"Introduction (1997) by Jeffery Jay Lowder
Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict (hereafter, "ETDAV")
is arguably one of the most influential Christian apologetic books
today. The purpose of Jury shall be to evaluate how well it does.
Chapter 1. The Uniqueness of the Bible (1997) by Farrell Till
In ETDAV, McDowell begins his defense of the
Bible with the claim that it is unique. He parades before us an array of
"scholars" to testify to various features of the Bible that qualify it
to be considered "different from all others" [books], as if anyone would
seriously try to deny that the Bible is unique, i.e., different from
all others. At the very beginning of my analysis of this chapter of ETDAV,
I will concede that the Bible is undeniably unique. Certainly, there is
no other book like it, but this fact, as we will see, becomes more of
an embarrassment to the Bible than proof of its divine origin.
Chapter 3. The Canon of the Bible (1999) by Larry Taylor
A critical reply to chapter three of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
Chapter 4. Reliability and Belief (1999) by James Still
In this essay, the author reacts to Josh McDowell's Chapter 4 entitled "Reliability of the Bible" in his book ETDAV.
He first distinguishes between Pauline faith and McDowell's insistence
that the Bible reveals historically true propositions, which the author
calls the "reliability doctrine." McDowell's reliability doctrine is
then examined from three perspectives: biblical criticism, archaeology,
and philosophy. The author concludes that the gospel narratives are not
to be understood as factually true propositions of history, but rather
they communicate the theological meaning of faith in Christ.
Chapter 5. Josh McDowell's "Evidence" for Jesus: Is It Reliable? (2000) by Jeffery Jay Lowder
In the fifth chapter of ETDAV entitled, "Jesus--A
Man of History," Josh McDowell lists a series of "sources for the
historicity of Jesus." According to the table of contents of ETDAV,
this chapter lists "documented sources of the historical person of
Jesus of Nazareth apart from the Bible." In this chapter I shall
consider each of McDowell's sources. Although I agree with McDowell that
there was a historical Jesus, I shall argue that most of McDowell's
sources do not provide independent confirmation of the historicity of
Jesus.
Chapter 6. A Rejoinder to "Jesus - God's Son" (1997) by Robert M. Price
Virtually all the rest of McDowell's sixth chapter is
taken up with defending what no one challenges: that various New
Testament writers believed Jesus Christ was a heavenly being come to
earth. That McDowell can for a moment imagine that such scripture
prooftexting even begins to address the objections of nonbelievers shows
once again that he really has no intention of engaging them. He is
simply a cheer-leader for fundamentalism, preaching to the choir.
Chapter 7. The Trilemma - Lord, Liar, or Lunatic? (1995) by Jim Perry
A critique of chapter seven of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
Chapter 8. The Great Preposterous (1997) by Robert M. Price
If anyone needed further proof that apologetics as
practiced by Josh McDowell is merely an exercise in after-the-fact
rationalization of beliefs held on prior emotional grounds, I welcome
him to Chapter 8 of ETDAV. One can only say again that McDowell
is the worst enemy of his own faith: with defenders like this, who needs
attackers? The more seriously one takes him as a representative of his
faith, the more seriously one will be tempted to thrust Christianity
aside as a tissue of grotesque absurdities capable of commending itself
only to fools and bigots.
Chapter 9. Did "Top Psychics" Predict Jesus? (1999) by Robert M. Price
As I will try to show in this article, defenders of the
fundamentalist Christian faith, like Josh McDowell, have in fact lost
the luxury of an easy appeal to fulfilled prophecy even if they remain
stubbornly oblivious of the advances of modern biblical scholarship;
this is because biblical scholarship has thrown their appeals to the
"proof from prophecy" so seriously into question that their task is now
to defend it, no longer to use it as a powerful defense for something
else, i.e., the true messiahship of Jesus. Any appeal to "proof from
prophecy" today only lengthens the line of defense rather than
shortening it.
Chapter 10. Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story (2004) by Richard Carrier
As a historian with a good knowledge of Greek, Richard
Carrier is finally qualified to make a professional judgement in the
matter. Now the fifth edition of a project that began in 1998, this
essay explains why he finds the Resurrection to be an unconvincing
argument for becoming a Christian.
Chapter 11. Critique of Josh McDowell's Non-Messianic Prophecies (n.d.) by Steven Carr
'Sceptics' are not interested in bashing the Bible as
such. They use the Bible and contemporary documents which shed light on
the Bible to try to find out what was really happening, what the
Biblical writers really meant to say. If it turns out that they were
divinely inspired prophets, then that would be accepted. It just so
happens that they weren't and the archeological evidence discovered this
century and the Biblical texts themselves show that they weren't.
Chapter 12. The Uniqueness of the Christian Experience (1999) by Edward T. Babinski
In his chapter on "The Uniqueness of the Christian
Experience" (a chapter that McDowell or his editorial staff chose to
delete from the latest edition of ETDAV),
he made a variety of sweeping claims about the "Christian Experience,"
and also argued for the uniqueness of the Christian experience in
history, but McDowell did not investigate history very deeply, nor the
lives and writings of the Christians whom he cited, some of whom came to
hold different views on a wide variety of theological subjects. Lastly,
McDowell seems to have only examined superficially his own youthful
conversion experience (any reasonable analysis of which would seem to
confirm how young and emotionally unstable he was when he converted)."