Evidence I & II-The classic defense of the faith: Now fully updated to answer the questions challenging evangelical faith today.

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

McDowell does a good job quoting other experts throughout his book, and the reader is sure to find other books that you will want to explore further. I would not recommend reading this book in one sitting; I read a chapter every night before bedtime, and even that was too much at times. Perhaps the best way to read this book would be using it as a reference tool.


This book changed my life   February 7, 2005
 98 out of 113 found this review helpful

Allow me to start by addressing some of the negative reviews of this book.

First of all, Josh McDowell doesn't make any money off his books. For more than 35 years, the profits for all his books have gone directly to a Christian organization (i.e. Campus Crusade for Christ). He doesn't even know how much money his books make. (I heard this from his own mouth when he spoke at a church a few years back.) Second of all, Josh doesn't claim to be a great writer or theologian; he's just presenting the facts that he's discovered. You have to do the work yourself and decide. You may even have to read other books that offer opposing evidence. (Incidentally, Josh started doing all this research before he became a Christian.) And thirdly, the gospel of John was written by an apostle who lived and followed Jesus for three years. That's a first hand account. The book of James was also written by Jesus' brother (who did not initially believe Jesus, himself).

That said, I know this book doesn't end any debates about the Christian faith. For me, however, before I became a Christian, reading Josh's stuff opened my eyes to the fact that you can't easily dismiss the Christian faith the way some uninformed people do (the way I did at one point.)

So if you're the type of person to get caught up on debating grammatical mistakes and nitpicking over the difference between a few decades within the scope of 2000 years, don't read this book. But if you're open to having your perspective (and possibly your life changed), take a look. I guarantee that when your life is changed in a dramatic way, you can write about it 30 or 60 years later and remember it like it was yesterday.



The decline and fall of Christian Apologetics   June 29, 2002
 85 out of 157 found this review helpful

Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict is probably the most influential book of Christian apologetics to be published in the past half century. And it is irredeemably flawed in every respect from beginning to end. Let's just list some of its major flaws.

1) Irrelevancies. McDowell repeatedly refers to the New Testament documents as eyewitness accounts. By contrast, the scholarly consenus among most historians and non-evangelical Christians is that of the 27 books of the New Testament, we know the authorship of exactly 7, all by Paul. Neither the four gospels, nor Acts, nor the Book of Revelation, nor the other letters were written by the people Christian tradition attributed to them, and they were written 40-80 years after his death. How does McDowell get around this problem? He cites evidence that there are far more copies of the bible and far earlier than any other account from the Classical Age. But this only shows that after Constantine the Church showed much more concern for preserving Christian documents and remarkable callousness towards non-christian ones. He argues that many details about first century Judaea are accurately recorded in the Gospels, but this does not show who wrote them or whether they were written one generation after Jesus' death or two.

2) Argument from authority. McDowell quotes reams of evangelical and nineteenth century authorities, as well as people who tried to refute the resurrection and only became more convinced of its existence. But what is the point of quoting Thomas Arnold's muscular defense of orthodoxy when it didn't really convince his son, the famous poet and essayist Matthew Arnold? To take one example of McDowell's inapt use of authority, consider his discussion of Quirinius on page 63. Quirinius is the governor under whom the census was conducted, that compelled Mary and Joseph to move to Bethlehem. Unfortunately, Quirinius and the census were held a dozen years after Jesus' birth. Mcdowell tries to get around this problem, but all his arguments and every other way of getting around the problem was refuted point by point in Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar's 1973 edition of Emil Schurer's The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Volume I at 399-427. In trying to get around the inconsistent geneologies given to Jesus in Matthew and Luke McDowell doesn't even mention Raymond Brown's The Birth of the Messiah, which says that they can't be successfully rationalized.

3) Ignorance of Judaism. It is not true that Jesus was the first Jew to refer to God as "Abba" or Father (153) It is not true that claiming one's sins are forgiven as part of healing a person (in Mark 2:1-12) is making a claim to divinity. Similar claims were made by other faith healers in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is not true that claiming sinless is equivalent to claiming divinity: the Prayer of Manasseh claims the patriarchs were sinless.

4) Prophetic non-sequiturs. McDowell asserts that Jesus is divine because he fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies. (He lists 61) There are all sorts of problems with this. Some of the prophecies could be fulfilled by anyone because they are or were everyday occurences. There is nothing especially unusual about going to the temple or entering Jerusalem on a donkey. Other Old Testament prophecies are not messianic prophecies, others were not interpreted as messianic prophesies until the Christians cited them as such. Many of the prophecies are merely claims that the gospels made; we have no independent proof of them. Among these are prophecies that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he was born in Bethlehem, and that he was annointed by the Holy Ghost. McDowell claims that Isaiah 7:14 predicts a virgin birth. He argues that the Hebrew world used "almah" means virgin, or is "denoted" by it. It does not, and John P. Meier has pointed out in A Marginal Jew that the term has been applied to pregnant women before giving birth.

5) Other non-sequiturs and logical errors. McDowell argues that miracles are more probable because quantum physics and relativity have upset Newtonian physics. Rubbish. He tries to suggest that the burden of proof lies on those who deny miracles or doubt the inerrancy on the bible when, of course, it lies on him. His discussion of C.S. Lewis' Trilemma shows the same flaw Lewis' did: it is not clear that Jesus claimed he was God, the Gospels do. Since they were written decades after his death they cannot be taken to be eyewitness accounts. Moreover, outside of John, the last Gospel, the claims are ambiguous and McDowell misinterprets the evidence he does have (see problem 3). McDowell does not discuss the fact that Paul's epistles, our earliest writings, do not mention the Virgin Birth, a Physical Ressurection, an Early Tomb, or a prophecy of destroyed Jerusalem. One could go on, but I only have a thousand words.


A Disappointment...   March 17, 2000
 78 out of 162 found this review helpful

I whole-heartedly understand the need for Christians to defendtheir faith in this day and age of confusion and materialism. However,if Josh McDowell is the leading defender of the Christian faith, thenChristianity is right on the long and depressing road of intellectual suicide.

I had previously heard about McDowell, during a debate with a Christian, however I never bothered to read any of his books. Rigorous scholarship is always a strong plus to establish the credibility of one's arguments, especially during debates. As I enjoy debating various aspects of the Christian tradition, I noticed my friends repeating a theme. When forced into a corner, the Christian consistently hid behind the remark, "read McDowell". It doesn't really help to engage oneself in a debate when one is not familiar with the references of the opponent. And so, I finally made the intention of reading some of McDowell's work.

The pretentious language in the introduction was indeed intimidating. Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing in the almost 800 pages of this monstrous book that I could take seriously. Josh McDowell is clearly not a scholar of anything - not of history, classical Greek, classical Hebrew, Aramaic, manuscript archives, logic, reasoning, theology, and definitely not philosophy. His command of English was disappointing in itself, writing like a child to other children. The simpleton's nature of this book makes it clear that Josh McDowell is not entering into a scholarly debate, but rather providing something comforting and soothing for simple Christian minds. It almost reeks of a superstitious quality, like a placebo does for the gullible and naive.

His deliberately manipulative treatment of the ancient manuscripts, Flavius Josephus, ancient Roman customs, ancient Jewish customs, Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, modern scholarship, and on and on, have completely shattered his credibility as a Christian writer. The absolutely ridiculous idea that Josephus was a "contemporary" of Jesus, a "hostile witness", is something of a comical insult to intellectual integrity. According to Christian tradition, Jesus was crucified in 33 A.D. Josephus was not even born until 37 A.D. Thus, to assert that Josephus was a "contemporary" is simply dishonest. Furthermore, Josephus only briefly mentioned Christian beliefs in a footnote, which the vast majority of scholars regard as a fabrication.

Another case study of deliberate deception is McDowell's analysis of Mithraism. It has become a common apologetic trend to dismiss the connection between Christianity and Mithraism as "outdated". Ironically, these very same apologists are almost entirely ignorant of Mithraic scholarship. It is a well-established fact that the Tauroctony, or the slaying of the bull, symbolized the death of the "old law" and cosmic order, and the signaled the freedom of those that accepted the sacrifice. The feast of Mithra and his 12 disciples is also another undeniable tradition of Mithraism. The eating and drinking of the savior's flesh and blood, so that the lord would reside within the body of the believer, was characteristic not only of Mithraism but through the ancient Mediterranean cultic traditions. McDowell's argument that it was impossible for Mithraism to have influenced the Gospels because of the late arrival of Mithraism is simply another case of dishonest scholarship. Mithraism can be traced to Tarsus long before Jesus ever walked this earth. And guess who wrote the oldest books of the New Testament and the most...

For those Christians whom reasoning and genuine scholarship prove intimidating, "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" will serve as a source of comfort like warm milk does to a frightened child.

However, I give this book 2 stars and for a very good reason. McDowell has done us all a great favor by providing the gauntlet of Christian apologetic arguments in a single volume. Most of the challenging questions that apologists have ever dared to acknowledge can be found in this book (obviously, philosophy and theology are definitely not Josh McDowell's field). Regardless, I won't have to be stunned the next time I hear, "read McDowell".