More Than a Carpenter
The story that could change your life. Skeptic Josh McDowell thought Christians were out of their minds. He ridiculed and insulted them, then decided to combat them with his own thorough research to disprove the claims of Jesus Christ. To his surprise, he discovered that the evidence suggested exactly the opposite — that Jesus, instead of being simply a first-century Hebrew carpenter, truly was the God he claimed to be. With over 15 million copies in print since its original publication, More Than a Carpenter has changed countless lives. Now, in this revised and updated edition, Josh is joined by his son, Sean, as they tackle the questions that today's generation continues to ask: "Can I be spiritual without believing in God?" "How can I make sure that my life counts for something?" "Is it really possible to know anything for sure about God or Jesus?" Read the story. Weigh the facts. Experience his love. And then watch what happens. - Back cover.
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- More Than A Carpenter
- Oops—sorry for the delayed response here!
Yeah I think "Evidence That Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell is a great one. He was agnostic and set out to disprove Christianity and found its evidence was impossible to refute.
Others I'd highly recommend would be: - More than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell - The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel - Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
I find all of these books fascinating because they're all written by men who were atheists and set out to disprove the "foolishness" of Jesus. In the end, they all came to the same conclusion which is that the evidence that points to Jesus being the Son of God is very heavy. I'm not sure there's any reasonable evidence to the contrary. In fact, most atheists I've known and talked to were atheists not due to reason, but due to emotion. Christianity has a lot of emotional baggage that comes with it. We're all flawed people and unfortunately most people associate Christianity with abuse, rules, and condemnation. That's why I prefer talking about the person of Jesus. I've never met someone who could level a reasonable accusation at the person of Jesus, and after all—He's the entire reason any of us talk about any of this.
If you read all 4 of those books and come away unconvinced I'd love to have a conversation! I was not able to retain my disbelief :)
- Apologies for the delayed response! I urge you to take a look at a few of the books I listed in a sibling comment. While I have neither the time nor desire to expound at length the copious amount of evidence for the deity of Jesus of Nazareth, there are several men who have done so for me! In addition, these guys were not your devout raised-from-birth Christians who believe simply because they were told. Rather, they believed because they could not disprove the evidence for Jesus. In fact, I believe all 4 men were atheists who set out to disprove Jesus, but came to the conclusion that the evidence supporting his claims to deity are monumental!
- Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell
- More than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell
- The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel
- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
Finally, this is addressed in probably each of these books, but as for your last comment. It's not unthinkable to imagine Jesus was so insane he was willing to die for his "personal views on ethics" (Although there's precious little evidence to support this, see the "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" argument). Nor is it outside the realm of possibility to think that perhaps his closest 12 followers were willing to die for a charade (Although again, there's no logical reason to support this idea)—I imagine stranger situations have occurred.
But consider the vast history of Christianity, littered with martyrs whose only mandate to escape death was simply, "Deny Christ" and were yet unwilling to do so. It begins to become disingenuous to suggest that across 2,000 years people have been willing to die for one man's "personal views on ethics" when all that would be required to avoid said death is to simply say, "Jesus is not God", unless of course you were utterly convinced it was true.
- In https://meaningness.com/finding-god-in-a-casino, he says explains religion as an addiction to warm fuzzies, kept alive by the brain's ability to everywhere find patterns.
I agree that such can describe many people, but orthodox Christianity doesn't prescribe wishful thinking or worse, blind faith. If you read the Bible, it is very much an evidence-based religion. A good summary is More Than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell (192 pages).
- Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell
- > It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based
Everyone lives by faith. How can you be sure --- I mean really sure --- that the chair will not collapse beneath you, this time? I guess you don't know, 100%. But nevertheless, you sit in it.
Faith != Blind Faith. Blind faith is a particular kind of faith, which has no reason for its being --- in fact has reason against its being. Faith, by itself, is just to go on believing something that you have been given enough evidence for, in spite of irrational fear or self-centered temptation to disavow. There is a reason that sexual loyalty is also called "faithfulness."
The Bible is evidence-based because: in the Old Testament God said, believe that I am the one true God because of this or that miracle that I just did; in the New Testament, it keeps talking about testifying, "I bear witness," "believe on the testimony of these witnesses," citing them by name.
Here someone will say, but how do we know any of that really happened, just because it's written in a book? That's where manuscript evidence comes into play, whether the people who say they wrote this or that really wrote this or that, and that's where I point you to a book like Josh McDowell's, which will talk about how the Bible has tons more manuscript evidence than any other book on the face of the earth. We know that John wrote John far more than that we know that Homer wrote The Odyssey. There are other books too, like The Case for Faith. I just generally pick Josh McDowell because it is the shortest, and I know your time is valuable, and your patience for contradictory opinions is limited.
Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie?
> to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive
lowercase o orthodox: "conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted"
Besides, what in More Than a Carpenter would a Greek Orthodox believer disagree with?
