Jesus: Why the World Is Still Fascinated by Him [Kindle Edition]

Just finished reading Tim LaHaye's latest offering and I must say I am impressed. I haven't always been a fan of LaHaye's. With someone as prolific as LaHaye you're bound to have clunkers here and there. I did enjoy some of his Left Behind novels but found his previous non-fiction work Global Warning to be poorly executed. However, `Jesus' is another story. It is very well written, covers a lot of ground, and moves at a fast pace. There is a lot of information here that should appeal to both believers and non-believers in my opinion. As others have said, the book is not preachy (except for the final paragraph). There are even touches of humor which I found refreshing (LaHaye's wife's reaction to the Applebees waitress is hilarious as are several chapter subheadings - Hold the Mao, The Dog-Ate-It Theory).

But I must take exception to a few comments from my fellow Amazon critics. To point out LaHaye's use of Wikipedia as a reference thereby implying that his information must be inaccurate is a cheap shot. Of the hundreds of footnotes listed, only a handful list Wikipedia as a source, and those Wikipedia subjects (Mark Twain, David Strauss, Elaine Pagels) are cross referenced with additional listings of those authors' works. Also, those who accessed the book through the Amazon Vine program apparently must have received an early version with footnote and other errors. My copy of the book has no errors, so those criticisms are invalid. Finally, I notice that some who gave a one or two star rating to this book recommend the works of Bart Ehrman instead. As LaHaye points out, Ehrman has publicly stated he believes Judas Iscariot is `the greatest of all the apostles' since his betrayal resulted in Jesus being released from his `evil earthly body.' Hmm.

In my opinion, LaHaye succeeds in making his case for why we still find Jesus fascinating after 2000 years by touching on the high points of Jesus' legacy and the impact he's had on our modern culture. I wouldn't hesitate to give this book out to friends or relatives who may be on the fence about Jesus. It's that good.

I guess I was expecting to learn something else based on the title of the book. Instead LaHaye shows us that the world is still fascinated by Jesus because He is the Saviour of the world. The book is devoted to showing that Jesus is the Saviour and not just some ordinary man that showed up in history. I did find several different tidbits in the book that helped give me some extra knowledge about Jesus than I had previously. I was disappointed with LaHaye's sources for many of his citations. A number of items he cites were very interesting, and I was looking forward to finding a helpful citation. However, the citation is too often some article or other source that doesn't really give the original source I had hoped for. For example, when LaHaye says that Islam teaches that it is legal to kill your wife, I want to have a citation that takes me to the Quran. I don't want the citation to take me to an article from some conservative writer. The book is OK, but I wish LaHaye would have provided more than what is a sermon.

The description of this book makes it sound like it is going to be an academic look at Jesus and his impact on Western society. Instead it is a Conservative Christian sales pitch - like there aren't enough books on that subject already out there. This book will only appeal to people who are already conservative Christians that want further proof that they are right.