I’m participating in a blog tour for the updated and revised version of Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler’s classic book, Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door. Read further down, and I’ll tell you how to win a Kindle giveaway package worth $150 from the publisher, Thomas Nelson…
The Good
This book is written in a very accessible way, which is understandable given that the book’s audience is supposed to be kids in high school and college. Josh and Bob have a very conversational and story-telling style of writing, which easily draws their readers into the content.
The format of the book is the “Myth vs. Truth” style that many fact-checking websites today have. For example, there’s a chapter called “The Bible and the Telephone Game,” which begins,
The telephone game has not only been a popular group game for years, but it has also been used to illustrate the value of accuracy in communication…
Many people believe that something like the telephone game has happened in the case of the Bible—you know, that what you have between two leather covers is so far removed from what was really written thousands of years ago that no one can believe in it very much.
That’s a myth.
This chapter was especially interesting to me because I’ve heard this argument before. McDowell and Hostetler have an interesting chart at the end of the chapter, which I think illustrates their final point nicely:
Two factors are most important in determining the reliability of a historical document: the number of manuscript copies in existence, and the time between when it was first written and the oldest existing copy.
When you compare the New Testament with other ancient works, its reliability is immediately obvious:
Author Written Earliest Copies Time Span No. of Copies Pliny AD 61-113 AD 850 750 years 7 Caesar 100-44 BC AD 900 1,000 years 10 Plato (Tetralogies) 427-347 BC AD 900 1,200 years 7 Herodotus 480-425 BC AD 900 1,300 years 8 Thucydides 460-400 BC AD 900 1,300 years 8 Aristotle 384-322 BC AD 1,100 1,400 years 49 Euripides 480-406 BC AD 1,100 1,500 years 9
Compare the New Testament to those writers of antiquity:
Author Written Earliest Copies Time Span No. of Copies New Testament AD 50-100 AD 130 30 years 24,000+
The Bad
The book has two downsides to it. First, much of the evidence that it presents is biblical evidence, which presupposes that the reader accepts the Bible as an authority. For those in high school or college who are looking for answers to common (and might I say, easy?) questions about what the Bible says about certain topics, this is a perfect resource. It knocks down, citing biblical passages, common Bible myths, such as “The Vending Machine God” myth and the “The Good Teacher Myth,” as the authors call them. But, as some of my readers will point out, this book will not necessarily “unconvince the unconvinced,” but is more likely to solidify the already-convinced, or secure the wavering.
The second flaw with the book, related to the first, is that there’s very little in the way of scientific evidence, so it does little to convince the naturalist or the empiricist. Since it’s written in a popular voice/style, it doesn’t delve very much into academic arguments (though it does have several pages of citations at the end). I would have liked to have seen more scientific evidence in the book, especially in chapters like, “The Unscientific Myth” or “The New Age Myth,” which could have focused more on scientific evidence.
Overall, though, I think the book accomplishes what it set out to do—challenge young readers to test gospel truths found in the Bible so that they can learn to give an answer for their faith.
Get a Free Kindle Package!
To celebrate the release of their new book, Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler have teamed up with their publisher, Thomas Nelson, to give away a brand new Kindle!
One “brainy” winner will receive a Kindle prize package worth over $150:
- A Brand New Kindle with Wi-Fi and Pearl Ink Screen
- Don’t Check Your Brains At the Door by Josh McDowell & Bob Hostetler (for Kindle)
To enter the giveaway, just click one of the icons below. Hurry, the giveaway ends August 18th. The winner will be announced on the evening of the 18th during the Don’t Check Your Brains At the Door Facebook Party! The authors will be chatting with guests, answering questions on “knowing what you believe and why” (you don’t have to have read the book), testing your trivia skills, and giving away tons of great stuff!
Overall rating: 
Title: “Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door”
Authors: Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
The publisher provided me a free copy of this book for review purposes.
