What do I think of John Warwick Montgomery’s book published by NRP books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
This is a book that is really short. It’s less than a hundred pages and you could read it in a day, but it would be a day well spent. Montgomery is someone who exemplifies what it means to be educated given how many degrees he has. The book is an older one, but it is still relevant to our times.
For many of us, it is also a different approach. If you learned the minimal facts or the honor-shame approach, this is something different. This is more along the lines of Gospel reliability, which is an approach that I think we could say in our times has been brought back by J. Warner Wallace.
Ths is good news for us. After all, there are multiple routes we can take to get to the same goal and if we get to the goal, then we have victory. It also helps that Montgomery does argue as a lawyer would making his case and pointing out the weaknesses to his opponent’s position.
To which, his opponent is someone named Professor Stroll, who is probably someone most of us have never heard of, who takes a position close to mythicism, but doesn’t seem to quite go there yet. He has at least interacted with some scholarship in his case, but those looking at it will realize that many things have still not changed.
Interestingly, Montgomery includes what he says in the book, although I think it should have been put in the front of the book. It would be better to have gone through knowing the case of the opposition and then seeing the response to it. Still, there is something commendable about seeing the case for the opposition be explicitly stated right there in the book.
I also like that Montgomery can admit when a case isn’t as good as it could be even when argued from his side. There are times he will add some rejoinders to what his own allies that he calls forth as his witnesses say. This helps to build up the credibility of the case.
At any rate, it’s good for people to look at the case and realize that even back decades ago, there was still a powerful case and that case has only improved over time. I would be amiss if I didn’t mention what many of my friends who read the older books have to say, and that’s that there has always been a powerful case. It helps us to familiarize ourselves with the approaches of the past as well as the present as just because an approach is not the modern or current approach, that does not mean it’s a poor or faulty approach.
Legal apologetics is a fascinating field and one I definitely plan to spend more time on. This book is a short little look at the case for Christianity, but as I said, it is a good one. It is certainly a good way for you to spend your day.
In Christ,
Nick Peters