Charles Foster set out to present and argue both sides of the argument of the death and resurrection of Christ. I would not say that he was successful. Several of his points made ‘X’ (the non-Christian) sound stupid, and ‘Y’ (supposedly the Christians) didn’t believe the Bible was infallible. Not only that, but they missed several possible explanations to ‘X’s questions or statements (of course it was just easier to say that the writer was just old and senile, and obviously forgot the correct day or was trying to make a theological point and help ‘X’ win his case, than to research why they might have happened the way it was written). There were times when ‘X’ was presenting his case that I thought he was fighting to prove something was true instead of false, and when ‘Y’ was talking that I was sure he was trying to disprove the death and resurrection. Either he got them mixed up or he intentionally tried to make both parties look ignorant.
While I did learn a few historical things from this book, I would NEVER recommend it to anyone! Most Christians are better educated for defending their faith in a single Sunday service than they could ever possibly be by reading this book. As I said above, it left out a ton of real answers and replaced them with high tech lingo that I imagine many people would need a dictionary to understand (example: loquacious which means talkative). I mean, seriously, why not use normal words? I found this book very hard to follow. In each chapter he had sub-categories, each with several points, but the way they were arranged to find ‘Y’s response to ‘X’ you had to flip ahead, but ‘X’ still expected you to know that the ‘Y’ had said something didn’t matter when he got to the next sub-category.
And just in case anybody is wondering, ‘do’ is a two letter word (see page 192).
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com
Breakdown:
Worldview: Secular
Target Audience: I’m pretty sure he wrote this book to satisfy himself, but as far as anyone else probably other barrister’s (aka trial lawyers) who don’t believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
Positive Elements: It had some great pictures, and I actually really enjoyed reading the Appendix’s…
Inappropriate Language: Other than I found most of the book to be blasphemous, none.
Unbiblical Content: Pretty much the whole book… While it contained Scripture and was based almost entirely on the Gospel they tried to use the Gospel to discredit the Gospel. It was horrid!
Other Negative Elements: I think I’ve said enough…
Wow. I received a review copy of this book, too, but I haven't gotten into it yet!
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