Dating the Gospel of Luke (part 5)

Summary: Is Luke the authentic author of the two New Testament books attributed to him?

Here are just a few external and internal evidences for a dating of not later than 63 AD for the Gospel of Luke.

1. External Testimony: The Church Fathers

Irenaeus explained that Luke wrote under the direction, if not at the dictation, of Paul. This would place the Gospel of Luke as having been written before the Acts, whose date of the composition is generally fixed prior to 64 AD for a variety of reasons. One common view is that this Gospel was written about 62 or 63, when Luke was at Caesarea in attendance on Paul, who was then a prisoner prior to his second imprisonment in Rome. On the other hand, if the tradition related by Jerome is correct, that it was written at Rome during Paul's first imprisonment, then it would date earlier, prior to 60 AD.

Here is Irenaeus (c. 185) concerning the authorship of the four Gospels:

Indeed Matthew, among the Hebrews in their own dialect, also bore forth a writing of the gospel, Peter and Paul evangelizing in Rome and founding the church. But after the exodus of these men Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also delivered to us in writing the things preached by Peter, and Luke also, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the gospel preached by that man. Afterward John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, himself also published the gospel, passing his time in Ephesus of Asia (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1).

But that Paul taught with simplicity what he knew, not only to those who were with him but also to those who heard him, he does himself make manifest. For, when the bishops and presbyters who came from Ephesus and the other cities adjoining had assembled in Miletus, since he was himself hastening to Jerusalem to observe Pentecost, after testifying many things to them and declaring what must happen to him at Jerusalem he added: I know that you shall see my face no more. Therefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed, therefore, both to yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops, to rule the church of the Lord which he has acquired for himself through His own blood. Then, referring to the evil teachers who should arise, he said: I know that after my departure shall grievous wolves come to you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. I have not shunned, he says, to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Thus did the apostles simply, and without respect of persons, deliver to all what they had themselves learned from the Lord. Thus also does Luke, without respect of persons, deliver to us what he had learned from them, as he has himself testified, saying: Even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.14.2-4).

The Muratorian canon (c.175) has:

The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke, the well-known physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken with him as one zealous for the law, composed it in his own name, according to [the general] belief. Yet he himself had not  seen the Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, so indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John.

Jerome (c. 375) has a more detailed history of Luke, claiming that the Evangelist was born in Antioch, and finally buried in Constantinople. According to Jerome, Acts was composed in Rome, and chronicles the events until “the fourth year of Nero,” which is according to our modern reckoning 58 AD.

Luke, an Antiochene doctor, as his writings indicate, was not ignorant of the Greek speech. A follower of the apostle Paul and companion on all his journeying, he wrote a gospel about which this same Paul says: “We have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches, and to the Colossians: Luke the dearest doctor salutes you, and to Timothy: Luke alone is with me.” He also published another distinguished volume which is known by the title Acts of the Apostles, whose story comes down to the two years of the remaining of Paul in Rome, that is, until the fourth year of Nero, from which we understand that the book was composed in the same city. Therefore, the Journeys of Paul and Thecla and the total fable of the baptized lion we reckon among the apocryphal scriptures. For how is it that the inseparable companion of the apostle would be among his other things ignorant of this matter alone? But Tertullian also, near those times, refers to a certain elder in Asia, a partisan for the apostle Paul, who was convicted by John that he was the author of the book, and having confessed that he did it for the love of Paul, he left his place. Certain people suspect that, whenever Paul in his epistles says: According to my gospel, he means the volume of Luke, and that Luke was taught the gospel, not only by Paul, who had not been with the Lord in the flesh, but also by the other apostles. As he himself also declared in the beginning of his volume: Just as they who themselves from the beginning saw and were ministers of the speech delivered to us. Therefore, he wrote the gospel just as he heard; the Acts of the Apostles he composed just as he himself saw. He was buried in Constantinople, into which city, in the twentieth year of Constantius, his bones with the relics of Andrew the apostle were translated (Jerome, On Illustrious Men).

John Chrysostom (c. 375) has:

But the greater part of this work is occupied with the acts of Paul, who labored more abundantly than them all. And the reason is that the author of this book, that is, the blessed Luke, was his companion, a man whose high qualities, sufficiently visible in many other instances, are especially shown in his firm adherence to his teacher, whom he constantly followed. Thus, at a time when all had forsaken him, one gone into Galatia, another into Dalmatia, hear what he says of this disciple: Only Luke is with me. And, giving the Corinthians a charge concerning him, he says: Whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches. Again, when he says: He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve, and: According to the gospel which you received, he means the gospel of this Luke, so that there can be no mistake in attributing this work to him; and when I say to him, I mean to Christ. And why then did he not relate everything, seeing he was with Paul to the end? We may answer, that what is here written was sufficient for those who would attend, and that the sacred writers ever addressed themselves to the matter of immediate importance, whatever it might be at the time; it was no object with them to be writers of books: in fact, there are many things which they have delivered by unwritten tradition (On the Acts of the Apostles).

2. External Testimony: Manuscript Evidence

Manuscript evidence from the second century onward has the following inscriptions:

Matthew: ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΟΝ (Gospel according to Matthew).

Mark: ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ (Gospel according to Mark).

Luke: ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΛΟΥΚΑΝ (Gospel according to Luke).

John: ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ (Gospel according to John).

The earliest is the beautiful manuscript, P75, from the second century showing the end of Luke and the beginning of John. These say clearly in Greek, "According to Luke" and "According to John."

You will see near the top of the page.

ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΛΟΥΚΑΝ

ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ

A full-page photo of the manuscript may be found at:

http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/tc_pap75.html

There are no earlier Gospel manuscripts with endings and beginnings that have no title and author.

2. Internal Testimony

The internal evidence of this text consists of the use of the first person “we” and “I,” which is an eyewitness claim. Luke claims to be a companion of Paul, and Paul claims that Luke is his companion. The eyewitness claims in John’s writings are even stronger. We have to only establish genuine authorship and eyewitness credibility in Luke and John, to surmise that Matthew and Mark, likely written earlier or around the same time, were also genuine and credible.

Luke is said in Colossians 4.14 to have been a physician and an associate of the apostle Paul.

Luke is mentioned in 2 Timothy 4.11 and Philemon 24.

The Acts of the Apostles claims by its preface (Acts 1:1-2) to have been written by the same individual as the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:1-4) and the style is undoubtedly the same.

The narrative of Acts shifts to the first person first person when Paul comes to Troas and leaves from there to Macedonia (Acts 16.9-18; 20.4-16; 21.1-18; 27.1-28.16) this use of “we” suggests that Acts was written by a travelling companion of Paul. Since Luke is the traditional author, it “fits” that Paul picks up with the author of Acts either at or before arriving in Troas, since Luke is elsewhere associated with Asia Minor. Troas is a region of Asia Minor between Colossae and Ephesus (the location of Philemon and Timothy) and Macedonia. In other words, independent accounts show Luke being at the right place at the right time.

A seldom used argument is the very nature of the diēgēsis as being self-contained and self-authenticating. The Gospel of Luke comprises a self-contained universe that assumes the corroboration of his audience. In other words, the narrative is addressed to a person who is already familiar with the Gospel by a narrator who places himself within the story through the use of the first person pronoun, “I” and “we.” In other words, Luke is not simply a third-person narrator, but places himself within the framework of the story as it opens, claiming to be the same person who composed the previous Gospel and therefore intimately familiar with the characters in the story, and also claiming to be part of the narrative in the last few chapters.

Additionally, the book of Acts not only purports to be a historical narrative, but it addresses and was delivered to people in cities that were at the center of much of the same narrative. Some of the hearers were people who would have been at Pentecost or who had parents or older church acquaintances who were at Pentecost. The story begins by claiming that the miracle was witnesses by Jews and God-fearers were “from every nation under heaven … Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs” (Acts 2:5,9-11).

These people would have corroborated the miracle or they would have rejected it. Luke writes at the beginning of his Gospel that it is “a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.”

Throughout the book of Acts, he assumes that his audience can attest to many of the events because they lived in cities that Peter, Paul and Luke would have ministered and preached. In other words, he describes events to some hearers who could have been present in the narrative itself – or who would undoubtedly would have known those who were able to corroborate the story.

Without going into further detail here, I’ll use my novel analogy once again. Suppose I gave a copy of The Acts of Ronald Reagan to my father, who still lived near Washington, D.C. where I was born in 1962. Suppose the copy of my book was then delivered into the hands of my brothers, sisters, children, nephews and nieces. Even if they were ignorant of who wrote the book and didn’t have access to newspapers, media and other historical accounts, they would know that the story was a fantasy based on the numerous anachronisms and fictitious additions. They would already know the correct versions of the events they would have heard undoubtedly from their parents and grandparents.

On the contrary, the account of Luke and Acts had the strength of self-authenticating corroboration due to the eyewitness status of its immediate audience.

My challenge to liberals and skeptics:

1. Where is the external evidence showing that the Gospel of Luke and Acts were anonymous, pseudonymous or written late?

2. Where is the manuscript evidence showing these books without authors attached to the title?

3. Where is the internal evidence that Luke was not claiming both to have interviewed eyewitnesses of Jesus and to have been himself an eyewitnesses to some events in Acts?

For further reading:

http://bibleencyclopedia.net/index.php/Gospel_Of_Luke#Date_of_composition
http://www.textexcavation.com/gospelluke.html
http://bible.org/seriespage/luke-introduction-outline-and-argument

Dating the Gospel of Luke (part 4)

Meet Luke – the 800 pound gorilla

If the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written as late as 85 AD by a person claiming to have interviewed eyewitnesses of Jesus and claiming to have been a living companion of Paul, it would have been known by those still living who witnessed those events whether the account were true. If it were not, it could not have been accepted and quoted by the Church Fathers as genuine and quoted approvingly. The brief “JFK allegory” (part 1) explains why such an obvious fiction so close to the time span of the account could not have been accepted as authentic and reliable.

But beyond this, we should consider why a late date is deemed necessary in the first place. The culprit thesis behind the late dating of Luke is the wide – although by no means universal – acceptance of the priority of Mark. The date for the second Gospel is most often used as the anchor and all other books of the New Testament are arranged around this date.

The following is from Craig Davis’ e-book, Dating the New Testament:

There are three observations about the synoptic gospels that all seem true from a conservative perspective. However, on the surface, they are not consistent and at least one of them must be false. These observations are:

1. Luke was written before 63 A.D., based on the ending of the book of Acts.
2. Luke is dependent on Mark, so Mark was written before Luke.
3. Mark was written after 65 A.D., after Mark was in Rome.

The most common rejection is number one. However, there are two compelling points for an early dating of Luke. There is no persecution by the Roman authorities mentioned in Acts. Yet we know from several sources that Nero began a mass Empire-wide persecution of Christianity in 64 AD. There is no mention of the death of James, the brother of Jesus, the presiding bishop of the church at Jerusalem. We know from several accounts that James was martyred around 63 AD.

The Dating of Luke and Acts

J.A.T. Robison – a liberal theologian and New Testament scholar who denied the divinity and resurrection of Jesus and biblical accounts of miracles – once did a study using all the internal and external evidence available to determine the earliest possible dates of each of the New Testament books. The result of the study was published as the book, Redating the New Testament. Robinson came to the conclusion that there is nothing that would preclude a date of early composition for all four Gospels – between 40 to 60 AD.

Since even most conservatives place them later – the Synoptics from 61 to 67 AD with a later date for John – Robinson’s thesis constitutes “admission against self-interest.” The author is simply being intellectually honest in demonstrating that there is no internal evidence that would preclude early dating, and in light of the external testimony of the Church Fathers, this early end of the spectrum becomes more likely than the later extremes favored by his colleagues.

In the 19th century, liberals put the Gospels much later, even toward the end of the second century. That was the scenario offered until the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri which almost without doubt places every New Testament book in the first century. Yet liberals and skeptics cling to an old paradigm. They place the dates at the latest possible time, now thought to be from 70 to 85 AD, for the three Synoptic Gospels and 90 to 100 AD for the Gospel of John. However, a number of other liberal scholars have defected from the late date view, Eta Linnemann being another of the most recent and well-known. The Gospels could very well be earlier than many people suppose – even as early as 40 AD. Conservatives are actually in the main stream by putting most New Testament books from 55 to 67 AD.

Most scholars see an ongoing oral tradition that preceded the Gospels with a few written source-Gospels (or “proto-Gospels”) that later became the basis for the Synoptics. These source Gospels are often thought of as the compilations that Luke mentions in the introduction to his Gospel.

Many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught (Luke 1:1-3).

It is often assumed that Mark, (and sometimes) Matthew, and at least one other source, are among the “many who have undertaken to compile an account.” However, the word for “undertaken” or “taken in hand” is the Greek word, epicheireō, which occurs two other places in the New Testament.

And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him (Acts 9:29).

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches” (Acts 19:13).

The word epicheireō can be translated many different ways, but the meaning is simply “to make an attempt.” It does not follow that the idiom used in some English translations, “taken it in hand,” means that Luke is referring to written Gospels. In fact, the word for “account,” diēgēsis, in English is a “recitation” or a “narration.” The classical usage of diēgēsis is a complete account comprising a self-contained universe in which the presence of the narrator intrudes into the story. In Greek drama, this was contrasted with mimēsis, a story in which characters appear and action is described, but into which the narrator never intrudes as a character.

The Gospel accounts take a form in which the narrator is an eyewitness or is relating a story by known eyewitnesses. Matthew intrudes into the Gospel according to Matthew as the “tax collector,” who in the other Gospels is known only by his surname Levi. According to patristic tradition, Mark intrudes into his Gospel as an unnamed “youth” who flees the arresting soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane. John intrudes into his Gospel as one of the few unnamed Apostles, know only as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” These literary devices are part of the diēgēsis of the account.



Scene from Blazing Saddles (1974)

To use a familiar example, diēgēsis is sometimes used as a gag in modern comedies. In the Mel Brooks’ film, Blazing Saddles, the new sheriff rides on horseback across the desert to swelling sound. The audience is accustomed to think that the character must not be aware of the music, because soundtracks in movies usually serve as a mimēsis, a musical representation or descriptive soundtrack to complement what is being watched. But as the camera pans across the scenery to follow the horse’s tracks, eventually the audience sees Count Basie and his big band playing “April in Paris” in the middle of the desert – a ridiculously funny juxtaposition. The diēgēsis works as an joke because the audience is taken by surprise to see a conductor and his musicians intruding into the film as characters – a sort of reverse dramatic irony.

Likewise, the sudden occurrence of the word “we” in the later narrative of Acts is just as odd and startling. It appears without explanation. However, the author is assuming that his immediate audience, Theophilus, already knew that Luke was a companion of Paul. Therefore, as Luke already stated in his “former account” (Acts 1:1) the immediate audience assumes that Luke is giving sure chronological knowledge of the events through careful investigation. Further, the Acts of the Apostles is similar to a Greek drama in which one of the characters is the narrator himself who finally intrudes into the concluding scenes. If this were not the case, then the sudden use of the first person would seem just as illogical as the appearance of Count Basie in Blazing Saddles. But why is the intrusion so sudden with no explanation? If the author was intending to create a believable fiction, then why is the false claim to participation restricted to just a few passages? Why doesn’t the narrator assert himself more forcefully in such a way that the reader might not miss the point? The most probable conclusion is that Luke's audience was already aware of the relationship. Luke is the reliable narrator of the story. The first person, “I” and “we” is simply a reminder that the diēgēsis of Acts includes Luke’s actual presence and intimate involvement with the narrative.

It is extremely difficult in the world of fiction to create a self-contained universe in which the audience can suspend all disbelief. The more complex the story, the more difficult it is to portray a self-contained world with no internal contradictions. Blazing Saddles makes fun of movie-making conventions by having several off-camera audience presumptions spill over to the on-screen action. We suspend our disbelief in order to allow for a musical soundtrack. But this presumption comes crashing down when the camera pans on to a full orchestra playing in a western landscape. However, this is the way that liberal critics view Luke’s Gospel and Acts – as a work of legend written by a anonymous author who expects his audience to simply suspend their disbelief and accept the backdrop of a first person narrator as an accepted literary convention even when he stumbles clumsily into the action.

The person to whom Luke is writing his Gospel, Theophilus, a Christian in Asia Minor, had heard Gospel accounts compiled by people who had in turn heard one or more of the Apostles preach – Paul, Peter, Apollos, or some other disciples of Jesus – and now wished to put it all together. Since Luke was Paul’s traveling companion and had heard many of the Apostles preach, he had memorized the narrative and had also investigated what had happened in the correct chronological order plus a few other important facts that were often left out of these other accounts.

We also have to grapple with the statement by Luke that the Gospel is being written “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” The obvious intention is to convince the reader of truthfulness of the events described in the book. Taken with the narrative of Acts, it can be assumed that the immediate audience already knew of Luke’s association with the Apostles, especially Paul, and therefore Luke can appeal to their authority in claiming his account is correct. Further, the phrase, “the things you have been taught,” indicates a prior familiarity with at least portions of the account that Luke is about to relate.

According to the Church Fathers, Luke's Gospel is essentially the Gospel that Paul preached. If this were true, then it is reasonable to assume that there should be some internal evidence within the New Testament itself that demonstrates that Paul’s Gospel is the source of the narrative written by Luke. Here the relationship of Luke’s narrative to Paul’s letters is too often neglected or downplayed by the liberal critics. The letters of Paul are usually placed first in the chronology of New Testament books.

However, there are a number of direct quotations and allusions to the Gospels in Paul's writings. The most notable one is a direct quotation from Luke 22:19,20 in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. This would seem to prove a date of early composition for at least a form of a Gospel identical to Luke 22:19,20 prior to 55 AD when 1 Corinthians was written. The two most logical explanations is that either Luke wrote prior to 1 Corinthians or that this quotation is actually “Paul’s Gospel” from which the Gospel according to Luke assumed its final written form.

Using the same reasoning, the audience to whom the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles is addressed would also be either familiar with the events described in Acts or would know other Christians who had lived during the time of these events. To concoct a narrative with fictional elements would be an absurd exercise even as late as 85 AD. To then have the narrative quickly pass into the canon of inspired writings would be even more absurd. Yet this is the scenario proposed by liberals and taught as accepted fact in their divinity schools.

Dating the Gospel of Luke (part 3)

Isn’t it true that the four Gospels were chosen from “many” Gospels?

I’ll take a brief pause here from dealing solely with Luke's writings to answer a question I just received from a viewer of The Real Jesus video podcast. Inevitably, someone is going to ask a question about the dating of the so-called Gnostic Gospels.

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:18 AM, YouTube Service wrote:

Was there a massacre around the time of Jesus birth?

You guys seem a lot more learned about the historical dating of the Gospels. I don’t think anything in the New Testament can be trusted. I have heard a few times from different places that there were over 80 gospels and the oligarchy chose what Gospels it wanted when a lot of people just wrote them up and sold them.

The “many Gospels” referred to here are writings from the second century and later composed by a group called the Gnostics. This was a world-wide religious movement in the ancient world that believed the material world was evil and taught that salvation was spiritual and could only be obtained through “secret knowledge” or gnosis. The Gnostics syncretized the tenets of many other religions into their writings. As Christianity began to become widespread, the Gnostics made use of the sayings of Jesus in order to popularize their own teachings. But we do not see any of these Gnostic Gospels until the mid to late second century.

If one wants to know about the flavor of the Gnostic Gospels, just read them. They contain just the sayings of Jesus and usually claim that a particular disciple of Jesus received “secret knowledge” that the author of the book is now revealing. They are fundamentally different than the four Gospels. Judaism and Christianity are holistic religions, while Gnosticism is dualistic, pitting the evil material world against the spiritual world. Since history of the material world is evil, there is no attempt to give the reader a sense of a connection to history. Just as I have been arguing for the historicity and authenticity for the canonical Gospels, the Gnostic Gospels reveal a blatant agenda to distort the teachings of Jesus with no respect for even an appearance of factual reality.

The “many gospels” hypothesis is the brain-child of professors and popular authors such as John Dominic Crossan, Elaine Pagels and Marvin Meyer. Their writings make for brisk sales and media attention because they are so sensationalistic. No university wants to pay researchers to publish papers and books reiterating the view of the Church Fathers on the dating and origin of the Gospels. Researchers are paid to publish “new findings” and are under a considerable amount of pressure to get some media attention.

There is also an underlying motive by some to promote an “original” form of Christianity that was more liberal and less patriarchal. Whether or not the Gnostic Gospels provide this point of view is debatable. However, this might be one reason why there has been such a flurry of interest in recent years over these “new discoveries.” (In fact, most of these writings have been known through archaeological discoveries since the late 1800s and much of the content of the books has been documented ever since they appeared in the second, third and fourth centuries.) Dan Brown has even made this burgeoning Neo-Gnosticism the thesis of his best-selling novels, which he claims are “based on history” even though his plots are fictional.

The conspiracy theory goes as follows: Gnosticism was the “original Christianity” – in fact, there were “many Gospels” and “many Christianities” based on Gnostic mysticism. Then about 180 AD, Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons appeared. He and his followers were intolerant bigots who hand-selected and/or edited the four Gospels they felt most represented the patriarchal view of the Apostle Paul toward women and sexuality. (Or in some far-fetched versions, this historical revisionism didn’t occur until the Council of Nicea in the fourth century.) According to this hypothesis, the New Testament canon was a response to a perceived Gnostic threat to the authority of the bishops.

This view is in contrast with the testimony of Irenaeus and Tertullian who explained that various Gnostic sects each adopted one of the four Gospels that they believed best supported their views often editing out parts they disagreed with. The Ebionites used only the Gospel according to Matthew, because they thought it represented a more “earthly” Jesus. The Adoptionists made use only of Mark, because they felt it separated “Jesus” from “Christ.” Marcion used only the Gospel of Luke because he felt it represented a more “spiritual” Jesus. Finally, the Cerinthians and Valentinians used only their warped interpretation of John to show that Jesus was a separate spiritual being from the evil demiurgic God who created the material universe.

By the end of the second century, the Gnostics had already begun writing their own books of “secret knowledge” based on the writings of Jesus that had little regard for the historical-narrative structure of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Some liberal scholars, such as Crossan, Pagels and Meyer, have tried to turn this scenario on its head by saying the Gnostic Gospels came first and the canonical Gospels drew from them. It is true that Gnosticism existed prior to Jesus, but the religion borrowed bits and pieces from Judaism and Christianity, not vice versa.

But here is the bottom line: The four canonical Gospels have a remarkable pedigree. The four Gospels were known and quoted numerous times by other Christian writers in the late first and second centuries. In the late 1800s, some liberal Higher Critics placed the Gospels very late, even at the end of the second century, but due to more recent archaeological discoveries and scholarship, almost every scholar now agrees the four Gospels are first century books. One would have to ignore the writings of the Church Fathers in order not to see this.

My view is that all the books of the New Testament were probably written before 70 AD. The exception to this might be the Gospel of John and the letters of John.

First, there is the Didache and 1 Clement, both written in the late first century, which quote heavily from the New Testament. Then by 90 AD there isn't a decade in which there isn't a work that draws on the New Testament. Around 125 AD, another early yet seldom mentioned Christian apologist, Aristides of Athens, wrote the following to the Emperor Hadrian.

Take, then, their writings, and read therein, and lo! you will find that I have not put forth these things on my own authority, nor spoken thus as their advocate; but since I read in their writings I was fully assured of these things as also of things which are to come. And for this reason I was constrained to declare the truth to such as care for it and seek the world to come.

This shows that within 60 years of the lifetime of the Apostles, the New Testament writings were known throughout the Roman Empire.

In fact, it has been demonstrated that the majority of the 7958 verses in the New Testament could be reconstructed just from the writings of the Church Fathers up until about 200 AD. This includes 268 citations by Justin Martyr, 1,038 by Irenaeus, 1,017 by Clement of Alexandria, 9,231 by Origen, 3,822 by Tertullian, 734 by Hippolytus (Geisler and Nix, General Introduction to the Bible, 431).

As you look at the following timeline, consider that the earliest of the Church Fathers lived early enough to have known the Apostles and that the overlapping lifetimes of all these men indicate a great certainty for the transmission of Apostolic writings. The four Gospels are quoted very early, but the Gnostic Gospels are unknown until after the middle of the second century.

Patristic Writings Timeline

The following authors cite the New Testament. The timeline indicates the most likely dates of their works.

The Didache – c. 70-100 AD
Clement of Rome – c. 96 AD
Ignatius of Antioch – c. 110-117
Polycarp of Smyrna – c. 110-155
Papias of Hieropolis – c. 125
The Epistle of Barnabas – c. 100-132
Aristides of Athens – c. 123-127
Quadratus of Athens - c. 123-127
Hermas of Rome – c. 125-135
Mathetes - c. 130-150
Aristo of Pella - c. 140
Justin Martyr – c. 150-160
Tatian - c. 150-165
Theophilus of Antioch - c. 169-182
Melito of Sardis - c. 172-177
Irenaeus of Lyons – c. 175-185
Athenagoras - c. 176-178
Muratorian Canon – c. 175-200
Clement of Alexandria – c. 180-200
Tertullian of Carthage – c. 200-220
Origen of Alexandria – c. 200-230
Hippolytus of Rome – c. 220

"Dignity" Law & Order episode infuriates pro-aborts, can be watched on iTunes

What's going on? Pro-abortion advocates are ripping ABC-TV (yes, that ABC!) for being unbalanced on the abortion issue.

They've thrown down the gauntlet: "Cry 'God for Barry, pro-choice America and St. George!'"

(As they laud George Tiller, the baby killer, whom the L&A episode thinly veils in its depiction of the trial of an assassin who gunned down a late-term abortionist in a church.)

What they don't get is that over 92 percent of Americans actually do think that killing viable children and infants born-alive is murder. And even if they do not, no one wants to rush out to battle in the name of "abortion rights" to endorse what almost everyone knows is infanticide. Not too many people are actually that arrogant.

I haven't seen the episode, but apparently it gives a nod to the Personhood of the fetus as "deserving of another look," so maybe something good is happening?

If you have an iTunes account, the whole episode can be watched there. If not, you can download the application. It's easy.

Dating the Gospel of Luke (part 2)

Can the Gospels be authenticated?

One of the almost universally held notions of liberal theology is that the Gospels are anonymous writings and the names of the authors were not attached to the original manuscripts. Although we do not have the original manuscripts, this is stated as a certain fact. However, the earliest codices are not anonymous. Here is an image of P75, a papyrus codex that was copied at the end of the second century from an earlier copy.



This is the earliest example that we have of a manuscript in which one Gospel ends and another begins. Even if you can’t read Greek, it is clear that the title and author of the two books appear here near the top of the page – the Greek words say: “Gospel according to Luke” and “Gospel according to John.”

So why do the liberals claim the original autographs were anonymous? There are two reasons for this. The first is scientific skepticism. In any hard science, a theory is not proven unless data exists that can confirm a hypothesis. Scientific skepticism doesn't accept something as fact unless it can be proven. Textual criticism, although not a hard science, uses the same methods. The skeptics will assume the latest date possible until an earlier date can be established. They will assume anonymity or pseudonymity until authorship can be proven. They do not, however, try to prove their position.

When the liberal critics say books are anonymous or too late to be the authentic works of the named authors, they don't have proof of this. They just don't accept the evidence to the contrary as compelling. The problem is that others frequently cite this skepticism as fact, when no textual critic is really ever certain of his dating. They simply assume the latest possible dates based on the evidence. However, there are a surprising number of liberal scholars who have become convinced of early dates based on the evidence available. Two of the most notable are J.A.T. Robinson and Eta Linnemann.

Second, it is stated as a foregone conclusion that the authors' names were added to the manuscripts later on -- perhaps as late as the second century. The critics assume that the Gospels were written too late to have been by eyewitnesses. Mark is assumed to be the first Gospel and the date of 70 AD is assigned. The rest of the Gospels are thought to be at least 10 years later. Certainly, books written so late after the deaths of Jesus and the Apostles could not be by contemporary eyewitnesses of the events.

External testimony is routinely ignored. We have author attributions as early the extant fragments of Papias’ work, Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord, which according to C.E. Hill was written “as early as 110 and probably no later than the early 130s, with several scholars opting for the earlier end of the spectrum.” We also have Irenaeus’ statement (c. 180 AD) that Papias was “a hearer of John, and companion of Polycarp, a man of old time” (Against Heresies 5.33.4). If we take Irenaeus’ statement at face value, there is no reason to suppose that the Church fathers, who wrote between 96 to 115 AD, did not know the names of the authors of the four Gospels and Acts. Papias names Matthew as the author of a Hebrew Gospel according to Matthew, and Mark as the author of what was preached by Peter, the Gospel according to Mark.

If the Gospels were not written by those whose names appeared on the books by the early second century, there is little possibility that they could have had the influence they did in the early church. It is unlikely that such a falsification of authorship could have occurred intentionally or even unintentionally.

Likewise, my fictitious novels about Joseph Fitzgerald Kennedy (see part 1) and his followers might fool a few children and some illiterate hillbillies who have lived their entire lives cut off from written communication, But this was not the civilization of ancient Rome and the early church. Although not everyone could read and write, literacy was the norm for Rome’s citizens and Jewish men especially were highly literate and aware of their own history as a people. The Gospels, to the contrary to the story of Joseph Fitzgerald Kennedy, are historical accounts that may be corroborated with other works, such as the histories written by Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus. If they were not, they never could have risen to the level of acceptance as inspired and canonical writings recognized as scripture by the end of the first century.

There are two remarkable early examples of New Testament writings being quoted as scripture. The first is 1 Clement 13.8, which has the phrase, “the words of the Lord Jesus,” prior to a quote from the Gospels. Before and after this Gospel quotation, The Epistle of Clement (c. 96 AD) appeals to the authority of Old Testament scripture prefaced with the phrases, “for the Holy Spirit says” and “For the holy word says.” In 1 Clement 22.1, Christ is the source of the words of Psalm 34:11-17 and 2:10, “Christ calls us through his Holy Spirit.” It has been argued by some scholars that the use of the phrase “the words of the Lord Jesus” in chapter 13 indicates scriptural authority for the simple reason that Clement cites Jesus as the speaker of the Psalms in chapter 22.

The other example is Ignatius (c. 117 AD) who was the first Church Father to use many more quotations from the New Testament than from the Old Testament in his writings. Ignatius rebukes those who doubt the authority of the Gospel in his Epistle to the Philadelphians. In chapter 8, Ignatius plainly states that whenever he speaks the words of the Gospel with the phrase, “it is written,” then the Gospel has the same authority as Old Testament scripture. In the same passage, he likens those who would reject the authority of the Gospel by directly quoting the words of Jesus to the Apostle Paul in Acts 9:6, “It is hard to kick against the pricks.” This demonstrates the acceptance of Luke and Acts as scripture by Ignatius.

When was the New Testament written?

No matter your theological disposition, liberal or conservative, the dating of several New Testament papyri in the second century establishes that there is early and late window for the writing of the New Testament. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, thousands of manuscript fragments discovered by the renowned archaeologists, Grenfell and Hunt, in Egypt in the 1890s, yielded over 100 New Testament fragments that were older than any manuscripts that had been preserved up to that point.

Facsimile of P52, the oldest known surviving Gospel fragment, c. 115 AD

The most startling discovery was a small scrap of papyrus called P52 that contains a portion of the Gospel of John. The consensus among paleographers is that the handwriting is circa 115 AD – also incidentally the approximate date of Papias’ Exposition. Since John was likely written in Asia Minor and P52 was found in Egypt, this fragment is likely at least a copy of a copy. This also indicates a wide distribution of copies of John at an early date.

Given the events of Acts, which end abruptly in about 60 AD, the earliest possible date for Acts is about 60 AD. In the world of critical literature and especially on the Internet, we still find people claiming a date as late as 130 AD for Luke. However, it should be obvious that a book could not have been written later than its earliest copy. Due to the almost universally accepted fact that the three synoptic Gospels were written prior to John, and since John was surely written prior to end of the first century, the three synoptic Gospels probably could not have been completed prior to 90 AD.

That's a 30 year window – 60 to 90 AD. That means if the Gospel of Luke was composed, according to the liberal dating, by 85 AD, the book of Acts would have been written soon after that date. In light of the point I made with the fictitious story of JFK, the date of 85 AD by an anonymous or pseudonymous author is impossible. To have gained acceptance among Christians at the beginning of the second century, the authenticity and historical reliability of both of these works would need to be airtight.

Numerous quotes from Luke, Acts, the other three Gospels and most other New Testament books appeared in the works of Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias and the writer of the Didache just a few years later. These men lived from the mid-first century onward and wrote their books from 96 to 115 AD. To quote Irenaeus, these writings of the church fathers were composed by men “who had seen and conversed with the apostles, while their preaching was still sounding in [their] ears, and their tradition was still before [their] eyes. Nor were they alone in this, for many who had been taught by the apostles still survived.”

Again, we are presented with the inevitable scenario in which the four written Gospels must have been composed and transmitted among a tight knit community that had some still living who had known and heard the Apostles preach.

Of course, one could make the charge that the letters of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp are not genuine either and therefore are no witness to New Testament reliability. The problem with this hypothesis is that these books are accepted even by liberals as being completely authentic and genuine -- the simple reason being that the church fathers of the late second century quote from them as well. There is a living link of flesh and blood from generation to generation. The Apostles who were with Jesus passed on their writings to the early bishops who transmitted them to their successors. After 96 AD, the supposed date for the Epistle of Clement, there is hardly a decade in which we don't have a record, a witness, a writing of some type that confirms an earlier record, witness or writing. The New Testament has an incredibly strong pedigree in this regard.

What is meant by “anonymous” Gospels?

There are some accomplished scholars who dispute the authenticity of the Gospels. Bart Ehrman is a world-renowned New Testament scholar. In a brief Internet conversation with Ehrman earlier this year, I asked him about his insistence on Gospel anonymity. He gave his answer:

By definition (is this really a speculation? I thought it was a truism), a writing whose author does not identify him/herself is anonymous…. The authors of the Gospels of the New Testament (unlike other Gospels outside the New Testament, and unlike other books in the New Testament) do not indicate their identity. These books are therefore anonymous. If you want to identify the authors with one person or another, that's fine – and you may have historical grounds. But in doing so you are attributing a book to someone, not indicating what the book itself says about its author.

Ehrman therefore insists that any writing in which an author does not identify himself by name within the text itself is by definition “anonymous.” However, there is absolutely no reason to think that the four Gospel authors’ names were not known or that they were not part of the titles of the books. Everyone knew who wrote The Annals in ancient times, but Tacitus did not put his name within the text. The Annals is not by definition “anonymous.” Consider also that there were four Gospels, each being copied hundreds of times, all the copies going in hundreds of different geographical directions, all ending up thousands of miles apart, yet each called by the same names no matter where they ended up decades later. The logical explanation for this is that before they were distributed throughout the known world, the titles and author names were affixed to them in some way.

I have no doubt that Bart Ehrman and other such critics are scholars and gentlemen. However, to conservative Christians, who have studied the Bible and then hear the speculations of liberal critics, they seem to us as complete idiots. As Paul says: “They profess to be wise, when really, they have become fools. They have been turned over to a reprobate mind.” I am reminded of the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room that the skeptic does not want to see.

- to be continued

Dating the Gospel of Luke (part 1)

Gone with the Wind by Ronald Reagan: A Pseudonymous Gospel

Let's pretend for a moment …

In 1985, at the age of 23, I decided to write a story about a statesman hero of mine, Joseph Fitzgerald Kennedy. The novel and its sequel became a best-seller and changed American culture. But for those who have never actually read the two novels, here is a brief outline.

"JFK" was born on December 24th, 1896 in a small town in Maryland on the outskirts of Washington D.C. His parents, two Jewish immigrants from Philadelphia, were traveling to Washington to celebrate the holidays with family members. They were forced to stop in a small hotel for several days due to the onslaught of a sudden blizzard. Since the roads were overrun by wayward holiday travelers, the only person who could take them in was a hotel keeper who gave them a small shed outside his house. The baby was born in these impossible conditions and both mother and child survived by a seeming miracle. A touring group of circus side-show workers staying in the hotel heard the story and decided to share their room with the young family. Noticing the oddity of a Christmas baby born outside an inn, some fortune tellers in the company gathered around and predicted that one day this baby would go to Washington to become president of the United States. In that dark hour, this young president would defeat America's enemies. He'd be responsible for reestablishing the state of Israel and would bring a golden age of peace and prosperity to America.

My first novel goes on to describe a brief detail about the young boy debating professors at George Washington University at age 12, then picks up with him as a Harvard professor at age 29. In a short time, JFK was famous for his public lectures and humanitarian initiatives. He toured the country a few years later giving speeches finally announcing his candidacy for president, though he had never held political office. He received the endorsement of his cousin, William Jennings Bryant, shortly after the famous Scopes Monkey Trial during which Bryant suffered disgrace and died a short time later. Many startling supernatural occurrences followed Joseph F. Kennedy throughout his career. Snippets of his many speeches were recorded in my novel, "Ask not what your country can do for you," "Give me liberty or give me death," "A house divided against itself cannot stand," and perhaps his most famous speech given shortly before he died, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

He was loved by young people and the poor. He was the people's hero. But he ruffled the feathers of both the Republican and Democratic Party leaders. They were unsure which side he stood for – he had populist appeal although he often leaned toward the right in public policy. In a dark speech in the spring of 1933, Joseph predicted that America would soon become engulfed in wars that would lead up to the establishment of Israel as a state. In less than 40 years, he prophesied Israel would be surrounded by its enemy Egypt, but the Israelis would not only prevail, but would recapture the city of Jerusalem from the Palestinians. Joseph also implied that he would not live to see it, but would be betrayed to death by those closest to him.

In 1933, Joseph seemed poised to win his party's nomination for presidency the following year, when an awful occurrence horrified his followers. An embezzling associate, named Jacob Isaacson was suddenly and inexplicably overcome with insane jealousy. While it was widely thought that Kennedy was an Irishman, it was known only to a few that he was a Jew who had designs on the presidency for the purpose of establishing Israel as a nation. Isaacson, although a Jew himself, leaked the truth of Kennedy's Semitic roots to The Washington Post, but the story was suppressed by a few editors. A rigorous campaign season ensued and Kennedy seemed poised to win the nomination of the Bull Moose Party in 1934 with the slogan "Walk softly, but carry a big stick."

Tragically, Kennedy was assassinated by American Nazi sympathizers who learned that Kennedy was a Jew. He was shot in the neck by the son of Charles Lindbergh, whom the Nazis had kidnapped and brainwashed a few years earlier, while Kennedy was watching the premiere of Gone with the Wind in a movie theater in Baltimore in 1934. JFK's followers mourned but vowed to fight on. The tale of JFK sightings persisted among his youthful following. He was seen as a gas station attendant, a gardener, and even some imagined they saw him while traveling in snow storms on Christmas Eve.

The book was originally published as a series of untitled, anonymous articles in Harper's Magazine, but soon became known as Gone with the Wind. A later edition appeared in 1984 under the name of one of Kennedy's most faithful supporters, Ronald Reagan, a washed up B-movie actor who had never met JFK, but ran for office on the Bull Moose Party ticket achieving the governorship of California in 1966.

I later wrote The Acts of Ronald Reagan, an unauthorized pseudonymous autobiography of sorts, which tells the events from Reagan's perspective of Kennedy's death in 1934 up to Reagan's support for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. I was never able to finish the story of Reagan as it abruptly ends with Goldwater's speech at the 1964 Bull Moose Party convention.

**************************************************

Obviously, there is no such presidential candidate as Joseph F. Kennedy. I conflated several factual stories about United States presidents with stories from the Bible, many anachronisms and much outright fiction. I took the framework of the story of Jesus and the Apostles of the first century and brought it about 1900 years into the future. I supposed I was a second generation non-eyewitness writing a legendary story about Joseph F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

I took a perspective that would have been similar to that of the Church Fathers (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and Papias) the youngest of whom was probably born no later than 65 AD. Since I was born in 1962, I simply fast-forwarded about 1900 years to use that as an anchor date in this fictitious allegory.

But let's now consider something even more outrageous …

Suppose that during Ronald Reagan's second term of presidency, there were JFK followers who had long since grown into a religious cult, who believed that JFK was still alive and ruling as the president of the United States from heaven, waiting come back to earth to supplant the Republican Party with the Bull Moose agenda. These fanatical cultists then took my work of fiction, which I never intended to be taken literally, and assumed it was true. They gathered some other stories about JFK and circulated these throughout the United States, reading them at weekly meetings.

Now it is almost 2010. Would it be possible to sell my novel series to the American people as non-fiction? Is it really possible that some would mistake these stories as a historical narrative?

Of course not!

The reason for this should be obvious. There are many people alive today who were born in the 1930s. They were taught well in school and have a good understanding of United States History. Many of them can remember Charles Lindbergh, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, World War Two and many of the historical events that were misrepresented in my story. Many of them voted for John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. A story that conflates nonsense with reality could never be thought of as anything but an entertaining work of fiction. And even 50 to 100 years from now, there is no way that any of this could be misconstrued as a work of history.

Yet this is exactly how liberals, skeptics and atheists view the New Testament – as a compilation of Jewish midrash of Old Testament stories by anonymous or pseudonymous writers whose works were then taken as fact just a few years after they died by a burgeoning cult who had their roots in similar beliefs and experiences. Exactly 1900 years ago, after the last of the Apostles had passed away and the Church was in the hands of the bishops, someone had already collated the four Gospels and Acts into several codices, as well as the letters of Paul and some other Epistles. By the second century, someone had made numerous copies and distributed them among the churches. Liberal theologians assume that the bishops, deacons, and the rank and file believers of the late first and early second century were so woefully unaware of history that they were capable of taking a colorful collection of "urban legends" and interpreting it as "truth."

- to be continued

Why the Florida Catholic Bishops are wrong to oppose the pro-life Personhood Amendment

It is our opinion, and that of the legal experts with whom we have consulted, that passage of this amendment would not achieve the goal of overturning Roe v. Wade.

If such an amendment were to pass, a feat more difficult in our state due to the requirement to achieve support by 60% of voters, we are convinced that a federal district court would strike it down based on Roe. This decision would undoubtedly be affirmed by an appellate court, and the case would either not be granted further review by today’s U.S. Supreme Court, or worse, lead to a reaffirmation of Roe. The unintended effect would very likely jeopardize current protections in state law and cause a loss of momentum in the ultimate goal of establishing full legal protection of the unborn from the moment of conception.

- The Catholic Bishops of Florida

In a nutshell: Based on the idea that the Personhood Amendment would cause the Supreme Court to rule on Roe v. Wade, no one should support this. Instead we should focus on incremental measures.

This is wrong for several reasons.

Yes, it is the culture that changes the law, but it is meaningless to talk about changing the culture unless we are actively involved in changing the beliefs, values and laws that govern us as individuals. We must do this through constant discussion, debate and education. Advocating for a Personhood Amendment is an excellent way to do this.

Furthermore, incremental measures may be seen to be counterproductive in our attemp. Every law that places a restriction on abortion is in fact a legal precedent that affirms Roe v. Wade. Even if Roe were struck down tomorrow, these incremental measures would stand even in states that had a ban or restriction on abortion prior to Roe.

"You must have parental consent, a five day waiting period, and an ultra-sound, then you have the legal right to kill your baby!"

That is the standard presented by the Catholic bishops of Florida at this time. This is no way to build a culture of life. We cannot affirm the right to life by sanctioning legal child murder only in some circumstances. The way to affirm a culture of life is to legally define the personhood of a human being from the beginning of biological development.

It is an incremental step in that regard.

We can legally define "the beginning of biological development" as constituting a human life, a legal "person" and a "natural person." That will change the culture.

To get 60 percent of the voters to agree to this, first we must ask eight percent to think about it and agree with their signatures that such an amendment is needed. Even if we fail to get the signatures needed, we are actively engaging in evangelism, getting the hearts and minds of people lined up with truth. People who have never evangelized before will lead people to Christ through their petitioning. That will change the culture.

When we get the amendment on the ballot, there will be a huge fight. A debate over abortion and when life begins has never occurred in our culture at large. Legalized abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregancy was enforced from the top down in most states by a Supreme Court decision. Even in states that had legal abortion, there were restrictions that were knocked down by Roe and Doe v. Bolton. For the first time in 37 years, we will be calling on the free will of the people to decide for themselves. That will change the culture.

If the measure fails in Florida, we will keep trying in other states until one passes. Within 24 hours there will be a legal injunction by a higher court that calls on the state to not enforce laws regulating or banning abortion. At that point, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case. Even if we lose, we win. It will establish a clear cut division between the will of the courts and the will of the people. That will change the culture.

Then we will seek to pass such amendments and resolutions in other states. That will change the culture.

We will eventually get such an intitative passed in 34 of the so-called "red states" -- enough for a United States Constitutional Amendment that will protect the life of a person from the beginning of biological development. Roe will be moot. Now longer will it be the fiat "law of the land" enforced by judicial tyranny. It will only apply to Roe and Wade. And I hear Jane Roe is now pro-life.

We can change the culture, but it must come from the will of the people, not through the courts. It must come through the states.

Key facts

1. Through 2008, there were 24 voter petition initiatives on the Florida ballot since the process began in 1978 (in addition to legislative initiatives).

2. Of those 24, 20 were approved by voters.

3. Florida voters have approved a higher percentage of their statewide ballot measures than voters in any other state.

This position paper is not copyrighted and may be forwarded and distributed to anyone without prior permission.

- Jay Rogers
http://forerunner.com/

Why we should create cognitive dissonance on the “pro-life / pro-choice” issue

I found the following poll interesting because as I am out collecting petitions for Florida's pro-life Personhood Amendment, I find that many people are confused about the term “pro-life.”

More than 25 percent of people who say they are “pro-choice” on abortion really take a “pro-life” position against most abortions.

The Marist College Institute of Public Opinion conducted a survey between September 24 and October 3, 2008.

Of the “pro-life” group

• 13 percent say abortion should never be permitted.
• 15 percent say abortions should only be allowed to save the life of the mother.
• 32 percent say abortions should be allowed in that rare case and when the mother is a victim of rape or incest.

A full 60 percent of Americans say abortions should never be allowed or only in rare circumstances, such as danger to the life of the mother, rape and incest, that constitute less than two percent of all abortions nationwide.

Of the “pro-choice” group

• 24 percent said abortion should be allowed only in the first trimester.
• 8 percent believed abortions should be allowed any time during the first 6 months of pregnancy.
• 8 percent agreed that abortions should be allowed any time during pregnancy for any reason.

Just 40 percent took one of these three pro-abortion positions.

A confusion of labels

Even though the survey found 60 percent of respondents took a pro-life position against all or most abortions, 50 percent of Americans called themselves “pro-choice” while only 44 percent said they were pro-life.

Of the so-called “pro-choice” group

• 5 percent of people who self-identified as “pro-choice” said abortions should never be permitted.
• 3 percent said only to save the life of the mother.
• 20 percent said only in cases of the life of the mother, rape or incest.

In other words, 28 percent of Americans who call themselves “pro-choice” actually oppose 98 percent of all abortions.

More cognitive dissonance among “pro-choice” advocates

• 71 percent said they favored more abortion limits.
• 15 percent of those describing themselves as “pro-choice” favored unrestricted abortion throughout a pregnancy.

- LifeNews.com


Commentary by Jay Rogers

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is that mental or emotional internal conflict caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. It is believed by some to be a possible source of mental illness. In the field of Christian apologetics, cognitive dissonance can be used by the evangelist to call for the “renewing of the mind” (Romans 12:2). Those hearing the Gospel must choose between one of two alternate understandings of reality or worldviews. Even as Christians, our thought patterns often conform to the pattern of this world. To remain torn between two worlds is the state of a sick mind and a suffering heart. The more we hear the Gospel preached, the more we must align ourselves with either the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light. The more we align our thinking with the Word of God, the more we move from doubt and unbelief to positive faith.

One of the most baffling phenomena in my experience as a pro-life activist consists of the various smokescreens surrounding the abortion issue. Two of the greatest misconceptions are the following:

1. That abortion is needed for cases of rape and incest.

2. That abortion is restricted in some way beyond the first trimester.

This was essentially the language of Roe v. Wade when it was enforced upon the American people in all 50 states. The pro-abortion advocates won the legal battle and then proceeded to wage a public relations propaganda war surrounding the so-called “exceptions.” But in fact, Roe’s companion decision Doe v. Bolton allowed abortion for any reason through all nine months. The irony is that vast majority of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” Americans are completely unaware of this.

This is one reason why I am convinced that the national campaign to pass Personhood Amendments to the constitutions of 34 or more states is the right language and the right strategy at the right time. The fact is that America has never had a national dialog on the ethics of abortion either before or since Roe v. Wade. By pressing for ballot initiatives that would enact the anti-thesis of abortion “rights,” we are conducting this needed debate. The “mushy middle” will no longer be able to ignore the facts.

As we push for these legislative and ballot initiatives to enact Personhood Amendments, we are simultaneously challenging those who hold to “only the exceptions” as to why they really believe abortion ought to be illegal in 98 percent of all current cases. In other words, why in fact should abortion be restricted for the most common excuse of convenience or economic situations? If abortion is morally objectionable because it is the killing of an unborn human person, then one must grapple with the issue of allowing killing in “only certain circumstances.” We need to create cognitive dissonance in the minds of these people.

What most pro-life advocates don’t realize is that it is possible to drive people away from a pro-abortion view simply by asking questions. No argument or debate is needed. All we need to do is offer an antithesis -- that is, to expose an accepted contradiction -- and seek to create as much cognitive dissonance as possible. Here are some questions to ask those caught in the mushy middle.

• Why would we ever allow the killing of an unborn child who is the product of rape or incest, but not call for capital punishment in cases of battery-rape and pedophilia?
• If abortion is wrong after the first trimester, then why is it wrong?
• If abortion after the first trimester is wrong because it is the killing of a human person, then what about the child at two months or one month? When does this developing human life become a “person”?
• When is it ever morally acceptable to kill a person? Why? Do any of these reasons include killing an innocent person?
  
• Does abortion “to save the life of the mother” include first making every effort medically available to save the life of both the mother and the unborn child? -- If so, why is this called an “abortion”?

By asking such pointed questions –- many more can be formulated -- we are pressing our advantage simply because as William Cullen Bryant once wrote, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”

If we continue to ask for truthful answers to these questions, we will win. In fact, we will find that we have already won, but most are just unaware of the victory. Due to their cognitive dissonance, they are unable to act accordingly.

By confronting the inevitable conclusions, those “pro-choice” advocates who advocate killing in only two percent of all cases will be forced to come into the light and admit that they would allow child murder. If they can live with this cognitive dissonance, then so be it. But I am convinced that the darkness cannot hide from the light.

This position paper is not copyrighted and the words and ideas it contains may be reproduced and distributed without prior permission.

Personhood: The Right Language and the Correct Strategy at the Right Time

In 1972, when Chief Justice Warren Burger appointed Harry Blackmun to write the majority opinion on Roe v. Wade it was at first rejected. Blackmun at first argued that a woman had a right to do whatever she pleased with her own body. This argument was rejected by Burger because it did not apply to drugs, public nudity, suicide attempts, and so on. It was too unsophisticated an argument for such a difficult case. Blackmun filed for a reargument and waited for Nixon to fill two vacancies on the nine member court (Roe was originally decided with seven). In October, the court heard rearguments with new appointees Powell and Rehnquist. This time Justice Stewart asked Sarah Weddington if it was critical to her case to say that the 14th amendment did not protect the fetus as a "person."

He asked: "If it were established that the fetus is a person, within the protection of the 14th amendment, you would have almost an impossible case here, would you not?"

"I would have a very difficult case," Weddington said.

Robert Flowers, representing the defense, asked, "Is the life of this unborn fetus paramount over the woman's right to determine whether or not she shall bear a child? This court has been diligent in protecting the rights of minorities, and, gentleman, we say hat it is a minority, a silent minority, the true silent minority. Who is speaking for these children?"

Weddington responded that her case was not to advocate abortion. It was to advocate that the decision was within the purview of the woman and her doctor and not the state. This has been the pro-choice argument all along -- that "choice" is protected by a constitutional right to privacy. Without getting into all the arguments over whether such a "right to privacy" can be established in the United States Constitution (and I think it cannot) let's suffice it to say that most Americans are sympathetic to this idea. They are not, however, sympathetic to abortion on demand through all nine months for any reason.

To make a long story short, Blackmun compromised and decided that late term abortion was problematic, but first trimester abortion and up to the time of viability could be protected in certain situations (rape, incest) under the "right to privacy." The decision said that the states still had a compelling interest to regulate abortion after the time of viability. In effect, it recognized the Pershonhood of the fetus after viability.

Blackmun stated that "... it must be stressed that the court does not hold that the Constitution [provides] abortion on demand."

In fact, he wrote in the decision, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

It's ironic that pro-choice advocates have used this to argue that we cannot know ever when life begins "because of the wide range of beliefs on this sensitive issue." But this postmodernist statement leaves open the possibility that we cannot ever make moral judgments about anything. If the vast majority of Americans see it as self-evident that killing a baby in the womb for the sake of convenience is murder, then we can legislate this moral truth into civil law.

The vast majority of Americans believe that the baby is fully human at viability. Yet we have abortion on demand through all nine months. A sizeable majority in at least 34 states (enough to enact a Constitutional Amendment) believes that life begins at conception or sometime in the first six weeks (the time when virtually no elective abortions are performed). Yet we have abortion on demand through all nine months for any reason.

"Personhood" is therefore the right language.

What happened after Roe.

Roe v. Wade still allowed states to restrict abortion. Doe v. Bolton then extended the right to privacy throughout all nine months. It swept away any notion of Personhood overriding the right to choose. Here it is important to understand the long term strategy. Even if a state-by-state Personhood Amendment fails to overturn Roe, it could result in returning the states to a pre-Doe scenario which might eliminate the 95 to 98 percent of abortions, which are provided on demand for any reason.

The Supreme Court fiat law had the effect of liberalizing abortion even in the few states that already had the most liberal abortion laws. Even the pro-choice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has written that the Court "went on to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law in force.... the Roe decision left virtually no state with laws fully conforming to the Court's delineation of abortion regulation still permissible. Around that extraordinary decision, a well organized and vocal right-to-life movement rallied."

It's interesting to note that even one of the most outspoken pro-choice Supreme Court Justices sympathizes with the thinking of the pro-life movement due to the top-down comprehensive enforcement of a policy that she agrees with. It is not impossible that even some of the "liberal activist" justices would side with the idea that the states should decide the issue for themselves. In fact, it would be even more difficult for our pro-abortion opponents to argue that this is a "Republican regime" instituted decision if even one Democrat-appointed Justice recognized the constitutionality of the Amendment -- by virtue of the fact that it was decided by the people of one of the 50 states.

"Personhood" is therefore the right language and the correct strategy.

The Supreme Court is not the only avenue through which to overturn the effect of Roe.

Here's a truly radical idea. Let a majority of the voters or state legislators in 34 states decide when the life of a person begins. In the current climate of distrust and creeping federal tyranny, this strategy to go back to the root of our democratic process -- the will of the people -- is well-timed. Still it might seem to some on the surface a random, quixotic campaign to go after the difficult liberal states such as California and Colorado. Admittedly it is a Herculean task to collect 700,000 or more signatures in the huge state of Florida. But in doing so, we are pressing the antithesis. We are trying to raise the bar, so to speak, in the most difficult states so that when we have our first victory in a state like Mississippi, it will cause a tidal wave of support in more conservative states where it will pass more easily.

All that is needed is a "yes" vote in 34 state legislatures to enact a Personhood Amendment to the United States Constitution. Even if this is struck down in one state by the Supreme Court, they can't resist the two-third majority clause in the Constitution itself.

"Personhood" is therefore the right language and the correct strategy at the right time.

Does the culture change the law or does the law change the culture?

It is meaningless to talk about changing the law unless we are actively involved in changing the beliefs and values that govern us as individuals through discussion, debate, teaching, symbolism and active demonstration. Even with a Supreme Court overturn of Roe, we would still have a long way to go in changing the United States from a culture of death to a culture of life. Every law currently in place that places a restriction on abortion is in fact a legal precedent that affirms Roe v. Wade. Even if Roe were struck down tomorrow, these incremental measures would stand even in states that had a ban or restriction on abortion prior to Roe.

"You must have parental consent, a five day waiting period, and an ultra-sound, then you have the legal right to kill your baby!"

That is the standard presented by many "pro-life" measures at this time. This is no way to build a culture of life. We cannot affirm the right to life by applauding legal child murder only in some circumstances. The way to affirm a culture of life is to legally define the personhood of a human being from the beginning of biological development.

Personhood is an incremental step in that regard.

We can legally define "the beginning of biological development" of an individual. We can further define that biological development as constituting a human life, a legal "person" and a "natural person." That will change the culture.

In the state of Florida, to eventually get 60 percent of the voters to agree to this as a ballot proposition, first we must ask eight percent to think about it and agree with their signatures that such an amendment is needed. Even if we fail to get the signatures needed, we are actively engaging in evangelism. We are working to get the hearts and minds of people lined up with truth. People who have never evangelized before will lead people to Christ through their petitioning. That will change the culture.

When we get the amendment on the ballot, there will be a huge fight. A debate over abortion and when life begins has never occurred in our culture at large. Legalized abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy was enforced from the top down in most states by a Supreme Court decision. Even in states that had legal abortion, there were restrictions that were knocked down by Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. For the first time in 37 years, we will be calling on the free will of the people to decide for themselves. That will change the culture.

If the measure fails in Florida, we will keep trying in other states until one passes. Within 24 hours there will be a legal injunction by a higher court that calls on the state to not enforce laws regulating or banning abortion. At that point, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case. Even if we lose, we win. It will be establish a clear cut division between the will of the courts and the will of the people. That will change the culture.

Then we will seek to pass such amendments and resolutions in other states. That will change the culture.

We will eventually get such an intitiative passed in 34 of the so-called "red states" -- enough for a United States Constitutional Amendment that will protect the life of a person from the beginning of biological development. Roe will be moot. Now longer will it be the fiat "law of the land" enforced by judicial tyranny. It will only apply to Roe and Wade. And I hear Jane Roe is now pro-life.

We can change the culture, but it must come from the will of the people, not through the courts. It must come through the states.

Key Facts

1. Through 2008, there were 24 voter petition initiatives on the Florida ballot since the process began in 1978 (in addition to legislative initiatives).

2. Of those 24, 20 were approved by voters.

3. Florida voters have approved a higher percentage of their statewide ballot measures than voters in any other state.

This position paper is not copyrighted and may be forwarded to anyone without prior permission.

Would the Florida Personhood Amendment ban birth control?

The following person wrote to express her concern about the proposed Personhood Amendment:

I am very pro-life but I cannot in good conscience vote "yes" on this.

I take birth control for medical reasons. I have been married for over 11 years and want nothing more than to have a baby. However, due to medical problems beyond my control, I MUST take birth control to ensure I have a monthly menstrual cycle. If I don't take birth control, I do NOT get my period and have suffered from hemorrhaging that almost killed me, anemia, scar tissue build-up on my reproductive organs, etc.

If this group would at least eliminate the proposed ban on birth control from the language of the amendment, I would support it. However, as is, they do not have my support.

Posted by: Maureen on September 30, 2009 1:07 PM

The proposed ballot initiative defines a "person" and a "natural person" as a human being "from the beginning of the biological development."

The language of the amendment says nothing about birth control.

This is what this amendment will say when it is eventually passed:

The words “person” and “natural person” apply to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, health, function, condition of physical and/or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of reproduction, from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.

For information on how to download and circulate petitions go to http://personhoodfl.com/ On the petition form itself is the language of the amendment.

How did this "ban birth control" distortion get started in Florida? The media asked Dr. Patricia McEwen at a press conference in Tallahassee on September 11, 2009, if the amendment would ban abortifacient birth control because some think estrogen-based birth control pills work by causing an embryo not to implant in the wall of the mother's uterus. Dr. McEwen correctly explained that it would first need to be established which forms of birth control are abortifacient and which are contraceptive. As an experienced researcher with a PhD, Pat said she believes that this is far from a settled issue. The latter portion of the statement didn't make it into most news reports.

The next day we saw headlines around the state of Florida with this nonsense proclaiming that the amendment would "ban birth control" and grant human rights to a "fertilized egg." This was dishonest reporting and it even made many pro-life advocates confused about the amendment's language.

Obviously, if and when the abortifacient nature of certain types of chemical birth control can be demonstrated, there would need to be better and safer methods prescribed. In fact, the therapy Maureen is describing might be able to be done with progesterone, which does not affect implantation. On the other hand, estrogen is often used for contraception, but it may also affect implantation and cause spontaneous abortion.

Additional study and legislation would be needed to define legal contraception and hormonal therapy as methods that do not kill a human being. Such methods are already available that are much safer and more reliable than methods that may cause spontaneous abortion. Hormone replacement therapy for example is seldom prescribed now because of the complications involved. These dangers, mostly cardiovascular (heart attack or stroke) are also true of the "pill." It is simply not a "safe" method of contraception. In fact, natural methods are safer and more reliable if used correctly.

The language of the Personhood Amendment simply does not deal with this question. It just tells us what the legal definition of a "person" is.

Commentary

Most Americans would ban most abortion on demand because it is the killing of a human person. This is supported by biblical law, but even natural law supports this view. It has been demonstrated through intra-uterine photography, fetal photoscopy, and now with 3-D and 4-D ultrasound, that a "person" is a human being from the beginning of biological development.

A "person" is described in the United States Constitution and all state constitutions as having inalienable rights given to us by our Creator God. Still we needed an amendment to define blacks and minorities as "persons." Now we need to define all human beings as persons at their biological beginnings. And we must begin to do this state-by-state until enough states are on board to pass a federal Constitutional Amendment.

"All human beings are persons from the beginning of biological development."

Memorize that phrase and repeat it as often as possible!

It is a mistake to let the other side define the language of debate. We can win by emphasizing what most people in most states already believe -- that all human beings are persons at their biological beginnings. I am excited about Personhood because I believe that this is the way we will eventually win. But I am discouraged to see the language being shifted by the pro-aborts to emphasize "birth control" and "fertilized eggs" instead of keeping the emphasis on the definition of a "person."

An embryo is not a "fertilized egg." This is an oxymoron. An embryo is a tiny biologically developing human being. In any case, the language of the amendment speaks only about the beginning of biological development. It doesn't deal with questions about contraception, implantation and whether biological beginnings must be observed. The gist of the language must be interpreted to mean that when we are certain of biological beginnings, then this tiny human being must be considered a person.

It's simple language and that is the reason for the distortion. The pro-abortion media are the lap dogs of Planned Parenthood and NARAL. They get their talking points directly from them. They know our language is powerful and that is why they are trying to distort it. They know where the public is moving on the issue of developing human life.

And they know we will win with this language!

The way to begin to create a culture of life is to affirm the personhood of a human being from the beginning of biological development. Forget the "life begins at conception" or "life begins at fertilization" argument. Forget about "fertilized eggs." Forget discussions about abortifacient birth control. We can't legally determine the moment of conception for every individual -- at least not at this point in our scientific and medical knowledge. And if we could ever determine this, a law regulating abortion shortly after the moment of conception would continue to be almost unenforceable due to the lack of visible evidence in most cases.

While it is a biblical truth that life begins at conception, the civil law is constrained to operate on a much narrower parameter. And practically, elective abortions are never done until we know that life has begun -- at six weeks and later – long after the "little one" in the womb shows compelling signs of biological development. The issue of abortifacient birth control is another issue. RU-486 is another issue to be regulated by specific laws. It's related to the implications of such an amendment, but the amendment does not even address that idea. The amendment simply says that when we can discern the beginning of the biological development of a human being, then that is a "person" according to legal definitions.

It is an incremental step in that regard.

Feel free to use any or all of the above when countering this media myth. Please help us to circulate over a million of these petitions. We need over 600,000 valid signatures from registered voters to get this on the ballot. And be prepared to help us counter the distortions. There is a big fight coming! We pray it will have a peaceful outcome.