Questions from Anne Rice author of Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt

Here's a cool ministry idea. Vampire horror fiction writer, Anne Rice, underwent a spiritual conversion to Christianity a few years ago. She still has a lot of liberal ideas, but I find her testimony and some of her right ideas fascinating.

I read in an article that she spends several hours a day answering email. I wrote her a couple of times and she answered me. Go to her website and answer some of her questions to Christians. I'll be interested to hear what you wrote and how she'll respond to you.

http://www.annerice.com

The following questions are in blue and my answers are in black.

ANNE’S QUESTIONS
From Anne, May 31, 2007:

Dear Ones,

THESE QUESTIONS ARE PRINTED OUT AND DISPLAYED RIGHT BY MY DESK. YOU NEED ONLY MENTION THE NUMBER OF THE QUESTION IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE when you answer. I deeply appreciate your response, and…LOOK FOR MORE QUESTIONS IN THE FUTURE.

1 - Do you go to church, and if so why?

For many years, I found it difficult to find a church I agreed with. I was formerly a member of a campus ministry that split up in the early '90s. I continued in the same vein of this ministry as a writer, editor and publisher of Christian literature in Rusian, Spanish, Chinese, etc. I have since become a producer of teaching videos and DVDs. A few years ago a customer recommended that I attend R.C. Sproul's church here in the Orlando area -- St. Andrew's Chapel. The tradition of this church is classical Calvinism and is different from what I am used to. However, I feel I am being spirtually "fed" here in ways I haven't experienced elsewhere. I drive over an hour to attend Sunday services and I don't make it every week due the distance commitment. Recently, I committed myself to tithing at this church and want to grow with this church in the destiny that God has for me. You are probably familiar with The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul. If not, it's a must read -- it picks up in the same vein as J.A.T. Robinson and Kenneth Gentry's thesis.

2 - Has organized religion brought you closer to God? Has it hurt you in your search for closeness to God? Can you explain?

I was brought to God through the Holy Spirit, but the church has played a vital role in my learning and growth. The church has hurt me in many ways -- the very institution Christ left on earth to advance the Great Commission often puts too many restrictions on who may minister, how we may minister and often strives to maintain the status quo. Of course, some restrictions are biblically mandated, but most churches aren't really involved in equipping the saints for works of service. On the other hand, there are a small minority of great churches who understand that the dominion mandate means fostering self-government and family government first by training individuals to become mature (perfect) in Christ. Then we can be the world changers we were called to be in the ecclesiastical and civil arenas.

3 - Has organized religion helped or hurt you in your own spiritual journey? Can you explain?

Helped mainly. The church is the avenue of everything I do. Well, not really the organized, visible church. Most of my projects and missionary efforts are independent of my local church. I look to the church for teaching, fellowship, spiritual experience in worship. This encourages me and puts me in touch with the Holy Place behind the veil. Otherwise, I would have no vision -- neither independant nor within the organized religious structure.

I know that I am supposed to come to the church with an attitude of service and not wanting just to be "fed" -- but too often I've had a hard time synching with the direction of the local church because their vision seems to be to build the local church. I believe in building the kingdom of God. As we strive to do that, God adds to the church. So I try to fulfill my passion for ministry independently and have stopped looking for an avenue through the local organized church.

However, "the church" as Luther described it -- the invisible, mystical body of Christ -- is always present whenever I work with my brothers and sisters and in everything I do. The "church" is present as I am writing this email to a sister in Christ and "wherever two or more are gathered in My name." So in that sense the church is vital.

4 - Catholics: are you concerned about the looming priest shortage? Are you threatened with the closure of your parish? What do you feel isthe solution to the priest shortage, other than constant prayer for vocations?

I am a former Roman Catholic and my wife ands most of my family are Roman Catholic. Actually I am catholic, but just not Roman Catholic. My view of this is that we need good priests, not just more priests. Ditto for us evangelical Protestants. We have a serious shortage of clergy truly trained in biblical study. In fact, my view is that since we are all priests, then it's the quality not the quantity. American Christianity has become 3000 miles wide and an inch deep. So just having more ministers of any stripe is not going to solve the problem.

8 - All religious readers: Do you have a gay son or daughter, gay in laws, gay friends? How do you feel about what your church teaches about gay people? How do you feel?

Yes, I have friends, co-workers, students and relatives who are homosexuals. I feel that as a Christian I must reach out to all people, love them and hope they will know Christ. My view is that all sex outside of marriage is fornication and those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. The commandment against adultery deals with all sex outside of marriage, not simply homosexual activity. My belief on "gays" is that biblically they do not really exist. It's not a sin to feel a same sex attraction any more than it is to be tempted to have sex outside of marriage. We all deal with these temptations -- so "gays" are not a special category or a "race" of some type. It's been a big mistake of the church to recognize that there are "gay" people. I think we need to recognize that there are no people who are "born homosexuals" anymore than there are "born heterosexual adulterers."

The practice of homosexual behavior ought to be condemned. However, a person who is repentant of a sexual sin should bear no stigma or be discriminated against. The key word is "practicing." All have sinned. Are we practicing sin or striving against it? For instance, the idea of ordaining "non-practicing homosexuals" is ridiculous. We ought to talk instead about ordaining "non-practicing" sinners.

9 - All religious readers: Are you living with a mate outside of wedlock? Do you have a son or daughter who lives with a girlfriend or boyfriend outside of wedlock? Are your parents living together outside of wedlock? Do you have unmarried friends who live together? How do you feel about this? How does your church feel about it?

My pastor, R.C. Sproul, recently started to preach a series on marriage because there are so many couples co-habitating as church members in our culture -- and our church is sadly no exception. We have many couples who want to divorce and remarry at will after "no-fault" divorces. I think that biblical illiteracy has caused this problem as well as the refusal of churches to practice church discipline. In fact, if you really want to see the low state of the church, you ought to spend a few Saturdays praying in front of an abortion clinic. I have some friends who do that faithfully, yet don't get to church every single Sunday. Ironically, it's a "church" experience like no other. You'll see lots of Christians with pro-life bumper stickers and license plates (we have "Choose Life" plates in our state) lined up to get abortions on Saturday morning. When local pro-life activists have confronted the pastors of these women and their partners, they've basically held the line that abortion is a grave problem and we can't solve it simply by disciplining these people. We should not condemn them. And so on. Some of our local abortionists claim to be Christians. Many of them think they are doing a service to babies by "sending them to heaven." So when you write that there is no simple answer to abortion, I disagree. A good place to start would be to simply get the church to stop aborting its children.

The Real Jesus DVD nears completion

We've had the podcast version on the Real Jesus done now for about six months. It's available by going to the What's New link at my website and of course at my V-Log channel on YouTube. In June, I started working with Eric Holmberg on the standups and getting some interviews with experts in history and theology to corroborate the points covered. I'll be receiving the last of these interviews next week. From there the DVD ought to be available in mid to late October.

I've worked on half a dozen projects with Eric and Reel to Real Ministries (now The Apologetics Group). By the way, if you haven't seen anything by The Apologetics Group, you should check them out.

Writing, producing and editing The Real Jesus been a long process. This is mainly due to the fact that I didn't have any video equipment when I first got started with the script. Then I got sidetracked by a couple of big life and career changes -- getting married for the first time at age 39, moving three times, starting as a first year teacher in two different schools. Finally, we got settled in a nice house in the Kissimmee/Clermont area about five miles west of Disney World. I was able to pull together a small production budget to move forward. All during this time, I told Eric about the project and tried to get him interested in being the host and narrator for the script. Of course, he is always busy with several other pressing projects.

In the meantime, I laid out a narration track and got two friends of mine from Melbourne, Joel and Ariel, who did a pro-life activism segment on MTV's Unfiltered, to do the "podcast version." Originally, I was going to release it as is, but then Eric saw it and got excited about the project. In the past few months, I've been re-editing the video with new material. It's definitely a big step up from the Internet version. I imagine that lot of serious productions start off as simple podcasts and are then produced on a higher level once they generate a buzz. That shows the revolutionary power of YouTube.

I was surprised to see that all 10 parts together have about 60,000 views to date. So it's not just a video that is being shown to other Christians. It's been interesting to note which parts draw the most viewers and the most comments. Most of the discussion generated on YouTube comes from skeptics and Jesus Mythists. I don't expect that these are people who will buy the DVD so it's a great apologetics outlet to generate controversy and let the enemies of Christ do some free advertising for us.

Here's what's left to be finished:

1. Edit interviews into relevant clips to be used in each section.
2. Create "B-Roll" material to illustrate the interviews.
3. Re-edit some of the musics tracks.
4. DVD packaging -- inserts and disc art (this is essentially finished).

Just a little bit more! At this point, I am really anxious to get it done. There are so many other projects to get to work on and this has taken most of my time. I am shooting for October 15th. That way we can start marketing it everywhere in November and December.

Time really flies when you get older. Six years come and gone since I first conceived of the idea. I am happy that I was able to accomplish a lot during this time through writing and publishing two books, staying involved with missions in an effort to reach teachers in Ukraine, and now getting started with several video projects. I am just thankful to God that He has brought me to a new threshold of opportunity.

Another challenge for the Jesus Mythists and Jesus Seminar liberals

I'll get to the details later in the post but here's the challenge:

1. Read 12 short pages of the introduction to John A.T. Robinson's book, Redating the New Testament. You can read it on-line or even download the PDF file. As you read it, remember that Bishop Robinson is a liberal who denies the resurrection and teaches that the only God is the one within you.

I received an email from John Dominic Crossan earlier this month. I had told him that as a conservative Christian who lives in his town, I'd like to meet him and possible do an interview. He asked me to contact him again as soon as he was in the United States. I was challenged by a Jesus Seminar fan to actually read a Crossan book cover to cover because he thinks I am misrepresenting the claims of the Jesus Seminar in my video, The Real Jesus.

So I plan to try to meet with Crossan as soon as I read more of his book, The Historical Jesus, or at least the parts in question.

It's going to be a hard read because Crossan automatically presupposes the validity of the source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism (and all the malarkey of the Higher Critics). He assumes the reader agrees with his liberalism and begins from there never bothering to defend his presuppositions.

He does so with a great air of intellectual authority.

"Listen to me, I am smarter than you."

And surely he is.

"I am the expert. Listen to me."

And many people do.

I've skim read the outline of the chapters and my first impression is that the first half of the book, which is essentially a historical-cultural thesis on the life and times of Jesus, looks irrelevant because he begins with certain presuppositions that I reject from the outset. "Jesus was a mere man, certainly not fully God and fully man." Then he goes so far to left field with it that I can't take anything else he writes seriously.

He is the expert in aerospace technology writing a book trying to convince me, a mere English major, why the Martian army will never be advanced enough to invade the earth. I am out plussed to try and refute him! I am a mere B.A. to his multiple Ph.D.s and fellowships.

I also read the introduction to the J.A.T. Robinson book today. He is a liberal who is actually worth reading. He points out to his fellow liberals that since form criticism and redaction criticism is based on source criticism, all one has to do is remove the shaky foundation from the source critic's milieu and all the massive tomes of liberal criticism written in the past 150 years will appear to be floating on thin air.

Pair this with the fact that even most liberal critics do not take the Jesus Seminar seriously and you have a good picture of me, the proverbial eunuch at an orgy. I can't get off on Crossan's thesis not because I lack the mental capacity. I simply lack his grid. And I am glad of that!

Liberal criticism is an argument based on nothing. It's conjecture on conjecture. And the Jesus Seminar is worse. And just where does that leave the Jesus-as-Myth position?

Nevertheless, if you are a Jesus Mythist, here is my challenge to you. Read 12 short pages of the introduction to Bishop Robinson's book. Understand that this is a liberal who does NOT believe in the resurrection of Jesus. He was a mere man in Robinson's eyes. "The only God is the God within you." So he's basically on your page.

He's coming from a completely objective perspective. Yet he discovers that the liberal view of late dates for New Testament writings -- 40 to 100 years after Jesus lived -- are just a load of hoo-ha after all.

I find it fascinating that a liberal critic with nothing to prove came to all the same conclusions I've come to.

I challenge you. Read just 12 pages. In essence he writes that everything conservatives about the authenticity and reliability of New Testament scripture is completely valid and irrefutable. In fact, he "out-conservatives" us!

Any non-believing objective historian looking at the data would come to the same conclusion.

"One of the oddest facts about the New Testament is that what on any showing would appear to be the single most datable and climactic event of the period - the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and with it the collapse of institutional Judaism based on the temple - is never once mentioned as a past fact." - John A.T. Robinson

You can get a free on-line copy here:

http://www.preteristarchive.com/Books/1976_robinson_redating-testament.html

- JCR

P.S. I will still try to meet with Crossan only because I think relationships, not only ideas, are the basis for the kingdom of God.

Two Questions for the Jesus Mythists

They seem to be everywhere on the Internet. From the Blasphemy Challenge on YouTube and the Rational Responders website, to unfounded screeds such as The God Who Wasn't There, there is a small vocal minority who have presented the idea that Jesus was not a real person, but a myth.

A quick bit of research will show that the Jesus as Myth hypothesis was not formulated until after 1850. In fact, the first full treatment of the idea is not found until Bruno Bauer's book, Christ and the Caesars, which was published in 1877.

The idea gained some momentum in the early 20th century, but today even the most liberal of modern critics, such as the Jesus Seminar, do not support the Christ-as-Myth hypothesis. No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus and they have not succeeded in refuting the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Today, the hypothesis is promoted not by scholars, but by "popularizers," such as Rook Hawkins who, with nothing more than a high school diploma, claims to be a "historian" and "expert in ancient texts," papyrology and symbology (whatever that is!) and is notorious for mispronouncing big words on his Rational Responders video podcasts. Brian Sapient, an unemployed atheist activist, appeared last year on various news programs to promote his Blasphemy Challenge project on YouTube. Then we have Brian Fleming who produced a video full of ad hominem fallacies, The God Who Wasn't There, and organized a campaign to distribute copies in churches in order to defeat Easter.

So here are my two questions for the Jesus Mythists.

1. Can you name even one historian prior to 130 years ago who claimed that Jesus was not a real person?
2. Can you name any supposed historical person who was universally accepted to be a real figure, who was later discovered to by purely mythological?

I have a feeling I'll be waiting a long time for answers to these questions. So in the meantime here are my comments.

1. The bulk of the writings of second and third century apologists dealt with attacks on Jesus Christ and Christianity. It would have been easy to the early pagan critics to simply claim that Jesus did not exist. But it was well-accepted just 100 years after the fact, that He did.
2. There are many figures such as St. Christopher, King Arthur, Beowulf, Odysseus and various legendary god-men or heroic figures who have no proven historical status. However, in these cases, the people who told their story seemed to have known that they were participating in the spinning of a folk-tale that later became a legend. And though it's debated whether these people actually existed, it is impossible to tell whether or not these figures were at least based on a true person who arrived at a legendary status after a few centuries. In short, Jesus could not have been a "myth" or a "legend" simply because the story of his life (even in the most liberal reckoning) appeared in written form too soon after he lived.

Update on The Real Jesus DVD

The Real Jesus: A Defense of the Historicity and Divinity of Christ

Who is the Real Jesus?

Ever since the dawn of modern rationalism, skeptics have sought to use textual criticism, archeology and historical reconstructions to uncover the “historical Jesus” — a wise teacher who said many wonderful things, but fulfilled no prophecies, performed no miracles and certainly did not rise from the dead in triumph over sin.

Over the past 100 years, however, startling discoveries in biblical archeology and scholarship have all but vanquished the faulty assumptions of these doubting modernists. Regrettably, these discoveries have often been ignored by the skeptics as well as by the popular media. As a result, the liberal view still holds sway in universities and impacts the culture and even much of the church.

This presentation explodes the myths of these critics and the movies, books and television programs that have popularized their views.

Presented in ten parts — perfect for individual, family and classroom study — viewers will be challenged to go deeper in their knowledge of Christ in order to be able to defend their faith and present the truth to a skeptical modern world – that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of history — “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

He is the real Jesus.

Speakers include: George Grant, Ted Baehr, Stephen Mansfield, Raymond Ortlund, Phil Kayser, David Lutzweiler, Jay Grimstead, J.P. Holding, and Eric Holmberg.

Ten parts, over two hours of instruction!

Running Time: 130 minutes

$19.95 — ORDER NOW!
Click here for more information

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UPDATE FROM SEPT 20th, 2007

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I am currently working on editing the Stephen Mansfield interviews for The Real Jesus. His comments on "Was Jesus a Myth?" were suitable for YouTube. I put one Mansfield clip up on YouTube last night and already it has a lot of views. This may end up in an "extras" assortment on the DVD. An entire video on "Jesus as Myth" might be a good seller. This idea is gaining momemtum among militant atheists and there isn't a lot out there to refute it simply because it is so ridiculous.

I am not going to use this clip in the Real Jesus because it's a can of worms. The old saying applies here, "He who frames he question wins the debate." In my next post, I'll frame a few such questions for the Jesus Mythists.

Strangely, I discovered how popular the Jesus Mythist position is among young postmodernists when I posted my refutation of the liberal critics on YouTube. The Jesus Mythist position is not covered in The Real Jesus simply because in refuting liberalism, the more extreme position of the Mythists just appears to be silly.

Besides Mansfield's sound bite, I don't have any other material on the "Jesus as Myth" position, so it seems out of place. I think there is one possible place it fits in, but I think it breaks the flow of ideas no matter where I would put it. Mansfield's other quotes will make up two good clips on the DVD and I will use a lot of B-Roll to cover it. His topic was to critique the sudden popularity of the Gnostic Gospels as a popular writer and historian.

I am having some difficulty knowing how expansive The Real Jesus DVD should be. With the added interviews and all the extra materials, part one is now well over 90 minutes up from about 60 minutes just a month ago. I'll see just how long when I finish the next section. I am constantly coming up with more material to add to part one and what I need to do is get this project in the can and move on to the next one. It's taken more than two years since I started editing the video, but several times I didn't work on it for a month or longer and I am doing this as a part time effort.

The YouTube cultural phenomenon rescued the project last year when I redid the entire series as a video podcast. From that I began to get a lot of interest in the project. It's now due out in November with Eric Holmberg as the narrator and host. There is a lot more to cover. There will likely be a Real Jesus parts 2 and 3. Judging just by the reaction to the YouTube videos, this is a powerful ministry for years to come. I'll soon have 100,000 views of the various parts. Even if this doesn't translate into a bestseller on DVD, it's something that can be done inexpensively and will remain relevant for years to come. I eventually forsee a three to four hour series in three parts. The remaining script is better and more interesting than part one. The main problem is going to be cutting it down to about half of what I have now. Otherwise, we are talking about at least four more hours.

There has been a special "podcast edition" of part one available since last spring. But I am not going to sell this DVD because the new version is going to be far superior. If you want a review copy however, contact me. I have several copies on hand.

The entire script for parts one, two and three are at http://therealjesus.com/. If you ever want to critique what is coming up, I am open to suggestions.

Redating the New Testament by J.A.T. Robison

I was searching for a copy of the out-of-print, Redating the New Testament by J.A.T. Robinson, and found a PDF copy at the Preterist Archive site. (Here I should point out that the site contains some "hyper-preterist" articles, while I am a partial preterist.) The preterist position not only refutes the "goofy" false doctrine of dispensationalism, but also the damnable heresy of modernism. Yet few Christians have ever studied the preterist position, which contends that most so-called "end-times" prophecy actually refers to events in Judea and Jerusalem just prior to 70 A.D. I'll write more on this idea later.

It turns out that Anglican Bishop John Robison's book is the refutation of the late date theory --the idea that most books of the New Testament were written under an assumed name after 70 A.D. This is one of the books that that influenced the conversion of Anne Rice.

Even the extreme liberal Robinson, when forced to look at the data objectively, decided that there is no proof that the entire New Testament could not have been written from 40 to 65 A.D. He started to write his book "as a joke" to argue against the conservative viewpoint from a reducto ad absurdum point of view. But when considering the other side, he came to take it more seriously and eventually became convinced of the conservative, traditional point of view even though he himself is a liberal and doesn't believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture.

Who canonized the New Testament?

Years ago, I noted a problem with simultaneously holding to the inerrancy of scripture and the Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura. Since the original manuscripts of the Bible contain no "table of contents," how can we can be sure that all the right books were included or excluded? Jesus validated all the books of the Old Testament, but what about the books written after He lived?

How do we know if the so-called "disputed books," such as, 2 Peter, James, 2 John, 3 John and Jude are authentic?

I've asked this question of a few theologians, including two who worked on the council that drafted the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. The answer was always unsatisfying to the effect that given the evidence, we just have to make a judgment call.

I therefore concluded that the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches must have been right when they taught that the Church Fathers had the authority to canonize the Bible and had been infallible in their ability to do so.

This of course flies in the face of the Reformed principle of "scripture interprets scripture." If we hold to sola scriptura, then how can we even talk about a canonization process? The result of that journey of thought is an article entitled: Protestantism: Both Orthodox and Catholic! I still think the article has its merits, although I no longer believe that the Church Fathers canonized the Bible.

So the question is, "Who canonized the New Testament?"

At the time that I was writing my article, Debunking the Myths of The Da Vinci Code, I discovered that none of the church fathers ever spoke of the canon as something that was in the process of being recognized, but all assumed that the New Testament books they quoted were scripture. Even Clement of Rome gives these books this level of scriptural authority and at a very early date – by 96 A.D.

I discovered that the canon is self-authenticating. This was a big surprise to me, because I had never heard this taught. However, I believe this view is irrefutable. There are reasons why certain things are mentioned in scripture while other things are not mentioned. There is a reason we are given four Gospels from which to complete a picture and not just one. If we understand the relationship between the parts within the historical context, then the self-authenticating nature of scripture becomes apparent.

You may already know that horror fiction writer Anne Rice's conversion came only after she realized that none of the books of the New Testament mention the destruction of the Temple. Therefore, none of these books could have been written after the fact.

The liberal idea that these books were written after 70 A.D. is ludicrous. Liberal theologians often claim that the three Gospel writers forged an ad hoc prophecy in the Mount Olivet Discourse. In addition, John prophesies the destruction of the Temple in Revelation and several other New Testament writers allude to the end of Temple worship. According to the liberals, these "prophecies" were written after the fact. But they ignore that fact that there is no New Testament writer who mentions the prophecy's fulfillment. It just doesn't make any sense. It is not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament writings.

On the other hand, post-70 A.D. books such as Barnabas do mention the Temple’s destruction -- the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy.

Moreover, I will also tell you concerning the temple, how the wretched [Jews], wandering in error, trusted not in God Himself, but in the temple, as being the house of God. For almost after the manner of the Gentiles they worshipped Him in the temple. But learn how the Lord speaks, when abolishing it: "Who hath meted out heaven with a span, and the earth with his palm? Have not I?" "Thus saith the Lord, Heaven is My throne, and the earth My footstool: what kind of house will ye build to Me, or what is the place of My rest?" Ye perceive that their hope is vain. Moreover, He again says, "Behold, they who have cast down this temple, even they shall build it up again." It has so happened. For through their going to war, it was destroyed by their enemies; and now: they, as the servants of their enemies, shall rebuild it. Again, it was revealed that the city and the temple and the people of Israel were to be given up. For the Scripture saith, "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the Lord will deliver up the sheep of His pasture, and their sheep-fold and tower, to destruction." And it so happened as the Lord had spoken (Barnabas 16:3-4).

This passage clearly places the composition of the Epistle of Barnabas after the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. The Epistle of Barnabas never enjoyed canonical authority for this reason.

So we have that dividing line of 70 A.D. (I'd argue for 67 A.D.) as the cut-off date for all books in the canon with the slightest possible exception of John's Gospel (which does not contain the destruction of the Temple prophecy) and his three Epistles.

Then I stumbled on the works of Ernest L. Martin and others who claim that the authority of the canon is implicit in the text itself, that is Jesus canonized the Old Testament in Luke chapter 24. In fact, that's the only passage in the entire Bible in which the TANAK (the Hebrew Old Testament: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings) is referred to as "the scriptures." Likewise, the entire New Testament was self-consciously canonized by Peter and John. How they did this is staring us right in the face, if we would only see it. Surprisingly, Luke, who was not an eyewitness, was a key link in this process.

We also have to remember that the New Testament writings were addressed to those who knew the authors personally, In turn, their followers and disciples read the accounts and letters knowing the historical context in which the writings were given.

Nobody forges a fake account or a false prophecy and delivers it to supposed eyewitnesses of the events all the while expecting them to receive the writing as inspired and inerrant. All the extant books of the New Testament canon have this self-authenticating quality. No other existing books from the first century are like this.

Simply, if a book were not authentic, whether it was written before or after 70 A.D., the Christians around at the time would have known it.

I also recently discovered that the Apostles James and John were Jesus' first cousins, another surprise. It's easy to make too much of the "holy family" status of Jesus disciples, but I also think it's important not to understate it. I am going to write more soon about how the authority derived from just four men, James the brother of Jesus, Peter, John and Paul, is enough to self-validate the entire New Testament canon.

"Once more unto the breach!" -- Refuting the Jesus Mythists ... once again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q390o4hNXek

KabanetheChristian

The following is from a 14-year-old young man who has done extensive YouTube videos refuting atheism. He's brilliant for his age. I'd encourage you to check out Kabane's YouTube V-logs. (Be forewarned that he's also a theistic evolutionist. I am a creationist, so I'd like to change his mind of course.) He contacted me about The Real Jesus and has been asking a lot of questions. We are sharing information and debating.

The Jesus Mythist movement is a weird phenomenon. During my 20 year foray as a Christian writer, editor, publisher and promoter of biblical studies, I was always under the impression that even the most skeptical of the skeptics at least admitted that Jesus was a real person. The "Jesus as myth hypothesis" was popular for a brief time among skeptics in the early 20th century, but was soon rejected by even the most liberal scholars. Now suddenly in the 21st century, it's popped up again with a vengeance. Fueled by the Internet and the appearance of self-published "scholars," such as one high school graduate who claims to be a historian, many are intent on enlightening the world with the "well proven fact" that the historical person Jesus did not even exist.

Intitially, I didn't even want to give time to this idea. I put the Jesus Mythists in the same category as Roswell/Area 59 UFO believers and JFK assassination conspiracy theorists. But it's a growing movement especially among young semi-literates, pseudo-intelletual college age atheists and fervent Neo-Gnostics who have absorbed the ideas of The God Who Wasn't There DVD produced by Brian Fleming and other simple minded works of narcissism, such as Richard Dawkin's The Root of All Evil DVD.

______________________

Atheist Claims
Message from: KabaneTheChristian

Hey, I hate to annoy you, but an atheist is claiming some stuff, and I do not know how to respond. Here are his comments:

Let's lay out the facts that are available.

Writings of Jesus: none.

Contemporaneous records, such as tax receipts, or Roman administrative documents: none.

Books or other accounts written by eyewitnesses (more on the gospels further on): none.

Physical descriptions, such as height, weight, eye and hair color: none.

What do we have? Dozens of "gospels" composed by later followers, four of which were canonized into the New Testament. These were written between thirty and two hundred years after the claimed date of Jesus. But we also have references in the letters of Paul. Paul was a second generation Christian who probably never met Jesus. Most of the letters which bear his name are approved by scholars as really having been written by him. Incidental references to Christians and Jesus can be found in Tacitus and Suetonius.(**) Suetonius spells the name, "Chrestus"; either this is a confusion on his part, or it refers to someone else. ** Ref: Tacitus, Annales, 4.44; Suetonius Vita Claudii, 25.4, Vita Neronis, 16.

Suppose we use the canonical gospels for evidence of biographical detail about Jesus. Where was Jesus born? The writers of the gospels disagree among themselves. Matthew and Luke support the usual notion that the event took place in Bethlehem; while John and Mark give the impression that they had never heard of such a thing. Jesus was commonly known as a Nazarene, an inhabitant of Nazareth, a hundred miles away. When was Jesus born? According to Luke, it was during the reign of the Roman governor Quirinius,during a census ordered by Augustus throughout the whole world. According to both Luke and Matthew it was also during the reign of king Herod "the Great." The problem is that Herod died in 4 B.C.E., and this was fully ten years before Quirinius' census. Furthermore, during Herod's reign, no Roman census could have been held in his territory, which included both Judaea and Galilee, the locations of both Bethlehem and Nazareth. Herod would have collected his own taxes, and given tribute to the Romans. Lastly, the existence of a census throughout the whole empire is contrary to the practice of the Romans, who collected taxes province by province, often subcontracting the process to "publicans." Furthermore, during Herod's reign, no Roman census could have been held in his territory, which included both Judaea and Galilee, the locations of both Bethlehem and Nazareth. Herod would have collected his own taxes, and given tribute to the Romans. Lastly, the existence of a census throughout the whole empire is contrary to the practice of the Romans, who collected taxes province by province, often subcontracting the process to "publicans."

______________________________

I respond:

You have a lot of stuff here. I've seen it all because they usually regurgitate the same old stuff.
If you haven't seen the http://tektonics.org/ site, then check it out for extensive answers to these questions.

I'll answer the points not covered in The Real Jesus.

* On the Gospels being written by eyewitnesses prior to 70 A.D. Although I cover this in some detail in the video, no Jesus mythist challenges this fact: the Church Fathers, Clement, Polycarp, Papias and Ignatius claim to have known the Apostles and others who saw Jesus. They quote extensively from the Gospels and most of the letters of the New Testament. They refer to these books as authoritative, as scripture, and as written (not oral) documents. They claim to have received the books directly from the Apostles. They do not refer to the second century "Gnostic Gospels" since these were written later. If the Gospels were not written prior to 70 A.D. then these church fathers who lived at the end of the first century could not have received them as scripture nor could they have quoted from them in their works.

The demands for "contemporary" records (that is, accounts written during Jesus' life) are as unreasonable as the demands for eye and hair color in order to prove a person existed. Many people from history were not written about during their life times. Jesus was not an internationally known figure in 30 A.D. The Jesus movement was all of 120 people -- and later 500 by the time of the resurrection. Christians were initially thought of as a sect of Judaism, but as they started to grow there appeared enough literature by pagan authors to corroborate what the New Testament says about Jesus. There are hundreds of corroborating events in pagan literature that confirm the New Testament. None of the pagan or Jewish writers at the time claimed Jesus was not a real person. In trying to refute the early Christians, the Jews and pagans would have found this easy enough to do if He were not a true person. This idea has been made up in the last 150 years. No credible, credentialed historian holds this view.

The fact is that we know more about Jesus' life than we do about William Shakespeare. There are no "contemporary" biographies of Shakespeare. However, we have to explain the body of literature bearing his name and the other contemporary playwrights of his day who mention him after his death as being the true author.

The passage by Suetonius is similar to the passage by Tacitus in that either they both are reporting the same information about the persecution under Nero, or Seutonius refers to an earlier persecution of the Jews under Claudius (I think more likely) that has nothing to do with Christ. The sense of the passage indicates that "Chrestus" was a person among the Jews who instigated a riot. Either this is the case or Suetonius is confusing what happened to the Christians under Nero with this earlier revolt under Claudius. Other accounts are stronger, Josephus, Pliny and especially Tacitus. The Jesus mythists like to say that the accounts of early Christians by pagan historians don't prove Jesus existed as a real person, because all the early Christians were Gnostics, who believed Christ was a spiritual being only. But Gnosticism is condemned by the New Testament itself.

Quirinius was a ruler in the eastern Roman Empire from the time of 14 B.C. to 12 A.D. If it were not for Luke' account, we would not know exactly what he was governor of at the time of Jesus birth. Quirinius, at the time of King Herod's death was doing military expeditions in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire (Tacitus, Annals 3:48; Florus, Roman History 2:31). There is some evidence indicating that he either was a co-ruler with the governor of Syria (Quintilius Varus) or at least placed in charge of the census in Palestine. Justin of Rome records that he was a "procurator" while Varus and Saturnius served as governors during this time. The word hegemonoi in Greek can mean a variety of titles meaning ruler, governor, procurator, etc. Pilate is called a hegemonoi, which is translated variously as governor, procurator, prefect, in the New Testament.

The account of Herod's death as occurring 4 B.C. is assumed by historians who see Josephus account of a lunar eclipse shortly before his death. There was a partial lunar eclipse this year, but there was a total lunar eclipse in 1 B.C. It's far from a settled issue when Herod died. If Luke records that he was alive durign the census, then from a purely historical analytical viewpoint, this favors the later year of 1 B.C.

Mark and John are silent on the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. However, in Revelation 12 we see an allusion to Matthew's account of Jesus birth. John records that the Pharisees thought Jesus could not have been the messiah or a prophet because he was from Nazareth. Jesus did not refute them in this account, but He almost never directly answers the Pharisees false accusations. This is a feature of John's Gospel. That John was familiar with the Gospels of Matthew and Luke when he wrote his Gospel is assumed by most scholars and corroborated by the testimony of the Church Fathers. This is a great example of the famous "argument from silence" fallacy. It's a stupid way of thinking: since two of the Gospels don't mention it, then it could not have possibly happened.

There are numerous references to a worldwide census that occurred in 3 B.C. Josephus records this census as for an oath of allegiance. Some translations have "taxed," but the Greek word apographe can mean either tax or census. Seeing that Joseph as from a line of kings it makes sense that he would be required to travel to his birth town to swear allegiance. Some have theorized that Mary was the oldest daughter of her father, since her sisters are mentioned in the Gospels but no brothers. According to Jewish law, this would have made her the heir, and as one with a kingly heritage, she would have had to register with Joseph as well.There is a great book on all this called The Star That Astonished the World by Ernest L. Martin. It can be read on-line in it's entirety.

http://www.askelm.com/star/index.asp

Acts chapter 2 proves the authenticity of the New Testament

Here's an intriguing idea I stumbled upon today. It's probably been argued a thousand times before, but I hadn't thought of it before. The internal evidence provided in the account of Acts 2 actually proves that Luke's account is authentic.

I've been studying the Epistle of 1 Clement recently (c. 96 A.D.) looking specifically at the number of New Testament passages he quotes. Clement lived in Rome prior to the deaths of Peter and Paul and claims to have known the Apostles. This is significant. If these New Testament books were "forgeries" -- as the skeptics claim they were -- then men such as Clement of Rome would have known that they were not authentic. Yet Clement quotes these books along side of the Old Testament scriptures in a matter-of-fact manner as though they had the same authority.

You may be familiar with the argument for the authenticity of the New Testament that cites the numerous quotes by the Church Fathers. It's an argument that has a lot of merit, since Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius and other first century contemporaries of the Apostles could not have quoted from the New Testament books as authentic source documents unless these books had been in circulation since the time of the Apostles.

Here's a tangential tack to that argument. Apparently, a fan of Jesus Seminar fellow John Dominic Crossan thinks I've misrepresented him in my rebuttal documentary, The Real Jesus. He says that the idea Crossan presents is that the resurrection story developed gradually. However, in my representation of his book, The Historical Jesus, I say he thinks it must have occurred in several days.

adamsfall writes:

The video is either ill informed or disingenuous when it claims that Crossan makes the assertion that 1 or 2 of the disciples created the resurrection story a few days following Jesus's death to gain credibility. In fact, Crossan hypothesizes that the development of the story to years and was not some crass political move, but a sincere attempt to give hope to a small, committed movement.

I respond:

The longer the period of time in its concoction, the more unlikely the story was to have been believed so widely. If it really were just a story concocted to give hope to a small group of committed believers, then it must arisen within 10 days of Jesus ascension. According to Acts 2, Pentecost was the first time that the message of the resurrection was preached.

But Crossan probably thinks Pentecost didn't really happen either. The idea is absurd, since the Acts of the Apostles reports that Jews from all over the world (Acts 2:5) were converted to Christ at Pentecost. Later these men returned to their home cities and founded churches among Jewish converts to Christ who also made converts. These fledgling churches were close-knit communities and the details of their founding could not have escaped common knowledge.

If these Church Fathers converted at Pentecost were not historically authentic, first and second century Christians from churches all over the Roman world would have known the account of Acts 2 to be false once the book was received and read. They would have seen immediately if it were a forgery simply due to the fact that the events of Acts 2 could not be corroborated by the known existence of such "men from every nation under heaven" in their locale.

Thus Acts validates most of the New Testament simply because it is not just a story about what Jesus did in a far away land in isolation with his disciples. Acts chronicles so many accounts in so many places that if it were false, it would have been rejected due to the lack of eyewitnesses who would have still been alive when the next generation of Christians read it.

Are 2 Peter, Hebrews and Revelation authentic?

I received a comment on my Real Jesus V-Log from a skeptic who claims that the early church fathers doubted the canonicity of 2 Peter, Hebrews and Revelation. When I asked for examples he gave me Eusebius, Jerome, Origin and Amphilochius.

(If you’ve never heard of Amphilochius of Iconium, he is one of the obscure Eastern Fathers, a contemporary of St. Basil of Caesaria and Gregory of Nazianzus.)

It's interesting that he cited mainly Post-Nicene fathers who lived after the fourth century. Origen lived in the third century and he did not question the integrity of the canon. On the contrary, he affirmed the canon exactly as we know it today.

The simple fact of the matter is every one of the books of the New Testament is quoted by church fathers of the first and second century.

Hebrews is among the earliest books to be quoted. It is first found in the Epistle of 1 Clement. By 96 A.D. (some say much earlier) we have Clement of Rome quoting extensively from Hebrews. Other early fathers quoting from Hebrews are Hermas, Hippolytus, Irenaeus and Tertullian. Hebrews was universally accepted and no one records any doubt that Paul was the author until the fourth century.

2 Peter is supposedly a problem for the authenticity of the canon. However, Theophilus of Antioch quotes directly from 2 Peter. Clement of Rome makes five allusions to 2 Peter. Although liberal scholars dispute this, other allusions to 2 Peter may be found in the Didache, St. Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, Hermas, the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, the Dialogue of Justin with Trypho, the Apology of Aristides, and Irenaeus.

Although direct references are hard to prove, it may be due to the brevity of the epistle and the similarity of chapter 2 with Jude, which comprises about one-third of the book. In other words, biased liberals often interpret quotes and allusions to be from Jude, but they could be allusions to 2 Peter 2. Likewise, liberal scholars also dispute the books of Jude, 2 John and 3 John on the basis that they receive little attention from the Ante-Nicene Fathers. However, these four books are the shortest of the general epistles and therefore they are the most likely not to be quoted.

Revelation also has strong evidence for a pedigree. The early church attributed authorship of Revelation to the apostle John. Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.) quotes Revelation 20 that Jesus Christ would dwell in Jerusalem one thousand years. Irenaeus (120-200 A.D.) quotes every chapter of Revelation. Tertullian (155-220 A.D.) quotes from almost every chapter of Revelation and attributes John the Apostle as author. Hippolytus (170-235 A.D.) attributed Revelation to John and quotes extensively from Revelation chapter 17 and 18. Clement of Alexandria (150-211 A.D.) and Origen (185-254 A.D.) also attribute John the Apostle as the author of Revelation.

Ignatius (30-108 A.D.) writes regarding John the Apostle, "And why such facts as the following: Peter was crucified; Paul and James were slain with the sword; John was banished to Patmos; Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews who killed the Lord? But, [in truth,] none of these sufferings were in vain; for the Lord was really crucified by the ungodly."

The evidence against John the Apostle being the author is minimal, largely based on grammatical style differences with the John’s Gospel. As a partial preterist, I hold the view that Revelation was written either during or just prior to the Neronian persecution in 64 A.D. not in the mid-90s during Domitian’s persecution. Revelation was written under extreme duress by a fisherman with a rough knowledge of Koine Greek. Later, the Gospel and three Epistles were written by in Ephesus with the assistance of his elders, as evidenced by the numerous “we” passages. The composition of these later books was more polished for that reason.

Revelation was not, in fact, disputed by Origen. However, some of Origen's students disputed it. This theory arose because many erroneously interpreted Revelation to teach a premillennial return of Jesus. By the time of Athanasius and Augustine, much of the church had turned to an amillennial view of eschatology and sought to discredit John as the author of the supposedly premillennial book.