Risen! – The Musical<\/em>, for example the fact that if the Gospels were made up why did they record Jesus first appearing to women when\u00a0 women held no status in the culture of the time so any testimony they gave to the Resurrection\u00a0 would have carried no weight?<\/p>\nStrobel has a Master\u2019s Degree in Law from Yale University and was formerly Legal Editor of the Chicago Tribune;\u00a0\u00a0 an investigative journalist who traces his own spiritual journey from atheist to faith by cross examining recognised authorities in their own field.\u00a0 The book is divided into three parts – Examining The Record. \u00a0Analysing Jesus and Researching the Resurrection. The chapters in Part One are titled -Can the biographies of Jesus be trusted? Do the biographies of Jesus stand up to scrutiny? Were Jesus\u2019 biographies reliably preserved for us? Is there credible evidence for Jesus outside His biographies? Does Archeology confirm or contradict Jesus\u2019 biographies? Is the Jesus of history the Jesus of faith?<\/p>\n
In Part Two – Was Jesus really convinced He was the Son of God? Was Jesus crazy when He claimed to be the Son of God? Did Jesus fulfill the attributes of God?\u00a0 Did Jesus and Jesus alone match the identity of the Messiah?<\/p>\n
In Part Three – Was Jesus death a sham and His resurrection a hoax? Was Jesus\u2019 body really absent from His tomb? Was Jesus seen alive after His death on the cross? Are there any supporting facts that point to the Resurrection? What does the evidence establish- and what does it mean today?<\/p>\n
During my re- read I was particularly drawn to \u00a0the point Strobel makes that \u00a0it is not just the Gospels that speak \u00a0of the Resurrection- there is also 1 Corinthians 15 written by Paul \u201c\u2026. Christ appeared to Peter and then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than 500 at the same time\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.\u201d Also the Book of Acts in which Luke quotes the disciple Peter as saying \u201cGod has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of the fact.\u201d\u00a0 (Acts 2:32) Also in Acts 3:15 Peter says \u201cYou killed the author of life but God raised Him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.\u201d In Acts 10:41 Peter says that he ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.\u201d And Paul states in Acts 13:31 \u201cFor many days He was seen by those who had travelled with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now His witnesses to our people.\u201d Strobel also gives evidence to the fact that I Corinthians was written before the Gospels – perhaps only two years after the crucifixion.<\/p>\n
I was also drawn to two concluding paragraphs in the book -the first by J.P Moreland (PH.D in Philosophy, Masters in History and Theology and Degree in Chemistry) who said \u201cIf someone wants to consider the circumstantial evidence and reach the verdict that Jesus was not raised from the dead – fair enough, but they have got to offer an alternative plausible explanation.\u201d\u00a0 The second by Sir Leonard Luckhoo, an Attorney who was awarded a place in the Guinness Book of Records for gaining 245 consecutive murder acquittals.\u00a0 After spending several years rigorously analysing the historical facts about the Resurrection Luckhoo declared \u201cI say unequivocally that the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what does Earl Doherty in \u201cChallenging the Verdict\u201d say in response to that? – I\u00a0 will share that with you next week.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lee Strobel “His Story” featuring Lucy Stimpson- Maynard and the Mustard Seed Soul Band from the albums “Uplifted” and His Story” recorded and produced by Bob Ross. Last week I explained that one reason why I have been continuing to explore the topic \u201cWas Jesus really raised from the dead?\u201d\u00a0 is an ongoing conversation with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Lee](\"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Lee-Strobel.png\")