| Title | : | The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0785243631 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780785243632 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 760 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1972 |
The New Evidence maintains its classic defense of the faith yet addresses new issues.
The New Evidence is destined to equip believers with a ready defense for the next decade and beyond
The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict Reviews
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Not proven.
And I really got tired of him constantly referring to Christian apologists as "the famous such-and-such". If they're all so famous, how come I've never heard of them? -
If I were a Christian, I would be insulted and embarrassed by the contents and presentation of this book. As an atheist, it is both hilarious and frustrating. "Evidence That Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell is, if I may be blunt, one of the biggest pieces of intellectually dishonest, self-serving tripe that I have ever read. The entire thing can be summed up with the old Sunday school song: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
Although the book is titled "Evidence That Demands a Verdict," the verdict was made even before the book was written. Despite accusing critics of Christianity and the Bible of bringing their "anti-supernatural bias" to the table, making them unfit critics, Josh McDowell has based all of his so-called "evidence" on the presupposition that the Bible is true and that the Christian god is real. Without that presupposition, the entire book falls apart. There is not a single shred of actual evidence that the supernatural claims of the Bible (i.e. virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, and other miracles) are true. He focuses a lot on various historical details that the Bible gets right and tries to pass that off as proof that the Bible in its entirety is true. However, just because a few details are correct does not mean that a man rose from the dead three days after his own execution.
Another bait-and-switch that McDowell likes to pull is going over (in excruciating detail) the various claims that the Bible makes. The Bible CLAIMS that the Torah was written by Moses. Jesus CLAIMS he was the son of god. The Bible CLAIMS that the world was created in six days. But then he presents no evidence outside of the Bible to corroborate those claims. In fact, he uses the Bible to "prove" the validity of the Bible ALL THE TIME. Because he's already decided that the Bible is true, the fact that the Bible makes those claims is enough "evidence" for him. (And his so-called "experts" that he quotes are all, surprise surprise, Christians who already believe that the Bible is true.)
One of the most irritating sections for me was the part on prophecy. The Bible has a wonderful little trick: "Deuteronomy xviii claims that what does not become fulfilled, was not true prophecy" (pg. 280). Well, ain't that convenient. If a prophecy comes true, then it was either from god or a test for god's people. If it doesn't come true, then obviously it wasn't a true prophecy. The list of prophecies that follow are so vague and typical that pretty much anything could be used to fill them in. Several predict the destruction of various cities, but never give a specific time-frame, so a prophecy can be "fulfilled" decades or even centuries after the fact. And given all of the warfare going on, making a prediction about a city being destroyed and its people killed was a pretty safe bet. And if Star Wars has taught me anything, it's that relying on prophecy is a bad idea. (Interestingly, McDowell cites a prophecy about the destruction of Samaria. In the prophecy it says that "Their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open." First, wow, some loving god. Second, McDowell's analysis of the truth of the prophecy doesn't mention anything as specific as the murder of pregnant women in such a fashion. Once again, its fulfillment is so generic as to be useless.)
In short, if you have masochistic literary tendencies and enjoy yelling at pieces of paper, you may want to try out this book. For those of you who are curious about the contents but don't feel like slogging through, I recommend watching the YouTube series "An Atheist Reads Evidence That Demands a Verdict" by Steve Shrives. His video series does cover the contents of the 1999 "updated" version of the book, so there's a lot of extra content, especially as the book goes on. Think of it as extra Easter eggs.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go gargle some hydrochloric acid to get the bad taste of this book out of my mouth. -
This was my second reading.
I love this book, written in defense of Christianity by a former doubter, now turned apologist.
It is an amazing collection of evidence from history, world experts and even skeptics, and hundreds of presentations of logic and debate that are overwhelmingly compelling. -
Have read this more than once, and several revisions. This is not a casual read. It is written more like a source book, or a thesis on the premises of who was Jesus Christ, and the claims of the Bible. Excellent read!
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Not the most objective book
18 January 2013
I have noticed that this book receives some bad responses, but then that is not surprising when you have a book that is purporting to outline all of the evidence supporting the authenticity of Christianity. Unfortunately it has been a while since I read it but it is one of those books that is ordered as notes as opposed to being written in prose to make it easier see the evidence that McDowell argues. However, the problem, as one person suggested, is that there are a lot of logical fallacies and a lot of assumptions.
One of the fallacies that I want to point out (which I do believe comes from this book) are the number of copies of the New Testament that we have, and the dating of these documents. In reality the earliest copy of the New Testament we have is the Codex Sinaticus (you can see it on display in the British Library) which dates back to about 500 AD. While we do have a lot of documents that predate the codex, they all tend to either be fragments, or single books, so when they talk about the oldest New Testament document that we have we are actually talking about a fragment. The same goes with the number of gospel documents we have, because once again a bulk of them are fragments. How is it that we claim that the oldest copy of
the Republic we have dates to around 800 AD, when in reality we have fragments that are much earlier (and the same goes with the
Iliad and the
Odyssey). We Christians love to criticise and attack atheists for using logical fallacies and twisting the truth, when in reality we do it ourselves all the time.
Look, there is a lot of evidence for Christianity, and the fact that it is one of the dominant religions of our time, which has doctrine that is almost unchanged from when the apostles first wrote their creed, is evidence enough, and I also have no argument against using or studying apologetics to defend our faith, however, as the Bible says, the key word here is to defend and promote our faith, not to destroy, ridicule or undermine other people's faith. In many ways I do not necessarily say people are wrong, but rather they have an understanding that is leading them in the right direction. -
Best thing I can say is that Mr. McDowell has given an honest effort in gathering all the information he feels justifies his beliefs. The title of the book is misleading. Despite the impressive number of quotes and apologetics, evidence is lacking. This book suffers profusely from circular reasoning, "facts" with no support, and sources that don't matter. I love C.S. Lewis too, that doesn't mean his opinion carries any weight.
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Although I read it page by page this is more of a reference resource. The chapter on the resurrection is worth the price of the entire book.
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Evidential apologetics to strengthen the faith of Christians. A good 'resource' to keep on your shelf.
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The verdict is in. This book is schmutzwasser. And I don't have to prove that it is, since he doesn't really prove his points, either.
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Excellent arguments for Christianity based on history.
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The worst of Christian apologetics. If taken seriously, it accomplishes the exact opposite of the authors goal.
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you need this book in your library! You cannot find a more articulate defense of the truth.
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Great book, all 600 or so pages were worth it. Amongst other things, it pulls together a bundle of evidence that the Bible is historically accurate and that Jesus was a historical figure by the methods of our day. Also debunks some misconceptions and alternate resurrection theories, etc. Has a great section on the basics of philosophy which helps with understanding the illogical bases for mysticism, post-modernism, and skepticism. There's a lot more, but I'd be here forever explaining it.
A great thing about this book is that Josh McDowell makes a point of not extrapolating too far from what the Bible says, what ancient historical documents say, and what we know about human nature.
It's a little dry, but what factual book with so much to cover isn't? The only real beef I have with it is that even after reading the thing pretty much cover-to-cover, I still can't figure out McDowell's note-taking system! -
Charles van Buren
A very useful classic of apologetics
October 28, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Review of Kindle edition
Publication date: October 13, 1999
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Language: English
ASIN: B007V8Z61M
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 82114
I listened to this book or perhaps it was just parts of it on older tapes which I had obtained at no charge from Fire Fighters for Christ. Josh McDowell himself was the narrator/speaker. I say speaker because he did more than simply read the book. McDowell is a powerful speaker who enlivened his presentation with humor and personal touches. Some of his points were stronger than others but this is still one of the best available books of apologetics. As much as I enjoyed the tapes, I recommend obtaining a hard copy of the book as well for simpler future reference. -
This book reads as if it was written by someone who has never in their life even read the Wikipedia page on Biblical Archaeology (it's here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical..., and if you want to know anything about the Bible that's ACTUALLY backed by evidence, I'd recommend reading through that page and from the scholars it cites instead of reading McDowell's book).
This book so thoroughly misses what the Bible actually is and how it got that way, as generally outlined by the scholars of such topics, that I have a hard time believing the author has ever read any genuine, academic, scholarly-rigorous research on the Bible.
Furthermore, the ways in which McDowell seeks to refute claims against the Bible as he believes it is are poorly constructed and, in my opinion, frequently self-deluded as well. When discussing disbelief in the claims of the Bible, he rarely actually addresses what evidence he believes exists to affirm these claims, instead just waxing on and on about how the claims are consistent with the rest of the Bible. He frequently uses the Bible itself as the only evidence to support his claims about it as well, which is circular at best, and very disingenuous at worst.
In particular, I found his arguing away of objections to the inconsistencies of the Bible to be very unconvincing, in which he simply explains that there can't be any, and any that appear as such are just being misinterpreted or taken in improper context. I'll refer anyone reading this review to this website in order to judge for themselves if they still think the Bible is internally consistent and inerrant after browsing through:
http://bibviz.com/
I know I didn't in good conscious believe the Bible to the ultimate source of morality, truth, wisdom, etc. after reading through that link, and McDowell's weak arguments about this topic did little to suggest I should believe otherwise.
Lastly, I think it is telling that in the introduction to this book, the author essentially states it's not aimed to explain the Bible to non-Christians. I heartily agree, since the only people who could possibly be convinced that the Bible is the inerrant word of God by such a book as this are people who agree with the conclusions before turning the first page.
If you are looking for an intellectually-honest, evidence-backed explanation of what the Bible is and what we should think of the claims made about it, this book is not for you. -
This is a fantastically well researched book and I enjoyed it, but there are a few things that severely weaken the case that McDowell is attempting to make.
For one, it is written in an evangelical style. The introduction and first chapter sound like something you would hear at church; they are about his personal experiences and personal faith, and are very enthusiastic. That's fine, but he essentially begins the book by alienating skeptics and broadly trumpeting that his perspective is not even remotely objective.
Second, I don't like how the first few chapters are laid out. There is a ton of amazing, well researched, and well articulated evidence in this book, and almost none of it is in chapter 1-4. It starts out with the weakest possible arguments for Christianity, like how widely read, how ancient, and how well respected the Bible is. Those are not cogent arguments for the stunning claims of the gospels.
Overall, I thought this was an engrossing and informative book. I would like to see it re-written in a less confusing manner (i.e. instead of just collecting research notes with a weirdly organized outline structure, write an actual book), and I would like to see it re-written from a more stale, analytical perspective in which formal logic is applied to the arguments more explicitly. I think that putting this book through a sieve of formal logic would shake out much of the weaker content, and strengthen much of the good content.
4/5 stars. I plan on reading again because it's really dense and there is a lot of interesting stuff which escaped both my notice and my memory. -
Such a complete work that provides answers for many of skeptics' questions. What struck me, though, was the lack of the type of 100%, mathematical certainty for the Christian faith. And it makes me wonder if that's precisely how God intended it. If there were such crystal clear answers, we wouldn't see very many skeptics. God wants us to have a measure of faith like a child (Matthew 19). While we must always be prepared to give a defense (I Peter 3:15), and I'm indebted to this book in helping me begin to do so, we must ultimately accept the gospel with the wonder and belief of a child - a sort of faith that, though it is not a blind faith, rests in God Himself.
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The updated classic is the new standard in apologetics. As good as the original Evidence that Demands a Verdict (ETDAV) was, this updated and revamped edition is even better. With new sections on the historicity of Jesus' existence, evaluations of the historical data, updated scientific information, and new updated stats on biblical manuscript evidence; this updated addition with insights from Dr. Sean McDowell makes this revision of ETDAV a must-have for anyone serious about Christian Apologetics.
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I found it to be a stirring defense of the Christian faith, and this book does do an outstanding job in also exposing much of the circular thinking and inconsistencies in critics of Christian doctrines and the Bible. My only criticisms are that it does tend, toward the end, to get bogged down in philosophy, and I do wish it had gone into more detail exposing inconsistencies in evolutionary theory as well.
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The authors know the Bible has no contradictions and it is true. Anything that appears in the Bible that appears to be a contradiction means that the reader has closed their mind therefore making them close minded. Judas clearly hung himself and his guts exploded after he hung himself, thus easily explaining the different stories about his death. The authors know that the Bible is inerrant. They know the Bible is the truth and corresponds to reality and that is why they know the message of the Gospel is the only way to salvation.
A lot of the verbiage foisted on to the reader is non-central to the author’s main point: Jesus was resurrected and died for your sins and you must believe that to have eternal life. The authors felt it was necessary to show that Moses was real and killing all first born sons is kind, the flood could have happened, Noah’s Ark makes sense, Adam and Eve are real, and other silly claims without good evidence to make sure that you believe that Jesus died for you, and talking donkeys, snakes and Zebras getting stripes all make sense when looked at the right way, and the OT clearly prophesied Jesus as messiah and resurrected Lord.
There is very little of substance in this book. Christians have good arguments, but this book doesn’t use them. This book relies too much on ‘the Bible says it is so.’ The authors believe that the Bible is special in all human history and that the 66 books written over 700 years by different people over different time periods was meant to cohere and tie together through harmonization since the Gospel message was known from the beginning of the OT and must cohere what happened up through the Book of Revelations.
I cringe when author’s use the Book of Acts as history as these authors do, or when authors make-believe that the Book of Daniel was written in 600 BCE. In Acts Peter raised Tabitha from the dead, and Paul raised someone else from the dead, and worst of all Peter purposely has the ‘Holy Spirit’ kill two people for not giving the Church 100% of their money. If Daniel was really written in 600 BCE as these authors claim it would be the biggest proof that the OT was real, unfortunately, Wiki, exists and it tells me that it was written in the second century BCE.
I also cringed with this book’s use of philosophy in the later chapters. I do want to note that they seem to be the real ‘relativists’ and ‘post-modernists’ since they allowed such a wide leeway by selectively setting truth standards while applying Biblical morality and creatively rationalizing actions and facts as stated in the Bible such as 600000 people left Egypt in the exodus might not be right because it didn’t feel right to the authors, even though they think the Bible is absolutely true, but they are willing to readjust the narrative about the narrative that suits their purposes, that is the authors’ very definition for relativism and post-modernism.
The Bible is true since Jesus quotes from the OT and that obviously predicted him as the coming messiah and he predict his own resurrection that proves that the Bible is true even though the Bible consists of 66 books written over many years but it all means that it must be true because you can’t find contradictions in it and is true since Jesus came and was resurrected otherwise how could Jesus have predicted his own resurrection? What do angels look like, and how did Mary Magdelene know it was an angel? The Bible says it was an angel that’s good enough for the authors and the authors still think miracles, angels, demons, and holy spirits are happening today, at least they had a long section on miracles that seem to support that while trying to refute David Hume.
Don’t you love it when someone warns you against ‘homosexual attitude.’ For the authors, if they are going to damn you from an extra life after death justly, they must blame your homosexuality which you have at birth on your willing ‘attitude’ for choosing to be gay. It’s easier to damn those for their own choices than for being born that way. Existentialist Philosophy and Christians often overlap in weird ways ‘Pierre is not a waiter, he is just acting at being a waiter,’ and Sartre also says that Homosexuals chose to be homosexuals.
Appendix 2, the appendix against Bart Ehrman is oddly persuasives for Ehrman’s position and against their own thesis. They criticize him for placing context, relations, background, individualistic interpretations for the various authors of the books of the bible and making the original writers of the various 66 books part of human experience while the authors of this book place the Bible outside of human creation and outsource their own volition to esoteric interpretations based on their own relativistic truths. Once again, the authors eclectically use their relativism while supporting outsourcing their own special narrative therefore making them the most nihilistic of all; Nietzsche warns against doing that and the authors seem to embrace nihilism while claiming certainty by outsourcing their belief system to a book of books that don’t cohere except through earthly authority with irrational gyrations. For those who think they possess certainty, growth is never possible since they already believe they know the truth.
The final part of the book had what to me is frightening, a belief statement for which saying out loud promises things hoped for but not seen while locking you into possible darkness; and damning all around you those who don’t believe in the same exact superstition a hell of sorts which at a minimum includes an absence from the presence of their good God. The authors were cagey on what they believed for what happens to those who don’t believe exactly as they do. I prefer the God of the OT because with Him there is no threat of eternal suffering, and for the NT God some people are convinced there is. These authors didn’t tell me what would happen to my loved ones who don’t accept all their premises they laid out in their form of the sinner’s prayer. Though, without good evidence, they promise eternal life if darkness is avoided in this life and if I would just say their prayer out loud.
There’s a connection between MAGA and evangelical white Christians at an 85% level. Both groups of people seem to outsource their beliefs to authorities without sufficient reliance on good evidence and trust their feelings and experiences for assessing truth claims, and this book reaffirms that connection for me. This book is over 800 pages long and provided no reasonable evidence for the authors’ unsupported assertions. Gary Habermas is quoted multiple times in this book and he at least laid out an argument in his book, “On the Resurrection” which at least had a scintilla of evidence in support of his thesis. Habermas’ book was awful, but it is light-years ahead of this book.
All of nature is connected and everything that’s been in the world was part of the world and related to the world. These authors make their religion and their beliefs the only exception to that fact about the world. Special pleading for them makes their religion special and true and not obligated to be a result of the world or created by humans.
For MAGA people it means vaccines don’t work, January 6 was a special-op perpetrated by FBI agents, the election was stolen, and climate change is a Chinese hoax. As the author’s claims about the Book of Daniel were easily debunked by looking them up on Wiki, MAGAs claims are also easily debunked on Wiki. I live in the real-world and Wiki exists and the authors and MAGA need to return to the real-world before they turn into irrelevance.
This book is an insult to the reader. Most of it is superfluous for the author’s main point. Evidence needs to be more than claims to be persuasive. There is no persuasion in this book unless one presupposes the Bible was inerrant and was written by the Holy Spirit while assuming a syncretic harmonization to the various 66 books while rationalizing or ignoring the vile parts. -
Every piece of "evidence" in this book is support (from the Bible) for McDowell's foregone conclusion. As far as I can tell, this book doesn't contain a single piece of actual evidence toward anything other than McDowell's delusion.
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Wow.
I was a born-again fundamentalist when I read this book, and I still found it laughable.
It almost reads like a parody. -
When this showed up today as one of my recommendations, I remembered I read this book many, many years ago. Don't remember much about it and nowadays I don't think I'd be impressed with it.
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First of all. This book is obnoxiously long. I feel no shame in admitting I skimmed this book since this is the second book that I read at the request of my family members. (
See "Case for Christ" review) I did my part, but our conversation following really had nothing to do with this book, so just watch out for that if you haven't fallen for that book swap trap before. (ugh!) So let's just say, I'm done reading religious books for other people. I mean, that's probably a good rule of thumb anyway...
Once again this is an apologetic reference guide for Christians, I'm not going to spend a long time dissecting everything within this book... you can find plenty of people out there who have done that. But if you are reading this book honestly, I encourage you to look at these arguments objectively and see if there isn't any circular reasoning, pre-suppositions, and a Christian bias in there. I think it's filled with them... overall, not convincing.
