Sunday, March 24, 2013

Review: Reasons For Belief

Norman L. Geisler and Patty Tunnicliffe have written a page turner. Although I still had several unanswered questions, "Reasons For Belief" is filled their book with historical facts, philosophical reasoning, and science to give the reader what the title promises: reason to believe in God, Christ and the resurrection. We get information on the reliability of the New and Old Testament. We learn about sources outside the Bible that confirm Jesus' existence and death. A long list of prophecies fulfilled. Interesting facts about buried bodies that make Jesus' resurrection account all the more true. Geisler and Tunnicliffe cover a lot of ground, and there's still more room for a sequel! I highly recommend this book.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

Review: God's Not Dead by Rice Brooks

Rice Brooks adds much to the increasing amount of information about evidence for Christianity. I suppose there's always a need for more on that, even if most of it is nothing new, because the idea of a new book gets people to pick up the book and proceed from there. So, in that sense, Brooks succeeds.

Brooks has several good ideas, particularly relating to atheism's reliance on faith and the system's philosophical faults. But the majority of the actual evidence he presents I have read before. It's good to have it presented in a new way, though, to solidify the information in my mind.

Brooks spends a good portion of the book reaffirming the Gospel message, which can be good for some readers, but annoying for others. He uses a lot of outside sources, which is great, but he also uses a lot of outside stories without going into enough detail about what specifically led the atheists in his stories to believe. He also repeats himself several times, and his sentence structure and organization can be difficult to follow.

The book is hard to get in to at first. With some patience and understanding, and the proper background, the book is beneficial. But agnostics and others looking for evidence for the first time would be better served with other materials out there.

* Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review of it.