.
4) The World needs an absolute morality, therefore the Resurrection is true because it provides the world with an absolute morality: biblical Christianity.
A: Thanks for volunteering your god and your morality for the job of being all of our god and all of our morality, but some of us might just pass on that. I know, now I have to go to hell for not believing in your wonderful news--just be aware that loon threats don't impress me. And I don't threaten believers with eternal punishments if they fail to believe in things like evolution, the Big Bang, Science, Reality, etc.
Again, a philosophical argument and I know that your argument comes from the devotional end, but be aware that many of us humans think that your god doesn't really exist, and that your offered morality really sucks. Not that you Christians eat babies (like you once accused Jews of doing) or sacrifice virgins (though you claim that one virgin was able to give birth without having sex--seems like all pain and no fun), but if we were to diverge into a philosophical argument about morality, I would argue that your Christian morality is pretty far from being moral. To be blunt, even if your Yahweh was a real being, and all of Genesis was 100% historically and scientifically accurate, and Jesus really did come down here as god-man in order to die and save us from our sins, etc etc, that would still be a repugnant morality. Stoning a man for collecting firewood on a arbitrary holy day, or burning alive people who disagree with you is NOT the sort of morality that I would adhere to. However, since there are very good arguments against Genesis being anything but a collection of ancient and untrue myths, I will definitely vote against your absolute morality!
5) Writer X claimed that an event happened and that it was witnessed by lots of people. The event must be true because it was witnessed by lots of people.
A: Non sequitur again. A writer claims that lots of people witnessed the event, but never presents any statements from any of them, nor shows any evidence that there were any witnesses let alone "lots" or hundreds or thousands. See #3. We don't have the "witnesses" or any witness statements by any of them, we don't have the writer to cross-examine, so therefore we are left to take the writer's word for everything. Nice for the devotional (and P.T. Barnum's favorite customers), but hardly a good argument. What if the writer is lying about both the event AND the number of witnesses? Hmmm.
But I digress again. Let's get away from your devotional arguments--all of which are logical only to you and to your followers/customers/suckers--and get down to your so-called evidentiary arguments.
I won't tear apart your entire book, but will just focus on a few parts that grabbed more of my attention.
First, I have to say that extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. You have no evidence. You have no actual eyewitness testimony and the once or twice-removed gospels do in fact contradict each other. You admit as much.
P.157 Apparent discrepancies as positive evidence.
Huh? You argue that because there are apparent discrepancies, this shows that the various writers are displaying the same sorts of discrepancies that police would expect from eyewitnesses to a crime, so therefore these people must have been eyewitnesses and therefore their stories are necessarily true? Josh, this is the very reason why police, judges, and lawyers will tell you that eyewitness testimony is the least reliable sort of evidence.
Example: I have an avid interest in history and one of my main interests is the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Custer's Last Stand). There have been hundreds of books written about the battle, and there were many eyewitnesses (both from the Indian side and from the Cavalry side--though the latter were necessarily from a distance as there were no survivors from Custer's specific command), and pretty much every one of them differed in detail depending upon the witness's perspective, fears, and agendas. True that the underlying fact of the battle remains--there was a battle between 7th Cavalry and a collection of Sioux tribes and Custer and all of his specific command were killed--but so far none of the books written claim to be perfect or inerrant. Most historians who write about the battle acknowledge these flaws and in fact, the actual complete story of June 25, 1876 may never be known, but they also acknowledge that our best way of putting together a comprehensive and relatively accurate picture of the battle has come from comparing eyewitness accounts with an archaeological survey done back in the early 90s.
My point is that eyewitness testimony is NOT reliable and contradictions do NOT prove their overall accuracy. Yes, Josh, there was a real Jerusalem, and there was a real Pontius Pilate, and there was a real Rome. But beyond that you cannot take those facts and claim that they prove that there was a Jesus and that he rose from the dead.
In fact, there are no contemporary accounts of this guy's existence. You offer on P.169 as contemporary sources Tacitus, Josephus, and the Jewish Talmud.
Uh, Tacitus was born in 55-57AD and his Historia was written in appr 105AD. His earliest work, which has nothing to do with events in First Century Palestine, was published in 98AD.
Josephus WAS a First Century JEWISH historian. But his single paragraph about Jesus of Nazareth doesn't appear in his Jewish histories until appr 367AD, and unless you are a complete moron, when you read that paragraph it is obviously not written by a First Century Jew, but by a devout Christian, one who is very concerned about the possibility of his forgery running afoul of the Church's heresy police, a concern that a Jewish historian working for Rome in the First Century would not have had. And pretty much every historian who I have read, considers that single paragraph nothing more than a very clumsy forgery.
The Jewish Talmud is a series of criticisms and commentaries on the Hebrew Testament and came in two parts: the Mishnah, which dates to appr 200CE, and the Gemara, which dates to about 500CE.
None of these above references are even close to contemporary accounts except for the Josephus forgery and that one only was interjected centuries later to make it look like it a contemporary writer had known about Jesus.
This is interesting because you claim that Jewish officials were angry because "thousands were turning to Christ!" Really? Then why not even a mention by actual contemporary writers? Contemporary means that they lived and wrote during the times and about the times and lived in the area of concern at those times. One would think that a guy who fed thousands with a basket of fish sticks and a loaf of Wonder Bread, healed sick people (but never restored the limbs to amputees), and even raised people from the dead, would find himself written about by everybody who lived in or near Jerusalem and had access to a quill and some ink.
And of course, where were these thousands of followers when Pilate allegedly put up Barrabas and Jesus for a sort of "Survivor, Jerusalem" vote? Since Jesus was the one voted off the show, his thousands of followers must not have been overly convinced. Gee Josh, if you came over to my house and produced an unlimited shrimp cocktail plate and fed everyone steaks by taking one hunk of burger meat and making it multiply, I'd be impressed and would certainly show up to vote you back on the island!
Your archaeological evidence seems to be that there was a Jerusalem, people did live there, Rome really did rule the city during the first Century, some of the people there were executed for crimes, some of those were executed by crucifixion, and most of the dead people were buried. Therefore, archaeology proves that Jesus's execution and burial was real. No, Josh, it doesn't. It just proves that writers writing sometime within a couple of hundred years of the particular times, got some of the background historical details of the times and the people of the times right.
Example: Margaret Mitchell wrote a book called GONE WITH THE WIND. It is the story of several people who were involved with the Civil War. She got a lot of the background details right. There was a Civil War, Sherman did march through Georgia, etc etc etc. But I don't believe for a second that there was a real Scarlett OHara or a Rhett Butler, though their characters might have been loosely based on real people. Hmm, maybe the Jesus stories were based on the events in the life of a real person, but maybe they just added all of the Hero-Archetype demi-god stuff later, especially since a lot of the story seems oddly familiar. Wasn't there a demi-god named Mithra who came around some couple of hundred years before Jesus, was born of a virgin on December 25th, was killed, spent three days roaming the Underworld, only to come back to life again on the third day? Naaa, that could only be an incredible coincidence!
Josh, my personal favorite is your quoting a lawyer who claims that the Gospels would be admissible in "any court in the land". Really? Other than as exhibits in a libel or copyright case involving the writers of these Gospels, just what would they be admissible as? They may or may not be written by the people whose names are credited to them; the actual writers may or may not have actually witnessed the events they describe; and we do not have the writers available for cross examination. I've run this by a few of my own lawyer friends and they have all laughed at your assertion. I think that "horsecrap" was the basic response, but there were other terms used as well.
On P.190 Lawyer Frank Morrison claims that because we cannot find the tomb and because nobody back then in the early church ever visited Jerusalem in order to visit the empty tomb, and because they never made the empty tomb a shrine, then there must be an empty tomb and it must be empty because Jesus rose from it. Are you serious? How about this, Josh: maybe Paul and other early Christians never wrote about visiting the empty tomb because it never existed. Perhaps the Jesus story had not yet been made up. Certainly, if these events were true, I would want to visit the empty tomb. Heck, even if it was empty, this would have been the place where my lord and savior lay for three days after being crucified and this would have been where he rose from the dead. I would certainly have made every effort possible to visit such a sacred and miraculous site. The site of the Event that defines Christianity!
Of course, a believing Paul would have made certain to visit this tomb, and would have been certain to write about it. That he never bothered kinda indicates to me that maybe he did not visit or write about it because it never really existed in the first place. Maybe because the Legend of Jesus had not been fully formed yet!
And btw, a whole bunch of people would have known about the tomb and its location. There were witnesses to the crucifixion as well as to the aftermath. And after the alleged Resurrection, every disciple, apostle, and hanger-on would have known about it and where it was at. Heck, every bartender and waitress in Jerusalem would have known about it! If it really existed, it would have been at least as much a potential shrine as his alleged birthplace in Bethlehem or the mount from where he allegedly took off to fly up to heaven.
On P.191, you talk about the women coming on Sunday to anoint Christ's body. Supposedly they were at the crucifixion. So they would have known what the burial arrangements were going to be (since they were walking to the tomb, they MUST have known what the arrangements were going to be), and of course known exactly where the tomb was located, so how were they planning to get at the body if there was a two-ton stone covering the tomb? Here's a thought: fiction. Yes, having women discover the Resurrection does go contrary to the male-dominated view of the church, but from the literary end, since the writer has the apostles and thousands of followers (lol) in hiding, perhaps his only recourse was to send women as they may have been the only ones the writer would have thought were able to move about in Jerusalem freely. This is speculation, but again, we don't have the writers here to cross-examine, so once again, the stories are inadmissible and really do not make sense. And nothing that you have offered qualifies any sort of definitive evidence.
On P.189 you claim that both Jewish and Roman historians declared that there was an empty tomb. Which historians and where do they say that? You reference Josephus again and while his mention of Jesus claims that he "appeared to them alive again the third day" this does not explicitly state anything about an empty tomb. AND his paragraph does not appear in any translation of his work until the middle of the Fourth Century. Forgery, Josh. It's another form of dishonesty. You DO have a copy of the Ten Commandments handy don't you?
Even a physical Resurrection is not explicit in this paragraph in Josephus. An appearance could have been just that: an appearance, i.e. in a dream, as a ghost, etc. I have had dreams in which loved ones who have been long dead "appeared" to me. These could be actual visits from these dead folks, but they could be coming to me in a spirit form while their bodies may still be rotting in their graves. I say "could". Could just be a dream. Could just be my own sub-conscious "talking to me". Or they really could be leaving their graves in order to appear to me. Either way, you can take Josephus's comments to imply an empty grave, but you cannot take them explicitly--at least not without taking a completely devotional and non-historical stance. And if you're going to do that, then let's look at the fact that this paragraph from Josephus is an obvious forgery anyway, a phony, a dishonest attempt to support your own literalist religious beliefs by making up phony historical evidence to "prove" the mythical stories of an alleged messiah!
On P. 181 you state: "powerful evidence that Matthew was written during the lifetime of those who had witnesses the events,..."
Really? Powerful? You have a couple of other fundamentalist writers who offer nothing more than their personal speculations that the New Testament Gospels COULD have been written as early as seven years after the alleged execution of the alleged man-god. "COULD" is not exactly powerful evidence. And I would point out that a large number of non-fundamentalist scholars believe that the Gospels, other than Mark, could not have been written that early, that in fact, Matthew and Luke were written a number of years after Mark and were based in part on Mark; and John was written even later and while based partly on Mark, goes into an entirely different and completely devotional direction. For more on that aspect, I would reference the books of Bart Ehrman as being much more scholarly and much better referenced. Much less illogical also!
Seems to me that there is much more compelling evidence against an early gospel than there is for an early gospel. Since the earliest manuscripts that are available are written in Greek, the scholars that I have read also argue that Jesus's followers probably did not write these stories themselves as they probably could not read or write Greek.
Does not mean that they did not dictate the stories to someone who could write Greek, but another problem that hurts your argument is that in none of these accounts do the writers talk about their own personal experiences with the very guy they are writing about.
If I was writing a bio of you and I either met you or spent serious time with you, there would be at least some peripheral descriptions of that association in my work: "I remember the time Josh and I..."; "There was that time Josh, Sean, and I went..." and so on. Even a "after Josh's execution, I spent three months hiding in a closet in my mom's house" would be a logical comment for an actual friend/associate/witness to make. But we don't see anything like that in the gospels. Probably because the writers were not actual witnesses, which means that none of the alleged authors was an actual apostle, in spite of their names being attached to these documents. If I was willing to forge somebody else's name to something I was writing, lying inside the document would not be all that bothersome.
They may have gleaned stories from actual witnesses or from people who knew actual witnesses, but come on Josh, none of that would be admissible without being able to put the actual writers on the stand for cross-examination. Or the witnesses themselves.
In fact, your entire Chapter 16 is silly. Every single argument is nothing more than taking known historical facts and garbing them in your Jesus story. Nothing in your arguments argues for or against the existence of Jesus, his execution, or his burial or his resurrection. Just because the Gospels happen to talk about crucifixion and history shows that there were crucifixions does not in any way confirm or disprove a specific crucifixion. Again, a non sequitur argument. Your conclusion does not follow your premise.
Also, btw, you argue that small discrepancies between gospels along with small errors in grammar or punctuation do not negate the underlying truths. Josh, that is the contention of orthodox Christians! You are agreeing with the very people you are sending to hell for not believing in the inerrancy of the Bible! Small discrepancies and errors in punctuation and grammar are ERRORS!!!! You cannot have ANY of those things in a book that is PERFECT and INERRANT!!!!!! You negate your OWN theology in one surprising paragraph!!!!!! And we won't go into the fact that many legitimate scholars would argue vehemently that the errors and contradictions in the New Testament go well beyond simple spelling errors. Both the birth of Jesus and his death and resurrection are handled in extremely different ways by the various Gospel writers. I won't go into any detail here, but anyone with a sheet of paper and a pencil can line up the four gospels side by side and list the details in each of these major events in Jesus's life. They don't line up with each other at all!
Josh, none of this would matter if you did not claim that your books was critical/historical--you even put the word "evidence" into the title. But your book is devotional and not even close to historical/critical. And you give the reader no actual evidence. You give arguments, but no supporting evidence.
And even that would not matter if you so-called true Christians did not claim that the New Testament is inerrant, perfect and inspired/written by God. Even by your own admission in a completely devotional book, the New Testament is anything but inerrant or perfect, so how could it be inspired by or written by any perfect or inerrant god?
There's a lot more that I could go into, but I will conclude by saying that EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION is very devotional and might please believers who refuse to think critically anyway, but completely empty of any sort of actual evidence for the Resurrection. Your arguments are false and illogical and your conclusions are questionable at best. However, I am sure that you make a good living from selling this garbage to the gullible. It may be a good living, but ya know what? Dishonesty is still a sin. If you have to lie and misrepresent facts and propose illogical non sequitur arguments in order to support your beliefs, then you dishonor those beliefs and thus give good evidence that those beliefs are based on lies!
Best,
Tim Campbell
Jesus Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Jesus Books
Christology and Cosmology: Models of Divine Activity in Origen, Eusebius, and Athanasius (Oxford Theological Monographs)by J. Rebecca Lyman
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1993-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $217.54
Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germanyby David Blackbourn
Clarendon Pr; Published: 1995-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $162.58
The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus: Antiochene Christology from the Council of Ephesus (431) to the Council of Chalcedon (451) (Oxford Early Christian Studies)by Paul B. Clayton Jr.
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-09-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $89.49
Price in other shops:
Jesus Christ: The Jesus of History, the Christ of Faithby J. R. Porter
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-05-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.89
Price in other shops:
Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screenby Jeremy Cohen
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-03-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.75
Price in other shops:
The Five Gospelsby Robert W. Funk
Scribner Book Company; Published: 1993-12-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.99
Price in other shops:
Jesus: God and Man : Modern Biblical Reflectionsby Raymond E. Brown
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1967-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $121.76
Magdalene Legacyby Laurence Gardner
Element Books; Published: 2005-02-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $24.99
The Marpingen Visions. Rationalism, religion and the rise of modern Germanyby David Blackbourn
HARPER COLLINS; Published: 1995; Paperback; Book
The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birthby Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan
HarperOne; Published: 2007-10-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Evidence for Christianity (Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith)by Josh McDowell
Nelson Refernece and Electronic; Published: 2006; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.25
Apologetics for a New Generation: A Biblical and Culturally Relevant Approach to Talking About God (ConversantLife.comŽ)by Sean McDowell
Harvest House Publishers; Published: 2009-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.08
Price in other shops:
The Case for the Resurrection: A First-Century Investigative Reporter Probes History's Pivotal Eventby Lee Strobel
Zondervan; Published: 2010-02-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.66
Price in other shops:
The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesusby Lee Strobel
Zondervan; Published: 1998-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.89
Price in other shops:
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesusby Gary R. Habermas, Michael Licona
Kregel Publications; Published: 2004-09-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.58
Price in other shops:
Evidence for Christianityby Josh McDowell
Thomas Nelson; Published: 2006-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask About the Christian Faithby Josh D. McDowell, Don Stewart
Living Books; Published: 1986-03-02; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.67
Price in other shops:
A Ready Defense The Best Of Josh Mcdowellby Josh McDowell
Thomas Nelson; Published: 1992-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.97
Price in other shops:
The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict Fully Updated To Answer The Questions Challenging Christians Todayby Josh McDowell
Thomas Nelson; Published: 1999-11-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.29
Price in other shops:
More Than a Carpenterby Josh D. McDowell, Sean McDowell
Living Books; Published: 2009-05-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.20
Price in other shops: