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Book Review column title

Answering Skeptics

by Douglas Jacoby, Morgan James Publishing, © 2017,
171 pages, $15.99 (paperback), ISBN-13: 978-1-68350-028-5


The cover of Answering Skeptics by Douglas Jacoby

One of the most requested books of this ministry is Frequently Asked Questions. In dealing with atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, we get some questions over and over. This book is Douglas Jacoby's version of frequently asked questions. Jacoby is exceptionally strong in questions that come from a philosophical, theological, or world religion standpoint.

The book is divided into eight parts which are: Roadblocks to Faith, Scripture, Morality, God, Science, Suffering, Jesus and Miracles, and World Religions. Most of the topics are presented in direct quotes that we hear from atheists and skeptics followed by an answer to the challenge. In cosmology, for example, Jacoby uses the heading “The world is eternal, so there is no need for a creator.” Jacoby shows from scientific evidence that the world is not eternal. That is covered in less than two pages. “Men wrote the Bible, so it's just the word of man — not the word of God” is another statement we hear a lot. This challenge is answered in one paragraph. The answers are very brief, quite elementary in most cases, and thus easy to understand. The book will leave you wanting more depth and more complete answers, but Jacoby is covering massive amounts of ground, and that demands brevity.

Part 8 deals with world religions, and especially Islam. Jacoby speaks many times in foreign countries and has had debates with Muslim clerics. This is an excellent brief discussion of Islam and how to answer Muslims.

This book is for people who want a wide-ranging set of answers to the daily questions we face in a world that is stampeding toward secularism. We recommend it highly.