My Reply to Critical Podcast

Lee Strobel

As a writer, it's always difficult to discern when I should stop working on my current projects and take the time to respond to a critic. Usually I err on the side of ignoring what was said, since most people don't need any help in spotting misinformation or fallacies. However, it recently came to my attention that two doctoral students had recorded a podcast criticizing me and my 1998 book The Case for Christ. Since it's such a blatantly unfair and grossly deceptive attack, I think it's worth the time to briefly respond.

For the record, these critics don't even try to challenge the story of my conversion. The truth is absolutely as I have always reported it: I was an atheist and Yale-educated legal editor of the Chicago Tribune when my wife Leslie's conversion to Christianity prompted me to investigate the faith for nearly two years. Ultimately, I concluded the evidence was too strong to ignore, and consequently I put my trust in Christ, left my journalism career and joined the staff of a church (at a sixty percent pay cut!). 

The podcasters said their biggest problem with my book is that I deliberately portrayed myself as a skeptic at the time I was questioning the thirteen scholars I interviewed. Triumphantly, they point out that I became a Christian in 1981, but the book wasn't published until 1998. Therefore, they declare, the book is guilty of "complete dishonesty." But that, my friends, is what's dishonest.

How did they know I became a Christian in 1981? Because I specifically volunteered that information in the book! I never tried to conceal it, which I certainly would have done if I had been trying to hide the fact that I was already a Christian at the time of the interviews.

I conducted my original investigation out of my own curiosity, as well as my concern over what Leslie was getting into, and I never intended to write about it. Years later, I decided to write a book. To present the information as systematically and compellingly as I could, I wanted to get on-the-record interviews with scholars. This would allow me to gather the latest research, get answers to the remaining objections and questions that I still harbored, achieve clarity on issues that were still confusing to me, take copious notes, and ensure I was being accurate.

Here's what the podcasters deceptively failed to disclose: In the book's introduction, I clearly explained: "I'm going to retrace and expand upon the spiritual journey I took for nearly two years. I'll take you along as I interview thirteen leading scholars and authorities who have impeccable academic credentials." Then I added: "I have crisscrossed the country...to elicit their expert opinions, to challenge them with the objections I had when I was a skeptic, to force them to defend their positions with solid data and cogent arguments, and to test them with the very questions that you might ask if given the opportunity." (Page 15, emphasis added)

To bring even greater clarity, I emphasized in the conclusion of the book: "My investigation into Jesus was similar to what you've just read, except that I primarily studied books and other historical research instead of personally interacting with scholars." (Page 279) In the updated and expanded edition, I was even more specific by providing the 1981 date of my conversion and then saying, "it would be years later when I would decide to retrace and expand upon my original investigation by traveling the country to interview scholars for this book." I dated my original investigation from January 20, 1980, to November 8, 1981, during which time "I had studied history, sifted archaeology, asked questions, and analyzed answers with as much of an open mind as I could muster." (Page 280)

In fact, to remove any possible ambiguity, we added an interview with me at the end of the book in which I was asked how I would respond to someone who would say I wasn't an atheist when I conducted these interviews. My reply is absolutely unequivocal: "Well, they're right! I never claimed to be." (Page 298) How much clearer could I possibly be?

The podcasters also complain that I reacted skeptically at times during the interviews. Well, again, I was doing exactly what I said I would do in the introduction to the book: Challenge the experts "with the objections I had when I was a skeptic." In addition, I was merely doing what good journalists are supposed to do: ask pointed questions in order to prod the person to back up their assertions. In some instances, I still did harbor skepticism about certain details of what I was being told – which is a good thing. One scholar told me something to which I responded with skepticism, only to find out later that my skepticism had been justified: he had been mistaken. 

Also, in the book I repeatedly talk in terms of having been a skeptic in the past. For example, in my interview with Craig Blomberg, I point out that "I had originally been...a skeptic." (Page 56) At another place in that interview, I say: "As a skeptic, that was one of my biggest objections to Christianity." (Page 37) Was – as in past tense. In my interview with Bruce Metzger, I say: "When I first found out that there are no surviving originals of the New Testament, I was really skeptical." (Page 62) Again, past tense. Clear enough?

As for the movie based on my book, which the podcasters mention, here's a news flash: it's not a documentary!As I have repeatedly said, it's a feature film that uses standard cinematic techniques such as time shifting, composite characters, and other dramatic devices to fit my story into 113 minutes. For example, in the movie edition of The Case for Christ book, I say: "Of course, all movies 'based on a true story' reinterpret the actual events to some degree. They have to take dramatic license with time-shifting, time compression, composite characters, and so forth, in order to squeeze years of life into a three-act script." (Page 295)

Another misleading technique the podcasters use is to denigrate some of the scholars I interviewed for my book. They identify one of them as merely being "a pastor," deceptively omitting the fact that he has a master of divinity degree (cum laude) from Yale University, a doctorate (magna cum laude) from Princeton Theological Seminary, and was a professor at a well-respected university. (All this is highlighted on Pages 121-123.)

Elsewhere, one of the podcasters says it's a "fact" about me that "he only engages with Christian apologists." Really? I'm not sure anyone would classify prominent New Testament scholar D. A. Carson (PhD, Cambridge); psychologist Gary Collins (PhD, Purdue); professor Ben Witherington III (PhD, Durham); or historian Edwin Yamauchi (PhD, Brandeis) as apologists. (Incidentally, I do directly engage with skeptics in some of my other books, including Canada's most famous agnostic, Charles Templeton, in The Case for Faith, and Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, in The Case for Miracles.)

The podcasters do offer high praise for Bruce Metzger (PhD, Princeton), calling him "a legendary Bible scholar." But again, they're deceptive in the way they handle this. How so? By failing to disclose the highly relevant fact that Metzger had read my entire book and had wholeheartedly and unreservedly endorsed it! In fact, his strong recommendation is emblazoned across the back cover: "Lee Strobel probes with bulldog-like tenacity the evidence for the truth of biblical Christianity." Metzger further says that "believers and agnostics alike will learn from this fast-paced book." That's the opposite of what these podcasters conclude. Perhaps the credibility of Metzger, widely recognized as the 20th century's greatest scholar on the New Testament text, might trump the credibility of two podcasters who are still working on their doctorates. 

I could go on and on. Their sloppiness is again shown when they said that Craig Blomberg (PhD, Aberdeen) "argues that the Gospels are written by eyewitnesses and therefore historically reliable in every detail." Nowhere does Blomberg say that the four gospels were all written by eyewitnesses. Nobody believes that Luke was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus. Here's the actual exchange from the book:

I said, "If we can have confidence that the gospels were written by the disciples Matthew and John, by Mark, the companion of the disciple Peter, and by Luke, the historian, companion of Paul, and sort of a first-century journalist, we can be assured that the events they record are based on either direct or indirect eyewitness testimony." To that, Blomberg replied, "Exactly." (Page 25) Blomberg said elsewhere in the interview: "If we can reconstruct reasonably accurate history from all kinds of other ancient sources, we ought to be able to do that from the gospels." (Page 33)

The podcasters even resort to criticizing me for believing something I have never said or thought. They claim, without any supporting evidence: "Strobel implies that we should trust the content of the [biblical] text because it was reliably preserved, and that doesn't follow. You can have the autograph [that is, the original] of a text that is littered with falsification." To which I respond, "That's obvious!" The reason I dealt with the transmission of the New Testament text is to demonstrate that we can try to discern what the original text said based on comparing and contrasting the large number of manuscripts we possess. Nowhere do I present – nor have I ever believed – the absurd claim that this necessarily proves the truth of the original. 

In another instance, one of the podcasters says: "The problem with this book is that it is arguing for rigid certainty against other forms of rigid certainty." Really? Then why do I urge readers in the introduction this way: "Ultimately, it's the responsibility of jurors to reach a verdict. That doesn't mean they have one-hundred-percent certainty, because we can't have absolute proof about anything in life." Instead, I write, the issue is "which scenario fits the facts most snugly?" (Page 16) That's not a rigid kind of certainty; that's deciding which scenario best conforms to the evidence.

One of the most troubling aspects of this podcast is the extreme bias the hosts display toward Christian apologetics, which might explain a lot about their antipathy toward me. They wield the word "apologist" as if it were an insult. The term apologetics, however, comes from the Greek apologia, which means "reasoned defense." All Christians, presumably including these podcasters, are told in 1 Peter 3:15 to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."

So Christian apologetics is mandated in scripture. But that doesn't stop one of the podcasters from giving listeners this outrageous admonition: "Don't read apologetics! It's bad for your understanding of the field. And I honest to God believe it's bad for your soul." Seriously, that's a sad and cynical attitude.

The other podcaster takes the bizarre skeptical position that we cannot use historical tools to investigate the resurrection of Jesus. Talking about the resurrection on a different podcast, she says, "What we can reconstruct with history really ends at the cross." 

That seems ridiculous to me. We just need to look at three historical issues to see if the resurrection happened. First, did Jesus live? Second, was he killed? And third, was he encountered alive again afterward?" Certainly Peter and Paul pointed to witnesses as they made their case for the resurrection. They obviously believed in the strength of the evidence. In fact, entire books have been written on the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. For example, Michael Licona (PhD, Pretoria) wrote more than 700 pages on the topic in his book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.

But for this podcaster, the resurrection "doesn't have anything to do with history." She declares: "The way we know that the resurrection happened is because – what's the hymn we sing at Easter? You know – you asked me how I know he lives; he lives within my heart."

That's nice, but in this era of increased skepticism about Christianity, it certainly isn't the kind of rigorous defense that the culture needs or which 1 Peter 3:15 had in mind. And, I might add, it is the exact kind of tepid response I expected from Christians when I was an atheist who was investigating the faith. If all I had gotten would have been this sort of subjective testimonial response, I likely would have remained a skeptic. Thank God that instead I encountered faithful believers who were willing to answer my objections and offer evidence to show me that history points persuasively toward the resurrection of Jesus, which is the linchpin of the Christian faith. They gave me reasons to believe, with Paul, that "in fact Christ has been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:20, emphasis mine).

I should also point out that in the midst of their scoffing, these two critics completely overlook the fact that this kind of evidence was precisely what the Holy Spirit used to reach me when I was still a God-denying, profane, drunken, and often angry skeptic -- and he used it to bring me to the foot of the cross, to genuine repentance, and to a life of leading thousands of others to find and follow Jesus. The last chapter in the updated version of the book chronicles several of these inspiring stories. So I have to ask – what was it again that these two podcasters are so dead-set against?

My conclusion: intellectuals bicker all the time, and that's fine. And, yes, the scholars in my book are conservative, because I found the squishy claims of most liberals to be ill-supported. Of course there are going to be disagreements. And I understand that podcasters want to attract an audience. Nevertheless, critics should be fair and relevant facts should never be deceptively omitted – especially by those who say they are brothers or sisters in Christ.