Person of Interest: Why Jesus Still Matters in a World that Rejects the Bible

Written by J. Warner Wallace

Narrated by J. Warner Wallace

Read by the author.

Join a cold-case detective as he uncovers the truth about Jesus using the same approach he employs to solve real murder cases.

Detective J. Warner Wallace was skeptical of the Bible's claims about Jesus. But he'd investigated several no-body homicide cases in which there was no crime scene, no physical evidence, and no victim's body. He wondered if the truth about the historical Jesus could be investigated in the same way.

In Person of Interest, cold-case detective and bestselling author J. Warner Wallace describes his own personal investigative journey from atheism to Christianity as he carefully sifts through the evidence from history alone, without relying on the New Testament.

In this book, you'll:

• Understand like never before how Jesus—the most significant person in history—changed the world and why he still matters today.
• Learn how to think like a cold-case detective by using an innovative and unique "fuse and fallout" investigative strategy, which you can also use to examine other claims of history.
• Explore and learn how to respond to common objections to Christianity.

Creative, compelling, and fully illustrated, Person of Interest will strengthen the faith of believers while engaging those who are skeptical and distrusting of the New Testament gospel accounts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9780310111290

J. Warner Wallace

J. Warner Wallace is a Dateline-featured homicide detective, popular national speaker, and best-selling author. Relying on over two decades of investigative experience, Wallace provides the tools needed to investigate the claims of Christianity and make a convincing case for the truth of the Christian worldview.

Reviews for Person of Interest

[Nick Arnold · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jim Wallace has an uncanny ability to turm atheistic arguments against the existence of God and the truth of the New Testament on their head. This book is good for anyone, regardless of education or theological understanding, that has a heart for apologetics and sharing the Gospel.

[Travis Johnson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent! The side by side narrative of a contemporary cold case and the evidence of Jesus really solidified the information.

[Chelsea Smith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book, super information. God is Good! The connections and timing made throughout the book are amazing!

[thedenathome · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book Review Person of Interest by J. Warner WallaceReview by Don DoellThe subtitle says a lot: “Why Jesus Still Matters In A World That Rejects The Bible”. But this book of just over 300 pages packs a lot of information in a small space and, as a plus to someone like me who has read the Bible for decades, Wallace makes a compelling argument that explains concepts that I “knew” but for which I did not have a reasonable explanation.Wallace is from a policeman’s family, both his father and now one of his sons are all policemen. But Wallace has applied his training as a detective to studying the Bible with fascinating results. Before his retirement he had been assigned to the “Cold Case” Department, that is murders that had not been solved and thus had gone “cold”. Many crimes have statutes of limitation were if they are not solved after a specific number of years, they can no longer be prosecuted, but not so with murder. If a murder is finally solved after any length of time, it can still be prosecuted...and that was Wallace’s speciality. He was so good that Dateline interviewed him on several of the cases that he and his partners had solved.The back story to his faith in Jesus Christ is also quite fascinating: he started going to church only because he wanted to support his wife who thought that their children should have some religion in their lives. His friends were quite amazed because Wallace, up till then, had been a vocal atheist who loved to ask questions to make Christians squirm! But, that first Sunday, the pastor said something that made Wallace buy a Bible, a cheap one(!) to check out what he had heard.This is where he began to use his skills as an investigator: Were the Gospels actually “eye witness” testimonies that he could evaluate or just phony, invented stories written 100's of years after the fact? You will obviously realize that he came to believe in their trustworthiness and eventually came to faith in Jesus Christ.Person of Interest starts a little further on though, even though this back story plays a part in this book too. One of the thought experiments Wallace had used with success to evaluate cold cases was that of a model he calls “Fuse-Fallout”. He had felt that a murder could be looked as an explosive event...it certainly is for the victim! But, when a bomb goes off, it usually has a fuse and the explosion causes fallout. For a murder, unlike an accident, there is usually a series of events that lead up to it and cause the “explosion”. Afterwards, this explosion has effects that would not have happened without it. By tracking both sides of this, Wallace felt that a singular “person of interest” could be discovered who would be the most likely person to have committed the crime. And, if the detectives working the case were skilled and detailed enough, they could bring together enough evidence to bring any reasonable jury to a place of being able to make a verdict of “guilty beyond reasonable doubt”. Wallace then decided to use the same techniques to evaluate Jesus as a “person of interest”. Were there events that could be called a “fuse”? Something that sort of showed that a big event was coming soon? And, were there other results that showed that something of major importance had occurred? In other words, if Jesus is ACTUALLY God, then there should be events both before and after his life on earth that would show the careful researcher that Jesus was really who He said He was.Wallace chooses 3 kinds of events to evaluate in terms of acting like a “fuse”: cultural, prophetic and religious. It is no surprise that the last 2 categories would be included, but Wallace does have an interesting wrinkle as he looks at the religious events. That is, here he is looking for common expectations that other cultures than the Jewish culture into which Jesus was born for what their own “gods” were like. Did Jesus “look like” what the surrounding nations thought a “god” should be like? Wallace lists 15 characteristics of various kinds of deities from some 2000 or so years before the birth of Christ. Surprising to me was that the “Buddha” whom Buddhists do NOT hold to be divine fulfilled 10 of these qualities! And only a couple of those other “gods” matched that many...and only Jesus actually fulfilled all 15 characteristics!The cultural “fuse” answered the question that I had sort of ignored in my Bible reading. According to Wallace’s study of history before the time of Christ, there were quite a few changes that made the time around the changing of the centuries (BC to AD...or as Wallace thought at the beginning of his research before coming to faith in Christ, BCE and CE–Before the Common Era and the Common Era). It turns out that the development of writing, the most common writing materials, the Pax Romana, the development of the road system by the Romans and other events all made this period of time particularly suited for the spread of a new religion, a new faith in a new “god”.Wallace gives sources for his study that others can verify if they are so inclined. Do note that he gives only a partial list in the book itself; the rest are on one of his websites: Cold Case Christianity.In terms of the Fallout, Wallace refers to several categories: Literature (more books have been written about Jesus than any other person...about twice as many as his nearest competitor!), Art, Education, Science and Religion.If any of you have thought that the movie “Zeitgeist” has the final word, you should, just to be fair, check out what Wallace has written here. It is a very accessible book that shows how Jesus goes far beyond what the creators of “Zeitgeist” have mistakenly attributed to him.How central is Jesus to our culture, to our lives today? Whether completely secular, very committed to another religion or even a committed Christ-follower, I believe that everyone will find something to pique their interest here, food for thought, something that could make you re-evaluate your whole life...or at the very least, increase your respect for who Jesus really is.If you are open to hear another side, you are the person this book is for. Some people will not be convinced, and that is OK too. But, if you will weigh the evidence, I believe that you will find that Jesus truly is God, come to earth in human form...you too will find this credible...”beyond reasonable doubt.”