I think he does a little more than a pastor, as he does mention counter arguments that would never be brought up in church, I guess. However, he then sweeps them aside with sometimes as little proper explanation as if he’d said, “But that’s just ridiculous, no one really believes that”. Perhaps it’s not that he’s really more thorough than a pastor, he just has more time/space.

It is an excellent review. I read the book in 2004. It was the last Christian book I ever read, and it put the last nail on my Christian coffin.

The book bothered me, but I couldn’t put the annoyance into words. You have helped me realize what it was that I found so suspicious. I remember being annoyed by too much scene setting. I remember thinking, “This reads like a novel.”

It also bothered me that he made his subject-matter experts look like ultimate authorities, as if they knew it all, and I had to believe just because those “great” people did.

In sum, the book relies too much on the ethos of the so-called experts, who in my opinion, were only experts in that they studied and believed what others said in the past.

The book resembles a Sunday morning sermon, where the pastor says all kind of stuff and devotees mostly believe because they’re convinced he knows what he’s talking about. In that sense, Strobel did a good job of preaching to the converted.

http://friendlyatheist.com/category/lee-strobel/

Ebon is reviewing a different book – The Case For A Creator, in great detail that I barely have the time to even read, let alone write. He covered The Case for Christ briefly quite a while ago. I get the impression that Strobel has a Case For… theme going.