Jesus

I can still remember the first time I took high school students to Berkeley on a missions trip that put them in direct contact with prominent local atheists and atheist students groups on the campus of UC Berkeley. In one of our first lectures with an atheist presenter, the students …

As a non-believer, I suspected the stories about Jesus grew more elaborate and grandiose over time. That’s why it was so important to me to read through the earliest documents related to Jesus; I expected the initial accounts to portray Jesus as a wise teacher, but little more. I certainly …

As a skeptical non-believer, I was willing to grant that someone named Jesus actually lived in the early first century. I was also willing to grant that he might have been a wise, charismatic teacher. But I firmly believed that the supernatural aspects of Jesus’ character were untrue; a late …

As a detective, I’ve learned to carefully examine the words of suspects (I’ve written an entire chapter about this in Cold Case Christianity). Killers don’t often willingly confess to murder, but they usually give themselves away by saying something that is consistent with their involvement as the murderer, or something …

Of the many skeptical, alternative theories of the Resurrection, the imposter theory is sometimes offered in an effort explain the apparent confusion of the disciples. There are a number of places in the Gospels where followers of Jesus seem to be slow to recognize Him. Mary mistakes Jesus for a …

Many Christians are unaware of the ancient legends, distortions and stories about Jesus known as the “non-canonical gospels”. Maybe that’s why opportunistic skeptics are able to make outrageous and profitable claims about Jesus every Christmas and Easter season. In just the past few years we’ve endured the timely arrival of …

With the rise in popularity of movies like Zeitgeist: The Movie and The God Who Wasn’t There, skeptical objections to the historicity of Jesus sometimes take the form of comparisons between Jesus and ancient mythologies preceding Him. Skeptics highlight similarities between Jesus and Horus, Mithras, Osiris or other ancient examples …

In God’s Not Dead 2, high school student, Brooke Thawley, having just experienced the death of her brother, asks her teacher, Grace Wesley, how she might deal with the heartbreak and sadness she is experiencing. Grace responds by citing the source of her own strength in similar situations: Jesus. Later …

I’ve investigated a number of cold-case homicides over the years, and these cases eventually ended up in front of a jury. As I’ve watched prosecutors and defense attorneys make their respective cases, I’ve noticed something important: every case has both strengths and weaknesses. When I began to examine the claims …

I didn’t become a Christian until the age of thirty-five. For most of my life, I rejected the Resurrection of Jesus as a mythological fairy-tale. Of the many ways unbelievers sometimes try to explain the gospel accounts of the Resurrection, believed they were little more than late legends. I didn’t …