One day, on the way home from work I was listening to a podcast in which the host interviewed J. Warner Wallace, an author, about his upcoming 10 year anniversary edition of Cold-Case Christianity. I was intrigued, but didn’t immediately buy the book.
The next day, I received a package in the mail and lo and behold, it was Cold-Case Christianity. Shortly thereafter I receive a text message from my friend in Michigan (Go Blue!) telling me he sent the book. The unexpected coincidence led me to dive right in.
Ever since graduate school over a decade ago when I went through a period of examining my faith, I’ve had an interest in apologetics. As such, I had a general knowledge of some of the different evidences Wallace explores in pointing to the truth of Christ’s resurrection. Nevertheless, his unique perspective as a cold-case homicide detective provided a different and helpful lens.
He spends the early portion of the book explaining several aspects of building and examining evidence in cold-case murder investigations and deftly ties it into exploring the truth of the gospel. He does this to build the foundation for understanding the evidence he will layout in later chapters. The one piece that stood out to me from this section was the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence and how an accumulation of circumstantial evidence can be more than sufficient to allow a jury to come to a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt.
“Direct evidence is evidence that can prove something all by itself… ‘If a witness testifies he saw it raining outside before he came in the courtroom, that testimony is direct evidence it was raining.’ On the other hand, circumstantial evidence does not prove something on its own, but points us in the right direction by proving something related to the question at hand… ‘For example, if a witness testifies he saw someone come inside wearing a raincoat covered in drops of water, that testimony is circumstantial because it may support a conclusion that it was raining outside.’ The more pieces of circumstantial evidence, the more reasonable the conclusion.“
It’s off this building block that he starts to stack pieces of evidence. First he dives into forensic statement analysis of the book of Mark. This gospel is believed to be the eye witness account of Peter written down by his disciple Mark. He highlights several aspects of the account pointing toward it truly being Peter’s testimony. The two that stood out most to me most were how the Gospel of Mark mentions Peter with the most prominence (referred to Peter 26 times) and how it paints Peter in the best light (e.g., it doesn’t mention how Peter sank when he tried to walk on water with Jesus or how he doubted Jesus when he was asked to cask his net over the side of the boat after a day of unsuccessful fishing).
My favorite portion of the book was when he works through dating the synoptic gospels. I already knew they had to be written before A.D. 70 because that’s when the Temple was destroyed and its destruction (which Jesus predicted) isn’t mentioned. What I did not know was that there are other events and quotes that further help us pinpoint when they were written. This includes the death of James, Peter, and Paul, and Paul quoting the Book of Luke in one of his letters. J. Warner Wallace added many graphical elements in the 10th anniversary edition of Cold-Case Christianity, and while I felt some were unnecessary, I loved this one:
Another topic he tackles is inconsistencies between the gospels. He gives examples from his experience as a cold-case homicide detective citing how witnesses would withhold information to protect people during the original investigation, but years later once people had passed away or relationships had grown more distant, they were more willing to share. The same principle applies in the gospel accounts such as with the story of the raising of Lazarus which is omitted in the earlier gospels to protect him, but mentioned in the Gospel of John — which was penned later. He adds other examples from his cold-case experience where two witnesses have very different testimony, but when considering their vantage point, relationships, and other factors, the differences make perfect sense.
The book isn’t solely focused on the information contained in the Bible. He also discusses non-Christian historians like Josephus and Tacitus who validate much of what the Christian church believes about Jesus today. As he perfectly set-up earlier in the book, none of these individual pieces prove the truth of the resurrection on their own, but the cumulative weight of all the circumstantial evidence begins to lead to only one reasonable conclusion.
Cold-Case Christianity takes a heavy, technical topic, and makes it both engaging and easy to digest. I’m sure I won’t recall the specifics about which non-Christian historians say what or all the details supporting the early dating of the synoptic gospels, but I know the answers in fact exist and my faith is supported by evidence. Whether you’re looking to strengthen the evidential foundation of your faith or take a serious and fair look at Christianity for the first time, reading Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace is a great option.
RyanKantor.com 