More Than A Carpenter

I recently read the book "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell. In this book McDowell discusses many arguments put forward about Jesus and really researches who he was historically. One of the first chapters is about Jesus and what people think he was. To many he was a great moral teacher and nothing more. That was what frustrated McDowell to dedicating a chapter to the topic. He says that Jesus could not have been just a good moral teacher, while proclaiming to be God. He was either, lying about being God and knew it, was crazy and really believed he was God or was actually God. He goes through each topic and debates whether or not each one is correct or not. He also talks of the validity of Biblical records and how they are reliable. There was a theory that the New Testament was a second century document and he researched the legitimacy of it. When researching these topics he goes to ask professors for the truth about the subject, what they do and don’t know, what they are sure of and what they think could be. I think that because the people he interviews are real with him it strengthens his logical stance in the book.

McDowell, however, waits until the end of the book to state why we should consider this book as anything more than a stubborn Christian just justifying his beliefs. He mentions at the end of the book though, that he was once a skeptic. Not just a skeptic, but a hard core hater of Christians and religion in general and wouldn’t hesitate to argue against them.

He changed however when he sought out to look for evidence discrediting Jesus and who he and other people claimed him to be. He was challenged to do this research by a couple of Christians on his college campus. When he finally accepted their challenges, he became a very influential professor.

Anyone curious enough to read the book, whether someone who believes in Christ or not, I would recommend it. Throughout the book he cites where he got his information so one can follow up on it if you have some doubts. I know if you are a teenager, you are thinking, “Who cares about that kind of stuff?” Here is the thing though, if you find out that there is someone or something bigger than yourself. Lets say you find this one thing later in life and decide that you should be living for this purpose, than why waste the days you have in your youth to live for something that you will later determine worth dying for.