More than a Carpenter – Josh McDowell

More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell is a short, but concise book proving Jesus as Christ and Lord. Though the author includes emotional appeals, the book is chock full of intellectual and factual proof that Jesus was Lord. The book is short, only 128 pages, but a lot is fit in those pages.

Josh McDowell takes on all the big questions surrounding Jesus, including “What Makes Jesus So Different?”, “Who Would Die for a Lie?”, “What Good is a Dead Messiah?”, and “Isn't there some other way to salvation?” All of these and more are answered in the book More than a Carpenter.

The author begins with a simple question, “What makes Jesus so different?” He analyzes differences between Jesus and other 'religious leaders' or 'good men' such as Mohammed and Buddha. He then proves that Jesus is Lord by giving the reader three options. Either Jesus was a liar, or he was a lunatic, or he was the Lord. After proving the first two false, McDowell logically concludes that Jesus was the Savior.

He then goes on to a short chapter about science, and how an explanation does not have to be scientific to be true. If it were, no one would be able to prove that I ate cereal for breakfast this morning unless the event could be repeated in a laboratory. Well, breakfast time is past, so you must go on the authority of people who saw me eating cereal for breakfast.

Next, Josh McDowell verifies the authenticity of the Bible, and comes to the conclusion that the New Testament contains the most reliable and provable facts of any ancient text in existence.

He then talks some about Jesus' disciples, and how they must be dedicated to this Jesus for eleven of them to die martyr's deaths. He also covers the proof of the resurrection, ruling out the possibilities that Jesus' body was stolen or moved after death, and that Jesus could have been buried in a different place.

He then goes on to disprove the claims of various false Messiahs by examining the various prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus. The chances of only half of them being fulfilled in any one person are almost zero. And Jesus fulfilled all of them, many of which had been written five hundred years before his birth, eliminating the possibility that they could have been changed after he was born.

Lastly, McDowell tells us that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ, not by being a good person, or doing everything right, or following some other religion or leader. And he closes with his own personal testimony, how he began as someone trying to disprove Jesus' existence, and through God's grace became saved.

This book is very good if you are a logical person. For me personally, it put to rest some doubts I had had in the past about the legitimacy of the Scriptures. What Josh McDowell does not do in this book is shove Jesus down your throat. What he does do is show you, through various proofs and methods, logical existence of Jesus Christ as Savior. I highly recommend anyone to read this, Christian or not.