GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Award-winning former legal editor of The Chicago Tribune and former atheist, Lee Strobel, uses his legal and journalism training to investigate whether the account of the birth and divinity of Jesus is logically and historically credible, in the free Case for Christmas Online Bible Study November 30, 2020–January 1, 2021, sponsored by Bible Gateway, the most visited Christian website in the world. Free registration for the event is at BibleGateway.com/cfc.

In this series of videos, released one per week for four weeks, Strobel will help participants understand that the Bible’s four Gospels are historically reliable in their telling of Jesus’ biography. He will separate the traditional myths from the real facts of the Christmas story by uncovering scholarly evidence gleaned from research and interviews regarding the true nature of Christmas.

“When I was an atheist, I loved the Christmas season, because I managed to focus on all the superficial trappings of the holiday instead of the spiritual dimension,” says Strobel. “But after my wife, Leslie, became a Christian and I started to investigate the identity of Jesus, I wanted to separate the holy day from the holiday, the facts from the fantasy, the truth from the tradition, and get down to the historic bedrock of what Christmas is all about. I expected to discover that Christmas is built on flimsy legends that developed in the many decades after Jesus lived. I didn’t anticipate that a thorough investigation of the ancient history actually validates the Christmas narrative, because it’s based on reliable sources that are too immediate to be written off as being mere legend or make believe.”

Watch the video of Lee Strobel introducing the online study.

“In this 4-week experience, we set aside Santa Claus and Christmas trees and delve instead into the question of what we can really know with confidence about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth,” says Strobel. “It is, after all, the greatest story of history. And, the greatest stories of history are the ones that turn out to be true.”

Students of this series will gain automatic free access to Lee Strobel’s online video presentation and exclusive free bonus content, including downloads of an Advent toolkit containing a Scripture reading plan and conversation cards for the season, and two printable Christmas script art prints.

The teaching videos will be available online for free November 30, 2020–January 1, 2021.

Bible Gateway ranks number one on global search engines, is part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., and is home to more than 200 Bible versions in more than 70 languages—a trusted resource for people in more than 200 countries who rely on it every day for all their desktop and mobile device Bible reading, listening, studying, searching, comparing, and sharing needs.

CONTACT: Jonathan Petersen, 616-656-7159, jonathan.petersen@biblegateway.com

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