Dr. Lane's commentary on Mark strikes an excellent balance between historical, theological, and practical issues. He also covers textual variants in the manuscript tradition. I found his brief appendix on the issue of Mark 16:9-20 to be very informative.

Lane also does well with sticking to the gospel of Mark while not diverting his attention to parallel passages in Matthew and Luke. He makes a compelling case for the dating and place of authorship of this gospel. His attention to the "difficult" areas of Mark is probably the highlight of this commentary. His concise and forceful arguments are not overly wordy while still being clearly expressed.

Good commentary, there is much you will learn from Lane's work. If you're studying Mark, this is a great book for you.

Kleppner is the one name I think when I'm in a doubt regarding any stage of the advertising procedure. The book is not extremely intensive, but explains in a precise way each stage. It might be too USA oriented, but works fine for international students. Surely a must in every student's library.

Kleppner's Advertising Procedur

This is a college-level philosophy text in which the words naturalism, etiology, epistemology, ontology and so forth are used without definition, but it is perhaps the most profound book of philosophy in a generation.

The preface would have been better if it had defined such terms for the uninitiated, but reading the text with a dictionary will solve most of these problems. I personally felt that Chapter 2 was writtem in much more of an introductory style than Chapter 1 and should have preceded it for that reason. For these reasons alone, the book gets four stars instead of five. The book itself it excellent.

The book contains 10 chapters, each written by a different author, as follows:

1 - Farewell to philosophical naturalism - Paul Moser & Dave Yandell

2 - Knowledge and Naturalism - Dallas Willard

3 - The incompatibility of naturalism and scientific realism - Robert Koons

4 - Naturalism and the ontological status of properties - J.P. Moreland

5 - Naturalism and material objects - Michael Rea

6 - Naturalism and the mind - Charles Taliaferro

7 - Naturalism and libertarian agency - Stewart Goetz

8 - Naturalism and morality - John Hare

9 - Naturalism and cosmology - William Lane Craig

10- Naturalism and design - William Dembski

In subjecting naturalism -- the rejection of all things supernatural -- to a critical analysis, the authors expose in convincing fashion the complex incompleteness of our current naturalistic thought processes. William Lane Craig's chapter on Naturalism and Cosmology is particularly excellent in this regard and should not be missed by any serious student of physics.

It does not take long while reading this book to realize that the authors may well be erecting a new philosphical structure for the 21st century. They show repeatedly that we ignore some types of information when the information doesn't fit the standard naturalistic model. They emphasize that we cannot hope to achieve our full potential as a species unless we can overcome these self-imposed bounds.

This is a first-rate academic dissection of naturalism, which is the view that nothing exists but the natural world -- i.e., the world without God in the picture. The essays in this volume explore the consequences of naturalism on morality, free will, consciousness and other areas. Each essay is top-notch and written by a theistic philosopher.

There are so many problems with naturalism one hardly has to look far to find them. For one thing, naturalism entails physicalism, which holds that our mental states and physical bodies are one and the same. Physicalism, however, seems unable to explain the non-physical properties possessed by our mental states (beliefs, memories, desires, etc), for how can my recollection of last Thanksgiving be explained as existing 2 inches behind my right ear, 4 centimeters in length and smelling of cranberry sauce? Also, J.P. Moreland pointed out in another book that while a brain surgeon may know more about my brain than I do, he is not privy to the fear I experience before I'm opened up or what I dream about while I'm unconscious. Moreover, it seems almost impossible for physicalism to account for the intentionality of our mental states. Our mental states possess the property of intentionality, or "aboutness." That is, they are directed as certain things. People don't just "desire"; they desire something. Physicalism seems unable to adequately explain this.

Genetic determinism is touched on as well as naturalism implies genetic determinism. Genetic determinism is self-refuting, as the belief that genetic determinism is true is itself determined. Believing genetic determinism to be true is no more rational than picking your nose. If a determinist has genes that determine him to be a determinist, how can he convince anyone of anything given that everyone else's beliefs are putatively determined by their genes? Also, accepting genetic determinism would mean acccepting a radical re-evaluation of morality. If genetic determinism is true, then all we are is a collection of accidentally arranged atoms. When a bomb hits them, they become rearranged. Ergo, any gut feeling that such acts as murder and rape are evil is illusionary. The type of morality naturalism prescribes is an evolutionary morality. For instance, murder wasn't socially-advantageous at one time in the distant past, so it became taboo; but there is nothing really wrong with killing someone. It is not hard, then, to understand why naturalism provides a very, very poor foundation for morality.

An important book.

This was a fairly good basic intro book for the issues of God/time and God's knowledge/future contingents. While this issue is usually discussed in philosophical journals and in books which cost an arm and a leg to purchase, Craig has brought the issue to the lay persons and scholars alike.

Before I review this book, it must be noted that I disagree with Craig's position. However, I think that Craig has done a noble job in defending his position, and I respect him for that. If I was able, I would have given Craig's book three and a half (3 1/2) stars for my own disagreements with Craig's overall assertions and some of the misunderstanding Craig had regarding certain philosopher's and their assertions (i.e. Aquinas being one which was mentioned below).

Craig's position in this book is that God is temporal (or omnitemporal) due to relations which occurred with the created universe (relations which were not present w/o creation). Craig argues his point based on several elements. First, Craig believes that God cannot remain untouched by the created order's temporality. In other words, according to Craig, God comes into (so to speak) new relations which were not present without the created universe. Second, Craig believes that once time begins at the moment of creation, God becomes temporal by virtue of His real relation to the temporal world. Third, thus God, at least, according to Craig, undergoes some type of extrinsic change due to this new real relation with the created world. These are Craig's underlying assertions regarding God and time.

Also, in this book, Craig rejects Einstein's interpretation of the Special Theory of Relativity (STR). Note, I did not say that Craig denies STR, rather he agrees with the Lorenzian interpretation of the theory over and against Einstein's interpretation. You can read why Craig believes this, since he details it in several chapters of this work.

I believe Craig's overall assessment of the issues is misdirected and wrong in several areas. First, He univocally predicates to God relations which occur between one human and another. This predication occurs via God's new relations with the universe. However, if God is a necessary being (which I think Craig would agree that God is), then any properties predicated of that Being must be predicated necessarily. However, if God is omnitemporal (as Craig asserts) then these properties must be predicated necessarily. By Craig's univocal predication, he does not predicate of God necessarily as he should. This is so because Craig declares that God "changes" from a being who is eternal to a being who is omnitemporal. This is, via Craig's view, an ontological change in God's nature and this is, I believe, metaphysically impossible. Either God is necessarily eternal or God is necessarily omnitemporal. He cannot move from one state to the other and remain a necessary being.

Another problem I had with this book was Craig's misunderstanding of Thomas Aquinas' assertions about God and real relations. In chapter three (3), "Divine Temporality," part II. "Divine Relations With the World," Craig asserts, "Thomas [Aquinas] escapes the conclusion that God is therefore temporal by denying that God stands in any real relation to the world." This could not be more inaccurate and wrong. Aquinas does not deny that God stands in any real relation to the world. In fact, Aquinas declares just the opposite. Aquinas asserted three types of relations: one where both terms are ideas, one where both terms are real, and one where one is real and one idea. That which is created, according to Aquinas, is really dependent upon God, but God is not really dependent upon the created. Thus, they are related as real to an idea. God knows about the relationship of dependence but He does not actually have it. The relationship between God and the world is very real, but God is not dependent in that relationship. In other words, Aquinas is only denying dependent relations between God and the world, not all real ones. Aquinas treats this issue in the Summa Theologiae, 1a. 13, 7, ad. 2. (Also, for an easy explanation of this issue see Norman Geisler's book titled "Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal" I briefly summarized this position based upon those two works).

Overall, Craig's book is pretty good, but it is wrought with several problems. I appreciate Craig's work to bring this issue to the non-philosopher, so to speak, but I would recommend reading Craig's book in light of Brian Leftow's book titled "Time and Eternity," and Paul Helm's work titled "Eternal God." Both of these books are available here at Amazon.com.

This book is actually a condensation of four of Craig's technical works: Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity; God, Time, and Eternity; The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination; and The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. As a result, some of the issues in this book may remain difficult to those new to the subject, especially the treatments of the Special Theory of Relativity, tensed facts, and the extent of the present. Nevertheless, Craig explains these about as well as could be done in the space available.
The book is divided into five sections. First, he considers arguments in favor of God's being timeless, focusing on those originating from divine simplicity and immutability, relativity, and the incompleteness of temporal life. He concludes that only the last holds any weight. Thomists are likely to find Craig's rather brief dismissal of simplicity and immutability frustrating (W. Norris Clarke has argued that immutability is the best argument in favor of timelessness), but Craig's point remains that we have even less reason to think that God is simple or immutable than we do to think he is timeless.
Section two considers arguments in favor of divine temporality: the impossibility of atemporal personhood, divine relations with the world, and divine knowledge of tensed facts. He rejects the first, but considers the other two to be powerful arguments in favor of God's being temporal.
However, the defender of timelessness still has a way out if he adopts the static theory of time. Thus, Craig devotes the next to sections to the nature of time. In arguments for and against the dynamic conception, he considers the ineliminability of tense from language and our experience of tense. Arguments against include McTaggart's Paradox and the so-called myth of passage. Section four is arguments for and against the static conception: relativity theory, the mind-dependence of becoming, spatializing time, the illusion of becoming, the problem of intrinsic change, and creation out of nothing. Craig concludes that the dynamic conception of time is superior, and thus, God is temporal.
However, this leaves unresolved the question of whether God is temporal without creation. Thus, section five considers arguments for and against the infinitude of the past. Craig makes a very strong case for the finitude of the past. But if time began, how can God be temporal if he never began to exist? There are two options: the first, which Craig argues against, is that temporally before creation, there was an undifferentiated moment, a now with no temporal metric, which was followed by our time with its metric. God existed in this primal before, and now is in our time just like us. The other option is accidental temporalism, the position that God is timeless without creation and temporal with creation. This must not be construed to be saying that God has two phases, a timeless and a temporal, one being temporally before the other. Rather, they are not temporally related to each other at all. Craig gives the analogy of the Big Bang singularity not being before time, but lying on the boundary of time. God's timeless existence may have been something like that.
This is an excellent book, being both thorough and persuasive. Any defender of divine timelessness must attempt to answer Craig's detailed arguments against their position.
In response to the previous reviewer, it must be pointed out that his argument is clearly ridiculous. By no means must we predicate all of God's properties necessarily. This leads to all sorts of obviously false conclusions. For example, God possesses the property of knowing that I will read a book after finishing this review. But if we must predicate that property to God necessarily, then I have no free will. God's necessarily, rather than contingently, knowing that fact requires that I not have the ability to not read that book. If I am free, then God knows that fact contingently. But if he knows it of necessity, then I am not free. Worse, such a position removes God's freedom as well. For example, God possesses the property of being the creator of this universe. But if he possesses it necessarily, then he couldn't have chosen not to create, or to have created a different universe. It is completely theologically unacceptable to say that God could not have created a universe that lacked, say, Pluto, or Alpha Centauri, rather than ours. Thus, if all of God's properties must be predicated necessarily, then that constitutes good grounds for thinking that the concept of God is incoherent. This is not to say that God is not a necessary being. Of couse God is. But being necessary means that God could not fail to exist. In other words, God exists in all possible worlds. But since God is free, he must possess some properties contingently, since there are innumerable possible worlds he could have created.
In conclusion, Craig's position has yet to be refuted. Accidental temporalism wins the day!

Pick the right premises and you can prove anything. All universes are ultimately, if not proximately, random vacuum fluctuations. No information is passed, so they are not "caused". The first premise is therefore false. That said, the book becomes a decent argument against the existence of a single god, but I can do better, faster, without quoting Aquinas or any other philosopher.

The other reviews here are quite comprehensive, so it will be difficult to add something new. However, I will try.

I have seen Craig in debate numerous times, read one of his other books ("Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics) and he is the best intellectually respectable defenders of Christianity alive today. Comparing his debates to this book shows that Craig has a wide range and knows how to argue at a level appropriate to his audience. Craig can talk to the interested public and academic philosophers alike. This book definitely falls into the second category (Craig did his first Ph. D on it) and it is aimed at those who want a comprehensive defense of this one particular argument for God's existence.

The book is divided into two main sections. A historical review of the argument as it was originally presented by various Islamic philosophers about a thousand years ago starts the book. I found most of the arguments here comprehensible because Craig had the foresight to put the arguments into a chart, so that you can visually see the progression of the ideas. For most readers, this material will be completely new. Islamic philosophers are rarely covered in first year university and courses on such topics are few and far between.

The second section is the modern defense of the kalam cosmological argument. Craig arguments are of two types; philosophical (using mathematics as his evidence) and scientific or empirical (using astronomy and physics as his evidence). The mathematics arguments are extremely difficult to follow and I think most readers will only understand parts of it. Some of his observations are as follows; even if an actual infinite exists in mathematics, it is generally thought that mathematical concepts have no concrete existence (this is something of a simplification, but that is unavoidable in the space available), that an infinite cannot be formed by addition and so on. I get the impression that the mathematics Craig uses (primarily set theory) is a simply a modern presentation of the Islamic arguments, which I founder easier to comprehend. The basic conclusion offered is that an actual infinite is mired in contradictions and thus cannot exist.

The second part of his evidence deals with astronomy, the Big Bang, thermodynamics and so on. Craig refutes the non-Big Bang models of the universe. The Big Bang model of the universe asserts that the universe began to exist approximately 15 billion years ago. The steady state model (which asserts that the universe is eternal) was refuted by empirical evidence in the 1960's while the oscillating model is confronted by major physical problems that make it quite implausible. Craig prefaces this section with a comment that some people find abstract philosophical argumentation too difficult and thus prefer the "concrete" sciences. Personally, I think that philosophy is better equipped, as a discipline, to address questions such as: Is the universe eternal? Did the Universe have a cause?

Briefly, near the end of the book, Craig defends what he rightly regards as the causality principle. The principle holds that whatever begins to exist has a cause. Craig presents the arguments of some other philosophers who attempt to show that this principle is self-evident or otherwise inescapable.

This is, without a doubt, the most difficult book I have read this year. Yet, it is quite rewarding. Craig successfully argues against all those who disagree with him and it is challenging to imagine a refutation of his position. If you have taken "Philosophy of religion" courses at the university level, you would definitely appreciate the book although some of the math-based arguments may be difficult to follow. I would only recommend it to people with a broad understanding of philosophy and or apologetics. If you would like an beginner's introduction on how to defend the Christian faith, I recommend, "The Case for Faith," by Lee Strobel (very readable and easy to understand), "Mere Christianity," by C.S. Lewis (a classic defense of Christianity, but it is quite short and not quite as rigorous as I would like). For a more in-depth defense of Christianity that covers both the existence of God, miracles, and Jesus Christ, J.P. Moreland's book, "Scaling the Secular City" (which I have reviewed) is bar none the best. Craig's book, "Reasonable faith," is also fairly good.

P.S. If you intend to offer a substantive critique of the argument, you must undermine the philosophical and scientific arguments for both of them independently establish the beginning of the universe, one of the key elements of the argument. One of the reviewers, George Tucker, "refuted" the argument in less than 100 words without addressing any of Craig's evidence. This is a poor attempt to refute an brilliantly argued book.

You said in your review,"All universes are ultimately, if not proximately, random vacuum fluctuations." Ponder this. In fluctuation vaccuum theory it is admitted that all we can empirically examine or have knowledge of is our universe ONLY! This is what the orginal proponants of the theory stated. That is why they abandoned the theory and no one has been able to support it empirically. How can one propose to ever give evidence for the existence of physical realities that are supposed to be outside of our physical reality. Translation: That is not science. That is someones imagination. True our universe probably does have vaccuum fluctuations but that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the universe came from the emergence of the singularity of the Big Bang or abandoned fluctuation theories. Entropy is real and everything, the totality of the universe is at its mercy. The universe is moving toward its total death by loss of usable energy, til it will be at a stand still. That being the case, there is only evidence for the beginning of our universe from the Big Bangs singualarity. If all that there is had been infinite why didn't the universe die trillions of years ago? Was't there enough time? There are only two kinds of causation. An impersonal causation from eternity would have had existing with it an eternal effect, therefore agent causation is true by default. An agent is the only causal condition that can exist prior to what it willfully causes, its effect. Therefore Craig is right. God exist!

I recently began a web database project and had to self-teach myself PHP and MySQL, therefore I bought several books from Amazon looking to cover the bases. I disagree with some other reviews posted here, the text IS AN INTRODUCTION but this is not obvious from the title or the editorial reviews on Amazon. The review referring to editing errors I COULD NOT AGREE WITH, I did not find "errors" or typos, maybe I'm not very observant or don't know the subject well enough yet.

Anyway ... the text does a good job at presenting the PHP language and how to operate on MySQL database back-ends, that is the purpose of the book. The sections on PHP are introductory, but well done. Comprehensive descriptions of string and reg-exp functions are provided. A good section for beginners is titled "Common Mistakes" that describe why you get a blank browser screen or what those darned header messages are about. The MySQL section is well done, providing ample samples of the different query types and advanced joins and keys. I also liked the portion that describes using PHP with other RDMS systems via ODBC and to Oracle. Linking PHP and MySQL is well handled and sections on authentication and session management are practical and real-world. The text ONLY includes one overall application system, a psuedo online winestore that includes a shopping cart and purchasing concept. The appendix include a really good treatise on HTTP and describing how Requests and Responses are handled and the status codes.

I had great expectations for this O'Reilly text as many of their critter-adorned texts are in my library. I expected the text to be more advanced than it is. The lack of other sample applications is a weakness, for the price you can get other texts with more comprehensive samples. Afterall, many of us buy these books to try and help us quickly solve "Our Immediate Problem", more samples would have helped this effort better.

I have just started learning some PHP & MySQL development using "PHP & MySQL Web Development" published by Sams and "Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL" from O'Reilly. Prospective readers might be wondering the difference between the two in deciding which one to buy, so I hope to shed some light on the issue.

Sams: The Welling and Thomson book is more "hands-on" in that it takes the reader step-by-step in developing an e-commerce website. The chapters are organized in a goal-oriented manner: PHP, MySQL, the basics of e-commerce, security, and design of the site.

O'Reilly: The Williams and Lane book is structured in a similar way by showing readers PHP and then MySQL. Examples to reinforce concepts are also provided. While the O'Reilly book also tries to take the reader in developing an e-commerce site, it is a bit more theoretical. Also, there are some differences in focus: the O'Reilly book has a section on using JavaScript while the Sams book has a final chapter on creating PDF files using PHP.

If I had to choose just one book, I would go with the Sams book due to its more gentle learning curve. However, I believe that the O'Reilly book is no slouch, and I will probably come to appreciate it more once I gain more experience in PHP and MySQL development.

One last word about my programming background: I knew a bit of Perl, Java, HTML, and JavaScript before tackling PHP and MySQL. I consider myself to be an "advanced beginner" (an oxymoron, of course). To get the most out of these two books, you should know HTML well enough to read it (you should at least recognize some tags) and it would definitely be helpful if you have some programming experience. You could very well make PHP your first programming language, but I would advise against it. Start with something like Perl (whose syntax is very similar to PHP's).

I highly recommend both books to prospective PHP and MySQL developers who are willing to spend some time and effort.

I've been entrenched with JSP heavily for the last couple of years, so I haven't familiarised myself with PHP yet. I needed a book that would show me a larger picture than I got in a web developer's job, and showed me how to put it together with more modern techniques.
This book is a perfect example of why I choose O'Reilly whenever in doubt. Chapter 1 is an overview of how web applications are put together. Chapter 2 goes through all the basic PHP syntax (stuff that would take other books several fluffy dry chapters to process). Chapter 3 gets you through all the mySQL and sql basics so you feel comfortable with that, too.
There's no 4 page tutotial entitled: "Using a text editor: Wordpad" There's also no kitch "Employee Database" example cop-out. Instead, Hugh and Dave give a realistic and usable storefront application. This book alone is probably enough for the independent web developer to get a functional site up for her/himself or a client.

This is an adult version of the Arabian Nights tales that most kids grow up with. By adult I do not mean that it contains a lot of sexual material, however there is some, so this book is probably not appropriate for children. Stories like "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" are included in here, along with some more obscure stories like "The Hunchback's Tale". If you're interested in learning about stories from the middle east, this is the book for you.

This is a sometimes brutal, mostly wonderful, anthology of tales weaved into the story of a corageous young woman who uses her enchanting narration as a means of survival. All of the magical stories take place in a long gone world with cultural differences that might offend sensitive readers. Yet the morals of the book never clash with our present values and it provides us with a look into a world since forgotten. The tales and fables are ingeniously connected, stories within stories, and are captivating and full of fantastic characters, wonderful places and legendary creatures. This is the source of many common children stories such as Aladin and the Genie, The travels of Sinbad, and Ali-Baba and the forty thieves. I recomend it as a nightly read for small children during story time, with a small warning for mature content.

We are all familiar with the stories of Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Sinbad. But where did these tales come from? The answer lies in this wonderful (condensed) volume known as the 'Arabian Nights.'
The story is of a woman, Scheherazade, who marries a king. The king's custom is to spend one night with a woman and execute her in the morning. To avoid this, Scheherazade tells him a tale, but leaves part of it unfinished, thus gaining the king's interest and insuring her survival for another day so she can finish the tale. Being clever, she never finishes it, but keeps it continuously going, until the king finally spares her life.
The stories presented here, though often somewhat crude, have great moral lessons to be learned. The serve as a sort of moral reminder as to how a good person should act.
When Richard Burton translated the Nights, he collected as many manuscripts as possible and pieced together the tales. Many had been created centuries earlier, and were often told during gatherings among friends. Burton, through his unparalelled knack for translation, managed to capture all the magic and mystery that are the Arabian Nights.
Besides the delightful stories and good lessons to be learned, the Nights serve another purpose--they provide an intimate look at the culture of the time. By examining their legends, one can gain a basic understanding of how Arabic culture functions. There is as much to be learned about the people who tell these stories as there is from the stories themselves.
I read this book for historical and cultural value, and found it to be abundant in both. Besides that, though, I encountered a mesmerizing set of tales which will be entertaining to any audience, even (after some revision and editing) children.

This book is one in Zondervan's Counterpoints Series, which presents the view of various (mostly) Evangelical writers on theological subjects. This book is sorely needed because Evangelical apologists have had a history of writing critically and polemically of one another (one thinks of the Clark/Van Til debate), with the result of the layman having a difficult time deciding among the various positions.

The problem with this book is either that the writers are too timid or are more irenic than their label would indicate. There are three authors who present variations on the traditional approach: the classical method (Craig), the evidential method (Habermas), and the cumulative case method (Feinberg). These approaches are quite similar, although some differences do arise. When the reader gets to John Frame's presuppositional method, he expects to get a starkly different approach. After all, Van Til was notorious for attacking "traditional" apologetics as "Roman Catholic" or "Arminian." Well, Frame tells us that he agrees with most of what Craig writes. The final writer, Kelly James Clark (who represents the "Reformed epistemological method"), says the same thing.

Perhaps the editor could have selected a follower of Gordon Clark (a rationalist who denied the proofs of God's existence) or a fideist to present a contrasting apologetic method.

Few books have seriously tackled apologetic method, or how Christianity should be defended rationally. The last book I know of that surveyed options in this regard was Gordon Lewis, "Testing Christianity's Truth Claims" (Moody Press, 1976; republished by University Press of America).

This book presents five different approaches, each represented by one of its exponents: Classical Apologetics (William Lane Craig), Evidentialism (Gary Habermas), Culumulative Case Method (Paul Feinberg), Presuppositionalism (John Frame), and Reformed Epistemology (Kelly James Clark).

Much ground is covered concerning the Bible's approach to apologetics, where apologetic arguments should begin, how certain arguments for Christianity are, and so on. I will simply make a few comments.

The presentations by Craig and Habermas are the most worthwhile because they are the most intellectual rigorous and well-documented. They also tend to agree with each on most things and reinforce each others views. While I tend to favor a cumulative case method (influenced by E.J. Carnell and Francis Schaeffer, but with more appreciation for natural theology), Feinberg's comments are the weakest by far. He never mentions the leading exponent of this view in our generation (Carnell) nor Carnell's apt and well-published student (and my esteemed colleague), Dr. Gordon Lewis. Not one word about either one! His comments are brief, his documentation is thin, and he fails to advance anything very creative or helpful, I'm afraid. A better person should have been chosen, such as Gordon Lewis. Frame gives his "kinder, gentler" version of Cornelius Van Til, which still suffers from the same kinds of problems--most notably the fallacy of begging the question in favor of Christianity. Nevertheless, the notion of a "transcendental argument" for theism is a good one, but it should not carry all the weight of apologetics. Clark's material is philosophically well-informed (one would expect this of a student of Alvin Plantinga!), but apologetically timid. Clark almost sounds like a skeptic at times.

A few bones more bones to pick. The editor refers to Francis Schaeffer as a presuppositionalist. This is false; he was a verificationist with more in common with Carnell than with Van Til. Gordon Lewis's fine essay on Schaeffer's apologetic method in "Reflections on Francis Schaeffer" makes this very clear. None of the writers address the great apologetic resources found in Blaise Pascal. I also found at least two grammatical errors.

Nevertheless, as a professor of philosophy at a theological seminary who teaches apologetics, I found this volume very helpful and useful. But let's not get so involved in methodological concerns that we fail to go out in the world and defend our Christian faith as objectively true, existentially vital, and rationally compelling (Jude 3)!

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy Denver Seminary

Before I write anything, I would like to suggest that the reader of "Five Views on Apologetics" first read "Faith Has Its Reasons" by Kenneth Bow and Robert Bowman, Jr. (NavPress). Doing so will give you a good overview of the methodology taken by the different positions; it would be akin to reading a preview of this afternoon's football game, with a summary of the players and the strategy that will be used fully explained.

Overall "Five Views on Apologetics" is worthwhile for the serious-minded Christian. I do like these "View" books because they allow all sides to take part in a dialogue that certainly has more potential to get things accomplished rather than a free-for-all live debate. All sides get to give their side with succeeding rebuttals. This book certainly had some lively discussion as all of the participants had their own ideas of how apologetics should be handled. The five positions were: William Lane Craig (classical); Gary Habermas (evidential); Paul Feinberg (cumulative); John Frame (presuppositional); Kelly James Clark (Reformed Epistemological).

However, there were three weak points that I need to point out. First, I'm not sure the debaters were the best representatives of the positions they defended. For instance, Craig could be described as a combination classicist/evidentialist. Much of what he said could have been written by Habermas, as even Habermas admitted. Feinberg had, I believe, the weakest argumentation, as I just never did track with his thoughs. Meanwhile, Frame certainly has his own twist on Van Til's ideas, yet these twists make his position a "kinder, gentler" version of Reformed apologetics and thus is not truly representative of Van Tillians--and there are plenty of these thinkers out there. And Clark might as well let Alvin Plantinga write his section since Clark seemed to mention Plantinga in practically every paragraph.

Second, it is apparent that much of the differences quickly became similarities by the end of the book. In fact, Craig even mentioned how he appreciated the similarities the debaters had. If this is so, then why write the book in the first place? In fact, more than once a respondent to another's position declared, in essence, "Why, that could have been me writing! I think--fill in the name--really is a--fill in the position--like I am." This attitude prevailed through much of the book, especially in the concluding comments. (At the same time, perhaps we should rejoice that in a book of Christian division, so many similarities could be found!)

Finally, I think the book got a little too technical in some areas, especially by several of the writers. I think Craig is a master philosopher, and I've seen Bayes' Theorem before, but I'm still scratching my head trying to understand several pages of formulas he put together to support one of his points. Perhaps with some personal explanation I could better understand, but I'm thinking many reading this book would have been totally lost (as I humbly admit I was). Although I didn't agree with his stance, I thought John Frame did the best in explaining his philosophy in the simplist, most logical way possible.

Despite what I feel are its shortcomings, I do recommend this book for the serious student who is interested in apologetics. I enjoyed it very much and was certainly enlightened about the role apologetics takes in the Christian's life.

While only a fifth of this book involves the actual debate between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann, it was the highlight of a book that also includes articles from others commenting on the points made in the debate. Unfortunately, I didn't feel Lundemann was on the same page as Craig, who laid out a clear and concise plan of why the historical resurrection is true. At the time of the debate, Ludemann apparently considered himself to be a Christian, though he has apparently changed his mind since this debate and now declares himself a nonbeliever. Ludemann has a theory (hallucination) that I just don't see how everything matches up. Ludemann does not seem to give an adequate explanation to many important points made by Craig. Except for a disconnect on the actual debate, though, the book is worth a read for those wanting two sides to the issue of Christianity's most important claim.

Established Fact #5: On the day this book was published, the Resurrection theories of Gerd Ludemann, Michael Goulder, and Roy Hoover were laid to rest by William Lane Craig.

Ludemann, Goulder and Hoover tried their best to attack Dr. Craig's argument, but they failed miserably. Dr. CRAIG ANSWERED EVERY SINGLE CRITICISM THAT THEY HAD. After reading Dr. Craig's final response, there is no question who had the better theory.

This was an excellent debate. Read it. (All of it!)

Comparing "Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment" with the similar book "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up", I found that the former was a much better read. Both debaters in "Jesus' Resurrection" give a clear and concise outline of their main points and the essays provided are representative of both sides. In evaluating the debate and essays, being as objective as one can be, I believe that a better case was given for the "Resurrection Hypothesis" compared to the "Hallucination Hypothesis". Ludemann and company rely on unfounded presuppositions. Namely, a late dating of Mark's Gospel, improper exegesis of 1 Cor. 15, and a dogmatic denial of miracles. Obviously this topic is founded on the beliefs in God and miracles. It would probably have been more appropriate to have a debate on the existence of God and the plausibility of miracles since liberal theologians seem to deny their existence. Nonetheless, the reader profits from reading the book through gaining an understanding of two major systems of belief.

This volume is an interesting summary of differing views of the historical Jesus, from evangelical scholar William Lane Craig and liberal John Dominic Crossan, moderated by William Buckley Jr (who's hardly a neutral party.)The different approaches the two take could hardly be made more explicit in the opening remarks, where Lane plunges directly into his arguments about the resurrection (assuming the entire NT can be trusted verbatim to be true), while Crossan expounds his theory of where the NT comes from (thereby suggesting that it's simplistic to argue from the premise that the NT is literally true.)Since the two never address these fundamental differences, the remainder of the debate, while interesting, is really the case of two sides not even speaking the same language. More helpful are the accompanying essays, especially Craig Blomberg's. Both sides make the claim that their views represent the majority of scholarly opinion,and both sides accuse the other of avoiding the issues.A much better debate book on these issues is the Marcus Borg/NT Wright, Jesus:2 Views. Craig also debates liberal scholar Gerd Ludemann ( who denies the resurrection occured) in Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment, edited by Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli.

This book is a written transcript of a debate between Christian theologian William Lane Craig, and a member of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan. Also contributing with comments are Marcus Borg, Robert Miller, and Ben Witherington. As for the "debate" itself, Crossan's embarrassing lack of any ability to reason or provide any evidence for his views, and those of the Jesus Seminar, simply display how weak the position of the Jesus Seminar is.

The subject of the debate is Jesus Christ, the message of the Gospel, and specifically the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Crossan's main point is of course that the message of the Gospel and the words attributed to Jesus are symbolic, and do not reflect a real person or events. While this position is pretty typical of those who attempt to undermine the Gospel, Crossan demonstrates that he has no basis for these beliefs. Craig on the other hand provides excellent logic, reasoning, and evidence which verifies that in fact Jesus was a real person, and that the events of the New Testament were not only factual, but also meaningful to our lives today.

The book is written well, with a variety of styles. Both Craig and Crossan submit essays, and rebuttals, and the transcript of a debate between them, facilitated by William Buckley, is a fascinating exchange, and really defines the basic premises of Christians and those who oppose Christianity: the Jesus Seminar.

Also of note are the essays submitted by others on the subject. This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in what the true meaning of the Gospel is, and how far from it the new age, liberal, rubbish of the Jesus Seminar is. A great read highly recommended.

This was a great book and I agree with the general observations of the vast majority of the reviewers. That is, Craig won hands down. Crossan didn't really even enter the debate which surprised and disappointed some reviewers. But it's really not surprising at all. Crossan's arguments (or lack there of) come directly from the work of the Jesus Seminar. And Crossan's utter defeat illustrates that the Seminar's work is of little value in disproving the Gospels and the mainstream Christian interpetation of them as largely accurate, HISTORICAL accounts of Jesus' life.
Rather, the Jesus Seminar must be looked upon as an experiment in liberal theological thought. It was a chance for liberal scholars to come together and develop a consensus unburdened by critical peer review from their more conservative, and for the most part more mainstream, more distinguished peers.
The result was a new pardigm for interperting the NT. Briefly, the consensus was that it is all symbolism and metaphor. This new paradigm is a logical outcome based on the assumptions, membership, and methods of the seminar. But when brought out into the light of day, it is very awkward and even ridiculous.
The seminar serves a worthwhile purpose as an experiment and "anchor" at the extreme liberal end of the spectrum. But not much else.