Overall, I am not sure if “More Than a Carpenter” is a successful text or not. I do not feel that I am its intended audience, yet I did find aspects of it that reinforced my faith. In chapter six McDowell argues that Jews were expecting a messiah who would be a great military and political ruler, not some guy who would suffer and die at the hands of unjust leaders. "What good is a dead messiah?" he asks. But he partly answers this question himself in a later chapter. The fact is, there are prophecies in the Old Testament that suggest that the messiah would have to suffer a humiliating death and be vindicated by God. This is argued in detail in one of the early chapters of "Not the Impossible Faith," mentioned earlier. McDowell himself claims that Jesus uniquely fulfilled the prophecies from the Old Testament. He and other apologists want to have their cake and eat it too. The idea is that nobody would have accepted a crucified messiah, because that's not what the prophecies said. But at the same time Jesus fulfilled the prophecies from the Old Testament. Well, which is it? If the prophecies said he wouldn't be killed unjustly, then it follows automatically that Jesus was not the messiah (or else the prophecies were just wrong). It looks like apologists want to claim that Jews universally expected a certain kind of messiah, apparently not paying attention to the prophecies that he would be killed unjustly, yet as it turned out Jesus' death confirmed the prophecies nobody ever thought about, which serves as even more confirmation for Christianity. Such special pleading is not at all convincing. In chapter five he asks: "who would die for a lie?" The implication is that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then the disciples knew it was a lie. And who would die for such a thing (like the disciples did) if they knew it was a lie? It is more reasonable, says the apologist, to conclude that Jesus really was raised from the dead. I've blogged about this claim before under the title "David Marshall on Christian Martyrs," so here I'll just briefly raise some objections. First, McDowell presents no reliable historical evidence that any of the disciples died for their belief in Jesus' resurrection. He does provide a list of individuals followed by their alleged fates, writing that "They were tortured and flogged, and they finally faced death by some of the cruelest methods then known." But where is the evidence that the list accurately reflects history? McDowell doesn't say! And anyway, even if the disciples did die in the manners described, why assume that either Jesus was raised from the dead or it was all a big hoax? Quite possibly some series of events occurred which convinced the disciples that Jesus had been vindicated and had conquered death, but in reality Jesus had remained as dead as any other animal that's ever died. Isn't it possible that the disciples were just mistaken? People claim to see ghosts all the time, and most of the time I conclude that they are just mistaken. It's not: Either they really saw a ghost or they are a liar. Above and beyond everything, the author ignores one simple thing - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. McDowell wants to lump all historical claims together and treat them equally, regardless as to what is being described. For starters, McDowell has this somewhat annoying tendency to quote other authors at length. You'll read a chapter and rather than McDowell making his own points, you'll find that often times he punts to other historians and apologists to let them explain in a paragraph-length quote the point that is being made. This gives the impression that the author is too lazy to write his own book; of course, it also gives the impression that there are plenty of good scholars who agree with him.

They convincingly answer the most common objections or doubts about the Bible and Jesus. I wish they had put chapter six directly after chapter one since a reader can validly criticize the "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" argument if you haven't already proven that the Bible does accurately record the words and actions of Jesus. This is one of those books I read with a highlighter handy. And I ended up highlighting about half the book... When arguing against counter-apologetics, McDowell provides an underwhelming and often inaccurate summary of the non-christian argument, and then proceeds to simply assert that god is a better explanation...just because. He points out what the god of the gaps fallacy is, and then proceeds to directly commit it multiple times. He makes some strong arguments. He also makes some extremely weak arguments that take away from the core of faith for BEING faith, IMHO. The authors use common questions they've been asked during talks on this topic to start most of the sections, then they answer them using information they've discovered themselves or by quoting other experts. In this revised edition, they added updated material and a new section on science to answer newer objections that have been raised.Christianity is not a religion. Religion is humans trying to work their way to God through good works. Christianity is God coming to men and women through Jesus Christ" (p. 5). Someday, in heaven, I am going to thank the kind stranger who handed me this book one day. I was at the height of skepticism, embittered with religion and disillusioned with humanity in general. Christianity was the religion of optimistic but ignorant fools, in my opinion. I didn't even want to talk to the guy, but he asked me to take the book. Hesitantly, I did.

The last main argumentative chapter suggests that there are so many fulfilled prophecies in the life of Jesus that it is extremely improbable that he isn't the true messiah. This argument suffers from a flaw we discussed earlier: it assumes that what the Gospels say happened actually happened. Sam Harris, in "Letter to a Christian Nation", summarizes the counter-argument rather nicely:Every time I was around those enthusiastic Christians, the conflict would begin. If you’ve ever been around happy people when you’re miserable, you understand how they can bug you.” Here are my thoughts on this text, which seems to be written with the goal of giving a person intellectual/logical reasons to believe in Christ. Christianity is not a religion. Religion is humans trying to work their way to God through good works. Christianity is God coming to men and women through Jesus Christ offering them a relationship with himself.” It is often said that it is reasonable to believe that the Bible is the word of God because many of the events recounted in the New Testament confirm Old Testament prophecy. But ask yourself, how difficult would it have been for the Gospel writers to tell the story of Jesus' life so as to make it conform to Old Testament prophecy? Wouldn't it have been within the power of any mortal to write a book that confirms the predictions of a previous book?" stars but I cannot round it up. Christianity IS a religion, regardless how you dice it. For more than a millennia it also had political power that was quite considerable. But to say it is not? Dogma exists and that the disciples died and suffered is a very poor argument. So did and do all types of people "convinced" in cults. Jihadists do. Manson followers to Jones' koolaid poisoned group. I could name dozens throughout the centuries that went into the millions counts for "members". Who do you think the kamikaze pilots were in their "belief"?

He presents the flawed false trilemma (liar, lunatic, lord) of C.S. Lewis, and simply assumes far too often that everything recorded in the bible concerning what Jesus supposedly said and did is undisputed truth, in spite of the fact that the majority of the books contained in the bible are anonymously written. And while some of the events are historically accurate and verifiable via other sources, many, including the various miracle claims, are not. There is no requirement (beyond religious dogma) to take the bible as either completely factual or completely fictional.Ironically, for a text that makes an intellectual argument for Christ, I found chapter 5 (Who Would Die for a Lie?) and chapter 11 (He Changed My Life) to be the most persuasive aspects of the book. Chapter 5 is a very simple ethical rhetorical appeal that is so simplistic I was stunned momentarily by its power. Chapter 11 is a plain old emotional appeal that is the author’s personal testimony about finding Christ.

More Than a Carpenter is a profoundly educational read that I found both enlightening and uplifting. Here lies the evidence McDowell found that so supported Christianity in his mind that it led to his conversion experience. Said information was presented in what I think was a suitably easy way to understand for those who have no experience with the faith, but which is still very interesting for those who have spent their entire lives attending Sunday School. My only complaint is that I was hoping for more of McDowell’s own faith story. There were pieces of it scattered throughout the book, but I would have loved a bit more. The chapter on the resurrection is again pretty lame. "How do you explain the empty tomb?" asks McDowell. Well, for starters, we don't have an empty tomb. What we have are stories of an empty tomb written several decades later. So the real question is, how do you explain the fact that there are stories of an empty tomb? This is not the same as explaining the actual presence of an empty tomb. But even if the empty tomb were a fact in need of explanation, since when do we conclude resurrection when a body goes missing? And isn't it possible that an empty tomb was found, but that it wasn't Jesus' tomb? That Jesus was still in the tomb he was buried in? McDowell argues that this couldn't have happened, because there were soldiers posted at the *real* tomb. But only a single Gospel says such a thing--the Gospel of Matthew. And this Gospel also seems to make up a bunch of other details anyway, so how much trust can we place in his claim that the tomb was guarded? (Just read his account of the crucifixion and resurrection and compare what he says to what everybody else says.) McDowell also trots out the old argument that if Jesus' tomb wasn't really empty, then his body would have been wheeled out by the authorities and dragged around town to prove that he was still dead. No evidence is given that this would have been ordinary protocol in such a situation, and no evidence is given that the authorities would have cared enough to do such a thing once they heard rumors that some fanatical group of individuals was claiming that Jesus was alive. But more importantly, no evidence is offered to show that the early Christians were even spreading this rumor shortly after Jesus' death. And after less than a week sitting in a tomb and decomposing, the body would have already been beyond recognition, so that Christians could always claim that any body that was brought out to prove that Jesus was still dead was somebody else's body! The Jews did not have forensic testing and DNA analysis to prove otherwise.If one discards the Bible as unreliable historically, then he or she must discard all the literature of antiquity. No other document has as much evidence to confirm its reliability" (p. 87). It amazes me to hear so many people say that Jesus was simply a good moral teacher. Let's be realistic. How could he be a great moral teacher and knowingly mislead people at the most important point of his teaching - his own identity?" (p. 30). There is a challenge in the new atheism and with the up is down to all moral relativity. And other chapters are excellent. Science doesn't refute either the way I've read arguments insisting that it does. That was a chapter of considerable substance. Not so much with the chapter about Bible reliability, IMHO. But Christianity is not something you shove down somebody’s throat or force on someone. You’ve got your life and I’ve got mine. All I can do is tell you what I’ve learned. After that, it’s your decision.”