My original plan for today’s piece was to put out a final blurb noting that Da Vinci, the Templars and the Jesus Family Tomb is free today for one last day. However, When I went to Church last night, my friend Tim Chaffey was speaking on the resurrection. It was an excellent presentation, very similar in its structure to the series “the Positive case for Christ” I am re-publishing on our more technical site (http://apologiafides.wordpress.com). I laughed with him afterwards that he had poached one of my sermons on the topic, though the truth is my approach to presentation is more old fashioned (more of an older sermonic style, which is what comes most naturally to me), is a little more technically oriented and does not make as good a use of multi-media and most of us arguing for the resurrection are making similar cases.

Tim is someone I first met through my sister, Michelle Odwyer, and I sat down with him to discuss my weakness when it comes to this type of ministry (publicity and marketing), but we ended up having a very long discussion of theology and apologetics – it was a lot of fun for an old seminarian. He is currently the content manager for AIG’s Ark Encounter project. In many ways, he is doing what I hope to turn truth in the Trenches into – a ministry that effectively presents the facts surrounding the resurrection to call men to Jesus Christ because without the resurrection there is no hope.

Why spend so much time talking about Tim’s work? Because he has recently written a book, In Defense of Easter. I’m currently working through some of the works on the resurrection in review for an upcoming project, I’ve added this to the list, and some of these will be reviewed later, including Tim’s book, on this site. But I think you should consider getting it now.

Tim’s presentation, like the positive case for Christ and the works of others, doesn’t focus just on the underlying merits of the case. He focuses on why various other theories don’t fit the evidence we have. He discussed everything from the Jesus Family Tomb and the swoon theory to some of the odd theories put forward by the Jesus Seminar – an organization of extreme leftwing scholars who make up for the lack of evidence to support their theories with a large dose of imagination. It was a good presentation, and therefore, I assume it will be a good book. You can find the print edition here (http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Easter-Answering-Challenges-Resurrection/dp/0996008705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398103941&sr=8-1&keywords=In+Defense+of+Easter) or the Kindle version here: (http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Easter-Answering-Challenges-Resurrection-ebook/dp/B00JOOZUNA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398104026&sr=8-2&keywords=In+Defense+of+Easter).