Lee Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, recounted his spiritual journey from atheism to faith in a New York Times bestseller which has become a Christian classic: The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Zondervan).

A revised and updated paperback edition is now available. A film based on the book is in production and will release in theaters nationwide in March 2017. ConversantLife interviewed Stobel by phone from his home in Houston, where he serves as Professor of Christian thought at Houston Baptist University.

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The first criteria I use to test the reliability of a witness is simply this: was the alleged “eyewitness” really present when the crime occurred? You can’t be a true eyewitness if you weren’t even there to see what it is you said you saw! This simple criteria is part of a four part reliability template I describe in Cold-Case Christianity, and reflects the California jury instructions for jurors who are asked to assess the reliability of eyewitnesses on the stand. As a skeptic, I examined this issue related to the claims of the Gospel authors. Matthew and John were allegedly eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. Mark (according to the first century bishop, Papias) chronicled the eyewitness account of the Apostle Peter, and Luke recorded his own investigation of the eyewitnesses. But how early are these accounts? Could they have been written by people who were actually present during the life and ministry of Jesus?

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