Is “Nero” in the new Star Trek movie an intentional Christian allegory?

If you haven’t seen Star Trek XI, you need to drop everything and go out and spend $10 (or whatever it costs in your town to see a movie these days) and see it. Not only is it the best Star Trek movie by far, but it will be the biggest movie of the year and shockingly, despite all the hype, it is much better than expected. I could go on and repeat all the critical drivel about how it will revive the franchise, how great is Chris Pine’s portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk, blah, blah, blah, but I won’t.



I am thinking that the “Nero” character in the new Star Trek movie is an intentional Christian allegory.

The “mythology” of a science fiction or fantasy series, whether it is The X-Files, Star Wars or Dune, works on several levels. There is the “back story” of a series, which enables the audience suspend ignorance and disbelief about the characters and their world. In The X-Files, Fox Mulder is obsessed with UFOs because he wants to believe that his younger sister’s disappearance when they were children is due to an alien abduction. It is what drives him to believe that “the truth is out there.” In Star Wars, the audience is asked from the beginning to understand that this is a mythological setting, for the story takes place, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...” And thus we are willing to accept that there can be no reference to the world we are from. In Star Wars the impossibility of faster than light travel is explained by the existence of “hyper-space” – another dimension where those nagging laws of Einstein’s do not interfere. In Dune, the entire mythology revolves around the production of spice on the desert world of Arrakis or Dune, which not only makes interstellar travel possible, but drives the entire culture of the galaxy as well.

Science fiction and fantasy writers also draw upon mythic symbolism and universal archetypes. They capture the audience’s sense of wonder appealing to a deeper level of emotion and spiritual awareness. Therefore, George Lucas became an avid follower of Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and self-consciously used these symbols and stories in each of the Star Wars movies. Ursula K. LeGuin, author of The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, wrote what she called not science fiction but “thought experiments” relying on Jungian psychology and Eastern symbolism found in the Tao Te Ching. Frank Herbert, author of Dune, drew from biblical messianic prophecy tinged with ancient mythology and Arabic sounding words suggesting the religion of Islam. Other fantasy authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used Christian symbolism, although Tolkien claimed he hated the very idea of allegory and had no such intentions.

The original series of Star Trek was no stranger to allegory, mythology and dense symbolism. However, Christianity is the most common mythic reference. (Here I use the word “myth” in it’s proper literary sense.) One example is Episode 44 of Star Trek: The Original Series, entitled “Bread and Circuses,” a story about a planet whose leader has imitated the culture of the Roman Empire, but with 1960s technology. In the episode, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise encounters a persecuted minority known as “sun worshipers” who help McCoy and Spock escape certain death in the gladiator arena.

KIRK: Gentlemen.

MCCOY: Captain, I see on your report Flavius was killed. I am sorry. I liked that huge sun worshiper.

SPOCK: I wish we could have examined that belief of his more closely. It seems illogical for a sun worshiper to develop a philosophy of total brotherhood. Sun worship is usually a primitive superstition religion.

UHURA: I'm afraid you have it all wrong, Mister Spock, all of you. I've been monitoring some of their old-style radio waves, the empire spokesman trying to ridicule their religion. But he couldn't. Don't you understand? It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God.

KIRK: Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading only now.

MCCOY: A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.

SPOCK: It will replace their imperial Rome, but it will happen in their twentieth century.

KIRK: Wouldn't it be something to watch, to be a part of? To see it happen all over again? Mister Chekov, take us out of orbit. Ahead warp factor one.

CHEKOV: Aye, sir.

A scene from “Bread and Circuses”

When I was a child I liked Mr. Spock and I even had a Vulcan haircut for a while, but I became a more serious fan of the show once I realized that each episode was a social commentary on one of the many issues during the turbulent 1960s. I was chagrined to realize when I visited Russia and Ukraine eleven times in the 1990s that the show never caught on in Europe or even in the post-Soviet Union. It made no sense at first, since the average Russian school child knew more about the American space program than we did and the whole society idolized its cosmonauts. They loved The X-Files and Star Wars, so why not Star Trek?

Finally, I realized that most Europeans disdained Star Trek as a crass expression of the American notion of Manifest Destiny. Not only would we take over the world, but an American styled “United Federation of Planets” would one day colonize space. Note that the crew of the Enterprise is multicultural and multi-ethnic, but the captain is predictably American. They hated that.

In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan stepped up nuclear arms production in an attempt to win the cold war, William Shatner’s character appeared in the lyrics to a song, “99 Red Balloons,” by a one-hit-wonder German group, Nena, in a wry screed against the idea that a nuclear war is winnable.

Ninety-nine knights of the air
Ride super-high-tech jet fighters
Everyone’s a super hero
Everyone’s a Captain Kirk
With orders to identify
To clarify, and classify
Scramble in the summer sky
As ninety-nine red balloons go by

But I digress.

A few years ago, I produced a preterist video commentary on Revelation 13 featuring Dr. Kenneth Gentry called The Beast of Revelation: Identified. Copies are always available on our website.

The preterist view of Revelation sees most of the events taking place in the first century since John was writing to seven churches in Asia Minor. In contrast to the preterist view, there are three other hermeneutic approaches to the book of Revelation.

Futurism is the most common “end-times view” of our day. According to the futurist, the book of Revelation is yet to be fulfilled. The locust plagues of Revelation 9 might be interpreted to be Cobra helicopters attacking modern day Israel. The Beast of Revelation 13 is a future world dictator.

Historicism is a view that states that the prophecies of the book of Revelation was fulfilled sometime in history, but not in the first century or in the future. The black plague of the Middle Ages might be interpreted to be one of the plagues brought by the four horsemen of Revelation 6. The pope at the time of Martin Luther is thought to be the Beast of Revelation 13.

Idealism is the spiritualist approach to Bible prophecy. This view states that the prophecies of Revelation are not to be taken literally, but have a general symbolic application in all history. The heavenly battle of Revelation 12 is thought to describe the ongoing battle between good and evil in the spiritual realm. The Beast of Revelation 13 might be any ruler in history who persecutes the church.

I find the preterist view to be most compelling because it has Caesar Nero as the Beast of Revelation 13. In fact, when we understand the historical background of the New Testament, we can see a lot of historical parallels in John’s vision to events that took place in the first century.

In Revelation 12 particularly, we see the figure of the Christ child who is persecuted by the dragon.

Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him (Revelation 12:1-9).

From a preterist point of view, this speaks of Israel, the Christ child, and the Church. Israel, the Old Covenant church, gives birth to the Christ child. But as soon as this happens, Satan, symbolized by the dragon, leads a war against Christ attempting to kill him through the Roman Empire’s military rulers. The first instance of this was the attempted murder of the Christ child by King Herod the Great.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men … Now when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child’s life are dead.” Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2:16-23).

After this occurs, Christ is finally crucified under the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. He is resurrected from the dead, however, and is caught up to God’s throne. There He now rules the nations with a rod of iron. In the meantime, Satan is enraged with “the seed of the woman,” the church, and persecutes her through the Emperor Nero.

Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12: 13-17).

In Revelation 13 and 17, the “beast from the sea” and his number, “six hundred sixty-six,” is a symbol and cryptogram for Caesar Nero. This “Beast” has his power and authority to persecute the church from the dragon, the devil. The judgments on the “land” of the Jewish people are recounted in Revelation 18 and 19 leading up to the demolition of the Temple.

I cannot delve into a full-blown exposition of a difficult and controversial text here. I recommend if you want to know more about the preterist view that you check out the DVD, The Beast of Revelation: Identified, or one of Ken Gentry’s or David Chilton’s excellent books on the subject. It’s an interpretation that has had a minority following in church history, but is gaining ground among academics who see the frequent error of end-times hysteria in our culture.

Anne Rice, the recently converted Vampire horror fiction writer and author of a novel series, Christ the Lord, points out two important facts on preterism. A correct understanding of the biblical significance of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD not only vanquishes crippling dispensationalism, but it also refutes the modernist conjecture that the New Testament was written late by non-eyewitnesses to Jesus.

When Jewish and Christian scholars begin to take this war seriously, when they begin to really study what happened during the terrible years of the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the revolts that continued in Palestine right up through Bar Kokhba, when they focus upon the persecution of Christians in Palestine by Jews; upon the civil war in Rome in the ‘60s which Kenneth L. Gentry so well describes in his work Before Jerusalem Fell; as well as the persecution of Jews in the Diaspora during this period – in sum, when all of this dark era is brought into the light of examination – Bible studies will change. Right now, scholars neglect or ignore the realities of this period. To some it seems a two-thousand-year-old embarrassment and I’m not sure I understand why. But I am convinced that the key to understanding the Gospels is that they were written before all this ever happened.

I understand the Star Trek XI movie as a prophetic landmark for the church pointing us toward a correct understanding of not just the book of Revelation, but of the entire New Testament. Let's look at how perfectly the Star Trek mythology dovetails with the following biblical truths.

As any Trekkie can tell you, Spock’s sacrificial death and resurrection in Star Trek II and III cast him as the perfect Christ figure. Not only does he save the crew of the Enterprise, but he also saves the entire Federation of Planets from a doomsday machine called “Genesis.” The project is intended to create new inhabitable worlds in a few days or weeks out of barren planets. However, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy sees it for what it really is.

[In the film, Star Trek II, Kirk, Spock and Bones have just viewed a proposal video for the Genesis Project]

MCCOY: Dear Lord, do you think we're intelligent enough to … suppose … what if this thing were used where life already exists?

SPOCK: It would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix.

MCCOY: Its new matrix? Do you have any idea what you're saying?

SPOCK: I was not attempting to evaluate its moral implications, Doctor. As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create.

MCCOY: [Sarcastically] Not anymore. Now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the earth was created in six days. Now watch out! Here comes Genesis. We'll do it for you in six minutes!

In Star Trek II, subtitled The Wrath of Khan, a genetically engineered super-villain named Khan captures Genesis and intends on using it to conquer the galaxy. The parallels between the biblical Genesis story here are all too obvious. Man, in his pride, succumbs to the desire to be like God by creating worlds. Then his adversary, the devil or Khan, manipulates man’s error in an attempt to rule the galaxy.

Ironically, Spock not only defeats “Genesis” by giving his life for the Enterprise, thus enabling the crew to destroy Khan, but later a newly created Genesis planet becomes the resting place of Spock’s body. Unknown to the crew of the Enterprise, Spock cannot remain dead on a planet that creates life out of non-life. In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, McCoy discovers that upon Spock’s death he has received Spock’s soul which was imparted to him upon his death through a mind meld – a Vulcan ritual of laying on of hands and transferring thoughts and emotions. Spock’s DNA is reassimilated on the Genesis planet well into this third installment and he is resurrected and reunited with the crew. The Christian allegory here is obvious.



Fast forward to Star Trek XI, a movie that is all the more satisfying because the background mythology of the series alluded to elsewhere is spelled out clearly. While the story line is comprehensible to the newbie, Star Trek fans will see references to the mythology of the series in every scene, which makes it enjoyable on a deeper level.

Spock has been working as an ambassador toward universal peace among the planets for many decades. He attempts unification between his home world, Vulcan, and their ancestral enemies the offshoot race of the Romulans. Many years after this (Vulcans live much longer than humans you must know, it’s part of the mythology) it is discovered that a giant supernova threatens to destroy a large part of the inhabitable galaxy. Equipped with a substance called “red matter,” Spock attempts to cause the supernova to collapse on itself transforming the stellar phenomenon into a black hole. In the process the Romulan home world is destroyed.

A Romulan miner named “Nero” escapes death because he captains a vast starship apparently outfitted to drill, pulverize and process planetary matter and asteroids. He travels back into the past through this black hole. Nero resolves to eliminate the Federation by killing its greatest starship captain, James T. Kirk, before he could take command of the Enterprise. Kirk's best friend, Spock, tries to undo the damage caused by Nero by following him through time. Arriving 25 years later than Nero due to the time distortion, Nero is waiting for Spock. Rather than killing Spock, he imprisons him on an ice planet close to Vulcan. Spock is forced to watch the death of his own home world in this alternate universe. (Star Trek is no stranger to the time paradox theme as introduced in what is arguably the best episode, “City on the Edge of Forever.”) Nero then plans to use “red matter” to destroy the worlds that make up the Federation over 100 years prior to his own planet's destruction in order to alter the future.

Star Trek XI’s theme becomes the “Wrath of Nero.” Or as the King James version of the Bible has it:

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17).

This war between the dragon and the woman becomes the mythic theme of Star Trek XI. In the plot of the film, there are several striking parallels. First, the elder Spock watches his mother killed and then he is forced to contend with the war of Nero against the Federation, the prime targets being the younger versions of Spock and Kirk.

It is important to understand here that the “woman” of Revelation 12 is not singularly Mary the Mother of God, but Israel and later “New Covenant Israel” or the church. In Revelation chapter 13, a new character is introduced, “a beast arose up out of the sea.” This is the Roman Caesar Nero who actually did kill the “seed of the woman,” the founders of the Christian church, in large numbers. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in about 116 AD, records that Nero sought to use the Christians as the scapegoat for a great fire that consumed much of Rome on the night of July 18th, 64 AD:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed (Annals 15.44).

Writing about 20 years earlier (c. 96 AD), the Roman bishop Clement records that Peter and Paul were among the list of martyrs of his “own generation.” Clement is thought by many to be an eyewitness to the martyrdoms of the Apostles and other Christians in the arena under Nero from 64 to 67 AD.

But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience (1 Clement 5).

Star Trek’s villain Nero seeks first to punish Spock by destroying his home planet, but his family escapes except for his mother, an earth woman named Amanda. Spock is half Vulcan and half human and this too fits into the Christ myth that is developed throughout the Star Trek canon. Nero then seeks to kill “the remnant of the woman’s seed,” the young Spock and the crew of the Enterprise.

Likewise, Caesar Nero after proclaiming himself a god, was unable to countenance the existence of a growing Christian movement that placed a man from Palestine above his own authority. In his great wrath, Nero destroys the Apostles, but cannot destroy the church after three-and-a half years of bloody persecution. The Beast is said to “make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Rev. 13:7). He is said to conduct such blasphemous warfare for a specific period of time: 42 months (Rev. 13:5).

As a consequence, Nero commits suicide stabbing himself in the neck with his own sword. The Beast not only slays by the sword, but ultimately is to die of a sword wound. “He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Rev.13:10). Finally, we see the Beast “cast into a lake of fire” at the end of John’s prophecy (Revelation 20:10). Star Trek’s Nero meets a similar end as he too dies in a conflagration.

As in any allegory, the weakness is found when we begin to stretch it too far. Obviously the time travel element and having two Spocks complicates “the seed of the woman” analogy a bit – or perhaps makes it more interesting. However, I have made it my purpose here to note the biblical parallels between Star Trek XI and the biblical story of the woman, the child, the dragon and the beast and to point out how the history of Nero can be understood to support the preterist interpretation of biblical prophecy.

Countering Bible Cynicism

My ongoing conversation with Bible skeptics has taught me a few things.

The first and foremost is that most aren't skeptics in the true sense. A skeptic is one who calls accepted knowledge into question or tries to find alternative theories to explain the data on hand. Christians need to have a healthy skepticism toward the Bible, not in order to disprove it as God's Word, but to challenge faulty interpretations and to test how well we are able to defend the integrity of scripture. While I've had a few good conversations with skeptics that were rational, what I've found most often is blatant cynicism.

Cynicism is characterized by a mistrust or mockery of established conventions. The cynic doesn't use inquiry or constructive argument, but mainly sarcasm, verbal abuse and a host of logical fallacies. Oscar Wilde described a cynic as, "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." A cynic is one who wants to take the easy path toward being considered an intellectual without doing any of the heavy lifting. It's a philosophy of misdirection in which the cynic feels proud of his ability to debate merely because he is able to call everything into question without really contributing anything positive toward human knowledge. I wanted to here post three of the most common cynical statements I encounter and some of my brief responses to them.

1. Jesus never really existed. This was the thesis of Bruno Bauer in the 1890s who claimed that Jesus was not a historical person but was an amalgamation of pagan myths. Sir James Frazer followed in the 1920s with his book, The Golden Bough. Although Frazer did not doubt Jesus was a real person, he tried to match many of the Gospel stories with pagan myths showing that the New Testament stories about Jesus had no basis in history. The problem with the Jesus Myth hypothesis is that it was almost universally rejected by scholars soon after it appeared.

When I first encountered this crackpot hypothesis, I had a several months' long debate on my discussion board, which you can see here:

http://www.forerunner.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=31

Rather than run over a lot of old ground each time I get this objection, I simply offer two challenges to the Jesus Mythist.

1. Can you name a single writer prior to the 1800s who claimed Jesus never existed?
2. Can you name even five Ph.D.s teaching history at the university level who claim Jesus never existed?

If they can't offer names, I won't continue the conversation. One recently called my tactic "hypocrasy" (sic) because I am a creationist and creationism has been disproved by modern science. What amazes me here is that he fails to see the difference. There are hundreds and perhaps thousands of Ph.D.s teaching science who are creationists. We are a minority, but creationism isn't a position that has no credible proponents.

What I usually find when I challenge these young unthinking postmodernists is that they don't really understand the meaning of their thesis. They either confuse the Mythist position with that of Historical Criticism -- that Jesus was a mere man. Or they simply haven't thought the position through, but are driven by an emotional desire to prove Christianity wrong. In very few cases are Jesus Mythists willing to admit that their hypothesis isn't based on any historical testimony or documentary data. What they do instead is to change the subject to dozens of other objections. It's hit-and-run atheist activism. I encourage those who want to be involved with apologetics not to waste time with people who do not want to argue through their position and answer hard questions.

2. The New Testament was not written until well after the death of Jesus. I've even heard a few who are convinced that the New Testament was not written for "hundreds of years" after Jesus. Just a brief bit of background on this position should be considered. In the 1800s, it was the German Higher Critics who first began to push the proposed date of the New Testament into the second century -- even to the later decades. Some were motivated by anti-Semitism. The simply couldn't fathom the idea of first century Jews founding the religion of Europe. The late dating was not based on documentary evidence or historical testimony. Instead their conjecture was founded on form criticism and source criticism -- the idea being that the critic could read into the text what type of person wrote the book, when it was written, and which sources (often non-extant "phantom" documents) the author used.

Reading the Higher Critics or their modern counterparts is aggravating because they will completely dismiss all documentary evidence and historical testimony out of hand. Documentary evidence is in the form of actual manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament. Historical testimony is the records left by first and second century church fathers who quoted from and left commentary on the New Testament.

First, in the late 1800s up to this day there have been about 100 manuscript fragments discovered that date from the 115 to 300 AD. The earliest manuscript is a copy of the Gospel of John called the Ryland's fragment. Since this is considered to be at least a copy of a copy, and John is thought to be the last Gospel written, this puts the Gospels squarely in the first century. The latest possible date for the three synoptic Gospels according to the data then is the 70s and 80s. But we should stress this is the latest possible date. Nothing precludes an earlier date.

Second, the universal testimony of the church fathers beginning with Clement of Rome in the first century has the bulk of the New Testament written by the named authors prior to 70 AD. Some have the earliest Gospel being written by 40 AD. A skeptic may doubt this and certainly liberal scholars want to prefer the later dates of the 70s and 80s, however, there is no testimony from the ealry centuries that even hints at a later date for any of the books of the New Testament. The best the cynic has is an argument from silence. Since conservatives can't prove conculsively a specific date for each book, then the dates must be later. Of course, this is not logical.

The weakness of the cynic's position is that he believes the argument from silence "proves" something when in fact, in studying historical events you can seldom prove a negative. The true skeptic ought to admit that the worst case scenario is that we cannot know for certain the exact date of the New Testaments -- we must make educated guesses.

3. The Bible isn't true because people don't rise from the dead. The belief in miracles such as the resurrection can have a rational basis. However the atheist is irrational in that he wants to interpret the world from a purely naturalistic viewpoint. Yet naturalism has no explanation as to how the universe could have been formed from nothing or to how the beginning of a universe created out chaos and random order, can result in a universe of increasing complexity and order. To hold to a faith that has no basis in collected data is irrational.

On the other hand, Christianity is rational. Jesus Christ the Living Word (or the LOGOS) is the unifying principle of all human knowledge and is the basis for all rational thought. Christianity does not deny scientific and rational thought. All philosophy up until the time of Immanuel Kant was rational in nature. Western philosophy was divided into two groups -- Christian and Greek pagan. But both groups were looking for a “unifying principle” that would unite the study of both the seen material and the unseen spiritual worlds. To Christians, this unifying principle was Christ, since the LOGOS was both a linguistic (Biblical literature) and logical (the God-man Jesus Christ as a real historical teacher) answer to the problem of the natural/spiritual dichotomy.

When Immanuel Kant wrote Critique of Pure Reason, he rejected the idea that there can be a principle that unites all fields of knowledge. He was actually arguing for an “irrational” system that tells us that we must forever accept a total dichotomy between the visible and invisible worlds. Modern philosophy and liberal theology now sees the two worlds (the noumenal world and the phenomenal world) as two airtight compartments. If the spiritual world exists, we cannot know anything about it through rational thought according to Kant.

Georg Hegel came along soon after and proposed that all truth is a synthesis between thesis and antithesis. That is, there are no objective truths, just what we end up agreeing upon after argument and debate. In fact, we make up new truths in the process. Thus Kant and Hegel together ended up creating an irrational basis for human philosophy that can never explain how the universe fits together as a whole. Even in the world of science, history, education, literature, and politics, people now see a divided universe that exists in many small compartments, but cannot be understood as a whole. People seek to understand the "many" while denying the "one."

Hitler was simply echoing Hegelian thought when he said: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” and “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think” and “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”In other words, the “lie” becomes the new “truth” if most people will just believe it.

What Kant and Hegel did was to open the door to irrational thought in the form of existentialism and postmodernism. In fact, we are already well down the slippery slope to irrational philosophy.

What is irrational is the modern reliance on a Kantian, Hegelian dualistic view of the universe that excludes what we cannot measure scientifically as "irrational." The cynic has gone so far down the rabbit hole of existentialism, that he doesn’t even understand the irrationality Kantian and Hegelian thought. In the long run, his position isn’t a philosophical or religious problem at all. It’s a moral problem fueled by irrational passions.

Why I am not an atheist

Evangelist Ray Comfort recently sensationalized the atheist blogosphere by saying he'd pay $20,000 to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for the opportunity to debate Dawkins.

Comfort's proposition is that atheists base their skepticism on their supposed intelligence, but in reality they are some of the most thoughtless people in the world. If you believe there is no God, then you believe, without any scientific proof, that the universe could have come into existence from nothing.

I've explained the impossibility of this from the pure standpoint of physical science in another blog post.

http://www.forerunner.com/blog/2008/09/why-does-universe-exist-answer-to.html

Even better is Chuck Missler's succinct explanation from his book, The Creator Beyond Time and Space:

The creationist's model begins with an infinitely intelligent, omnipotent, transcendent Creator who used intelligent design, expertise or know-how to create everything from the sub-atomic particles to giant redwood trees. Was it a miracle? Absolutely!

"In the beginning (time), God created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter)" (Genesis 1:1).

The atheist's model begins with an even more impressive miracle - the appearance of all matter in the universe from nothing, by no one, and for no reason. A supernatural event. A miracle! However, the atheist does not believe in the outside or transcendent "First Cause" we call God. Therefore, the atheist has no "natural explanation" nor "supernatural explanation" for the origin of space-time and matter. Consequently, the atheistic scenario on the origin of the universe leaves us hanging in a totally dissatisfying position. He begins his model with a supernatural event. This supernatural event, however, is accomplished without a supernatural agent to perform it.

In short, I cannot be an atheist because to believe in the spontaneous appearance of the entire universe out of nothing makes no sense.

As a thinking person, I have to be some type of theist. I'll reserve for another post why only Christianity among the world's theistic religions has to be correct.

Here I want simply to point out that much of the postmodern atheist strategy is simple posturing. Dawkins routinely refuses to debate Christians because he wants to put forth the idea that debating theism would give it credibility. He simply wants to ridicule faith and portray any belief in the supernatural as impossible to reconcile with his superior intelligence. I saw an interview with Dawkins and the so-called "Rational Responders" in which they admitted that their entire strategy was riducule and abuse Christians, not giving theism the dignity of a public hearing. It's much easier to do guerilla tactics, hit-and-run, ridicule -- and other forms of diversion -- and never face the fact that everything that exists had to have an antecedent. The atheist never faces this existential paradox -- that something in the natural world can never come from nothing. The only answer to the existential paradox is a supernatural one.

At the very least, the atheist should admit that his belief in no God is as much a supernatural faith as is Christianity in that no known natural laws can account for an ex nihilo creation of the universe.

I have no doubt Dawkins is intelligent. However, Christians ought to view him as a useful idiot. His books and atheist activism are a good opportunity to expose the soft underbelly of post-modernism -- the retreat into pure emotion and subjectivity -- that is the entire undergirding for today's atheism. In fact, this atheist's refusal to engage in formal debate is the proof of this retreat from rationalism.

A Question from a Reader about Theonomy

Mr. Rogers,

First of all, I wanted to thank-you for the blessing that your ministry at The Forerunner website has been. I was very pleased to find that website a few weeks ago and I've been since learning through your ministry and enjoying the articles. I know this is rather presumptuous, but when I had some questions regarding theonomy, you immediately came to mind. If you're too busy to answer that's completely understandable. I hope I'm not out of line by asking.

I guess my main question is: What is the primary difference between the theonomic view and the typical evangelical understanding of the law? All evangelicals are agreed that the ceremonial law was abolished with the fulfillment of the "types and shadows" in Christ's atoning work. When it comes to the moral law, however, I confess I don't see that theonomists have much disagreement with typical evangelicals. I don't see any Christians claiming that they are no longer under an obligation to keep the Ten Commandments, that it is morally permissible to commit adultery, murder, steal, etc. However, if the main difference between the theonomic and traditional camps is on the matter of the civil law, then why is it that we find most of the defenses of theonomy directed against those who would claim that the moral law is no longer in effect? I haven't found anything that argues specifically for the current application of the Old Testament civil laws.

Also, I've heard it said by many theonomists that the Old Testament civil law is not to be imposed from the top down; rather the establishment of a theonomic government will come about through revival, and changed hearts, as the majority of people willingly submit themselves to God's law. Is the theonomic view of the civil law that it is a type or shadow of what will be established in Christ's Kingdom? Just as the ceremonial law was a shadow of Christ's work? Also, would you consider it to be wrong to try to enforce those laws now, from the top down? Again, thank-you so much for your ministry at The Forerunner; it's truly been a blessing to me. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read this email. Have a blessed day!

In Christ's Name,

- Q.P.

---

Dear Q.P.,

Many evangelicals are operational theonomists. They want to ban abortion, homosexual marriage, allow school prayer and promote family friendly policies because this is in accord biblical law.

It's the issue of biblical sanctions that separate the two groups.

What do we do about abortionists and the parents who kill their children? Should they be executed as murderers or should hey be regulated by a government agency in the same way that the FDA regulates the sale of beef.

That is just one difference.

Theonomists ought to teach that we cannot advance Christ's kingdom through law. This needs to happen through conversion. We cannot emphasize that enough.

But let's say that the majority of voters were converted. Let's say that situation were true today. (For example, there are supposedly 65 million evangelicals in the United States and less than that number voted for Obama in the last election.) Then the question becomes: Whose law should we legislate? God's or man's? If we won't enforce God's law because it no longer applies, then where does man's law derive it's authority?

The homosexual wants marriage rights. We would deny that, but on what basis do we have the authority to deny it?

Someone's law has to rule. Should it be man's law or God's law? Or some combination of the two?

All Christians ought to agree that God's law -- even the capital case laws -- in the Old Testament were put in place by a just and loving God. There is not one God of the Old Testament and another God of the New Testament. There is only one God. However, most evangelicals believe that the laws governing Israel were put to rest under the New Covenant.

The question remains: Whose laws ought we to have on the books?

I personally believe that God's moral law and the sanctions found in the Bible ought to be the basis for our civil code. Judges would have the right to show mercy in capital cases with the exception of premeditated murder. Another thing we can imitate is that ancient Israel had no prisons. The prison system ought to be abolished in favor of a system of double restitution paid to victims of non-violent crimes.

It is important to remember that this has nothing to do with bringing about the salvation of the criminal. We cannot be saved by law. We cannot bring about revival by legislating righteousness. However, revival ought to result in righteousness and the righteous ought to stand for God's morality in every sphere of society -- family, school, business, church, civil government, art, science, etc.

At most, the Law of God acts as a tutor to show us where we have sinned (and in civil cases, where we have become criminals) and it can lead people to Christ by showing His eternal standard of righteousness and our need for grace and forgiveness. Civil judges can model the mercy and compassion of Christ to criminals who are truly repentant and willing to make restitution for their crimes.

But the fact remains, all law is an attempt to impose someone's morality from the top-down. If we are a Christian people, whose law do we want? Do we want Barney Frank imposing laws that govern our economic system and whether homosexuals should have the right to marry?

Someone has to rule and these rulers will decide which laws will be the standard.

See also: God's Law and Society

The Evolution of Jesus Mythicism

Here's a ministry idea. Someone with a YouTube account ought to read this on video. Do a rant in your own inimitable tone. Make sure you cite the author because when it goes viral he'll be wanting royalties. I didn't write this. This is from a guy named Vinnie, who obviously has some kind of gift. Don't ask me what it is though.

Just a note for people who don't get this. I constantly get responses to my Real Jesus video series from young postmodernist atheists who insist there is no proof that Jesus ever existed. I know that makes no sense, but welcome to the 21st century. If you do get it, then you agree with me that this guy Vinnie is brilliant.

Mythicism in 27 to 30 A.D.

Yes, mythicists go back to the first century where they were constantly arguing with Jesus about whether or not he existed. Nothing he could do would prove his existence to them. They asserted and reasserted that he did not exist.

One guy who was a real "Freke" traveled to Australia and came back and told Jesus triumphantly "No one has ever heard of you in Australia. Ergo, you do not exist."

Many of Jesus friends (maybe even 500 of them!) testified that this man was in fact Jesus of Nazareth to them but the mythicists accused the men of fabrication and mass hallucination. They were stubborn and unrelenting and would not give up their hyper-skepticism.

Men and women came claiming to be Jesus' family but the mythicists argued that their testimony was invalid unless backed by a scientifically controlled and carefully conducted DNA testing.

Jesus invited the mythicists over to his house one night for supper and when he was done entertaining them he tried one last time to prove his existence to them. But not even the wine they drank loosened them from their hyper-skepticism. Led by their leader "Doherticus ben Earl" they dogmatically asserted that unless he could show them a valid driver's license with his picture on it they would not accept his existence.

Since he had no clue what a driver's license was he was silenced and his opponents assumed victory and taunted him with drunken slurs like "Na na na na na. You don't exist. Na na na na na."

Mythicism in 30 to 70 A.D.

Many who who knew Jesus of Nazareth and followed him during his lifetime believed he was an actual person and they found him to be a great teacher and they continued to follow him after his death and carried on his message.

But the mythicists kept arguing against his existence. They now asserted that the Christians invented the story and they accused them of being Christians! "Because you are followers of this man you are clearly biased and nothing that you say he said or did can be considered as evidence. What could a follower of Jesus tell us about Jesus?" they retorted.

One day during this time period some Gentile converts interpreted something they heard attributed to Jesus to mean that shellfish and pork were now clean. But this only fueled the debate as popular mythicist "Petros ben Gandy" used this material to argue against the historicity of Jesus' existence. He stated, "I lived next door to Jesus and ate with him often. He never declared shellfish and pork clean. You or whoever you heard this from are clearly making this material up just as you make up these claims that Jesus was a real person. He could never provide us with a valid picture I.D. and I doubt you can do any better!"

Jesus' brother James become quite popular and continued to argue that his brother was a real person during this time period but he could never provide the mythicists with their required evidence of a DNA test as he knew not what a DNA test was.

Mythicism from 71 to 95 A.D.

Jesus' original followers were all dead and the mythicists ran rampant during this time period. Anything anyone said about Jesus was considered hearsay because no one was actually there to witness it. The mythicist's mythicist-children now demanded primary-contemporary source data. Anything less than that would not even be considered!

One Christian brought forth some documents that contained a lot of material on Jesus. He said these documents should constitute evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. Much material inside them was embarrassing and there wasn't really any valid reason to think that all stuff was woven from whole cloth (let along the really embarrassing stuff like Baptism by JBap) but the mythicists were not swayed. At first they weren't sure how to treat them and they argued that no one ever heard of these documents and they have no name on them so they must not exist. Christians then decided to name them and the mythicists changed their argument. Many of them now speculated that these documents were late second century documents that wouldn't be written for another 100 plus years. This position became central to the mythicist case. It was canonical you could say. "Do you really expect us mythicists in the year 83 A.D. to accept these 2nd century documents that won't even be written for about another 100 years as evidence? What do you take us for? Idiots?" That quickly became their standard response.

Mythicism from 96 to 2000+ A.D.

Nothing has changed and Jesus is now sitting in heaven laughing in heaven at the sight of this nonsense.

R.J. Rushdoony's Influence and Legacy

I'll tell you a funny story.

About 14 years ago, I was driven about an hour outside of San Juan, Costa Rica up into the mountains by a missionary friend of mine to speak to a church group of college students.

When I got there I met a guy who happened to be visiting the church. His name was Oscar and he was a young pastor from Nicaragua, which was still communistic at that time.

I told him I was from Florida and he asked me, "I know two pastors, Joseph McAuliffe and Colonel Donor, and they are from Florida. Do you know them?"

I told him that as a matter of fact I had just been at one of several "Florida Reconstructionist Society" conferences we held in the 1990s and they were two of the speakers along with Rushdoony.

(The DVD, God's Law and Society, came about because of the video interviews we did at those conferences.)

Oscar told me he had been reading a book called Law & Liberty by Rushdoony. It was all about neo-platonism's destructive influence and it was challenging his worldview.

I reached into a black leather bag I used to carry with me and guess which book I pulled out?

“Do you mean this one?” I asked.

And then I thought: "Wow, what are the chances of that?"

True story.

In the mountains of Costa Rica no less.

This was probably the only person within miles who had ever heard of Rushdoony. Was it a random coincidence or a divine appointment? You tell me.

A few years after this time, I stated to hear some of the well-known leaders of the Christian Reconstructionist movement publicly say that the movement was "dead." I disagree. I am now discovering more seminary students in their 20s than ever before who are influenced by Christian Reconstructionist thought. We are on the front slope of a tidal wave that will be felt in full force in the next ten to twenty years.

The Harrowing of Hell

I recently wrote a 70-page script called: "The Harrowing of Hell" -- which is the unlikely title of a proposed new video about postmillennial eschatology.

Read an excerpt from my script:

The Harrowing of Hell



The term “Harrowing of Hell" refers to idea that Christ descended into Hell, as stated in the Apostles’ Creed. It is further thought (by many) to mean that He made warfare against Hell releasing its captives, particularly the righteous men and women of Old Testament times.

The Greek wording in the Apostles’ Creed is katelthonta eis ta katôtata ... and in Latin descendit ad inferos.

The Greek ta katôtata means "the lowest" and the Latin inferos means “those below.” This is where we get the Italian word inferno (the word Dante used for “hell” in The Divine Comedy.) Inferos may also be translated as “the underworld,” “the netherworld,” or “hell.” So this phrase is usually translated in most English versions of the Apostles Creed as “descended into hell.”

The English word “harrow” is a form of “harry,” a military term meaning “to make predatory raids or incursions” against an enemy in warfare.

We get the term “harrowing of hell” from numerous Old and Middle English sermons on the triumphant descent of Christ into hell between the time of His crucifixion and His resurrection, when He brought salvation to souls held captive there.



In support of this view, Acts 2:27 and 2:31 declare in effect that Hades (the “place of the dead” or “hell”) could not hold the crucified Christ.

1 Peter 3:19-20 says that Jesus “went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah.”

1 Peter 4:6 says, “For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead.”

2 Corinthians 2:14 may also be interpreted to speak of the harrowing of hell.

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.

— 2 Corinthians 2:14

We should point out that this doctrine is controversial. Not all theologians agree that these scriptures mean that Jesus visited hell in person after He died on the cross. Some rightly argue that Christ did not need to make warfare over an already defeated foe. But it is clear from the plain meaning of scripture that Jesus certainly triumphed over hell. At the cross, He defeated sin and death once and for all defeating Satan and all his works.

Central to this credo is a statement made by Jesus: “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you” (Matthew 12:28). This casting out of demons or the “harrowing of hell” was the preeminent sign that the kingdom had come on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is already here, but it has not yet grown to its fullness. The kingdom is likened to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field until it grew into a great tree (Matthew 13:31). It is also likened to leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened (Matthew 13:33). The kingdom of God is already here, but it is always progressing and growing until it spreads into the whole world.

The role of the Church during history is to bring all things into captivity to Christ. Satan and the forces of hell have already been defeated – and yet still greater victory lies ahead.

Now if we are going to work for the kingdom of God with an eye toward winning, we must have an eschatology of victory. If we are to bring everything into captivity to Christ, we must have a theology that tells us it is impossible to lose. Ideas have consequences. We must believe that we are the people of victory and Christ is going to triumph in history. Only when all things are put under His feet will the last enemy, death, be destroyed.

As 1 Corinthians 15:25,26 tells us:

For he must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

— 1 Corinthians 15:25,26

Now this is a remarkable truth. And yet few people have taken it this at face value and have considered its plain meaning. According to this passage, Christ is reigning now from heaven. He will do so until all enemies of the Gospel are put under His feet. Through the conversion of the nations of the world, God's enemies will be destroyed. The last enemy, death, is destroyed only at the Second Coming. Until that time, we can look forward to great victories. We are told that “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ” (Revelation 11:15).

And the exciting part of this promise is that we Christians are to be used of God to put His enemies into submission. The idea that the Lord has entrusted the stewardship of the world to His people is found in the parable of the talents in Luke 19. Here the Lord says to His servants, “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13). The Lord is gone for a long time, while His most faithful servants work to increase the wealth of their Master's kingdom.

When the Master returns, He rewards those who have done the best job with the wealth entrusted to them in advancing the kingdom in their Lord's absence. Those who work for the advance of the kingdom receive rulership over entire cities. But the enemies of God who would not work to increase the wealth of their master are slain with the sword (Luke 19:27).

So ideas do have consequences. If we believe that Satan is already bound according to Revelation 20:2 and Christ is seated on the throne of heaven, then what type of stewards should we be? Should we tirelessly work for the increase of the kingdom of God in history? – Or should we act like the unfruitful servants hide our talents in hope that we won’t lose the little that God has given us?

Jesus further elaborated on this promise: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house” (Matthew 12:28-29).

The New Testament speaks of the binding of Satan in various places. Satan falls from heaven (Luke 10:18); he is cast out of heaven (John 12:31); he was crushed under our feet (Romans 16:20); he was disarmed (Colossians 2:15); he was rendered powerless (Hebrews 2:14); his works were destroyed (1 John 3:8).

Are we, the people of God, to live in the shadow of fear of the devil and a world system bent on evil and destruction content to be rescued only at the Second Coming of Jesus? Or are we to be active participants, soldiers in the war against hell, following in the train of Christ to plunder the strong man’s house?

While much is made in recent years of different and competing theories on the end times, we are going to confine our discussion to one central issue.

And that is this: Does the defeat of Satan’s kingdom and the great increase of the kingdom of God occur before or after Jesus returns?

If we look at God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament of a Golden Age of great peace and prosperity in the “last days,” does this promise extend to the Church within our present history – or is it confined to a future thousand-year reign of Christ on earth after His return? While all Christians should believe in the victory of Jesus Christ and the rule of God’s people during the millennium, this only begs the questions:

How much victory are we to expect in the here and now?

Is Satan already bound or is he alive and well on the planet earth?

If Jesus Christ truly “harrowed hell,” how should we then live?

And that is what this presentation is about.

In short, we want to provoke and challenge your thinking here to consider the question:

How powerful is the Gospel?

The Real Jesus (revisited)

We live in a postmodernist age. People, especially the younger generation, are able to hold onto contradictory notions without batting an eye. It's a perfect era to be a skeptic who believes in nothing, but wants to take the fast track to being a pseudo-intellectual by attacking traditional worldviews and contributing nothing positive to the conversation except to say, "The burden of proof is on the believer!"

I've had hundreds of comments from young postmodernists in response to my Real Jesus DVD, which is posted on YouTube and my website. The following is one such conversation with a UFO enthusiast (who doesn't think there is evidence that Jesus existed) named "Boyinthemachine."

The conversation took an interesting turn when I insisted that 99.99 percent of scholars accept the fact that Jesus was a real historical figure.

____________________

Jay Rogers: "That Jesus is a historical figure is accepted by 99.99 percent of secular historians."

Boyinthemachine:

"Where did you get that figure? Look, even I believe there most likely was a historical Jesus. The problem is that my belief is not based on the fact that Jesus' historicity has been proven, but rather, based on the fact that there are countless cases of men deified after their death, such as various Caesars. Last, the Epistle of James is not a Gospel. It leads no proof to a historical Jesus."

Jay Rogers: "Can you name even five PhDs teaching history at the university level who claim Jesus never existed? If you can, I'll revise my number to 99.98 percent. Also, what do you do about the eyewitness claims in the New Testament, especially those in the Gospel of John and 1 John?"

Boyinthemachine:

"Why should I? The burden of proof is on those making the claim.

"We don't know who wrote the Gospel of John. The author was not an eyewitness, but like all the other Gospels, merely put to word oral stories, i.e. 'The Gospel According To John.' Most scholars believe the Gospel of John was written between 90-100 AD, with a small number of scholars suggesting earlier or later dates. Thus, like the other Gosples, John is very weak evidence for the historicity of Jesus."

Jay Rogers: "The New Testament actually has a very good pedigree. The Apostles who knew Jesus preached and wrote from 30 to 70 A.D. Then early bishops such as Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp and Papias (35 to 115 A.D.) received the books of the Apostles and wrote their own works quoting from most of the books of the New Testament. Later second century church fathers quoted from every New Testament book and named the authors. The earliest canonical list is from the second century. There is a continual unbroken witness to the authors of the New Testament in every generation up until the great Codices of the fourth century."

Boyinthemachine:

"The Apostles were eyewitnesses, if Jesus existed. However, we don't know who wrote the gospels. The assumption, by the Church, was that it was 'Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John' who wrote the Gospels. Most scholars do not accept this. Most scholars believe the gospels were written anonymously, from about 40 years after Jesus' death to about 100 years after Jesus' death.

"It would be great if we had overwhelming evidence for the historicity of Jesus, but we just don't have it."

Jay Rogers: "Form critics and source critics act as scientists working from the null hypothesis. They ignore all documentary evidence and assume nothing from the beginning. They then are able to draw all kinds of conclusions. In the 1800s, the form critics had the Gospel of John written in the late second century. Then in the early 1900s a papyrus fragment of John was found that dated to about 115 A.D. One scrap of paper wiped out over 100 years of liberal conjecture! Assuming that this fragment was a copy of a copy, and since it was discovered in Egypt, the latest John could have been written was 95 A.D. The earliest would be the mid-first century.

"Liberals will almost always assume the latest dates and an unknown author. The problem for them is that all extra-biblical documentary evidence from the first and second century onward points to definite authors. Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and Papias wrote in the late first to early second century, but they were born and lived during the time when some disciples who had seen Jesus were still alive. We see no debate among them on who the authors of the New Testament were. Then almost all the NT manuscript fragments of the second century have titles and authors. You can actually go on-line and see the titles (called supercriptions and subscriptions) of manuscript fragments.

"Another interesting thing is that form the early second century, and maybe earlier, the books of the NT were bound into five codices, the four Gospels and Acts, Paul's Epistles, the Pastorals, the General Epistles, Revelation. As in modern times, books had titles and authors. There is no reason to think that the authors did not assign their names to the original autographs. Then in the third century, Origen wrote that there were some doubts about Hebrews and Revelation because of stylistic differences in Paul and John's other writings.

"In modern times, this skepticism was stretched to call every book into question. But it is very easy to see these liberals have an agenda. An unbiased researcher might doubt the traditional authorship of books like 2 Peter, Revelation, Hebrews and maybe 3 John, but there is no documentary evidence that these books were ever in dispute shortly after they were written. To the contrary, they are all quoted early. According to all models of textual criticism, they ought to be considered authentic and reliable."

Is Barack Obama a Christian? (part 1)

Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel, believes many Americans will be shocked to find out just how radical some of Obama's positions are on social issues.

"I certainly cannot judge whether or not Barack Obama has a relationship with Christ. That's between him and God, and only they know that. However, scripture tells us that you will be known by your fruits, and here Barack Obama is promoting counter-biblical, anti-Christian policies. [These are] policies that elevate deviant sexual behaviors and dangerous sexual behaviors that are destructive spiritually, physically and emotionally, and certainly -- when embraced as Barack Obama has embraced them -- are destructive societally. For all the talk of hope, change and coming together, it's becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama's administration will be the most leftist, divisive, and discriminatory in recent memory.

Barber is essentially correct, but the whole idea of "having a relationship with Jesus" clouds the issue. Of course, Obama has a relationship with Jesus. We all do. Even enemies of Christ have a "relationship" with Jesus -- that of an enemy!

A good question to ask here is whether it says anywhere in scripture that we are to judge someone's salvation, and whether it's on the basis of their "relationship with Jesus."

We substituted "personal relationship" in the 1960s for theological words such as regeneration, justification and sanctification -- none of which comes without the others in salvation.

We can't know if someone is regenerate or justified, but we can measure the attainment of sanctification by whether basic doctrines and biblical commandments are being kept.

Does Obama think the whole Bible is the inspired inerrant Word of God?

He admits he has doubts about this.

Does he believe abortion is child murder?

No, he does not. To say that is above his pay grade.

That is how we should phrase the argument. Let's forget about subjective, post-modernist terms like "a personal relationship with Jesus."

- Jay

Some Inventions Of Man That Have Become Essential Parts Of the Modern Gospel

The Term and Concept of "Personal Savior." I find it very disturbing when something unnecessary is added to the Gospel. The use of the term "Personal Savior" isn't very harmful in itself, but it shows a kind of mind-set that is willing to "invent" terms, and then allow these terms to be preached as if they were actually found in the Bible.

But why must we do this? Why must we add needless, almost meaningless things to the Gospel? It is because we've taken so much out that we have to replace it with "spiritual double talk."

That's right, double talk! Would you ever introduce your sister like this: "This is Sheila, my personal sister"?! Or would you point to your navel and say, "This is my personal bellybutton"? Ridiculous! But nevertheless, people solemnly speak of Christ as their personal Savior, as if they've got Him right there in their shirt pocket - and as if when He returns, He will not have two, but three titles written across His thigh: King of kings, Lord of lords, and PERSONAL SAVIOR! (See Rev. 19:16.) This is only one example of how a non-biblical term can be elevated to reverence by the Church, as if to say, "Well even if it isn't in the Bible - it should be!"

-- Keith Green, What's Wrong With the Gospel? Section 2: "The Added Parts"

A Postmillennial quote by John Calvin

"We are therefore bidden to desire that, just as in heaven nothing is done apart from God’s good pleasure, and the angels dwell together in all peace and uprightness, the earth be in like manner subject to such rule, with all arrogance and wickedness brought to an end."

- John Calvin

"You can't push your beliefs about abortion on someone else!"

The following is a comment on one of my YouTube Vlogs on the pro-life issue and my response.

This shows you how confused is our postmodernist generation of the 21st century. When someone says, " I can't push my beliefs on someone else," they are actually stating a belief.

Not pushing your beliefs on someone is pushing your beliefs.

As Nietzsche (who was right sometimes) said: "Not to decide is to decide."

Or as Cornelius Van Til argued, there is no such thing as a statement of belief that contains moral neutrality.

_________________

missmelpol: I don't believe in having an abortion, but that is MY BELIEF. I can't push my beliefs on someone else. I thought that was why we had a freedom of religion or speech and all that good stuff.


jcr4runner: The question is: "Why do you think abortion is wrong?" Is it because:

1. You don't like abortion?

- or -

2. Abortion is murder?

If it is simple a question of likes and dislikes, then no you don't have the right to enforce a mere opinion. But if abortion is murder, it is a moral law that transcends personal opinion. It can't be "murder" for one person and "not murder" for another depending on how one feels at the moment.

The Party Is Over

Rusty Thomas is one of the few people I trust who has true prophetic insight into what is happening in America. A while back I posted his imprecatory prayer proclamation to the state of California. I post this as well. It is not a predictive prophecy in the biblical sense, but it applies scripture to the current situation America is facing. I endorse it fully.

- Jay Rogers

A Message from Elijah Ministries

"To make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (Luke 1:17)

Dear Champion of the Lord and the Preborn,

The Lord richly bless you! Based upon our earlier message, I decided to send out a national press statement called "THE PARTY IS OVER." Please keep this in prayer. It is scheduled to be released tomorrow morning. If you find any merit, please pass it on.

- Rusty Thomas

THE PARTY IS OVER

"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God (Psalm 9:17) ."

For the last twenty years, courageous men of God have warned our nation of these days. Our nation has sowed to the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind. America stands on the verge of possible economic collapse, where the bail out cure may be worse than the financial disease. Meanwhile Russia, China, and the Islamic nations smell our vulnerabilities. Added to these dangers is the increase of natural disasters. What can our beleaguered country do in such a time as this? Repent and bring forth fruit meet for repentance.

Legalized evil has flourished under our watch and stands as God's indictment against America. We can run, but not hide. America will never escape God's accountability for shedding innocent blood through the crime of abortion and parading our sin like Sodom through the godless, homosexual agenda.

The message and mandate are clear, either abortion and the homosexual agenda ends or America as we know it will end. Until now, America has refused to connect the dots between our spiritual and moral condition and the litany of woe challenging our nation. We pretend this party with death and perversion will continue with our homes, churches, institutions, and economic security remaining intact. Thomas Jefferson stated, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

Due to the seriousness of the hour, the call is twofold. First, every Church needs to immediately form a pro-life and pro-family missions program to address and defeat the abortion industry and the homosexual agenda, while at the same time opening our hearts to those enslaved by Satan's lies to see them liberated by the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If, however, the Church continues to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to these sins that have reached heaven, our survival as a nation will continue down the primrose path to destruction. The Church's silence and inaction is partially responsible for the corruption of our nation to continue unabated.

Secondly, we call upon all branches of government to recant of calling good, evil and evil, good by codifying the abominable practices of abortion and homosexuality into law. For far too long, they have defended the indefensible. They cannot make straight what Almighty God has called crooked and expect America to thrive as a nation.

If we summon the moral will to do these necessary changes, we may avert going the way of every other nation that shook its puny fist in the face of a Holy God. Otherwise, America prepare to reap what you have sown!

Why does the universe exist? - An answer to atheism

When I was a freshman in high school, I encountered the following argument for the existence of God. The argument was a lengthy quote in a book I was reading by Dr. Henry M. Morris, founder of the Creation Research institute. I have found this argument to be air tight and irrefutable. It became the basis for accepting many tenets of Christian orthodoxy that many intellectuals and "free-thinkers" of my generation have dismissed out of hand.

Case in point: Atheists charge that Christians need to resort to "special pleading" in explaining the supernatural accounts of the Bible. Special pleading in this case is the introduction of unprovable causes to explain unproven effects. That is, given a biblical history that includes miraculous events that are, by definition, "impossible" according to natural scientific laws, the only way to rationalize these "supernatural" occurrences is to postulate the existence of an all-powerful Creator God. The atheist argues that miracles do not occur in the observable universe for the simple reason that natural laws prohibit supernatural occurrences. Therefore, the lack of the "necessity" for a supernatural Creator Being leads the atheist to a firm lack of belief.

I would respond to the charge of "special pleading" by stating that atheism requires special pleading, but Christian theism does not.

Theism just proposes a logical solution to the primary existential paradox.

What is the Existential Paradox?

I will here explain the existential paradox -- the problem of existence -- in the rational terms of physical science. I have quoted and paraphrased Dr. Henry M. Morris' argument in several places.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics proves that the universe had a beginning in that the universe could never have existed in a time prior to being in a state of total available energy.

Why?

Simply because the First Law of Thermodynamics shows that the universe could not have begun itself. The First Law states that the total quantity of energy in the universe is a constant and neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed.

Science cannot explain why matter cannot be created or destroyed. We just know that this is impossible in a purely natural system governed by physical laws. Matter and energy may be converted one into another, but beyond that, energy simply has "no place to go."

The Second Law states that the quantity of available energy is decreasing.

Therefore, as we go backward in time, the available energy is progressively greater until, finally, we reach the beginning point, where available energy equals total energy.

Time could go back no further than this. At this point, both energy and time must have come into existence in our known universe.

One might hypothesize that the universe was simply "still" at this point and had no beginning. However, this is impossible, since movement is always taking place wherever there is matter even if it is the movement of kinetic energy at the molecular level.

One might also hypothesize that it is meaningless to talk about a "before" in time when the universe was compressed into state of total energy because at this point in time, as time and matter are relative to each other, eternity existed in a moment.

While this is true, it doesn't solve the problem of there being a system with all the available energy in the universe being compressed into a single point and space in time.

The scientific conundrum from a purely metaphysical naturalistic point of view is that energy cannot create itself, or come into existence from non-existence by itself.

Something else besides the known universe must exist in order for the known universe to exist.

The most scientific and logical conclusion we could possibly state is that:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

The atheist will not accept this conclusion, however.

He instead hypothesizes that either:

1. Some natural law canceling out the Second Law prevailed far back in time.

2. Some natural law canceling out the Second Law prevails far out in space.

3. Some force more powerful that all the energy in the known universe brought our universe into being.

When he makes the first two assumptions, however, he is denying his own metaphysical naturalism, which says that all things can be explained in terms of presently observable laws and processes.

In the third assumption, the atheist is only denying the inevitable, that someone or something created the known universe.

In all three cases, the atheist is really resorting to creationism, but just refuses to acknowledge a personal Creator God.

If the atheist would be epistemologically honest in admitting this, Christian theists could have some respect for their position and meaningful dialog would result.

But since this is not the case, all the atheist can do is attack belief in God as something he lacks. He can never defend his on position without resorting to the convoluted and contradictory argument that attacks the supernatural as something that is not naturally possible.

He is correct. Natural laws cannot explain or describe supernatural events adequately. However, the universe itself according to its own self-contained physical laws requires a supernatural cause.

What is Imprecatory Prayer?

Imprecatory prayer is essentially praying the Psalms of the Bible and specifically naming the enemies of God who refuse to repent. In scripture, imprecations are prayed for political leaders or powerful people who threaten the peace of God's people.

However, imprecatory prayer is directed primarily at God's covenant people, not the unconverted or those who are not part of the covenant. The imprecatory prayer asks the blessings of God on His people if we obey the Law, and curses of God if we disobey. Throughout the Bible the blessings and curses of God are delineated as part of God's covenant. Deuteronomy 28 and 29 contain lists of blessings and curses for God's people. Many of the Psalms of David also contain imprecations.

The Beatitudes of Luke 6:20-26 contain the curses of God (in the form of "woes") as well as the blessings:

Blessed are you when men hate you,
And when they exclude you,
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,
For the Son of Man’s sake.

Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
For so did their fathers to the false prophets.

- Luke 6:22,26

Paul commands us to pray and sing the Psalms (Eph. 5:19) – all of them, especially the imprecatory Psalms that call down both God’s destruction and conversion of the wicked (Psalms 74, 83, etc.). In fact, imprecatory prayer has been part of the liturgy of various church denominations for centuries – especially in funeral services.

One of the most famous examples of this is the Requiem by Mozart.

Confutatis maledictis
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.

When the accursed have been confounded
And given over to the bitter flames,
Call me with the blessed.

A vital feature of imprecatory prayer is repentance in order to receive God's blessing. But another feature is rejoicing over God's judgment of sinners. In the 1990s, I published a series of articles in The Forerunner about imprecatory prayer and applied it to the abortion issue and pro-life activism.

Author Ray Sutton calls this the "Covenantal Lawsuit:

One of the greatest concerns is the “wicked people” – abortionists, pornographers, statist politicians, etc. – who stand in the way of the visible reign of Christ (Heb. 2:8ff.). How should they be dealt with? Because the Biblical covenant commands Christians to be lawful, they are not allowed to use violence, except in the event of self-defense and a legally declared war by proper civil magistrates. Are they, therefore, left only with what some Christian activists call “a smile and a ‘God loves you’”?

No. The Bible specifies a special kind of lawsuit that can be filed with God against the wicked called a covenantal lawsuit. This Biblical concept is consistently used by the prophets. In a covenantal lawsuit, the blessings and curses found in Deuteronomy 28 are turned into accusations against lawless covenant-breakers and enemies of the Church, calling down God’s sanctions on them. Yes, a covenant lawsuit asks God to remove the wicked. God removes the wicked one of two ways: by conversion or destruction. So, a covenantal lawsuit is not “unloving.” But it is a Biblical method for taking dominion when opposition is met! A Christian’s greatest weapon in the face of opposition is not a “carnal” weapon but a spiritual one (2 Cor. 10:4), the covenant itself turned into a lawsuit before God (That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant)

The imprecatory prayer can take the form of a proclamation signed by church ministers and members calling political leaders to repentance. In the 1990s, many Christians became interested in how this could apply to the president because of his avid pro-abortion agenda. Bill Clinton was a member of a confessional church, which made him, at least confessionally, a Christian subject to sanctions of the church.

To be consistent, we ought to pray for all our leaders in this manner, not just the ones we don't like. For instance, if John McCain were to be elected and continued to support embryonic stem cell research, homosexual rights and so on, then the church would be responsible to call the president to repentance.

This could take the form of praying specific imprecations (curses) found in scripture if the president does not uphold God's law. The prayer would be published and the president would be warned and implored to obey God's covenant.

An example

Psalm 109:8 is a prayer of King David when Saul was persecuting him.

"Let his days be few,
And let another take his office."

This is essentially what I believe we should pray when John McCain (who is a church member and claims Jesus as his Savior) is elected. If he were not to be proactive on the pro-life issue as promised, then he would be under God's judgment. The church's responsibility is to proclaim this publicly through imprecatory prayer.

An explanation

The above is intended as an explanation to the many who have responded to an earlier blog post in which I referred to imprecations in passing. This can be wrenched out of context and framed in terms of "praying for so-and-so's death."

That is technically correct, but if taken out of context, it is a misleading way of phrasing it.

It is important not to take imprecatory Psalms and prayers out of context. I advocate praying imprecations precisely as stated in scripture. Of course, the reaction to church leaders who advocate imprecatory prayer is always going to be negative, especially when understood in the context of a liberal or atheistic worldview.

I may also be presumptive in thinking that most Christians understand the following:

1. That Christians understand election and reprobation -- I am afraid that most think that all may repent if we just give them the benefit of the doubt and pray for them long enough. But it is possible that John McCain is not one of the elect and no amount of time and prayer will change this. If so, then it is better that he be removed from office and a Christian that upholds God's law would take his place.
   
2. That most Christians understand that no one can really pray effectively for God to "kill" anyone. God is sovereign and He isn't moved by prayer. It is just the opposite. God moves us to pray according to His will. That is why it is important to pray both blessings and curses of the covenant when we pray for our leaders (and especially for ourselves). If you read David's Psalms (especially Psalm 7) David prays that God would judge him if he is disobedient or has sin in his heart.
3. That people understand that John McCain is not pro-life. A lot of people think he is. I'd just recommend researching his record. Some say he's pro-life about 75 to 80 percent of the time.

So let me know really what you think.

Is John McCain pro-life?

Is imprecatory prayer hateful?

Does the church have the responsibility to pray both the blesings and curses of God for our leaders?

The Atheist Syndrome

Dr. George Grant sat for a video interview a back and he talked about the book, The Atheist Syndrome. The author, John Koster, profiles the lives and personalities of four of most well-known atheists and their followers. In the most extreme cases, atheism is not just a healthy skepticism, such as agnosticism (the admission of "not knowing" if there is a God) or "free thinking" that eschews supernatural theology in favor of naturalist explanations. The atheist claims to speak as infallibly as God in claiming there is no God. In its extreme form, atheism is a mental disorder.

George Grant explains:



If you think this is pure polemics, I'll go as far as to agree that on the surface it seems that this profile is too naïve. To say that all atheists are bed-wetters, sexual deviants, victims of abusive fathers and promiscuous mothers is at best an over-generalization based on four of the most well-known atheists and some of their followers. I'd never go to this extreme to say all atheists are like that.

But there is a syndrome that is very real and more endemic to atheists than any other group.

Since 1987, my passion for ministry has focused on media projects, eschatology, theonomy, evangelism, foreign missions, political action and pro-life activism. Therefore, most of the criticism I get from our web presence has been from liberals, witches, pagans, and pro-abortion advocates. It is completely understandable and expected. The liberals (both theological and political) fear that a growing Christian movement represents a throwback to the fear and prejudice of the so-called "Dark Ages." Witches and pagans fear that biblical law will lead to a return to the "burning times." Pro-aborts oppose pro-life activism out of their desire for selfish autonomy and a license for irresponsible behavior.

Most of the emails and comments I have received from these groups have taken the form of hysterical screeds. In effect, they say: "You Christians want to kill and repress us all!"

Of this group, King Solomon lamented when he wrote:

"The wicked flee when no one is pursuing" (Proverbs 28:1).

When faced with left-wing paranoia, I usually try to explain in a rational and calm tone that there is always great freedom in a Christian society for people to hold other views and practice their religion in private just as long just as they do not break the civil laws of the society. Of course, Christians want these laws based – if not wholly, then at least in principle – on biblical law.

As a person who was converted to Christ as an adult, I realize that everyone is in a different place in their journey toward God. We can offer a great deal of tolerance when dealing with groups who do not share our worldview. It took me 23 years to see the truth. I try to keep that in mind and that I should bear with people who don't see it my way.

My vision for a Christian America is the Puritanism of Oliver Cromwell – a ruler who invited Jews to return to England 100 years after being banished by King Henry VIII. Cromwell also protected the rights of Roman Catholics to worship publicly in Protestant England – although he was adamantly opposed to their theology on a personal level. He strengthened a republican form of government in England and fought the idea of the "divine right of kings."

Recently, due to some side comments I made on a blog post regarding imprecatory prayer, I've flushed out droves of new antagonists – the militant atheists. Except for a few notable champions, most prefer to remain anonymous while sniping at Christians and all theists in general from the bushes. Their most effective field of battle is the blogosphere of course.

They are even more hysterical than the usual suspects – the liberals, pagans and pro-aborts – but they are different in that they share in common several pathological characteristics. While I don't necessarily think that Koster's thesis is entirely correct, I've noticed several common denominators among atheists – or at least the these anonymous atheist flamers on the Internet. These include:

1. Decrying the supposed stupidity and lack of intelligence on the part of Christians without ever condescending to a focused debate on worldview issues.
2. The use of invective, profanity and ad hominem attacks when refuting Christians, ironically acting extremely insulted when the tables are turned.
3. Focusing on the supposed hypocrisies of Christianity, while never owning their own behavior or the inhuman criminal history of recent atheistic societies.
4. An obsession with sexually demeaning comments bordering on harassment in an attempt to assault the moral sensibilities and sexual ethics of the Bible.
5. An obsession with irrelevant details.
6. Frequent accusations of lying and dishonesty even while purposefully interpreting Christian writings and biblical theology in a skewed and satirical manner.
7. An irrational insistence that experimental science is the only form of rational thought. In other words, a belief in metaphysical naturalism (the idea that all truth is knowable through naturalistic experimentation and observation) rather than traditional scientific rationalism (the idea that science can only observe, reproduce and describe natural events according to an imperfect paradigm.)

I didn't need to do case studies or conduct a scientific study to discover this syndrome. I have enough data in my mail box over the years. (I am sure that I'll get many more of these now as a result of P.Z. Myers free advertisement of my website.)

No atheist's response is complete without the "bearing false witness" charge. Although mountains of materials defending Christianity have been written and collected over the centuries, the charge is always that it is a "lie" to say so. On the contrary, if a religious opinion can be proven demonstrably wrong, it is only an opinion, not a lie.

Another ploy is to portray Christians as "hateful." The idea that Christianity promotes a "love you neighbor" ethic is freely admitted by atheists when they berate us for our alleged "hatred hypocrisy." They need to borrow from Christianity's moral code of the "law of love" even while they mock us!

I sometimes use sarcasm in my responses to non-believers. Jesus and the Apostle Paul used sarcasm, so it's not wrong to use it in a measured way. But usually I try to answer rationally – not with my answers, but with a theological consensus based on years of study on the matter. I don't get into arguments over things I know nothing about. In this case, silence is usually treated as an admission of surrender.

It is supposed to be hypocrisy for Christians to treat biblical morality as binding on non-believers. It's hypocritical for us hold a black and white view of morality. Who are we to say what is "good" and "evil"? But that's not to stop the pot from calling the kettle black. Atheists have their own version of morality that they seek to impose on society.

Neutrality is a myth. Every civil law is an imposition of someone's morality on another person. No culture can exist for long as an amalgamation of diverse "moralities." Eventually one worldview is going to win out. And that is really what this debate is about. It's a battle for our culture. The militant atheists are worthy adversaries in this battle because they understand that theirs is a battle for cultural dominion far better than most Christians. Although atheists are a small minority, they understand that they can win by holding forth in the battle of ideas. No matter how vacuous they may sound at first, many of their core ideas are already the ruling presuppositions of the media, entertainment industry and liberal politics.

That is why the Sarah Palin nomination has them hysterical. Win or lose, she is a bright, young, articulate defender of the Christian political worldview who will be around for years to come.

So get ready. The culture wars are back.

Why I support Chuck Baldwin for President

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

- John Quincy Adams

Have you considered voting for the Constitution Party candidate in the last few election cycles, Howard Phillips or Mike Peroutka or Chuck Baldwin, but were discouraged by the following argument?

“A vote for Chuck Baldwin is a vote for Barack Obama!”

or …

“You are throwing away your vote on a candidate that can’t win!”

There is a fundamental problem with this statement in that it assumes that the Republican choice is acceptable. I had this argument with Ron Paul supporters in the Republican primaries. I argued that Mike Huckabee was an acceptable candidate and actually had a chance of winning. If only the Romney and Paul supporters would unite behind the frontrunner we could have beaten McCain.

The problem with my thinking was that the Paul supporters – even though they could not win – thought Huckabee was an unacceptable choice. While I disagree with them, I respect them for their uncompromising stance.

Likewise, I would vote for Sarah Palin without any hesitation she were running for president. She's not perfect, but acceptable. I am willing to make a mistake on a relative unknown who has done all the right things so far and stands for all the right things (at least in word). However, Sarah Palin isn't running for president, John McCain is. It is the "known" quantity of McCain that I can't support. I simply can't bring myself in good conscience to support a liberal Republican.

The Constitution Party is by far a better choice. I am supporting Chuck Baldwin because he's the best man running. If you doubt this, I ask you to visit his website and make your decision based on his positions.

http://www.baldwin08.com/

The Constitution Party is the only political party that recognizes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of humanity in its platform. Up and down, every issue that Christians care about is advocated – not without flaws – but in a far better way than what I have seen in any other political party.

http://www.constitutionparty.com/party_platform.php

Now some will object:

“What if millions of Christians support Baldwin, but we get only 10 percent of the vote and throw the election to the Democrats?”

It’s possible.

Many people blame Ross Perot for Clinton’s election to office with 43 percent of the vote in 1992 and then 49 percent of the vote in 1996. But there is a flip side to the argument.

First, the Republican Party needs Christian conservatives in order to win. If we “throw” an election or two, the damage is short term. Then we may get the candidate we want in the next cycle, or else the Constitution Party is an option again. It’s the age-old political strategy of purposefully taking one step backwards in order to take two steps forward. If we continue the way we are going now with the Republican Party, we are surely going backwards. Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 spawned the “Contract with America” – a conservative movement that didn’t go far enough and yet brought the greatest era of economic growth our nation has ever seen. A loss is not a loss when the better of the two frontrunners is a disaster.

Second, there are probably just as many disaffected leftists who would vote Green Party, Libertarian Party or some other third party instead of voting for a Democrat from a congressional session that has a 17 percent approval rating. When they see many of us leaving the Republican Party, fewer of them will be afraid to leave the Democrats.

Third, we will win eventually. I believe strongly in the “Puritan Hope” – that one day the whole earth will be filled with the glory of God. Supporting the Constitution Party is supporting the winning side. It is the only self-consciously Christian party. It can be our vehicle until something even better comes along. America will be a Christian nation, or another Christian nation will take its place. If we succeed in restoring America to the vision of our Puritan and Christian Patriot forefathers, our support of the Constitution Party in the darkest days before the fall of western humanism will be a source of joy and pride for our children and grandchildren.

On the other hand, I am afraid that future generations might look back and see that I supported “the lesser of two evils” – and hid my talents in the ground, while our country’s destiny weighed in the balance.

I realize an Obama presidency would be a disaster. I hope and pray that if it is truly a choice between Obama and McCain that somehow McCain wins and he either repents of his weak views on the sanctity of life, marriage and big government – or that he dies soon after his election and Palin gets the executive office.

And yet God holds us accountable for our actions as individuals. If we have the choice between two sinful actions and a morally correct decision, and yet the morally correct decision would cause us to suffer a personal setback, then it is still wrong to pick the lesser of two evils. We only win when we obey God.

Is Baldwin God’s Candidate?

I am not claiming that Baldwin is “God’s candidate.” Every Christian needs to follow his own conscience on this matter. If you can vote for McCain with a clear conscience, then by all means do it, but remember, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).

But if you think your only option is a vote for McCain, consider this. Twenty years ago it would have been unthinkable for evangelical Christian to support a candidate who said in 2005:

The constitutional amendment [banning gay marriage] strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans.... It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/mccain.marriage/

Since that statement McCain has equivocated all over the place on the issue of gay marriage vs. civil unions – he's for fetal tissue research, but he's "pro-life" – and so on.

If McCain was acceptable or even near the threshold of acceptability I'd vote for him. However, a vote for a lesser evil is still a vote for evil.

Now most of my friends are supporting this man simply because he suddenly talks the right talk. We are no longer governed by the rule of law and we Christians need to do what our conscience tells us to do in order to resist lawlessness.

If we support this candidate, how far will we be willing to compromise 20 years down the road?

God does miracles and it's possible that some weird national crisis could catapult a third party candidate into national prominence. It has happened a few times in our history, Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 being the most notable example. However, God does not usually perform "miracles" without a human agent acting according to natural means. God sets up providential circumstances and then requires His people to act in the right way to receive the blessing.

Most people don't want to admit it, but we are living in the first stages of a tyrannical state. I don't think it is as bad as some conspiracy theorists would have us think, but it is headed in that direction. What was unthinkable 20 years ago is reality today and God only knows what lies down the road if the slide is not reversed.

Can the slide be reversed? Can we restore our nation as a beacon of righteousness? Will God do such a miracle and bring a spiritual awakening to our land?

Yes, under one condition.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. – 2 Chronicles 7:14

Samuel Adams said referring to the overthrow of George III’s tyranny in America:

He who sets up and pulls down, confines or extends empires at his pleasure, generally, if not always, carries on his work with instruments apparently unfit for the great purpose, but which in his hands are always effectual ... God does the work, but not without instruments, and they who are employed are denominated as his servants; no king, nor kingdom was ever destroyed by a miracle which effectually excluded the agency of second causes ... We may affect humility in refusing to be made the instruments of Divine vengeance, but the good servant will execute the will of his master. Samuel will slay Agag; Moses, Aaron, and Hur will pray in the mountain, and Joshua will defeat the Canaanites.

Yes, God does the work, if His people are willing to obey His commandments. I pray that enough would be willing.

The Todd Bentley "revival" fall-out

"I insisted much on the necessity of a new birth, as also on the necessity of a minister's being converted before he could preach aright. Unconverted ministers are the bane of the Christian Church. I think that great and good man, Mr. Stoddard, is much to be blamed for endeavoring to prove that unconverted men might be admitted to the ministry. A sermon lately published by Gilbert Tennent, entitled 'The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry' I think unanswerable."

- George Whitefield, Journal, 1741

If you are a person who was affected by the "revival" meetings conducted by Todd Bentley in Lakeland, Florida this past year, you might be confused or asking questions in regard to the fallout surrounding his ministry.

I hope you will read what I have to say here and consider it.

Prior to August 3rd, I had an internet conversation with a friend whose church is experiencing a similar "revival" movement. I had heard a message on CD from the pastor of this church and I thought it was very sound. At the time, I spoke my mind that what I had seen of Bentley on GodTV looked "vacuous" in comparison. A few days later, Bentley was forced to step down from public ministry. I wrote to tell my friend that I blame those people responsible for endorsing this as much as Todd Bentley.

How can it be a "revival" if the leader is preaching heresy and engaging in immoral behavior?

My friend wrote back to say that it is really too bad that people have shut out Bentley's message just because he faltered.

I then explained that I shut out Bentley's message even before I knew about his moral failings. It was the message that made me shut out the message! And in the end, we know a tree by its fruit.

My friend then suggested that to be consistent I should not receive the message of God's grace carried through prophets such as King David, King Solomon or the Apostle Paul, since they too sinned. Yet they were used of God to write scripture. I might as well in effect "shut out" what they have to say about God too.

So the reasoning goes.

I've heard the "David" argument many times before.

I have one word for that idea: antinomianism.

This is the heresy that faith is divorced from works or that faith does not produce obedience to the law of God. If these men are preaching the Gospel yet living in gross unrepentant sin, then they may not even be converted.

Here is what I believe God is leading me to say about all of this.

There are revivals all over the world today. They aren't in the spotlight or on GodTV every night. But they are genuine. I am not saying we should not seek God or that there isn't something wonderful going on in churches who are promoting "revival." I am just against the idea of treating these men differently when they sin and preach heresy because they supposedly have the "anointing."

The Emperor's New Clothes

The strategy of preachers in these revival meetings -- Lakeland, Toronto, Pensacola, etc. -- is to tell people who see their nakedness, that they just aren't "spiritual" enough to receive all the wonderful things God is doing, that they are "blocking" the anointing, and so on. It's a heresy in and of itself -- elitist Gnosticism.

Beyond the issue of personal character, I don't believe that meetings emphasizing gifts, miracles and the "presence" of God are necessarily "revivals" at all. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Once we are saved, we do not become sanctified through spiritual experiences. We become sanctified by obeying God day by day as we are enabled by grace. In other words, there is no "fast track" to sanctification.

Therefore, we cannot "miss the anointing" simply because our hearts are not "open to receive" an experience. There are no higher levels of anointing you can attain in a revival meeting. It's complete nonsense. It's manipulative and it's totally contrary to the message of historic revival -- the message of the Gospel.

In 1994, I decided that experiences with God are a good thing, but you can have them in your living room -- or anywhere God chooses to move. Four years ago, God healed me of a ten day bout with atrial fibrillation in a hospital room. I was simply praying by myself. I rebuked the enemy and my heart converted to a normal rhythm. A coincidence? Maybe. I believe it was a providential healing through prayer. But this experience didn't bring me any closer to God than I was a minute before. Even though I certainly felt closer to God due to that experience, it didn't change my standing in God. Our position with God is a judicial standing, not an experience.

People feel the rush they get in a room of thousands of people worshiping God, and they assume this is the "presence" of God. It's not a bad thing to feel this, but it's totally contrary to scripture to claim that our standing with God is gained through a good feeling or an experience.

My Eyewitness Account

1. I was living in Orlando during Rodney Howard Browne's "laughing revival" in Lakeland, Florida in 1993. I visited several times and wasn't overly impressed. There was not any "supernatural presence" of God there that I could not find through personal devotion or in any church service or prayer group.
   
2. I moved to Melbourne, Florida soon after that and was disturbed by the worldly carnality of Michael W. Thompson and the antinomian teachings of Randy Clark. I wrote a position paper on that in 1994 called Revival: It's No Laughing Matter. I won't repeat the content of it here, but I tried to explain what historic revival is and why this was not it. This was several years before the leaders of that renewal movement were exposed in sin.
3. I lived in Pensacola during the Brownsville Revival. I had a friend who came all the way from Russia to sit in those meetings. He claimed it was the strongest anointing he had ever experienced. I sat there with an open mind and an open heart. I just couldn't bring myself to fake being slain in the spirit or to lie and say I experienced something amazing when all I saw was a religious meeting with a lot people seeking an experience.
4. Todd Bentley was more vacuous than all the others, but I expected the usual crowd to go along with it and claim, "This was the greatest revival since The Great Awakening!" as they always say. Even though I live in nearby Kissimmee, I did not visit the Bentley meetings.
   

How many times can people be fooled by the Emperor's new clothes?

I am nothing special. I don't have a "super-anointing" or a special gift of discernment. If it were not for the grace of God, I could be fooled too.

In fact, you may think I am fooled by a "hard heart."

So I will leave you with this.

George Whitefield preached that one of the signs of God beginning to judge a nation is that He will give the church over to unconverted ministers -- even those who do not behave as sinners -- and God will turn the people over to blindness so that they will receive them as angels of light.

How was the New Testament canon assembled?

Here's a question that I've wrestled with for about 15 years. I've changed my mind on the issue in the last two years after reading what the New Testament itself and the church fathers of the first and second centuries have to say on the issue of canonicity.

Protestants teach sola scriptura -- that all the Christian needs to know about matters pertaining to salvation is contained in scripture. And since the Bible contains no “table of contents” this presents a problem when there are challenges to the canonicity of specific books.

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believe in the authority of church councils, creeds and canons (or the "rule of faith") not only to determine matters pertaining to saving faith, but to determine the canon of Scripture itself. Here is the way one Eastern Orthodox writer put it: "The church preceded the Bible; the Bible did not precede the church." Of course, the writer was using this argument to validate the continued authority of the church to determine matters of faith and doctrine infallibly.

What I am most concerned about is how to counter the arguments of modern liberals and Neo-Gnostics who have popularized the idea that the late second century fathers, such as Irenaeus and Tertullian, began to assemble the books of the New Testament --and even to revise and edit them -- only when the Gnostics and other heretics became a threat to their authority.

Was the New Testament received as a whole or was it assembled? Most evangelicals concede that New Testament canonization was a process that took a century or more.

I posed this question to a well-known theologian once: "If we believe in sola scriptura, that the Bible alone is inerrant, how can we be sure that we have all the correct books in the Bible -- especially so-called disputed books, such as James, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Revelation. If scripture alone is inerrant, how can we infallibly know that Peter wrote 2 Peter? How do we treat disputed passages such as John 8 and Mark 16?"

He surprisingly came back with the answer that we cannot know for certain, but that he personally believes that there is enough information in the books themselves and in their history for us to today to make the correct decision.

At that time, his answer was unacceptable to me. The question has huge implications for the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. His answer cannot counter the skeptics. I then made the decision to accept the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic view that it was the church itself that was given the authority to decide the canon infallibility.

Then in the last two years, I've come across another idea that is more plausible:

The New Testament canonizes itself through internal evidence

If we begin with the writings of Peter, John and Matthew as genuine apostolic writings, we can quickly find a "pedigree" for all the books of the New Testament with the exception of Hebrews, James and Jude. And I believe even these are not a problem if we look at other internal evidences within those books and some external evidence from the book of 1 Clement that was written between 68 to 96 AD.

In fact, Peter, prior to his martyrdom in Rome, knew the writings of Paul (2 Peter 3:14-16) and therefore must have known most of the other writings of the Apostles. The majority of apostolic writings (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Paul's Epistles, Peter's Epistles) were available to Peter in Rome by the mid 60s. According to 2 Timothy 4:9-12, Luke, Mark and Timothy were in Rome at the time of the martyrdom of Paul and Peter around 67 A.D.

In fact, I look at the following passage as a key to when most of the books of the New Testament could have been assembled in one place.

“Be diligent to come to me quickly; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica -- Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry. And Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come—and the books, especially the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:9-12).

The questions we should ask here are: “Which books?” and “Which parchments?”

Parchments are blank pieces of papyrus or animal skins used for preparing manuscripts. We don’t know what “books” Paul is referring to here. Some have suggested that Paul is referring to scrolls of the Old Testament. However, it is unlikely that toward the end of his life, Paul is asking two important bishops in the early church to take a dangerous journey to Rome before winter in order to prepare an edition of the Hebrew Scriptures. It's also improbable that Paul needed the Scriptures for some other purpose. Rome had Jewish synagogues with these writings and Paul, as a rabbi, would have also committed huge portions of scripture to memory.

Paul almost certainly meant his own writings and perhaps other Apostolic writings that Timothy and Mark had assembled. It is thought that the “cloak” he refers to here is a large piece of waterproof leather used to wrap scrolls and parchments – sort of a first century book case that was used to protect parchment and papyrus when traveling.

But what is significant about this passage is that it puts five important New Testament figures in Rome around 66 or 67 AD. We know that Mark was an associate of Peter (1 Peter 5:13). The second century Church Father, Papias of Hierapolis, relates that Mark was Peter’s interpreter and wrote his Gospel as a record of what Peter preached at Rome. We know that that Timothy was Paul’s scribe (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; Philemon 1:1; Philippians 1:1). Timothy is even mentioned as being present at the writing of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 13:23). Thus I personally believe the most likely explanation for the authorship of Hebrews was that it was composed during this time as one of the final letters of Paul. The Epistle to the Hebrews was probably then redacted after Paul’s death either by either Luke, Mark or Timothy -- or perhaps by an elder or a scribe from the Church at Rome, such as Clement.

We have an interesting early testimony from Clement of Rome (c. 68-96 AD) on the whereabouts of Peter and Paul at the end of the reign of the Emperor Nero (67 AD).

“But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience” (1 Clement 5).

If we accept 1 Clement as a reliable history (although not authoritative as Scripture) then we also have to put Peter in Rome along with Paul, Luke, Mark and Timothy -- writers to whom are attributed 19 out of the 27 books of the New Testament. Thus we have these 19 books of the New Testament in Rome in about 67 AD.

This body of work was then collated passed on to the last remaining Apostle, John, in Ephesus who assembled the canon together with his own writings and passed it on to his disciples. The remaining books, the Gospel of Matthew, the Epistles of James and Jude are associated with the Jerusalem church and would have come to through Antioch to Ephesus after the destruction of Jerusalem.

This is why Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch are able to quote freely from so many New Testament books as though they were already accepted as authoritativeury and by the late first century and early second century. It is significant that these bishops represent the furthest eastern and western centers of Christianity at the end of the Apostolic era in 70 AD -- Antioch, Asia Minor and Rome. For there to be such continuity in the New Testament texts they quote, the canon must have been circulated in some type of systematic way in order for it to have reached such a wide audience.

The testimony from the late first and second century Church Fathers (Papias of Hierapolis, Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria) is that each of the books received its authority directly from the Apostles Peter, John and James the brother of Jesus.

1. The Gospel of Matthew originated in Jerusalem or Antioch and received its authority from the Apostle Matthew and the other 12 Apostles;
2. Mark received its authority from the Apostle Peter;
3. Luke from the Apostle Paul (and the 12 Apostles);
4. John from the Apostle John;
5. Acts from the Apostle Paul (and the 12 Apostles);
6. All the letters of Paul from the Apostle Peter (see: 2 Peter 3:14-16);
7. The letters of Peter from the Apostle Peter;
8. The letters of John from the Apostle John;
9. Revelation from the Apostle John;

10. Hebrews gets its earliest mention by Clement of Rome (c. 68-96 AD);

(This is the only Epistle of disputed authorship that most modern evangelical scholars think has no clear link to Paul. However, Hebrews is quoted extensively in the earliest writings, such as 1 Clement, and all the earliest church fathers believed it was of Paul.)

11. James from James the brother of Jesus (and from the 12 Apostles);
12. Jude from James (and from the 12 Apostles).

These two letters have enough internal testimony to place the authors as brothers named James and Jude in the church at Jerusalem. It's a small step of process of elimination to identify them as the brothers of Jesus.

Early Codices

Another key to confirming this view is the fact that the earliest New Testament papyri (fragments from the 2nd and 3rd centuries) were bound in codices of five books:

1. The four Gospels;
2. Paul's nine Epistles to the seven churches plus Hebrews;
3. Paul's five Pastoral Epistles;
4. The seven Catholic Epistles;
5. Revelation.

In fact, the earliest fragments from the mid-second century appear right around the time that "books" came into use of rather than scrolls. It is then not too much of a stretch to say that the early Christians scribes either popularized or invented the codex in order to collate the books of the New Testament and distribute them over a wide geographical area. This would eliminate the problem of having a separate scroll for each book that might be lost or damaged.

We should then examine the earliest testimony of the Church fathers, especially Papias, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria to confirm the apostolic authority and authentic authorship of the New Testament books. Irenaeus is arguing to defend the canon against heretics who would make the number of Gospels more or less. He is writing as if this is already established, not as one who is arguing to establish a canon. Irenaeus, a student of Polycarp, received the canon from the generation of Christians who were taught by the Apostles themselves. The term that evangelicals should use is “receive as canonical,” rather than “determine” or “choose” which books were canonical. Thus the canon was not assembled over a long period of time, but was known by the second and third generation of Christians who defended its authority against the claims of heretics.

Another important key is the Muratorian Canon (170 AD) is the earliest list of the New Testament books. It names all of the New Testament books in our canon today with the exception of James –- which could have been overlooked or mentioned in a missing portion of the fragment.

From this, I draw the conclusion that a New Testament canon existed at the very latest by the early-second century, and there is strong evidence that all 27 books of the New Testament were known as Scripture at the end of the first century by bishops such as Clement of Rome, Papias of Hierapolis, Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch.

My response to a cynic on the chronology of Jesus' life

John Armstrong -- Jesus' doubter, cynic and Deist -- posted a video response to The Real Jesus. Above is his video and here is my written response to him. I may do a video response if I have time.

I've written on most of the points you bring up in your video on my blog and on my YouTube V-logs. I think maybe that's why you linked to my v-log in the first place.

I don't see any new objections here.

That being said, biblical chronology is interesting to me and I've come to the conclusion in the past two years that it's a key issue in solving a lot of theological debates within the church as well as apologetic battles with skeptics and seekers.

I am a partial preterist, so I think that the 70 A.D. mark is important to help Christians understand not only the book of Revelation and the Mount Olivet Discourse, but also why the NT was written when it was written and why these dates are non-negotiable.

I presuppose that the NT is correct. I admit my bias. I also reason backward in time from the 70 A.D. mark to get certain dates.

Here is one time marker for example: The Mount Olivet Discourse can't be correct unless it was given in or after 30 A.D. "This generation shall not pass away until all these things shall take place" -- speaking of the destruction of the Temple.

A Hebrew generation is 40 years, so that gives the EARLIEST year for the Mount Olivet Discourse and the crucifixion which took place that same time.

30 A.D. plus 40 years = 70 A.D.

Since Jews never entered the rabbinical ministry before their 30th year (which is actually age 29 in Hebrew reckoning) then Jesus entered the ministry at age 29 or 30. If three Passovers are recorded in the Gospels, then that would give a date of 26 or 27 A.D. when Jesus reached age 30.

So when was Jesus born?

If you subtract 30 from 27 A.D. The birth of Jesus occurred around 4 B.C.

John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:36). He entered the ministry in the days of Pontius Pilate (26 A.D; Luke 3:1).

Here I think Luke is giving really specific dates. Jesus could not have been younger than 33-years-old in 30 A.D. and John the Baptist could not have entered the ministry prior to 26 A.D.

John the Baptist was conceived in the days of Herod (Luke 1:5; 2:1). Here, Luke refers to King Herod the Great of Judea and NOT Herod Antipas, who he later names as Herod Tetrarch of Galilee (Luke 3:1).

Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.

So from this much alone, Luke's account matches Matthew's. John the Baptist was born in 5 B.C. (Luke 1:5; 2:1) and Jesus was born no later than 4 B.C. during the last months of the reign of Herod (Matthew 2:1).

This chronology matches other dates such as the beginning of Pilate's administration coinciding with John the Baptist's ministry (26 A.D.) and the administration of Herod's sons (Luke 3:1).

Now let's deal with Quirinius.

Your entire argument rests on the idea that Quirinius had NO ADMINISTRATION WHATSOEVER over Syria during Herod the Great's reign. You don't prove that he did NOT. You say you have contrary evidence, but you do NOT cite it.

However, I have in Justin at least one historical record to corroborate this.

Justin, Apology, Chapt 34: "And hear what part of earth He was to be born in, as another prophet, Micah, foretold. He spoke thus: 'And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Governor, who shall feed My people.' Now there is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judaea."

Quirinius was a ruler in the eastern Roman Empire from the time of 14 B.C. to 12 A.D. 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). Justin's "First Apology" indicaties that he either was a co-ruler with the governor of Syria (Quintilius Varus) over Judea or at least placed in charge of the census in Judea.

So Quirinius is hardly a problem if you believe Justin. He was not the "governor" of Syria, but simply a "procurator" in both Judea and Syria. In fact, the phrase "hegemoneuontos tes Syrias Kyreniou" (Luke 2:2) can be taken to mean ANY kind of ruler. The word "hegemonoi" in Greek can mean a variety of titles meaning ruler, governor, procurator, authority, etc.

For instance, Pilate is also called a "hegemonoi," in the New Testament, but Herod of Judea (another of Herod the Great's son) was the Tetrarch at the time of the crucifixion. Pilate was a prefect or a procurator, yet he had greater authority than Herod of Judea. It's no problem since "hegemonoi" is translated variously as governor, procurator, prefect, in the New Testament.

Furthermore, Roman rulers often held more than one title in a province and sometimes held titles over several provinces.

Justin records that Quirinius was a "procurator of Judea." Other histories record that this would have been while Varus and Saturnius served as governors.

Why would Luke then call him "governor of Syria" if he were simply a regional procurator? Why does he not name Varus or Saturnius? There is no contradiction here. He could have had MORE AUTHORITY than Varus or Saturnius, just as Pilate had more authority than Herod.

It's also interesting that Justin didn't simply copy Luke and call him "governor of Syria" -- he calls him "procurator of Judea." Sometimes historical accounts that don't match exactly just give MORE information not necessarily contradictory information. And more importantly, whether he was right or wrong, Justin obviously used another source than Luke -- one that puts Quirinius in the right place at the right time.

Tertullian also does the same thing in his fourth book Against All Heresies: "But there is historical proof that at this very time a census had been taken in Judaea by Sentius Saturninus, which might have satisfied their inquiry respecting the family and descent of Christ."

Note that Tertullian mentions Saturnius, and doesn't simply copy Luke. He can't be making it up because he states emphatically that proof of the census existed.

So if we try to reconcile the various sources, we have information that Jesus was born when Herod was governor of Judea, Saturnius had been governor of Syria and a ruler of Judea, and Varus had been governor of Syria, and Quirinus was procurator of both Syria and Judea.

If all the secular dates are correct that puts Jesus' birth in an 18 month window from late 6 B.C. to early 4 B.C.

A lot of these questions about overlapping administrations are understood better if you see a map of Palestine and realize how small the area is. We are talking about an area 100 miles in length to travel from Judea, through Samaria, Galilee, Iturea, then to Syria and Abilene. Then Asia Minor begins about 200 miles north of that area.

As you stated correctly, Quirinius was in Asia Minor overseeing campaigns against the Homonadensians from 5 to 3 B.C. This campaign was waged in Cilicia in the southeastern part of Asia Minor. He would have been on the border of Syria. So it's possible to place him in Syria sometime from 6 to 4 B.C. We know he was at the most 100 to 200 miles away.

I've given you a plausible time-line. But for the sake of argument, let's say you are right and that Tacitus contradicts Luke about Quirinius. At the very most, all you've proven is that Tacitus and Luke disagree and so at last one of them is wrong. You must admit that secular historians often make mistakes!

You raise several other points too, but I think those are much weaker and fairly easy to refute. These concern the arrangement of materials in the Gospels but it is well know that Matthew and John don't always arrange their materials chronologically, but are concerned with thematic arrangement. A good harmony of the Gospels is needed. I can point you to one if you want.

I think if the discussion were to be continued it ought to be on a forum such as TheologyWeb, or as a forum on our websites.

That being said, we are covering ground that has been covered thousands of times before.

Do you want to talk about the census next?

Skeptic doubts Jesus' words

Here's the most recent question posed by a viewer of The Real Jesus:

"The Real Jesus: Opening (1 of 10)."
Comment from archieabe
I have a comment for you on a related topic, if I may: The typical Christian believer today seems to think that he or she knows what Jesus said and what Jesus did over 19 centuries ago. In reality, no living mortal today knows (beyond a reasonable doubt) what Jesus said or did way back in the 1st century A.D. No one. Your thoughts?

It's on the same level as doubting that Abraham Lincoln really gave the Gettysburg Address.

This is a speech that many school children are taught to memorize. "Despite the speech's prominent place in the history and popular culture of the United States, the exact wording of the speech is disputed. The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address differ in a number of details and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech."

We don't have the original copy of the Gettysburg Address that Lincoln reputedly wrote on the back of a letter on a train on the way to the ceremony. So who is to say that the Gettysburg Address isn't the product of the imagination of a popular newspaper writer?

One might counter that the five newspaper reprints prove that a speech was given and from the similarities we can reconstruct what Lincoln said to a 98 percent or better probability. Given the nature of human language, the high degree of similarity is evidence that Lincoln did in fact give the speech and that is approximately what we have today with some small edits by newspaper writers.

But doubters and conspiracy theorists can say that the above photo isn't really Lincoln and point to a number of problems with the "obviously doctored photo."

When we compare this analogy to the Gospel accounts, we are basically dealing with the same issues, the same degree of similarity between variant manuscripts, and a larger body of manuscript evidence.

We must also take into account that the disciples preserved Jesus' teachings, not His exact words. A preacher who gives an early morning sermon and a late morning sermon varies his words and content, but might be said to have "preached the same sermon." That is what we have with the sayings of Jesus. The "Sermon on the Mount" contains roughly the same words as the "Sermon on the Plain." In other words, the recorded words of Jesus are teachings that were repeated by Jesus and committed to memory by His disciples.

Here I remind the skeptic that he can probably remember the words to popular songs he heard when he was a teenager. He can recall all but a few words (or perhaps a line) many years later. My elementary school teachers made us memorize poems that I can easily recall today (with some refreshing). This was essentially how the Gospel was preserved for about 15 to 20 years -- but by the time Paul began preaching in the 50s, we know that there had been a "Gospel" that various itinerant evangelists had committed to memory. This is the Gospel that later became Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

We have to take into account that the words of Jesus were probably given in Hebrew or a dialect of Hebrew such as Aramaic. The "Gospel" survived this way for about a decade or two before someone thought to record it in Hebrew or Aramaic and then later in Greek. So the four different Greek renderings of the same account are going to have some natural variations.

In fact, the testimony of the church fathers is that Matthew was a "Hebrew" Gospel later rendered into Greek around 63 or 64 A.D.

According to Papias, Mark was the "rendering" of Peter's Gospel told to Mark, Peter's interpreter at Rome. Mark's Gospel was originally Peter's Gospel in Aramaic, but the Greek version is Mark's rendering of what Peter preached.

Then Luke is Paul's Gospel. It has the core of the "proto-Gospel" preached by Matthew and Mark with the addtion of some carefully researched details told to Luke by disciples and family members of Jesus he had known in Jerusalem, Antioch and Ephesus.


The Gospel of John was written with the help of a committee of elders who helped John recall some of Jesus acts and words not preserved in the three so-called "Synoptic" Gospels.

This is the early historical record of how the four Gospels were written. This rings true if we understand anything about how all the Hebrew scriptures came into being. Usually being the record of the sayings of prophets told to scribes and later purposefully redacted in some small details.

We also have to remember that the accounts were not written in a vacuum, but were continually preserved by eyewitnesses who knew each other well and had the opportunity to correct details if someone introduced something novel or deviant from the original words or events.

There is also manuscript evidence as well as several historical accounts that testify to this process. The theories of the liberal critics on how the Gospels came into being are without any documentary evidence and rest on pure conjecture.

Here is an image of the Rylands fragment, which is a portion of the Gospel of John copied about 115 A.D. Critics variously claim a date of 67 to 96 A.D. for John's Gospel. The amazing thing about this fragment is that it matches exactly the words of documents that were copied centuries later which is the basis for the Gospel of John we have today.

Although it is a fragment, it contains a portion of John on both the front and the reverse. The text is approximately where it should be on the reverse if the words of today's accepted Gospel of John were the same.


In other words, this particular fragment is more reliable than the Gettysburg Address!

Was Moses tripping?

Professor Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, experienced a hallucinatory trip a few years ago when he participated in a tribal ceremony in the Amazon and drank a cocktail made from a plant called "ayahuasca."

This experience led him to believe that the miracles and visions Moses experienced in the Sinai desert, and presumably when Pharoah in Egypt witnessed miracles, were nothing more than delusions induced by acid trips.

"I have no direct proof of this interpretation," he says. "It seems logical that something was altered in people's consciousness. There are other stories in the Bible that mention the use of plants: for example, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden."

Of his own drug use, Shanon says, "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations. Hypotheses have been around for 20 years connecting the beginning of religions with psychoactive materials."

The acacia tree also has psychedelic properties, according to Shanon. Acacia is mentioned frequently in the Bible. It was the type of wood from which the Ark of the Covenant was made.

Metaphysical Naturalism

Metaphysical naturalism is a worldview in which nature is all there is, and all things supernatural, such as spirits and souls, supernatural beings, miracles, and transcendent truth as taught by the Bible, do not exist.

This view is distinguished from methodological naturalism, which is a worldview that claims that the scientific method is limited to the study of the natural world, but unlike metaphysical naturalism does not deny the possibility of supernatural or paranormal phenomena.

In other words, a methodological naturalist who believes the Bible is God's inerrant Word may do so without violating the principles of science, because the scientific method cannot use natural means to study the supernatural. It is simply not the purpose of science to prove or disprove the supernatural. It's not a proper measuring tool any more than a yard stick can be used to measure barometric pressure. For instance, science can be used to tell us something about the world's geological history and it's possible origin, but it cannot ever negate the possibility of a Creation in six days.

Much of the western world has absorbed the philosophy of Enlightenment thinkers such as Hume, Kant and Hegel, who moved from a belief that the proper role of philosophy and science was to study only natural phenomena, to a presupposition that the supernatural simply does not exist.

The metaphysical naturalist rejects the supernatural from the outset and automatically discounts any belief system that includes God or a supernatural world as primitive superstition.

The common method of metaphysical naturalists when interpreting the Bible is to reject the miracles and doubt both the history and authenticity of the literature that would give any credence to eyewitness records of supernatural events. However, much of the Bible is supported by corroborating history and archaeology. It gives historical context and purports eyewitness testimony.

The metaphyscial naturalist, if he is to be consistent with a scientific trust in empirical records, has to accept that at least some of these phenomena have a basis in fact. He is left with the only option of reinterpreting the data in terms of a "scientific explanation." The Apostle John on Patmos saw visions because he ate wild mushrooms. The Ark of the Covenant shot bolts of lightning because it was a giant primitive battery. Visions and revelations are the result of psychological stress and trauma. And so on.

Hence Shanon's hypothesis. He guesses that Ten Commandments, with the voice of God heard in the "thunder," had its origin in a psychedelic experience.

Was Moses tripping when he heard the Law of God?

"But not everyone who uses a plant like this brings the Torah," Shanon concedes. "For that, you have to be Moses."

Shanon should know. He reports that since his Amazon trip, he has used the plant hundreds of times.

C.S. Lewis on the Liberal Higher Criticism of the Bible

"These men ask me to believe they can read between the lines of old texts; the evidence is their obvious inability to read (in any sense worth discussing) the lines themselves. They claim to see fern-seed and can't see an elephant ten yards away in broad daylight."

C. S. Lewis, "Modern Thought and Biblical Criticism," Christian Reflection, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1967), p. 157.

Bible Babylon (part 5)

Manuscript Evidence for the Reliability of the New Testament

Left: a leaf from Codex Vaticanus. Click on the image to see a larger view.

When we say that the Bible has over 25,000 early manuscripts that prove its reliability, we are talking about mainly documents from the fifth century onward. These are "early" compared to the documents supporting most other ancient works. Yet there are about one hundred early manuscripts from the second to the fourth century that were not known to us until the late 1800s and the most significant of these have been rediscovered in the last 60 years.

To understand why so many of the early manuscript copies have been lost, we need to first look at two mediums for writing that were used in ancient times, papyrus and vellum.

Papyrus is similar to modern day paper – it was durable and inexpensive – yet most papyrus could not last more than a few hundred years without crumbling into dust. Therefore, most of the papyrus manuscripts from more than 1500 years ago are fragments, decaying pages or at best books with significant parts missing.

Vellum is made from animal skins processed into parchments used for writing. The oldest scrolls and books from ancient times are parchments of the highest quality. The problem with vellum is that even though it was available during the time of the first writing of the New Testament, it was expensive and only became a common medium for the New Testament when the church became state-sponsored at the time of the Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D.

In fact, Constantine commissioned Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea to produce 50 copies of the complete Bible on vellum in 332 A.D. The two oldest nearly complete biblical manuscripts we have from ancient times, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus were probably copied sometime between 325 to 350 A.D. Many think that these are copies from one of Eusebius’ manuscripts and perhaps two of the original 50 manuscripts, although some think Vaticanus may be a few years older than Eusebius’ copies.

Codex Vaticanus contains nearly the entire Bible except for Genesis 1:1–46:2 and ends abruptly at Hebrews 9:14 lacking also 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Revelation. Thus the beginning and end of the manuscript were lost. Yet despite its great importance, Vaticanus was almost unknown prior to the 1800s. It had been in the possession of the Vatican library since at least the 1300s, hence the name, but no one knew exactly how old it actually was and was inaccessible to scholars until the end of the 1800s.

Likewise, Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1859 by Constantin Tischendorf in a convent at the foot of Mount Sinai. Tischendorf wrote that the codex was actually in a pile of parchments waiting to be burned as trash when he rescued it! Sinaiticus contains the entire Greek Bible, plus the Epistle of Barnabas and most of the Shepherd of Hermas (early Christian writings which were widely used in teaching). It is believed to be from the fourth century, but later than Vaticanus. The two great codices are in general agreement and both attest to the general reliability of the received text. In fact, Codex Vaticanus was later used by Hort and Westcott in their edition, The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881).

For those wanting to research for themselves the textual reliability of the New Testament over two millennia, I suggest purchasing an interlinear Greek New Testament that has a literal word for word rendering in English above each Greek word in the text and usually a modern English translation of the scriptures in the side column. The simple conclusion any honest inquirer will draw is that the New Testament scriptures have come down to us in virtually unaltered form.

Bible Babylon (part 4)

What about variant texts in biblical manuscripts?

I was first introduced to the concept of biblical textual criticism in a biblical interpretation class sponsored by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary at the Center for Urban Ministries in Boston. The professor teaching the course was a conservative who nevertheless upset many of the evangelical pastors in attendance by leading a discussion on how variants in newly discovered New Testament manuscripts have altered newer translations of the Bible such as the New American Standard Bible and the New International Version.

The thought that even small portions of the Bible are in dispute rankles evangelicals because it is thought that the original autographs of the Bible were inspired of God and therefore inerrant and infallible. There is no quick and easy answer to this question, but any editor can tell you that the text of a manuscript is often adjusted as it is prepared for publication in different editions. This occurs for many reasons.

These reasons may include:

1. Corrections and mistakes that have crept into the text due to careless copying;
2. Adjusting spelling and grammar to reflect modern changes to the language;
3. Smoothing of the text for style and consistency;
4. Edits for emphasis or to make the meaning of certain words and phrases more clear.

The long and short end of the discussion was that none of these minor variants affect the meaning of any text in the New Testament.

Skeptics and atheists who criticize the Bible’s integrity like to point out that among the 25,000 manuscripts and portions of the Bible there are supposedly hundreds of thousands of variants.

My answer to this is that the number of “variants” depends on what you use as your denominator.

If variant means simply the total number of places where the text varies in each manuscript, then the number is high simply because each variant text is counted each time it occurs in any text. For instance, let’s say that an original manuscript had the Greek word for “him” in the text, but a scribe decided that the word is better understood in the reflexive tense as “himself.”

The new manuscript is then copied 2027 times. This would equal 2028 in this way of numbering “variants.” The numerator here is each instance of a variant in all manuscripts over a denominator of 1.

2028/1 then equals 2028 variants.

But if we count each example of the variant only once, whether the same variant occurs once or over 2000 times in different manuscripts, the number shrinks dramatically because the same variant copied over and again are counted only as one variant.

2027/2027 + 1 equals one variant and the original. So there are only two variants.

We also need to distinguish between “significant” and “insignificant.”

If a word is spelled differently or contains a different case or tense, but means the same thing, then it is thought to be an insignificant variant. For instance, if meaning of the original “him” was reflexive and a scribe simply wished to emphasize this, then practically speaking these 2027 instances of the “himself” variant are insignificant because it doesn't change the meaning of the text at all.

It is only when the actual meaning of a sentence changes even slightly that the variant is termed “significant.”

How to number the total amount of variants that would significant change the meaning of a text is highly subjective. Just to give an idea of how insignificant even the most “significant” of these variations can be, the following example is often used. In some early manuscripts, the word “yet” does not appear in John 7:8. Some manuscripts read, “I am not going up to this feast,” while others read, “I am not yet going up to the feast.” Then John 7:10 says, “However, after his brothers had left for the feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.” Some critics say that a copyist probably added the word “yet” to verse 8 to bring it in harmony with verse 10 and prevent the appearance that Jesus lied even though the original text would not have included “yet.”

However, editors of the most recent modern translations of the Bible agree that the total number of significant variants in the New Testament is somewhere between 300 to 1500. The modern translations mentioned above include these variants in the form of footnotes. Usually these are small words or different spellings of place names and people’s names.

If you are like me, such differences seem trite. In fact, the professor of the biblical interpretation class I was attending challenged us that if one’s faith was shaken by such variants, then it was not really a true “faith” in God. In fact, no text – even including modern printed texts that also contain errors – could withstand such a scrutiny of details if this would be our definition of “inerrancy.”

This does not affect the concept of inerrancy because the general meaning is not changed at all. Inerrancy does not mean that there is no variation is the 25,000 manuscripts of the Bible available to us. It simply means that none of the variations in the most reliable texts are so significant that the meaning of the text varies from copy to copy. The transmission of divine inspiration isn’t dependant of an exact wording nor on how the meaning of the text is rendered; but solely on a facet of divine intent that is communicated by the text. If this were not true then books could not be translated into various languages without losing the sense or meaning of the texts.

The loudest detractors to the Bible's accuracy and reliability are the atheists and skeptics who use the “hundreds of thousands of errors” argument as a weak propaganda ploy. However, the objection that supposedly “the Bible is full of errors” is based on such variants as those found in John 7:8. The vast majority of variants are not “significant” and even those variants that are significant do not change the meaning of the text so greatly that the original intent of the larger passage is lost. Christians who have examined the evidence first hand are often surprised at how trivial these differences really are.

Although some of the earliest New Testament manuscripts are corrupted and contain many copyist errors, these manuscripts are easy to discern as bad manuscripts. There are a number of early manuscripts that match the received text almost exactly, while worst of the New Testament manuscripts are still over 90 percent similar to the received text.

Many ancient works of literature have only one existing manuscript written hundreds of years after the originals. The Bible has literally thousands of manuscripts – and over a hundred of these still existing manuscripts were copied very early – from about 120 A.D. to 400 A.D. – more manuscript evidence than any other ancient writing.

Bible Babylon (part 3)

Lower criticism vs. Higher criticism

To fully understand German Higher Criticism, one must first examine the social and political situation in Germany and Europe in the mid to late-1800s. To understand the background of these men sheds incredible light on their motivations and lends nothing but discredit to their conclusions.

The German “Higher Criticism” gets is name as a distinguishing mark from the so-called lower criticism. Lower criticism is named because it is the first method of criticism and the foundation for all other criticism. Lower criticism is simply textual criticism of the various early manuscripts of the Bible. Christians should be involved in the study of lower criticism because it attempts to determine the original wording of the original text of the scriptures. Higher criticism then analyzes the text to determine its authorship, date of composition, literary structure, and meaning.

Higher criticism in its basic meaning is just interpreting the text. Anyone who has an opinion on what the Bible means is a higher critic. However, “Higher Criticism” (especially when capitalized) has come to have the connotation of the liberal criticism that began in Germany in the 1800s. The Higher Critics purported to study the Bible as they would any other literary document, but in reality they approached it with a high degree of skepticism attempting to discredit the historicity and reliability of the received texts. Not only are the received texts doubted, but the early dates of composition are interpreted as spurious and the authors as pseudonymous. In other words, the books of the Bible were written at a much later date than claimed in the text by unknown authors using the names of apostles and prophets.

Much of the discussion among today's liberal critics revolves around methods of interpretation that make the people, places and events of scripture allegorical not intended to be read as history. The fact is that these works were received by ancient Jews and Christians as historically accurate documents by authentic authors. To impute a figurative or allegorical intention on the part of the authors is essentially accusing these men as being false prophets who intentionally and fraudulently forged the names of historical persons on their works in some sort of perverse religious power play.

Up until the 1800s, the view was that the books of the Bible were written by the named authors approximately at the time the events occurred. This wasn’t questioned simply because there was no hard evidence to the contrary. Then came the Enlightenment. Rationalists began to apply the skepticism of modern science to literary criticism. The burden of proof shifted from the skeptic having to prove the Bible was false, to believers having to prove it was true. The persons, places and events of scripture were deemed “guilty until proven innocent.” Therefore, much of the work of the higher critics has been pure speculation. For example, they might try to guess the motivation of the person who wrote the Gospel of Matthew based on conjectural imputations to the author’s character and motivations.

The problem with much of the speculation of liberal higher criticism is that it is based on the idea that the received texts are not authentic and reliable documents. This ignores the fact that “lower” textual criticism began very early. We actually have canonical lists, extensive commentaries and criticisms of the variant texts as early as the second century. The Higher Critics treated these sources skeptically as a basis for biblical interpretation while ignoring the huge amount of data and documents for use in textual analysis.

Prior to the 20th century, the received text from which all English translations were compiled relied heavily on the Latin Vulgate, the Bible translated by Jerome in early fifth century Rome from the Hebrew Masoretic text, the Septuagint and the Greek codices of the New Testament. Codices (singular: “codex”) is simply a name for the earliest books. Up until about the first or second centuries ancient writers wrote on scrolls or tablets. In fact, books in their modern form were probably invented by Christians as a method of collating the various books of the New Testament and other Christian writings.

Jerome relied on the version of the Greek New Testament known as the Western Text. There are several surviving manuscript “families” from the early church era. These codices are derived from the three great centers of Christianity in the early centuries, Byzantium, Alexandria and Rome.

No one today knows exactly what the original autographs of the New Testament looked like, but textual criticism had proven that the text has altered so little over thousands of years, that we can be certain that few changes have entered into the picture. Even if small portions of the text have been altered, none of these changes would be considered significant in changing the overall meaning of a passage. Evangelicals and conservatives accept the authenticity and reliability of the received text which has come to us through the Latin Vulgate with some modern translations making some minor redaction due to a comparison of recent discoveries of early copies of Greek versions of the Western, Eastern (Byzantine) and Alexandrian texts. If we were to compile a list of these variants, we could fit them all on one page.

The reason for these variants is that no ancient or medieval manuscript -- even up until the time of William Shakespeare -- is without variations. No ancient work comes down to us from an original copy – or “autograph” – and most are derived from copies of copies that are hundreds and even thousands of years older than the originals. Since all books were copied by hand, mistakes in copying entered into the equation. It is also certain that scribes edited or added materials in order to make the text more understandable to the reader, to modernize spellings or numbering systems, to add their own contribution or put a “spin” on the work of literature.

The Hebrew Bible and the Christian scriptures we treated differently. Since the scriptures were considered to be inspired oracles of God, there are warnings in the text prohibiting changes by scribes. Holy Scripture was obviously treated differently than stories and poems told for entertainment purposes and even histories. However, small mistakes and changes for various reasons entered in. For instance, out of the thousands of manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament available for study, there are some manuscripts that are highly corrupted and may be easily separated from what is called the “majority text” which is derived from a comparison between the oldest manuscripts that have the highest degree of agreement.

The most common type of textual corruption in the most reliable manuscripts of the Bible consists of small words, spellings of names, prepositions and numbers. Lower criticism is the process of arriving at a text that is closest to what the original autographs looked like. Since there are thousands more extant manuscripts of Bible than of other ancient manuscripts, we can be more certain about the text of scripture than about any other ancient or medieval work of literature.

It is generally agreed that the majority text derived from the most reliable manuscripts is at least 99.5 percent accurate to what the original autographs had. Such a high degree of reliability is so unlikely, that many Christians see a divine Providence in the preservation of scripture.

The Reliability of the Hebrew Bible

The earliest surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible were originally copied from the so-called “Masoretic text.” Up until 1947, the earliest Hebrew manuscript of the Hebrew text was from about 900 A.D. Since the text was 1copied 200 to 2000 years after than the original autographs, modern critics had legitimate questions as to how many mistakes had entered into the received text. Much of this concern over textual reliability was laid to rest after the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, which were at least 1000 years older than the oldest surviving copies of the Masoretic text. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, not only do we have portions of all the books of the Old Testament (except Esther) from deep antiquity, but we can compare long portions of these biblical manuscripts to the Masoretic text. To put it simply, the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed the reliability of the received text of the Hebrew scriptures to a surprising degree.

Unfortunately, even the most durable scrolls and parchments don’t last thousands of year. So if we want to see what the Bible looked like at the time of King David for instance, we have to rely on artifacts other than paper, which are few and far between.

The oldest biblical scroll yet discovered are the two silver scrolls uncovered at Ketef Hinnom near Jerusalem in 1979. This artifact is 400 years older than the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts, and perhaps older. One is inscribed with portions of the Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers.

Numbers 6:25--Yahweh bless you and keep you;
Numbers 6:25--Yahweh make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
Numbers 6:26--Yahweh lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Left: One of the silver scrolls of Ketef Hinnom

The bold words are missing from the inscription (probably to save space on a small amulet) but this is undoubtedly a quotation from the Pentateuch. The amulet is thought to be from about 725 to 650 B.C. Another silver scroll from the same time period contains allusions to the book of Deuteronomy. At this early date, the combination of two different passages from the Pentateuch proves that a larger document containing these texts was composed prior Josiah’s reform and not after the return from Babylon under Ezra as the Higher Critics maintained.

The existence of this text lays waste to the Higher Critical “Documentary Hypothesis,” the theory that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, but that large segments of the first five books of the Bible were written in the period of Ezra, 400 to 500 B.C. The documentary hypothesis arguments revolve around the use of YHWH, the divine name of God, which the Higher Critics claimed was a later innovation after the more primitive names of ELOHIM and ADONAI.

The fact that the silver scrolls contain the name YHWH refutes the entire basis for the theory. Since the skeptical speculations of the Higher Critics have so often been wrong, the burden of proof ought to shift toward the liberal theologians. The hard evidence is in favor of the Bible’s authenticity. Notions of a “Documentary Hypothesis” have been weighed in the balance and found bankrupt. This hasn't stopped the liberal critics of course. The documentary hypothesis has been simply adjusted to fit the new evidence and is still accepted in many academic circles.

What does the evidence really tell us? When we compare the textual integrity of the Old Testament against comparisons of the manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a few tablets describing the kings of Israel and the two silver scrolls, we can be confident that the text of the Old Testament has remained consistent and reliable for thousands of years.

How old is the oldest Latin manuscript of the Bible?

I was talking to internet radio show host Joe Wyro, a pastor from Chicago, about the integrity and reliability of the New Testament. We were talking about the three most famous disputed passages in the New Testament: 1 John 5:7-8 (the so-called Johannine Comma, which I've written on) ; John 7:53-8:11; and Mark 16:9-20.

Basically, the argument comes down to whether or not one thinks the earliest extant Greek manuscripts of the Bible are more reliable than the church fathers and the later Latin manuscripts of the Bible. Up until the 1800s, biblical scholarship relied mainly on the Textus Receptus, a manuscript of textual consensus that was compiled from the Latin Vulgate, the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Septuagint. But then dozens of older Greek manuscripts were discovered in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Because there are textual variations in these manuscripts, a debate over the correct text of the New Testament ensued with many textual critics arriving at the conclusion that many of these passages ought to be changed in modern translations.

I am not claiming to know conclusively the answer to this question, but I have some objections to the modern liberal approach of redacting the received text.

1. Some of the church fathers quoted these passages as though they were scripture. So if they were added, they were added prior to the early second century. And since we have no manuscript evidence from the first century, there is no way to prove that these passages were added.

2. The church fathers who translated the New Testament from Greek to Old Latin and Vulgar Latin were living a lot closer to the source and certainly had more early manuscript copies than we do today. Therefore, I don't see any reason why modern critics would know better than early textual critics.

3. We assume that just because a manuscript is older it is better. Yet the Dead Sea Scroll proved to us that the surviving copies of the Masoretic text, which were copied hundreds of years after than the oldest surviving Greek Septuagint manuscripts, were generally more reliable than their Greek translation counterparts. There is no reason why copies in Latin -- which is more closely related to Greek than Greek is to Hebrew -- would be so much less reliable than Greek copies of the New Testament especially in identifying interpolated and deleted passages.

I explained to my pastor friend that the passages in question are found in the oldest surviving Latin manuscripts and in quotations in the Church Fathers. Then I was then asked something I did not know the answer to.

How old is the oldest Latin manuscript of the Bible?

The answer depends on whether we mean the whole Bible or significant fragments. Are we talking about both the Old Testament or the New Testament? It also depends on whether we mean the Latin Vulgate or the "Old Latin" manuscripts.

This following is compiled from various Internet sources.

What are the oldest extant Latin manuscripts of the Bible?

The official Latin version of the Roman Catholic Church was prepared between A.D. 383–405 by St. Jerome (c.342–420). This is the Latin Vulgate. Prior to that there were some Old Latin texts of the Bible. The term "Old Latin" or "Vetus Latina" refers to classical Latin as opposed to the Latin of common vernacular or "Vulgar Latin" from which the Vulgate gets its name. There is no single version of the Old Latin Bible, and many have significant corruptions and variants. Jerome was commissioned by the Bishop of Rome to produce a reliable text based on a good Latin translation of the Greek.

Old Latin Texts

The language of the Old Latin translations is uneven in quality, as Augustine of Hippo lamented in De Doctrina Christiana (2,16). Grammatical mistakes abound; some reproduce literally Greek or Hebrew idioms as they appear in the Septuagint. Likewise, the various Old Latin translations reflect the various versions of the Septuagint circulating, with the African manuscripts (such as the Codex Bobiensis) preserving readings of the Western text-type, while readings in the European manuscripts are closer to the Byzantine text-type. Many grammatical idiosyncrasies come from the use of Vulgar Latin grammatical forms in the text.

The Latin Vulgate

With the publication of Jerome's Vulgate, which offered a single, stylistically consistent Latin text translated from the original tongues, the Vetus Latina gradually fell out of use. Jerome, in a letter, complains that his new version was initially disliked by Christians who were familiar with the phrasing of the old translations. However, as copies of the complete Bible were infrequently found, Old Latin translations of various books of the Bible were copied into manuscripts along side Vulgate translations, inevitably exchanging readings; Old Latin translations of single books can be found in manuscripts as late as the 13th century.

Jerome was originally commissioned to produce a Latin text of the four Gospels based on the most reliable Greek manuscripts. But he was soon able to complete the entire Bible from the Greek including a translation of the Greek Old Testament including the apocrypha which he considered non-canonical. For this he used the Hexapla, a polyglot version of the Old Testament in six columns that contained the Hebrew Masoretic text, a Greek transliteration, the Septuagint, and Greek translations by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion,

From 390 to 405 A.D., Jerome eventually began translating the Old Testament from the Hebrew. By this time, he believed that the Masoretic text was the superior version. But the received text of the Vulgate comes from the Hexapla. Most modern English translations until the 1900s relied on the received text.

In my own study of translated Dead Sea Scrolls along side the Received Text, the differences are minuscule.

The Oldest Latin manuscripts

The oldest known Latin manuscript of the Bible is a lengthy fragment of the New Testament known as Codex Vercellensis (the "Codex of Vercelli"). It part of a collection of biblical manuscript codices preserved in the cathedral library of Vercelli, in the Province of Vercelli, Italy.

Codex Vercellensis is from the 4th century. It is a purple-stained vellum codex, the earliest manuscript of the "Old Latin" Gospels (called simply "Codex a"). The Gospels are in the usual order of the Western Church — Matthew, John, Luke and Mark. It does not now contain the last twelve verses of the Gospel of Mark. It is generally believed to have been written under the direction of bishop Eusebius of Vercelli.

It's interesting that some Greek and Latin codices had Mark as the last Gospel. Could this be the sole reason why the last 16 verses are missing from the oldest extant Greek and Latin manuscripts?

Greek/Latin Diglots

There is a diglot manuscript, with Greek on one page and Latin on the other facing side, called Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis. It contains most of the four Gospels and Acts and a small part of III John. This codex is from the 5th century.

Another diglot manuscript, Codex Claromontanus is a 6th century manuscript containing only the Epistles of Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews in Greek and Latin on facing pages.

The Oldest Latin Vulgate manuscripts

The Codex Fuldensis dates from around 545 A.D. It contains most of the New Testament in the Vulgate version, but the four Vulgate Gospels are harmonized into a continuous narrative derived from the Diatessaron.

The Codex Amiatinus is the earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate version. Originally three copies of the Bible were commissioned by Ceolfrid, an Anglo Saxon monk, in 692 A.D. The only surviving copy is dated to 716 A.D.

The Codex Amiatinus is considered to be the most accurate copy of St. Jerome's text. A very aged Ceolfrid undertook to carry one copy to the Pope in Rome personally. After a long sea voyage, he landed in Germany, but war detained him in the monastery of Langres in Burgundy, where he died. This is thought to be the manuscript that survived.

What do the Latin manuscripts tell us about disputed passages in the New Testament?

Note on the Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7-8): Neither of the two oldest Latin Vulgate manuscripts contain the Johannine Comma. This clause is found mainly in the Old Latin texts from the fourth century onward and in later versions of the Vulgate. It is mentioned by many of the Latin church fathers, however, and my article on the Johannine Comma goes more into detail. I wrote a longer article on this earlier this year that I won't reproduce again here.

Note on the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11): This is otherwise known as Pericope Adulterae because it does not appear in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus or in other Greek manuscripts fragment from the third century known as P66 and P75.

It is mentioned by Jerome as being found in many copies. It is also mentioned by Ambrose, Augustine, and other writers from the fourth century onward.

St. Augustine of Hippo was aware that the passage as missing from some of the copies then extant. He wrote the following explanation of why he thought it was omitted in some manuscripts:

Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord's act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin (De Adult. Conj., ii. 6).

The passage was not controversial until the time of the Reformation. During the 16th Century, Western European scholars sought to recover the original Greek text of the New Testament, rather than relying on the Vulgate Latin translation. At this time, it was noticed that a number of early manuscripts containing John's Gospel lacked John 7:53-8:11.

Until recently, it was not thought that any Greek Church Father had taken note of the passage before the 12th Century; but in 1941 a large collection of the writings of Didymus the Blind (c. 313- 398) was discovered in Egypt, including a reference to the Pericope Adulterae; and it is now established that this passage was present in its canonical place in a minority of Greek manuscripts known in Alexandria from the 4th Century onwards. In support of this, it is noted that the 4th century Codex Vaticanus, which was written in Egypt, marks the end of John chapter 7 with an "umlaut" (two dots) indicating that an alternative reading was known at this point.

See a defense of this passage here: http://www.bible-researcher.com/adult-hills.html

Note on the end of Mark 16:9-20: The earliest existing copies of Mark end abruptly after 16:8. Scholars are almost united on the idea that the final leaf of an early manuscript was lost causing numerous manuscripts to be copied without the ending. Then one of several things happened:

1. There were two or more manuscript traditions, one with and one without the ending, but the only early copies that have survived are those without the ending;
2. Earlier copies with the correct ending were recovered and the ending was re-inserted;
3. The ending was interpolated from some other source.

Given these three possibilities, the Christian who believes in scriptural inerrancy (at least in the original autographs) has a choice to make. Either we have the correct ending or we don't. Those who think the passage is an outright interpolation must admit that the ending was not written by Mark. They have the option of saying that the passage is a "Gospel tradition" known to the church fathers and therefore inerrant scripture.

Furthermore, there are two versions of the ending that deserve consideration as the correct ending. The so-called "shorter ending" reads:

And they reported all the things that had been commanded them briefly (or immediately) to the companions of Peter. And after this Jesus himself also sent forth by them from the East even unto the West the holy and incorruptible preaching of eternal salvation.

The "longer ending" is the one that appears in today's English versions (v. 9-20).

The longer ending is absent from the oldest Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts. The main reason it is included in modern translations (usually with qualifying brackets and footnotes) is that it was known to Justin Martyr, Irenaeus (both in Greek and Latin), Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Tatian, who incorporated it into his Diatesseron.

Justin alludes to Mark 16:20 -- "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following" -- in the following passage from his First Apology chapter 45, "His apostles, going forth from Jerusalem, preached everywhere."

This might be thought to be only a slight allusion for the fact that Justin uses the Greek word pantachou -- a word for "everywhere" that appears only seven times in the New Testament.

Irenaeus wrote in Against Heresies (c. 185 A.D. ), Book III, 10:5-6: "Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: 'So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God." This is direct quotation of Mark 16:19.

At the seventh Council of Carthage in 256, a bishop named Vincentius of Thibaris said, "We have assuredly the rule of truth which the Lord by His divine precept commanded to His apostles, saying, 'Go ye, lay on hands in My name, expel demons.' And in another place: "Go ye and teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'"

There seems to be good reason, therefore, to conclude that the passage was known as part of the canonical text of Mark in the second century even though we have no extant manuscripts from this early period to confirm this. The earliest known copy of Mark -- Papyrus 45, from about A.D. 225 -- is damaged and for this reason is missing all of Mark 16.

My view is that given the textual consistency of the rest of the New Testament scriptures in the early manuscripts, and given that none of the earliest manuscript fragments contain any of Mark 16, to say that the passage is an outright interpolation is at best a reasoned guess. The passage ought to stand as it is recorded in modern translations, with brackets stating to the interested reader that the "earliest manuscripts do not have Mark 16:9-20."

However, it also should be known that none of these manuscripts are earlier than the writings of Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Tatian. The number of the manuscripts that have the deletion are simply too small to confirm any doubt that would suggest that the original autograph did not have these verses. That the passage was known to several second century church fathers proves that the text was contained in manuscripts that existed in the second century.

Left is part of the Codex Vercellensis, scribed by Eusebius, the Bishop of Vercelli in northern Italy, in the year 370 A.D.

This section contains the Gospel of John, 16:23-30.

Source: Plate XXXII. The S.S. Teacher's Edition: The Holy Bible. New York: Henry Frowde, Publisher to the University of Oxford, 1896.

Bible Babylon (part 2)

The Contribution of Dr. John Henry Ludlum, Jr.
Refuting the Marcan Priority Hypothesis and the Fabled "Q" Gospel

One of the theologians mentioned in The Real Jesus (DVD) is a little known linguistics prodigy named John Henry Ludlum, Jr.

Ludlum is known today for a groundbreaking article that was published in four parts in Christianity Today.

"New Light On The Synoptic Problem," Vol. III, Nos. 3 and 4, 1958

"Are We Sure of Mark's Priority?" Vol. III, Nos. 24 and 25, 1959

The article is cited in lots of places, but isn't on the WWW at this point. I am currently trying to locate copies of the article and if you know quick and easy way I can get them, let me know.

One book that cites the articles is The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship by Robert L.Thomas and F. David Farnell, which is on my reading list. You can read a limited version here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=QtE1orv4Xg0C&dq

If you are like me, you can't get your hands on nearly enough articles and books on textual criticism for your reading pleasure, so I've pointed you to this paper by John Henry Ludlum. Sorry that it's 260 pages of tiff files and hence the size.

You can download the PDF file from the following link:

http://messiahskingdom.com/jhludjr/anewcomprehensiveapproachtothegospels.pdf

John Henry Ludlum, Jr. was the only doctoral candidate at Yale University to receive honors in all seven of his oral examinations. He was a linguistics expert and textual criticism prodigy. His first assignment after graduating gave him enough free time to read many of the German Higher Critics including Bruno Bauer, who has only one theological work translated into English.

He was shocked as a liberal to find out how flimsy the arguments of the historical criticism -- so widely accepted as iron-clad among liberals -- really were. They were so bad in fact, that Ludlum did his own Synoptic harmony of the Gospels and found many errors on the part of the liberal critics. He spent the rest of his career lambasting the liberals and he was blacklisted in his own denomination -- eventually founding a Bible College in Maine.

Today, there is very little published by Ludlum. His most notable work is the series of articles published in Christianity Today in the 1950s debunking the Marcan Priority Hypothesis. Many at the time thought his argument -- in embryonic form in the attached paper -- was irrefutable. I am not committed to any Synoptic hypothesis -- Matthean, Marcan or Independence -- at this point, but I am concerned that so many evangelicals accept the Marcan Hypothesis without understanding the liberal presuppositions that gave rise to its popularity.

Anyway, if you skim through the paper, I am sure you'll find a few fascinating insights even if you don't have time to read all of it carefully.

A Short Bio

Dr. John H. Ludlum, Jr. is one of those Bible scholars whose experience was the mirror image of other liberal theologians. Too often conservatives are corrupted by seminary education. Ludlum was one who began as a liberal, but as his education was steeped in skepticism, it made him question the foundation of such skepticism.

David Lutzweiler has written the following biography of Ludlum:

Back in 1951, Dr. Ludlum received his Ph.D. from Yale University and received on his orals in seven fields at the Department. of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature the highest scores that anyone ever had received as far as they had records going back for the department at the time. (I have a copy of the department's report on his rating). At that time, of course, he was a liberal. He studied under Marvin Pope and that crowd.

Then he got a job that was more or less a sinecure, an office which requires or involves little or no responsibility, in NYC at a Reformed Church, and had a lot of time to pursue his own studies independently. He read the whole German higher criticism in the original language, and a lot of other stuff; and the more he read, the more he saw that the whole liberal position was just plain silly, not to mention dishonest. In a few years, he moved out of liberalism (or "Up From Liberalism," as William F. Buckley put it) and into evangelicalism.

This created problems. The RCA liberals could not stand up to him, because he was too good. He knew the scholarship inside out and backwards. Thus, the word went around that under no circumstances was Ludlum going to be permitted ever to teach at New Brunswick, etc.

They shunted him off to pastor a small church in Englewood, NJ.It was a bad decision on their part. That only gave him more time to study, write, and fight, which he did. I came to know him when he was in Englewood, in the middle of his prime, and that was one of the most enriching contacts in my life.

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Bible Babylon (part 1)

How liberal academic criticism of the New Testament was co-opted by the anti-semitic 19th century German Higher Critics

This series outlines the history of liberal criticism in the church, it fallacious premises and anti-Semitic motivating forces, and then proposes some solutions as to how it can be refuted soundly and systematically rooted out of the popular culture.

All but vanquished in the early 20th century, liberal criticism has experienced a revival in the last 50 years on three fronts – among the intellectual academicians, among liberal “mainline” Protestant churches and in the popular media. The main tenets of liberalism – that Jesus was merely a man and not the Son of God risen from the dead in conquest over sin and death; that the received text of the Bible is unreliable and historically inaccurate; that the miraculous events of scripture did not really occur, but were merely stories told to embellish legendary events – are popular in small pockets of the church especially among British and European denominations and among the faculty of large secular universities with Divinity Schools.

In America, the conservative evangelical churches are far outpacing the growth of liberal denominations to the point where the mainline is no longer the “mainstream.” However, the viewpoints expressed in the books and articles of a liberal elite are given credence by the popular media over their conservative evangelical counterparts, even though the actual numbers of the liberal professors of religion are far fewer than the faculty at more numerous conservative Bible Colleges and Seminaries.

Most conservative Christians in America don’t understand exactly how liberalism within the church began and why its influence is still being felt. We tend to simply dismiss the liberals as skeptics and atheists, as wolves in sheep’s clothing, without giving them a hearing. However, when a group like the Jesus Seminar gets its press releases published far and wide, when books like The Da Vinci Code become runaway bestsellers with movie blockbusters and a myriad of television documentaries in tow, evangelicals chafe at the very suggestion that the biblical doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is not a settled issue among lettered churchmen. Even among those who claim to be conservatives, a “neo-orthodox” influence is felt in the form of a low view of the inerrancy of scripture.

The three greatest controversies in the church began early in its history. The Gnostic threat actually preceded Christianity. Gnosticism was actually a broad tendency in several eastern religions that had infected the Hellenistic Jews in the few centuries prior to Christ. Gnosticism in the church later gave way to Arianism and Pelagianism.

In his History of Redemption, Jonathan Edwards notes the irony that the Arian and Pelagian threats came only after several centuries of Jewish and Roman persecution had failed to quench the revival fire of the early church.

After the destruction of the heathen Roman Empire, Satan infested the church with heresies. Though there had been so glorious a work of God in delivering the church from her heathen persecutors, and overthrowing the heathen empire…. But the church soon began to be greatly infested with heresies; the two principal, and those which did most infest the church, were the Arian and Pelagian.

Indeed, the second century Church Father, Tertullian of Carthage, noted that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” It turned out that heresy within the church was its gravest threat. Gnosticism in its various forms -- Mithraism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, etc. --was a threat to the church from the beginning because these mystery religions influenced nearly every world religion at the time including Judaism. However, the later “Christian” Gnostics did not deny the deity of Christ, but instead perverted the nature of the Godhead and the Incarnation by deemphasizing either the material or spiritual aspect of Jesus.

Likewise, Arianism was a heresy that denied a proper understanding of the Trinity, while Pelagianism compromised the Gospel by denying salvation by free grace. None of these heresies denied that Jesus was divine. Although there have been numerous atheist, pagan, Jewish and Muslim skeptics throughout history, the idea that Jesus was fully God and fully man was a settled issue among Christians long before the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.

Even if we consider the Enlightenment thinkers, rationalists, Deists and free-thinkers of the 1600s and 1700s, who denied the deity of Christ, the attacks were from those rightly called “infidels” -- those against the faith -- rather than from churchmen who had become liberalized in their interpretation of scripture.

Then beginning in the early 1800s, a group of German theologians began to reexamine and deconstruct the history of the Old and New Covenant Church and along with it question the reliability, integrity and historicity of most of the Bible. Here was the first time in history that skeptics and doubters arose within the church. As Jonathan Edwards noted, it is as though the devil decided that attacks from without could not fail, so therefore he once again fought a battle from within.

Jesus, Mohammed, Shakespeare: Did they really exist? (part 3)

What about Hillel, Gamaliel, Confucius, Buddha and Mohammed?

If we applied the same level of scrutiny that the Jesus-mythists apply to the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, many religious figures from antiquity would vanish from history. The Jewish rabbis Hillel and Gamaliel who lived at the time of Jesus then have no “contemporary eyewitness accounts” according to the skeptics’ accepted criteria. The eastern religious figures of Confucius and Siddhartha (Buddha) don’t have any surviving accounts written until hundreds of years after they lived.

In fact, only few ancient figures had biographies of their lives written while they still lived and any surviving record written in their own hand comes down to us from copies hundreds and even over a thousand years after the original autographs were written.

The Sira and the al-Maghazi were accounts about the life of Mohammed written after his death. Like the New Testament we do not the original autographs of the Koran, so using this level of scrutiny we have to discount Mohammed as a real figure too.

Was William Shakespeare a real person?

Just for fun, I searched for “Was Shakespeare a real person?” I wasn’t too surprised to find out that numerous Shakespeare doubters are out there on the blogosphere too. As a high school English teacher who has taught units on Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest, I am familiar with the popular yet spurious idea that Shakespeare did not write his own plays.

The evidence that Shakespeare was an actor and a playwright who lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries is overwhelming. Since Shakespeare has become renowned as the world’s greatest writer in any language, there is understandably a thirst for more information about his personal life than we have available. However, there was no E! television in the 1600s to chronicle the personal foibles of famous actors and play writers. Shakespeare was one of hundreds of other actors and playwrights in London.

Therefore, little is known about his personal life. He left no Memoirs but we know quite a bit of biographical information including his date of birth and death, his family background, and the names of his wife and children. He was not a self-promoter like his contemporary, Ben Johnson, who although stingy in his description of other playwrights, predicted that Shakespeare would become known as the greatest writer calling his plays “not of an age, but for all time.” A more reliable witness than Johnson cannot be hoped for since he knew Shakespeare closely and the Bard even acted in Johnson’s plays.

Shakespeare still has enough contemporary corroboration to prove that he wrote about 37 plays. Some are doubted as “apocryphal” and it is thought that playwrights often culled lines and refined their stories from works of other writers, but it is certain that the work entitled the plays of William Shakespeare were both penned and at times performed by a man by that name who was born at Stratford on Avon, married Anne Hathaway at age 18, had three children, and so on.

As Mark Twain supposedly quipped, “William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him; they were written by someone else with the same name.”

The same could be said of the Apostles, "If Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Peter, Paul and Jude did not write the books and letters that bear their name, then the New Testament was written by eight other men by the same name who were contemporary witnesses to the events they described."

So … Did Jesus Exist?

Not surprisingly, when we compare the vacuous arguments of the Shakespeare doubters with those of the Jesus mythists, they are similar. The intellectual quality of this theory is aptly described here:

A woman from New England named Delia Bacon who taught Shakespeare in school went to England in 1853 to try to dig him up to prove that there was no body in his grave, just a bag of rocks. She went to his grave at night with shovel in hand, but the British authorities, in furtherance of the scheme or conspiracy to hide the fact that there was no Shakespeare, stopped her from digging him up…. An additional factor was that the tombstone of Shakespeare specifically states that under no circumstances should this grave be dug up. His tombstone reads: "Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare, To digg the dust enclosed heare. Blese be ye man that spares the stones, And curst be he that moves my bones." Why would a gravestone possibly contain such an injunction? The answer must be that, in reality, there are no bones in that grave.

Follow here the faulty logic. Since no one has ever dug up Shakespeare’s bones, the bones must not exist, therefore Shakespeare did not exist. This argument too, is similar to the level of logic used by the Jesus Mythists.

Gary Lenaire writes in An Infidel Manifesto: Why Sincere Believers Lose Faith:

Roman records give us no verified indication of an arrest or crucifixion of Jesus.

Again, here is a doubter using the argument from silence fallacy. There are no “Roman records” of Jesus arrest and execution, therefore Jesus did not exist. The claim is that there is a glaring hole in the “Roman records of crucifixions” where Jesus ought to be. To make such a claim then there should be some records of other crucifixions from the time when Jesus would have been crucified. The problem with this is that we have no Roman records of any first century Jew’s crucifixion during this time. Josephus and Philo record that there were many crucifixions under Pilate and later rulers, but there are no Roman records that exist today.

Likewise, the claim that “none of the contemporary historians of Jesus mentioned Him,” necessitates at least one extant eyewitness history of Palestine in the three years that Jesus ministered. If people were not living in Palestine or the immediate vicinity, they never would have heard of Jesus until Christianity began to spread in the decades that followed. That much ought to be obvious, but I am amazed at how often people unthinkingly swallow this line with no clue as to why it’s unreasonable.

This illustrates one of the reasons why the Jesus Myth fallacy is experiencing a resurgence in popularity. We live in a postmodernist era. Few people are trained to think logically. So ironically, we have a group calling itself the Rational Responders (the promoters of the Blasphemy Challenge videos on YouTube) whose arguments against the existence of Jesus are the most irrational lines of logic one could ever come up with. Therefore, their critics, some of whom are atheists, have taken to calling them the "Irrational Responders." In fact, if I had to come up with a worse argument to convince people of their position, I’d be hard pressed to do it.


This leads me to believe that their modus operandus is intentional. Like the Blasphemy Challenge, the goal is not to get people to think, but to create a band wagon appeal, “Look, everyone is blaspheming God, so you should too. Look, no rational person thinks that Jesus was a real person any more. Neither should you.”

The goal is not to get atheists to feel safe about coming out of the closet, as they claim, but rather to enrage Christians with sibilant screeds against Jesus’ existence. This is the way that postmodernist thinking works. It’s mainly an appeal to emotion and consensus. And the information revolution has only made it worse. If there are a thousand blogs, websites and YouTube comments out there all telling the same lie, then pretty soon people will start to believe it.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, understood this tactic well:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.

There is one of two things going on. The new generation of atheists has either lost the ability to reason, or they understand that there is no need to construct logically coherent arguments in order to get people to jump on the blasphemy bandwagon. Unlike the time of Nazi Germany, however, they don’t need to shield people from reality. They can simply rely on the fact that most people of the postmodernist worldview are motivated by emotional gratification – they believe only what backs up their mental grid rather than a critically formulated and coherent worldview based on factual data.

Hitler and Goebbels would be impressed.

Jesus, Mohammed, Shakespeare: Did they really exist? (part 2)

The “New” Skepticism

Even though the vast majority liberal scholars have rejected the Jesus as myth hypothesis it has been popularized in numerous books written by authors such Earl Doherty, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. More strident in the promotion of the Jesus-as-myth hypothesis are several young, uneducated atheists, who are usually former religionists with an axe to grind. Groups such as the Rational Responders post V-logs on YouTube and promote with evangelical fervor that “Jesus was a myth.” The annoying part of their behavior is that they will often state their idea as though it is a widely accepted fact. They use the fallacious bandwagon appeal. I compare them to the sports pundit who wants to prove that Babe Ruth was not the most revered athlete who ever lived by arguing, “Everyone knows that baseball is not sport anyway.”

The Jesus-as-myth argument is so indefensible that that no one even ventured to propose it until the last 130 years. It should be obvious to any educated person that the argument is so barren of any depth that it should be discarded at first glance. Ph.D. candidates don’t bother doing exhaustive research on whether a universally accepted famous figure did or did not exist. Such an exercise in futility is spitting in the wind. Association with crackpot ideas – pro or con – does nothing to enhance one’s academic reputation.

Since so few accomplished historians will bother to argue against silly conspiracy theories, there are many more books written on the Jesus-myth hypothesis than there are scholarly refutations of the idea. Ridiculousness, ironically, has become its strength. In fact, I hesitate to broach the topic because attention only enhances the Jesus mythists’ credibility

A brief outline of the Jesus-as-myth argument

At the risk of making this paper tiger more ferocious in appearance, the Jesus-as-myth hypothesis may be outlined as follows.

There is not a single “eyewitness” historian who left a testimony of the events surrounding Jesus life and ministry around the year 30 A.D.

The eight New Testament writers -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude -- don’t count because they were biased fanatics, fraudulent pseudonymous writers, or non-eyewitnesses.

Other first century Christian writers – Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius*, the writer of the Didache, and others – don’t count for the same reasons.

The Jewish historian Josephus doesn’t count because he was born a full eight years after Jesus died and therefore could not have known anything about Jesus.

Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, Talmudic Jewish writers and others don’t count because they too lived after Jesus and were not eyewitnesses.

The skeptics ignore the fact that there is not a single “eyewitness” historian who left a testimony to any of the events of 27 to 35 A.D. in first century Judea. They use the slogan, “The silence is deafening,” referring to the alleged lack of eyewitness testimony on Jesus. It is like arguing that Neil Armstrong did not land on the moon because there were no reporters physically present on the lunar surface to record the event. The fact of the matter is that there weren’t any contemporary historians who recorded eyewitness accounts of events in Judea from this time.

Only the New Testament gives us an eyewitness account from the time when Jesus and the Apostles established the church. There are no other extant writings of historians who lived in Judea in this time period. Pontius Pilate, a historical figure corroborated by archaeological artifacts, was not recorded by any first century eyewitness in any extant writing. The Jewish historian Philo, who was a contemporary of Pilate, lived in Alexandria and although he wrote about Pilate, he did not witness Jesus or Pilate first hand. But no one doubts Philo's testimony.

When the Jesus mythists refer to the lack of evidence, they are making an unreasonable demand for accounts that simply do not exist during this one decade of the first century.

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* Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch from 69 to c. 96 A.D. Ignatius wrote seven letters in the first century that are considered authentic (there are later spurious letters of Ignatius as well). Ignatius of Antioch died around 96-97 A.D. as a martyr in Rome. He was the third Bishop of Antioch. When the Apostle Peter left Antioch for Rome, Evodius succeeded him as bishop. Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero around AD 66-67. Evodius was bishop of Antioch until AD 69, when Ignatius succeeded him.

Ignatius, who also called himself Theophorus ("bearer of God"), was most likely a disciple of both the Apostles Peter and John. His association with the Apostles and his vast number of quotations of New Testament scripture are proof that the canon of the New Testament was transmitted directly from James, Peter, John and Paul to bishops such as Ignatius.

Jesus, Mohammed, Shakespeare: Did they really exist? (part 1)

For about a year now, I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around the cultural phenomenon known as the “Jesus-as-myth” hypothesis. It’s an idea that is gaining steam, not with credible historians and scholars, but among “popularizers” who state categorically as fact that “Jesus never existed” on numerous websites, blogs and discussion boards. This crackpot conspiracy theory may be simply stated as follows:

“Since there was no contemporary historian living in Judea in the first century who recorded the life of Jesus, then there is no proof that Jesus existed.”

What is being contended against is not the historicity of the miraculous works, the resurrection, or the divinity of Jesus, but the very existence of a historical person named Jesus of Nazareth. The Jesus-myth hypothesis was first proposed by Bruno Bauer in a work entitled Christ and the Caesars in 1877. Prior to the 1800s, no pagan, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist critic of the New Testament ever thought to challenge the veracity of the person called Jesus. Then Bauer came along and claimed that the bulk of the New Testament was written in the late second century -- a full 150 years after Jesus lived -- and took skepticism to the next level by claiming that the very existence of Jesus was doubtful.

At the time, Bauer was thought of as a radical fringe free thinker. Even his former students, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both atheistic communists, sought to distance themselves from his writings. The idea then gained some popularity among scholars in the early 20th century, but when serious critics began to see the solid evidence for the first century dates of New Testament books -- still interpreting them as pseudonymous works written after the time of Apostles, but accepting that they were written early enough to have been read and circulated by the earliest Christians -- they rejected Higher Criticism for a modified form of liberalism.

The works of Bauer and the German Higher Critics were not respected even in their own day, even by atheists and skeptics such Mark and Engels. Most of their works have never been translated into English. One liberal theologian, Dr. John Henry Ludlum, one of the greatest linguistic scholars ever to come out of Yale University, began to study the Higher Critics in German only to see that the whole thrust of their work as baseless conjecture to support a political agenda of anti-semitism. In fact, Bauer and several of the 19th century German critics sought to prove that Christianity could not have had its roots in Semitic Judaism. Therefore, the Jesus-as-myth hypothesis has had a serious credibility gap even among liberal theologians.

To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary. - Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (Scribner, 1995).

There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more. - Burridge, R & Gould, G, Jesus Now and Then, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004, p.34.

Special deal on Amazing Grace (DVD)

Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism, is a DVD produced by The Apologetics Group. I recently helped to remaster the DVD and I have about 100 copies on hand for the special price of $12.95 -- a great deal for a four and a half hour presentation.

Here's a description of the video and ordering information.

Amazing Grace:
The History and Theology of Calvinism (DVD)
Two discs, three parts, over four hours of instruction!

Just what is “Calvinism?” Does this teaching make man a deterministic robot and God the author of sin? What about free will? If the church accepts Calvinism, won’t evangelism be stifled, perhaps even extinguished? How can we balance God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility? What are the differences between historic Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism? Why did men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Edwards and a host of renowned Protestant evangelists embrace the teaching of predestination and election and deny free will theology?

This is the first video documentary that answers these and other related questions. Hosted by Eric Holmberg, this fascinating three-part, four-hour presentation is detailed enough so as to not gloss over the controversy. At the same time, it is broken up into ten “Sunday-school-sized” sections to make the rich content manageable and accessible for the average viewer.

Part One explores the history of the debate. It begins with the pivotal dispute between Augustine and Pelagius and continues through the semi-pelagian controversy; focusing particularly on the debate between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus. The history section ends with a definitive historical explanation of the issues that arose during the Calvinist/Arminian controversy. By examining the five points of Arminianism and the Synod of Dort’s response, the viewer will clearly see that the Protestant Church understood how the Gospel would be compromised if Arminianism prevailed.

Part Two opens the Word of God, our ultimate authority for life and faith. The five points of Arminianism are put on trial as what would later come to be known as the “five points of Calvinism” are clearly and forcefully presented.

Part Three asks and answers the provocative question: If Calvinism is true, if God is absolutely sovereign; then why should we evangelize? It also explores the vital issue of how to and to whom the gospel should be presented so as to be faithful to the great doctrines of God’s sovereignty, man’s depravity, and the miracle of amazing grace.

Rich in graphics, dramatic vignettes, and biblical analogies, this presentation also features many of the finest reformed thinkers and pastors of our time: Dr. R.C. Sproul, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Dr. George Grant, Dr. Stephen Mansfield, Dr. Thomas Ascol, Dr. Thomas Nettles, Dr. Roger Schultz, Pastor Walt Chantry, Dr. Joe Morecraft, Dr. Ken Talbot, Pastor Walter Bowie and Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr.

Two discs, three parts, over four hours of instruction. Price: $12.95

Was there really a "Massacre of the Innocents" in Bethlehem around the time of Jesus' birth?

According to Matthew chapter 2, in the days of Herod the Great, astrological portents brought Magi from the east naively inquiring about a newborn King. Ironically, this triggered a reaction from Herod that closely resembled the events surrounding Augustus Caesar's own birth.

Most liberals will say that the so-called "Massacre of the Innocents" is a myth. However, they are using the "argument from silence" fallacy. There is only one account of this isolated event in a small country that isn't recorded elsewhere. But that doesn't disprove Matthew's account by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the massacring of infants was a common practice in Roman days.

According to Julius Marathus, a personal confidant of Augustus Caesar, the Roman Senate ordered all the baby boys killed who were born in 63 B.C. because prophetic dreams and astrological signs suggested that a "King of the Romans" was to be born.

Ironically, Augustus was born on Sept. 23 of that year! Since we only have one account of this event, do we discount this massacre as well? No, historians accept Suetonius as generally reliable.

So all things being equal, Herod's "Massacre of the Innocents" recorded in Matthew 2 is not a myth.

The following is from Suetonius, The Divine Augustus, 94:

"Since we are upon this subject, it may not be improper to give an account of the omens, before and at his birth, as well as afterwards, which gave hopes of his future greatness, and the good fortune that constantly attended him. A part of the wall of Velletri having in former times been struck with thunder, the response of the soothsayers was, that a native of that town would some time or other arrive at supreme power; relying on which prediction, the Velletrians both then, and several times afterwards, made war upon the Roman people, to their own ruin. At last it appeared by the event, that the omen had portended the elevation of Augustus.

"Julius Marathus informs us, that a few months before his birth, there happened at Rome a prodigy, by which was signified that Nature was in travail with a king for the Roman people; and that the senate, in alarm, came to the resolution that no child born that year should be brought up; but that those amongst them, whose wives were pregnant, to secure to themselves a chance of that dignity, took care that the decree of the senate should not be registered in the treasury."

Is Josephus' passage about Jesus a forgery?

I get lots of responses to these YouTube videos from atheists and skeptics. One of the most common objections to The Real Jesus concerns Myth #1: “The Historical Jesus is different from the Jesus of the Bible.” This briefly mentions the so-called Testimonium Flavianum, the testimony of Flavius Josephus, the first century Jewish historian who mentions Jesus Christ and Christianity a few times in his works.

The common reaction is, "This was a FORGERY!!" or "Josephus was a FRAUD!!" But most people criticizing the validity this passage – or the reliability of Josephus as a historian – don't know too much about it. They are repeating the widely accepted conclusion that this passage on Jesus from Josephus' Antiquities may have been interpolated due to two suspicious phrases that make Josephus sound like a Christian. The consensus is that a Christian scribe may have tried to elucidate Josephus for his Christian audience.

Contrary to what you might hear, the passage is judged authentic by most scholars once the perceived Christian additions are removed. And whether the passage has been altered greatly or with just a few minor words or phrases added, Josephus' references to Jesus, James and John the Baptist are an authentic witness that validates first century Gospel stories.

I get a more than a little tired of answering this objection in the short 500 character responses allowed on YouTube. Skeptics want to believe the passage is a forgery and don’t want to go and do the research for themselves. So I wanted to briefly deal with this in a short video response. I decided to interview the well-known Internet apologist, J.P. Holding, and ask him some questions.

1. What is an interpolation?
2. Do most (or all) of ancient writings contain interpolations?
3. What is the difference between an interpolation and a forgery?
3. Are there any credible modern scholars who believe that the Josephus passage in question has not been interpolated?
4. Are there any who think it is an outright forgery?
5. What is the consensus of the textual critics on what the passage must have originally read like? How can we be certain of this?
6. What about the other passage containing the phrase "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ"?

And just for fun: I hear a lot of comments about why there are not records of the crucifixion of Jesus in “Roman records.” They think that somehow the argument from silence applies here, even though there is not one existing “crucifixion record” from Judea during the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. People don’t know how common an occurrence crucifixion was in the first century. People also don’t know that Josephus’ description of crucifixion closely matches that of the Gospels in recounting what happened with Jesus’ body.

7. How many times does Josephus describe or record crucifixions in his History? Does any of this information corroborate the record of Jesus body being taken from the cross and buried?

“Nay, they proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun” (Josephus Wars 4.5).

Compare this with Gospel account about Joseph of Arimathea.

“Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man. He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near” (Luke 23:50-54).

My neighbor and Jesus Seminar scholar, John Dominic Crossan, thinks that Jesus’ body must have been eaten by dogs, despite this passage by Josephus and despite having no evidence or documents to back this up.

And on a related note:

8. What about the idea that Luke and Acts were written in the second century and that similar passages in Luke and Acts were based on Josephus (and not vice versa)?

These and other questions are answered in the Real Jesus DVD and you may see a preview of it on The Real Jesus Vlog at YouTube.

The Einstein Puzzle and Discerning Gospel Truths

I present here the Einstein puzzle. It is said that you have to be a genius to solve it. If you use pure memory, then it is true. But if you make a diagram using colored pencils you should be able to solve it within half an hour. A few organizational skills are necessary. It helps to write out the remaining paired categories from the hints and then use the process of elimination.

I gave this to my high school English classes today to work on. Within 20 minutes, a few had figured out the order and color of the houses and a few other details. Some immediately jumped to a conclusion. They gave the wrong answer wanting me to tell them if their "guess" was correct. I told then they needed to show how they arrived at their answer, to show their work. I also told them I hadn't solved the puzzle yet, so I couldn't tell them the answer. Later, in the day it took me about 20 minutes to figure it out.

The Einstein Puzzle

Supposedly, Albert Einstein wrote this riddle, and said 98% of the world could not solve it.

There are 5 houses in 5 different colors. In each house lives a man with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage.

The question is: "Who owns the fish?"

Hints:

The Brit lives in the red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the left of the white house.
The green house's owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

There are no tricks, pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer. If you think you know the answer, but are not sure, you haven't solved the puzzle correctly. Once you solve it, you will know every color of every house, who lives in each house, what each man drinks and smokes, and which pets each owns.

So what has this to do with discerning Gospel truths?

It occurred to me while doing the puzzle that the five houses in Einstein's riddle are a lot like the four Gospels. We are given hints in each Gospel that answer many questions as to the one reliable historical narrative of Truth. It's necessary to look at the parts from different books to form a whole picture. I recently showed how one may demonstrate that the Apostles James and John were the first cousins of Jesus using isolated hints from four separate Gospels to come to this remarkable conclusion.

This method of comparing scripture with scripture revealed a truth that helps explain several other puzzles, such as why John is singled out as "the disciple whom Jesus loved," and why according to Old Testament law did Jesus require John to take care of Mary as he would his own mother.

One may ask: Why didn't the Gospel writers simply say: "Now James and John were Jesus' first cousins"?

The answer to this question is found in Isaiah 28:10-13

"Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little."

For with stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
To whom He said, "This is the rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,"
And, "This is the refreshing";
Yet they would not hear.

But the word of the Lord was to them,
"Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,"
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.

The method of interpreting the Bible requires that we know the whole Bible and let scripture interpret scripture. God dispenses truth as He sees fit. When encountering Bible difficulites, we have to understand that there are no short cuts or trick questions. There are also no contradictions, but many Bible difficulties. The reason why the difficulties are there is so that we may discover the self-authenticating truth of scripture.

The four evangelists wrote in such a way that when we search for agreement in passages that seem disparate, most of the time we will find a harmony of the Gospels that transcends what four human beings writing independently could have concocted. This harmony is placed there for two reasons:

1. The harmony of the Gospels shows us the reality of the divine and supernatural inspiration of scripture.

2. The harmony of the Gospels also points us to the amazing reality that the books that belong to the canon are actually self-authenticating.

Men wrote scripture, but the Holy Spirit directed them in such a way that there is no complete picture of the truth in any one narrative or letter. In putting the pieces of the puzzle together, we are left with the strong impression that these men did not conspire to create a puzzle for us to solve. Instead the Holy Spirit has revealed mysteries to those who will bother to search some of the "difficult passages" for a harmony.

The Higher Critics are like my students who wanted to use conjecture to immediately jump to a wrong conclusion. Liberals use the modern tools of criticism to interpret scripture, but in analyzing the parts they miss the whole. Jesus said it best when he criticized the experts in the Law in His own day, "You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel."

The skeptics are like those students of mine who insisted that the puzzle could not be solved or was too difficult to be solved. Since they reject inspiration from the outset, the Higher Critics are blind to the marvelous pattern of scripture in which truth becomes self-authenticating.

For instance, I wrote recently about the self-authenticating quality of the book of Acts. The narrative begins with a sermon preached by Peter to a crowd of thousands of Jews who had come from all over the world to visit Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost. The converts who heard Peter's sermon were the very ones who purportedly returned to their cities a few years later after being scattered during persecution. These were the people who would have been able to confirm the account of Acts 2 as genuine and accurate.

If the Book of Acts were not authentic and reliable, it immediately would have been perceived as pseudepigrapha by the purported eyewitnesses. In other words, if the men who witnessed the miracle of Pentecost had not returned to their own cities and founded churches, then there would exist only those in these same churches who would be able to reject these stories as unreliable. The very fact that the book of Acts was accepted and quoted by the earliest of the church fathers as scripture proves that eyewitnesses existed who confirmed the accounts.

The scenario proposed by the skeptics is that the Book of Acts was written under a pseudonym many years after the events. But this begs the question: Why would a man calling himself Luke, a companion of Paul, write an unreliable history and deliver it to people who would be in an immediate position to recognize it as spurious? Did the eyewitnesses of first century Christianity not live within the context of their own history or did they simply appear for a time convenient to the critics' scenario and then vanish into thin air?

Assumptions of the Higher Critics on the Reliability of the Gospels

The following is a thought experiment.

In 1827 to 1830, a popular story about an American hero was widely told. Later, separate authors writing in different parts of the country published their version of the story in newspapers and magazines. The story was reprinted so often that today no one can agree on which version of the story is the earliest. It is assumed that the original manuscript of each author is lost. By now the story has been quoted and reprinted so many times that it is well known, but some doubts remain as to whether the story can be proven to be completely factual.

There are some basic propositions agreed upon by everyone, but widely different conclusions. Read each of the following propositions and choose either “a” or “b” as the better logical conclusion based on the facts and common sense.

1. The four most widely accepted accounts of the story purportedly come from two eyewitnesses and two reporters. Each has written a similar story. Why are they so similar?

a. The writers must have copied from each other.

b. The two eyewitnesses arrived at a similar account independently; the reporters by interviewing the other eyewitnesses available to them.

2. Each of the four stories has minor variations in details, chronological order, wording, spoken words by the main characters, etc. Why do these variations exist?

a. These variations can be explained by examining hypothetical motivations and personal agendas on the part of the writers.

b. These variations are taken for granted in that they are due to normal differences in point of view.

3. Each of the stories has a named author. What can we know about him?

a. The eyewitness claim of the author is not to be believed; rather each story was compiled by a committee of editors who used a name of a popular figure from the time period as a pseudonym.

b. The story was most likely written by the named author.

4. In the story, the main character correctly predicts that a war will take place in a few years during which the capital city of his state will be burned. What are we to make about this fulfilled prediction?

a. The story was obviously not written prior to 1865, but was probably written 10 to 50 years after the event.

b. This prediction shows remarkable foresight on the part of the main character.

5. If one wishes to test the truthfulness of the accounts, which method is better?

a. We should be skeptical and distrust the accounts of friends and acquaintances as “biased” and distrust even the testimony of credible historians because they were not necessarily contemporary eyewitnesses to the events.

b. We should examine the corroborating testimony of people who were personal acquaintances of the authors or of credible historians who lived within a generation of the events.

6. In order to discern whether or not the account is to be understood as fiction or non-fiction, as factual or allegorical, which method is better?

a. The reader must make some educated guesses using the modern tools of source criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism. Each person reading the account in the 21st century must decide for himself what the characters in the story really did and said way back then.

b. The reader must take into account exactly how the stories were accepted and interpreted as recorded in the source literature and commentaries of the 19th century.

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.

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.

Jesus' cousins were the Apostles James and John

This is a post I'd really like to get your comment on ...

Most people know that Jesus and John the Baptist were second cousins, but few know that the Apostles James and John were Jesus' first cousins.

I've always found John the Baptist interesting because I was born on the feast day of St. John the Baptist (June 24th) and was actually named "John" for this reason. Jay is a nickname. I later became the editor of The Forerunner which is another name for John the Baptist. John was a bold prophet who spoke the word of God without fear for his own life. James and John were similar. They were called the "Sons of Thunder" by Jesus. The Apostle John is also known as the "disciple whom Jesus loved." So my other namesake, the Apostle John, is interesting to me as well.

This is something I discovered this year while reading a book on the canonicity of the Bible. Jesus' first cousins were James and John. I doubted this when I first read it, but the more I looked at the scriptures concerning the relationships, the more convinced I became that this is right. It has significance because it helps to explain how the New Testament canon came about. It also helps to explain several other obscure passages in the New Testament scriptures.

I'll write more on that later, but first the data. Read the following and decide for yourself if Salome is the wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John, and Mary's sister. If you disagree or agree, I'd like to get your comments.

1. In the Gospel of Matthew, James and John are identified as the sons of Zebedee.

"And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father" (Matthew 4:21).

2. Standing among the women near the cross with Jesus' mother Mary was the mother of Zebedee's children as identified by the Gospel of Matthew.

"Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children (Matthew 27:56).

3. Standing among the women near the cross with Jesus' mother Mary was Salome as identified by the Gospel of Mark.

"There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome" (Mark 15:40).

4. Salome was Jesus' mother's sister as the apostle John himself states, about his own mother. Mark's Gospel account refers to her by name. John's Gospel account refers to her by her relationship to Mary.

"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene" (John 19:25).

From Matthew's account we know that James and John were the sons of Zebedee. By comparing Matthew and Mark we discover that Salome was the name of wife of the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John. From John we see that Salome was Mary's sister.

I first thought that there could be other women in the account as well, but the order of the names and the similarity of the language in the accounts leads me to be almost certain that Jesus' mother's sister is Salome, the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John. Therefore, James and John were Jesus' first cousins.

The implications of this are enormous when we consider how the various books of the New Testament were compiled and the roles that James and John, and also the "brothers of the Lord" James and Jude, had in writing and compiling the New Testament canon.

I'll write more on that idea next.

Fourteen generations of Matthew 1:17 and the "seventy sevens" of Daniel 9:24

Here is something I've never thought of before. It has to do with the relationship between the Daniel 9 prophecy and the genealogy in Matthew 1. I am sure I am not the first, but I was wondering if you ever heard of this and what you think about it.

- Jay

Question asked by a viewer of The Real Jesus:

How many generations were there between Abraham and David? Matthew 1:17 lists fourteen generations. Matthew 1:2 lists thirteen generations.

My Answer:

It's simply a matter of how you count. You can count each period as fourteen generations first by extending from Abraham to David; secondly, by extending from David to the deportation to Babylon in the time of Jechonias; and thirdly, by extending from Jechonias to Christ. Matthew was aware that he was being inclusive or doubling up on one generation in each case.

There is no question that Matthew manipulated the number of generations to get multiples of "two times seven" -- seven being the number of perfection in the Hebrew mind. Matthew is also concerned with the idea that there were roughly equal time periods divided into three eras. The coming of the Messiah was an expected event after the end of the last period - according to Daniel 9.

Matthew's concern is the number of years rather than the exact number of literal generations (a generation is 40 years). 14 generations (14*40) = 560 years.

Matthew is trying to show that the prophecy of Daniel 9 is fulfilled in Jesus because the captivity lasted 70 years. If we subtract the 70 year captivity, then we get the "seventy sevens" of the Daniel 9 prophecy.

560-70=490.

Of course, there are not exactly 560 years from the captivity (609 B.C.) to the generation of Jesus Christ (3 B.C. to 30 A.D.) Nor are there exactly 1680 years from Abraham to Jesus. If that were so, all these 40 plus people would have had to bear sons on their 40th birthday.

But Matthew as a Jew is trying to convince other Jews that the genealogy of Jesus "fit" the Daniel prophecy with the number "seven" in mind. This is why he posits the idea of three 560 year periods.

Did Moses write Genesis? (part 2)

My last post on the authorship on Genesis was originally a response to a question posed by another blogger I read often, Uri Brito of Ad Majorum Dei Glorium. He was originally concerned with James Jordan’s argument against the Mosaic authorship of Genesis. I am going in an entirely different direction with this. I am not so much concerned with Jordan as I am with the idea of a book in the Biblical canon lacking a pedigree. Moses had to be the author of the five books of Moses.

Uri then comments:

Concerning point 3, remember that the death of Moses is recorded in Deuteronomy. Jordan does not believe Joseph had anything to do with the authorship of Deuteronomy. As for your question, who wrote about Moses’ death-your guess is as good as mine. To me, however, it is obvious that it was not Moses and I think church history bears that skepticism as well.

I respond:

I use that passage about Joseph’s bones as an example of the skepticism that Moses was the author of the “five books of Moses.” It is possible that Moses composed the five books as we know them today. However, it would not do violence to inerrancy to say that a later prophet, such as Joshua, redacted the Pentateuch.

It is also okay to say that Ezra or one of the prophets after Moses edited some of the books of the Old Testament — as long as a known prophet did this and as long as he had the authority to do so.

If Jesus and the Apostles taught the five books were the books of Moses, then they were the books of Moses. It is useless to conjecture what that meant. We can speculate as to whether Moses received it from an earlier source. For instance, I can hypothesize that Moses compared the story of Joseph in the Egyptian libraries with the story of Jethro in the wilderness. But this is a thesis that can never be proven — however likely it may sound. The problem is that this is the type of wild fancy that Higher Critics engage in. Conservative evangelicals follow their lead and reject almost every established tradition about authorship.

For instance, virtually every Christian has been taught that Mark was the first Gospel written and the ancient tradition that Matthew was very early (37 to 40 A.D.) is now thought to be a mistake. All the church fathers who wrote on the topic of priority believed that the order is exactly as we have in now in the canon.

The idea that the other Gospels followed Mark is based on the attempt of liberals to date the writing of the synoptic Gospels in the late first or even the second century. They posit the “Q” source or a “two sources” theory and reason that pseudonymous writers — not the Apostles — wrote the Gospels later on. Evangelicals swallow their conclusions hook, line and sinker when they reject the Markan priority, which has no basis in evidence unless we accept the late writing of the four Gospels and an earlier fifth Gospel that has been lost to us.

The bottom line is that the New Testament authors quoted from Genesis thinking that Moses was the author. We should too.

Did Moses write the book of Genesis?

Did Moses write Genesis? That's an easy one. Of course, it was Moses. Sometime I should write a longer article on this, but here are just a few reasons why.

1. The liberal viewpoint is that the “Five Books of Moses” sprang from the Hammarabi Code and Chaldean mythology. Yet Moses himself wrote, “What nation is there ... that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law” (Deut. 4:8). If you break down the semantics of that verse, it is incredible in its implications. Other nations had their laws, but these words imply that these laws were entirely different because they were received from God and not man. In criticism of the liberal theory, Sayce writes, “… on the spiritual and religious side, there is a gulf between them that cannot be spanned.” The Code is so full of legendary nonsense that it is impossible that such a highly detailed account as Genesis evolved from this.

2. Some say there is no internal evidence for a Mosaic authorship. Au contraire! Every book of the Bible necessitates a pedigree of known authorship in order for it to have been included in the Hebrew Canon. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus and the New Testament writers refer to the “book of Moses” (Mark 12:26) and “Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me” (Luke 24:43-45). The messianic prophecies of Genesis were considered to be from Moses by the Jews at the time of Jesus. If Jesus and the Apostles accepted without equivocation that the Genesis prophecies about the Messiah were from the “Law of Moses,” then they had the divine authority to pronounce it so. The internal evidence is found in the New Testament and everywhere in scripture that the “books of Moses” are referred to.

3. Some say it is “obvious” that Moses did not write the account of his own death and burial. Who did write it then? Only God and Moses were present at his burial. It is just as likely that Moses predicted that “no one knows his grave to this day” (Deut. 34:6) as it was for Joseph to prophesy what would happen to his bones hundreds of years after his death (Gen. 50:25). Even if Joshua or a later scribe wrote this passage, he was still prophesying things that only the Spirit could reveal.

4. A larger question becomes how much of the books of Moses were garnered directly from spoken divine inspiration -- “The Lord spoke unto Moses … all the words of the Lord” -- without the aid of human sources and later redaction. The two are not mutually exclusive and certainly the Semitic people knew the story of Genesis. Moses recognized “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” without need of greater explanation. The problem for Moses is that he was an orphan raised by a pagan king’s daughter. While in slavery for several generations many of the Hebrews had forgotten the name of God (Ex. 3:13). So it is likely that until Moses encountered the household of Jethro, he knew little of the specific history contained in Genesis. Jethro was a descendant of Abraham through his second wife Keturah. At the time of Moses, the Midianites were worshipping the one true God and even knew the dwelling place of the shekinah glory of God on Mount Horeb. According to rabbinic tradition, the book of Job is a Midianite story that was told to Moses through Jethro. So it is not unlikely that Genesis was told to Moses through Jethro. Since the Isaelites and the Midianites were related, it’s also likely that the tradition from which Genesis was scribed was carried on through Jethro, the priest of Midian. He is Moses’ counselor, “So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he had said” (Ex. 18:24).

5. Another fascinating and often neglected study is the question of how 2500 years of history could have been remembered without error. This simple answer to this question is that Genesis was divinely inspired, given to Moses through the audible voice of God in the presence of the shekinah glory. However, without discounting divine inspiration in the process, it is also possible that the story of Genesis could have easily been transmitted through only six intervening lifetimes! Biblical chronology shows us the following:

• Adam lived 687 years to the birth of Methusalah;
• Methusalah lived 628 years to the birth of Shem;
• Shem lived 452 years to the birth of Isaac;
• Isaac lived 77 years to the birth of Levi;
• Levi lived 70 years to the birth of Amram;
• Amram lived 61 years to the birth of Moses.

There is a total of 553 years of contemporaneous history during which these men could have spoken to one another. Thus Amram’s children, Moses, Aaron and Miriam, brought the history of mankind through a priestly order into the Sinai desert whether in the form of a memorized oral tradition or in actual writing. Another theory is that Joseph wrote Genesis while ruling Egypt and then all the writing of the Egyptian libraries were later made available to Moses prior to the Exodus. If one were to lean toward this argument of a transmitted written tradition, it is more likely that it passed through Levi, the father of the priestly caste, or Judah, the direct ancestor of the Word made flesh.

Four Questions About the Resurrection

Hello, my name's Sam. I'm a freshman student in Mt. Vernon High School, Illinois. I greatly admire your passion to defend our faith. I think my favorite "subject" to defend is Jesus' Resurrection. Christianity has proven to be true for thousands of years and its core foundation, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, after many assaults from the enemies, still stands strong to this day. YEAH!!

Now, I have some questions concerning the resurrection:

1. I want to know how it is that Jesus has been there for three days in the tomb. Some believe that he has not been buried in the tomb for there days but less.

That’s one that some people stumble over. We have to understand that the ancients numbered a different way than we do today and they used different expressions for time. For instance, if you are 18-years-old, a first century Jew would say you are “in your nineteenth year.” They would say that even if you were 18 and one day.

Likewise the phrase “three days and three nights” is found in Matthew 12:40.

"An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

The Hebrew way of numbering days was from sunset to sunset. “Days and nights” does not mean a 24-hour period. The Jews counted any part of a day as a “day” or even using the idiom “a day and a night” whether it was a full 24-hour period or not.

• 1st day – Jesus was crucified and buried on Friday before sunset
• 2nd day – Jesus was in the tomb Saturday until sunset
• 3rd day – Jesus was in the tomb until sunrise Sunday morning

“Days and nights” doesn’t mean a literal 24-hour period. For instance, in Genesis it says that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.

“For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth” (Genesis 7:4)

I can remember hearing the story as a child and wondering why the “nights” were significant. Why not just say it rained for 40 days?

Another example is Exodus 24:18: “And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.”

The answer is simply that it is an idiom or a figure of speech not a literal 24 hours. We use non-specific time references today as well.

“Can you give me just two more minutes to explain this?”

If I took one minute and 30 seconds, then was I lying? No one nitpicks over idioms that we all understand.

Further proof that this is an idiomatic expression is backed up by the fact that in other places the Gospels say Jesus was raised “on the third day,” and “after three days.”

In a strict literalist English rendering “on the third day” could be the Sunday after a Friday. But “after three days” would be Monday. Why two different idioms here? This is explained by the fact that Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience and Mark is writing to a Roman Gentile audience.

"From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised" (Matthew 16:21).

"And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mark 8:31).

2. Some people say that there are contradictions in how the events took place. Ex: on how Jesus was buried. (Lk. 23:50-56). The passage doesn't seem to show that Jesus' burial was complete. So, does it give a chance that Jesus could have easily unwrap himself since he wasn't properly wrapped? Also, they say that just because the tomb was empty doesn't mean that Jesus was resurrected.

Yes, they do say that! I answered this objection on another forum earlier today. My response is that there were eyewitnesses to the events. John was present, according to his Gospel, as were other disciples mentioned by name. Matthew records that because Jesus claimed he was going to rise from the dead, Roman soldiers guarded the tomb to keep His followers from stealing the body (Matthew 27:65).

If this was not true, then the way to dispel rumors after the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) when the resurrection was preached would have been to simply produce the body.

"And he that saw it (John) bears record, and his record is true; and he knows what he says is true, that you might believe" (19:35).

John is speaking about himself. He calls himself the “disciple whom [Jesus] loved” (19:26).

The skeptics conjecture that Jesus was not crucified and that He lived past the time of what is recorded in the book of Acts is everywhere else refuted. There's simply no evidence or record of that Jesus lived beyond the time of Acts 2, but only to the contrary.

To claim otherwise is hyper-skepticism beyond reason.

3. Some people say that the Gospel Mark since doesn't say anything about the 500 witnesses (note that Mark is the first written Gospel), then the 500 witnesses are just made up stories.

This is a good example of where the modern critics have influenced evangelicals beyond reason. To state emphatically that Mark was the first written Gospel is mere conjecture. This became a popular idea in the 1800s when traditional church teaching on just about everything came into question. The historical view is that the Gospels appear in the canon in the order written.

Irenaeus, writing in the early second century, says: “Matthew published among the Hebrews, in their own tongue, a written form of the Gospel, while Peter and Paul preached the gospel in Rome and founded the Church. It was after his departure that Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted in writing what Peter preached. Luke, Paul’s companion, also wrote in a book what Paul preached. Then John, our Lord’s disciple, the same one who laid his face on his breast (John 13:23), also published the gospel while living in Ephesus” (Against Heresies III, 1,1).

Similar commentaries can be found in Papias of Hierapolis and Clement of Alexandria (cf Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, 3, 39,15:6, 14, 5-7).

If these accounts are true, then Matthew was written before “his departure” from Jerusalem as a missionary and was later translated into Greek. Mark is an abbreviation of Matthew also making use of Peter’s account, but not a source document for Matthew.

In any case, this is an example of the "argument from silence" fallacy. Just because one New Testament writer mentions an event that another one omits does not mean it did not happen.

4. I'd classify myself as a beginner in apologetics, any tips on how to study them and to put them into use? Also, where can I get more resources for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

– F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Books

The following non-believers all set out at one point to either disprove the resurrection or to see if it was historically accurate.

Lee Stroble, The Case for Christ and The Case for Easter

Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Dr. Greenleaf, the Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University, An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice

Ralph O. Muncaster, A Skeptics Search for God

F.F. Bruce on the New Testament:
http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocc02.htm

Overview of Evidence by Ex-Atheist Josh McDowell
http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html

Apologetics Talk 1 - The Dead Sea Scrolls

I started the Apologetics Talk Vlog to answer some of the many comments I’ve been getting on The Real Jesus videos.

In the past, my videos have been seen mainly by Christians. But now with YouTube I am excited that I’ve had tens of thousands of viewers, many of who are skeptics and non-believers. I wanted you to know that your comments have challenged me to go deeper and examine my own beliefs.

This is where I want to give back some reactions to the comments.

First, let’s talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This was the archaeological find of the 20th century, not only did it tell us some important facts about the ancient Judaism, but it also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Hebrew scriptures we have today are exactly the same as the scriptures in the centuries before Jesus Christ and the Apostles.

Now some people still don’t get this. For instance:

sirvega280 wrote:

The Dead sea scrolls don't prove anything that Peter Jennings "failed" to mention. The Jewish authorities that possess the Dead Sea Scrolls will not give the academic world access to the Dead Sea Scrolls so that they can analyze it themselves. The Jewish authorities will only tell us what it supposedly reads, and we are supposed to take their word for it, I guess. Or could it be that the Judeo-Christian community does not want us to find out anything that would undermine this religion?

I don’t know where he got this information, but it is wrong.

Photos of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been available to everyone for study for about ten years on the Internet. These are now public documents.

The Dead Scrolls prove that the Bible hasn't changed in over 2000 years.The Hebrew scrolls of the Old Testament written before the time Christ are virtually identical to the Bible we have today.

Now for years, I’ve been writing in my articles in The Forerunner that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove the reliability and the unchanging quality and the unchanging quality of the Bible. But after getting Sirvega’s comment, I wanted to know for myself.

So I ordered this book, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible - Translated from Hebrew for the First Time into Modern English. What I found was amazing. Not only did it conform everything I’ve been writing and teaching about on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it also boosted my faith in the integrity of scripture. It showed me that today’s biblical text is even more accurate than I thought it was.

Consider this. The last of the Old Testament books – Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi – were written before 400 B.C. so we have copies within about 250 years of the originals. That’s pretty amazing.

Besides the Bible, there is no other ancient writing that has surviving manuscript copies within 900 years of the originals.

900 years!

And yet historians accept many of these other ancient accounts of history as accurate. The very existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls is providential – a sign that the scriptures are the Word of God – post dating some of the originals by only 200 years.

So the next time you hear someone say: “The Bible we have today has been changed and altered and we don’t even know what the originals said.”

Tell them to check out this book on The Dead Sea Scrolls and see for themselves what’s true.

The Trinity and 1 John 5:7,8

There is a popular notion that 1 John 5:7 was interpolated into the Bible sometime in the last 500 to 600 years. The idea comes from the liberal critics' notion that the received text of the Bible must contain errors and that it is the job of modern critics to redact scripture to maintain integrity with the earliest known manuscripts.

Since 1 John 5:7 is not found in any of the ancient Greek manuscripts prior to 1300-1400 AD, then this text must be spurious. This is an accepted idea even among conservatives. Many modern Bible translations include the verse in brackets or as a footnote indicating its late inclusion.

Or so say the critics.

1 John 5:7,8 is the only scripture that contains the Trinitarian formula:

"For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,] the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

The bracketed text is the Trinitarian doctrine that God is three in one. The doctrine of the Trinity does not fall apart on the basis of the rejection of this one verse. However, it is the only verse that succinctly denies the Oneness, or Jesus-only dotrine, otherwise known as the ancient heresy of modalistic monarchianism.

The problem I have with the modern criticism of 1 John 5:7,8 is that the Latin text is seen as having inferior credibility compared to some ancient Greek manuscripts. One such commentary explains:

This is the only passage in the whole Bible that gives any color to the trinity or "oneness" doctrines. However, the bracketed portion (see above) of this passage is almost universally recognized as an interpolation. It first crept into the Greek text in the fourteenth century. It is true that some late Latin, Vulgate MSS., copied not more than five centuries before, do contain it. This interpolation was first inserted into some Vulgate manuscript and was in the fourteenth century translated into the first Greek text having it. Had this text been in the Bible when the trinitarian controversies were going on, in the fourth to the eighth centuries, certainly the trinitarians who were hard pressed by their opponents to produce such a text, would have used it as a proof text. But none of them ever appealed to John as the author of this, for the good reason that it was then not in the Bible. It doubtless crept into the Latin text by a copyist taking it from the margin, where it was written by somebody as his comment on the text, and inserting it into the Latin text itself, from which, as just said, it was first translated into a Greek manuscript in the fourteenth century. The next Greek manuscript that contains it is from the fifteenth century.

http://godandson.reslight.net/1john-5-7.html

The problem for the liberal critics concerning the so-called "Johannine Comma" is that there exist writings of Greek and Latin church fathers who seem to quote the text exactly. Whether the text was in Latin or Greek doesn't detract from the validity of its reliability. From the third century on, the theology of the western church was written mainly in Latin. Since we have no complete manuscript of the New Testament in Greek from this time, there is no way of knowing whether the Greek text of 1 John 5 contained the phrase "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

The liberal idea is that God was obligated to transmit a Greek manuscript for every authentic verse of scripture. However, there is no reason to assume that the Latin received text is not reliable.

On one hand, we have some second century Greek fathers, such as Irenaeus, Athenagorus and Hippolytus, who were aware of the "three persons in one God" formula. This word, "prosopon," is the word the earliest writers employed to say, in Greek, 'One God in three persons.' The Latin term 'persona' is the correlative term to 'prosopon.'

John Calvin wrote:

Nor, indeed, was the use of the term Person confined to the Latin Church. For the Greek Church in like manner, perhaps, for the purpose of testifying their consent, have taught that there are three 'prosopa' in God. All these, however, whether Greeks or Latins, though differing as to the word, are perfectly agreed in substance.

(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter XIII, 2.)

Calvin was most likely referring to Hippolytus who uses "prosopon" to describe the three persons of the Trinity throughout his refutation of the heresy of modalistic monarchianism.

Hippolytus c. 200 AD. "If, again, he allege His own word when He said, 'I and the Father are one,' [John 10:30], let him attend to the fact, and understand that He did not say, 'I and the Father am one, but are one.' For the word are is not said of one person, but it refers to two persons, and one power." (Hippolytus, 'Against the Heresy of One Noetus').

In addition, we have direct quotations of "these three are one" verse, referring to the Trinity in John 5:7,8, from the following Latin fathers.

Tertullian c. 200 AD. "These Three are one essence not one Person, as it is said, 'I and my Father are One' [John 10:30] in respect of unity of Being not singularity of number" (Against Praxeas, 25).

Cyprian c. 250 AD. "The Lord says, 'I and the Father are one;' and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 'And these three are one.'" (Treatise 8, ch.3)

Priscillian c. 380 AD. "As John says 'and there are three which give testimony on earth, the water, the flesh the blood, and these three are in one, and there are three which give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus.'"(Liber Apologeticus)

Eugenius, spokesman for the African bishops at the Council of Carthage, 485 AD. "... and in order that we may teach until now, more clearly than light, that the Holy Spirit is now one divinity with the Father and the Son. It is proved by the evangelist John, for he says, 'there are three which bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one."

Several orthodox African writers quoted the verse when defending the doctrine of the Trinity, Vigilius Tapensis, Victor Vitensis, and Fulgence of Ruspe.

Fulgence of Ruspe 513 AD. "See, in short you have it that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another; in person, each is other, but in nature they are not other. In this regard he [Christ] says, `The Father and I, we are one' [John 10:30]. He teaches us that `one' refers to their nature and `we are' to their persons. In like manner it is said, `There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one' [1 John 5:7]. Let Sabellius hear 'we are,' let him hear 'three,' and let him believe that there are three Persons" (The Trinity 4:1).

The Latin Textus Receptus had, "the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one." The verse was known to the Greek and Latin fathers. If it was interpolated, it happened far earlier than 1500 AD -- the date claimed by liberal critics. In fact, quotations first begin to appear sometime after 200 AD. There is no reason to think of the Trinitarian formula in 1 John 5:7 as a mistake in transliteration or as an intentional forgery.

Countering the Jesus Mythists (2 of 2)

I was watching a YOUTUBE video with one of the proponents of the Jesus Myth theory, who not surprisingly did his work on this theory when he was in his late 20s. In the video, he asks viewers to "send research" so he can write a book claiming that Luke and Acts were not written until the mid-second century.

It doesn’t bother him that Clement the Bishop of Rome writing at about 95 AD quoted Luke and Acts in his letters. The 19th century liberal view that parts of the New Testament were written 100 years after Jesus death was refuted in the early part of the 20th century, but it continues today, strangely promoted by liberal academics, self-appointed Internet “scholars” and the popular media.

To understand the widespread misperception, a few facts need to be examined.

No original manuscript of any document from the first century or earlier exists today. There are a couple of reasons for this. The papyrus books and scrolls that make up the earliest manuscripts of the Bible were extremely fragile and subject to decay. At most, they could be expected to last only a few hundred years before they began to disintegrate into dust. The job of the scribe was to be in a mode of continual copying, since the entire body of literature in the entire world needed to be recopied in every generation. Scribes would often destroy the older copies to differentiate them from the newer ones. Or if the papyrus was usable but faded, he would copy another sometimes entirely different work over the older one. As a consequence, most of the works from ancient times have been lost forever.

A more durable material called vellum had been invented by the first century but didn’t come into frequent use until about 300 A.D. The life expectancy of vellum is about 1000 years or longer. Prior to this time, we find remarkable preserved fragments containing excerpts from many books in the New Testament. There is no single New Testament compilation from the first two centuries, but we find surprisingly numerous fragments that taken together form the content of much of the New Testament.

After the period when vellum came into use, we find an explosion of manuscripts. The majority of the extant manuscripts of the New Testament from 300 until 1000 AD are much earlier and more numerous than the manuscripts of any other ancient literary work of importance. Many of these compilations, called codices, contain the entire text of the New Testament.

When we look at manuscript evidence for works from ancient times, the New Testament is by far the most reliable document we have. There are more extant manuscripts of the New Testament than of any other work from antiquity.

In fact, there are over 24,000 copies of New Testament manuscripts, the earliest existing manuscript fragment, a portion of the text from the Gospel of John chapter 17, was copied within 35 years of the Apostle John’s death. Many other partial and complete manuscripts exist within the first three centuries after Christ.

This is quite amazing when we compare the New Testament with the closest contenders from this time period.

Homer’s The Iliad. About 600 copies of exist. The earliest was made 1,300 years after the originals were written.

The works of Plato. Only seven copies exist the earliest being 1,200 years removed from the original autographs.

The works of Julius Caesar. Only 10 copies still exist, and they were made 1,000 years after he died.

The works of Tacitus. Only 20 copies exist over 1000 years after the originals.

That any of these early papyrus fragments exist today is a providential circumstance if not a miracle. There are simply no complete manuscripts or any fragments left of Homer, Plato, Caesar, Tacitus or any other work from this time period.

In addition, most ancient manuscripts have widely variant copies and much of the text has suffered corruption. About five percent of the lines from the Iliad are corrupted due to variations in extant copies. Compare that with the most reliable New Testament manuscripts that have variations of less than one half of a percent.

The Internet has changed scholarship forever. Compared to the problem that first century scribes faced, we are living in a Golden Age of communication that the ancients would have thought to be miraculous. What I am typing at this moment could conceivably last forever without any corruption in transmission. What is published on the Internet is immediately viewable by millions of people in every country in the world in a matter of seconds.

We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, but unfortunately we moderns are less capable of discerning the media material we view, hear and read. As R.J. Rushdoony has written, we are the “New Barbarians” – a generation of semi-literates barely able to think logically. It is sad and yet encouraging. Take the hubbub over the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” special on the History Channel on Sunday night. Even the liberal commentator Ted Koppel was openly disgusted at the lack of credibility of these filmmakers. At least they admitted Jesus was a real person. The Jesus Mythists are one step beyond left field.

This is actually the best time in history to be a Christian apologist. If you can think logically and read on a college level, you are already head and shoulders above the average 21st century American. Add to this the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who teaches us all things and you won’t find too many arguments against Christianity that are not a veritable house of cards.

Countering the Jesus Mythists (1 of 2)

One of the blessings and scourges to Christian apologetics in our time is the widespread availability of electronic text publishing and digital video production. It is a great blessing because never before has the Christian layman had access to the ability to study theology and communicate the Gospel to so many people. It is a terrible scourge because never before has the quality and reliability of materials related to the Gospel been so poor.

During the whole time when I was the editor of The Forerunner newspaper, our highest press run was just under 25,000 copies. Most copies were sold nearly at cost in bundles of 100 or more for evangelism purposes. We always had a couple thousand faithful subscribers and donors. This generated a budget of a few thousand dollars a month to pay the printing, shipping, and postage bills.

Now with the Internet, Forerunner.com has over 200,000 page accesses per month and over 100,000 visitors (according to one statistics analysis program). I recently put up some clips from the videos I’ve produced on my YouTube video blog and since November 2006 – about four months time – this has generated tens of thousands of viewers. We – meaning me and all the people who have helped me put this together over the years– are reaching many times the number of people than we did with print media and analog video.

A friend of mine, J.P. Holding, who lives just a few miles up the road in Ocoee, Florida, started Tektonics.org in the late 1990s. It’s a similar site to Forerunner.com in many ways. J.P. and I agree that one of the negative byproducts of the postmodernist flood of media technologies has been the emergence in droves of the “Jesus Mythists.” These are people who not only deny the existence of God, but also claim that the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth never even existed.

The proponents of the Jesus Myth theory are almost always without credentials. They do their “research” from a lot of out of date sources to prove an ill-conceived idea that almost no one in the academic community – not even the most liberal of the liberal Bible scholars – will entertain. Almost every scholar agrees that Jesus was a real person and that the Gospel accounts contain a historical outline of His acts and sayings.

The Mythists’ argument is that no one from the time of Jesus wrote anything about him. They discount all the writings of the Apostles and early Christians because they were “biased.” They discount the dozen or so accounts of Jewish and pagan writers who mention Jesus near the end of the second century because they were not eyewitnesses. What they are looking for is a “smoking gun” – an actual letter or manuscript recording the existence of written by someone prior to Jesus’ death.

Such a plea for comtemporary written evidence is extremely unreasonable. We do not doubt the existence of other ancient figures who were not written about until after their death. Until the 20th century, we had no contemporary evidence that Caiaphas the High Priest or Pontius Pilate, who were mentioned several times in the New Testament, were real people either. They are mentioned by later historians, but except for the Gospels and Acts, there was not a single letter, writing or inscription by them or by a person living in theri time who recorded their sayings or doings.

That is, until very recently.

In 1990, diggers in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City uncovered an ossuary (repository for bones) with the inscription JOSEPH SON OF CAIAPHAS. This marked the first archaeological evidence that the high priest Caiaphas, who according to the Gospels presided at the Sanhedrin's trial of Jesus, was a real person. So, indisputably, was Pilate. In 1961, diggers in Caesarea found the fragment of a plaque indicating that a building had been dedicated by PONTIUS PILATUS, PREFECT OF JUDEA.

There is also a lot of physical evidence that validates the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus and the Apostles. Archaeologists have uncovered a first century house in Capernaum that according to tradition was the home of St. Peter. The building contains a meeting room that might have been used for worship. Some experts speculate that this was the synagogue where Jesus preached, as recounted in John 6:59.

The Gospels contain no fewer than 45 references to boats and fishing as they relate to Jesus. These fishing communities have been proven to exist! In 1986, two members of a Galilean kibbutz came across the remains of a 26-ft.-long wooden dory, buried in the mud near Kinneret on the Sea of Galilee, that has been carbon-dated to the first century. Almost certainly, this was the kind of vessel used by Peter, James, John and the other fishermen whom Jesus recruited as his first disciples.

Although movie director John Cameron claims to have discovered the ossuary of the family of Jesus (even claiming Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene on sketchy and far-fetched evidence) it’s unlikely that we should expect find such physical or written evidence of Jesus from a contemporary source other than His disciples.

The reason is that according to the Gospels, Jesus was viewed by almost everyone during His lifetime -- including most of his disciples and family members -- as either an ordinary rabbi, perhaps a prophet, or maybe the promised Messiah -- although even Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist had doubts. This view changed dramatically after the Resurrection when His followers universally began to preach Jesus as the risen Christ and Lord of the universe.

Until His death on the cross, he was controversial yet ordinary. After the resurrection, He was sensational and extraordinary.

To the left is the Pilate inscription discovered in 1961. It reads: "PONTIUS PILATUS, PREFECT OF JUDEA."

Christianity is Rational

Over the weekend, some central Florida pro-life activists got to hear John Ensor and Jay Grimstead speak about the underlying philosophy of abortion and why the church has been straight-jacketed into accepting fallacies that make it impossible for us to resist what is otherwise a completely irrational argument in favor of legalized abortion. Many Americans have bought the lie and others who are still pro-life in their hearts have mentally accommodated the philosophical presuppositions of this lie.

A good example of this irrationality has been dialogues on this blog, my discussion boards (and now my YouTube V-Log) with atheists, skeptics, pro-abortionists and neo-pagans. I’ve written recently about the “stupidity” of the “Jesus-myth” theorists. Here I want to deal briefly with the irrationality of the pro-abortionists.

We began in December to edit together a series of 911 calls, ambulance footage, testimonies of women damaged by abortion, pregnancy counselors who have witnessed the damage, and a story about Baby Rowan who was born alive and then left to die in an abortion clinic.

The typical response from the pro-abortionists is to simply say that we are biased religious kooks who are telling lies to advance our own agenda. The following is one such exchange:

yuyukachoo wrote:

Yeah, just continue to blather on about the horrors of medical procedures you don't even understand while blocking any comments you can't seem to come up with a retort to. Intelligence at its best!

jcr4runner wrote:

Go to: http://womenscenter.com/abortion_methods.html

It's the web site of an abortion clinic.

Scroll down to where it says "complications of abortion." They list all the "horrors" that we talk about in the video as genuine medical risks of abortion. The statistics and medical risks of abortion are so well-documented that even some "honest" abortion doctors tell their patients the facts.

If you don't believe me, go to this page and read the page on the risks of an abortion from the doctor who runs an abortion clinic.

Read it and tell me who is blathering now. I am sorry if I offend you, but your comments are really ignorant. You argue from emotional bias, not rational thought.

yuyukachoo wrote:

You're the one using religion as a basis for some sort of argument. I'd say that's pretty irrational.

Jay Rogers wrote:

Christianity is rational. What is irrational is the modern reliance on a Kantian, Hegelian dualistic view of the universe that excludes what we cannot measure scientifically as "irrational." Jesus Christ the Living Word (or the LOGOS) is the unifying principle of all human knowledge and is the basis for all rational thought.

yuyukachoo wrote:

Explain to me how a giant man in the sky is a rational thing to believe, and how disregarding scientific research is as well.

Jay Rogers wrote:

Christianity does not deny scientific and rational thought. All philosophy up until the time of Immanuel Kant was rational in nature. Western philosophy was divided into two groups -- Christian and Greek pagan. But both groups were looking for a “unifying principle” that would unite the study of both the seen material and the unseen spiritual worlds. To Christians, this unifying principle was Christ, since the LOGOS was both a linguistic (Biblical literature) and logical (the God-man Jesus Christ as a real historical teacher) answer to the problem of the natural/spiritual dichotomy.

When Immanuel Kant wrote Critique of Pure Reason, he rejected the idea that there can be a principle that unites all fields of knowledge. He was actually arguing for an “irrational” system that tells us that we must forever accept a total dichotomy between the visible and invisible worlds. Modern philosophy and liberal theology now sees the two worlds (the noumenal world and the phenomenal world) as two airtight compartments. If the spiritual world exists, we cannot know anything about it through rational thought according to Kant.

Georg Hegel came along soon after and proposed that all truth is a synthesis between thesis and antithesis. That is, there are no objective truths, just what we end up agreeing upon after argument and debate. In fact, we make up new truths in the process. Thus Kant and Hegel together ended up creating an irrational basis for human philosophy that can never explain how the universe fits together as a whole.

Even in the world of science, history, education, literature, and politics, people now see a divided universe that exists in many small compartments, but cannot be understood as a whole. People seek to understand the "many" while denying the "one."

Hitler was simply echoing Hegelian thought when he said: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” and “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think” and “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”

In other words, the “lie” becomes the new “truth” if most people will just believe it. This is exactly what Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood and the abortion advocates have understood all too well.

What Kant and Hegel did was to open the door to irrational thought in the form of existentialism and postmodernism. In fact, we are already well down the slippery slope to irrational philosophy. Or as Lewis Carroll wrote:

“The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.”

You post is an example of this. You start off by saying that our statistics on abortion are “blather on medical procedures you don’t even understand.”

When I cite rational, scientific and empirical evidence that come from abortion providers’ own literature, what you do is retreat into an emotional screed against religion as being irrational, yet I didn’t even use religion to try to prove that abortion is damaging to women. I know it is damaging because I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes (and video camera). I’ve researched the data, the empirical evidence and testimonies of women damaged by abortion.

You then repeat the lie that we deny scientific research, as if this research is on your side of the argument that abortion is "safe," while even many abortionists admit that it is not.

Even from a purely non-religious viewpoint, abortion does not empower women, but damages them and is and makes them prey to unscrupulous men who murder and maim for profit.

You’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole of existentialism, that you don’t even understand the irrationality of your Kantian and Hegelian thought. In the long run, your position isn’t a philosophical or religious problem at all. It’s a moral one fueled by your own irrational passions.

And moral problems are best dealt with by the LOGOS.

Fulfilling the Great Commission: What about the fruit?

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post is that you can broadcast to the entire world and not make a single convert unless the Holy Spirit is in your efforts. It is important to have a sound Gospel message. So much of the Christian material on the Internet is deficient. I am not saying that I am perfect, but I strive to publish only things that glorify God, while I realize that Christians of different theological persuasions might disagree with me. But I am always amazed and gratified whenever a new believer or a seeker after God contacts me via email.

Sometimes I’ve made a theological convert – recently there have been several people who began studying the postmillennial eschatology on my web site. I was pleased to find out that I inadvertently made a convert to postmillennialism last summer through the on-line version of my book: The Four Keys to the Millennium. Or at least I influenced someone who was by the grace of God heading in that direction. I encouraged him to post his ideas on my discussion board, which you can see here and here. From what I can see, I predict that this guy will become prolific in his new passion: refuting dispensationalism! Here is another one of the messages he posted that I liked.

Of course, one can be a good Christian and hold to almost any version of eschatology – even dispensationalism. But has The Forerunner website made any converts to Christ? Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss some difficult Bible questions with a Buddhist and another person who is either a new convert or is seeking. I get encouraged when I get any response to an article at the website – positive or negative – but it is especially gratifying to answer questions for new believers who are reading and getting something out of the materials that we offered. For instance, here is a message from Frank Kellam regarding our Second American Revolution website and DVD God’s Law and Society:

Thanks to Jay Rogers, Eric Holmberg and colleagues for this excellent teaching medium with new on-line study guide. We have used it for seven years with abundant fruit, especially among young disciples, both domestic and overseas.

I am not blowing my own horn here as much as trying to show that someone with just a few computer skills can consistently put out ministry materials that can eventually be used of God as much as larger missionary organizations of past years. The computer revolution has changed everything. The point here again is that anyone can use the Internet and reach thousands and even millions of people with the Gospel. Who knows if God will use it? We can only be faithful with the talents we’ve been given – to invest them in the Kingdom of God without hiding them.

Fulfilling the Great Commission through the Media

In the 21st century, every Christian has a duty to use the new media technologies available to them to preach the Gospel on a daily basis. In the past, the Great Commission, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ...” (Mat. 28:19,20) meant literally to physically go into all areas of the world, establish churches and make disciples. Of course, not everyone could be a missionary, but the church was commanded to raise up ministers and send missionaries to the ends of the earth. Each of us is commanded to go. If we are not called to be a missionary in our own country and our own city, then our job is to go to the nations and preach. The Great Commission isn’t only for apostles or “super-Christians,” it’s for every Christian.

With the advent of the printing press in the 1400s, we saw an explosion of missionary work and reformation of doctrine and culture. It became the duty of the Christian to learn to read so that the Gospel could be studied and understood without a mediator. This “Puritan hope” that the Kingdom of God would fill the whole world led to a universal literacy in colonial America, when less than one-third of Europeans were literate only a few decades before.

The availability of inexpensive personal computers in the 1990s then brought the power of publishing the printed word to the average person. The editor of Predvestnik, Alexei Salapatov, often spoke of how the Russian language Forerunner went into regions of the former USSR where no missionary had yet been. People devoured the message of this publication. It passed from hand to hand and copies were kept until they were literally “read into dust.” If you haven’t seen the new videos I posted on the Russian Forerunner, you should check them out.

But think of how the Internet has changed all this. While not every person in the world has a computer and high speed internet access, it is becoming more common even in third world countries. Within a short period of time, a simple hand held computer with wireless phone and Internet access will become as common and inexpensive as a cell phone. Apple will introduce the iPhone this summer and it will likely revolutionize the world of media once again.

Every American Christian who has been given great wealth compared to the rest of the world needs to be computer savvy and painstakingly learn to publish web pages, blogs and edit digital video. Again this technology has been put to greatest use in America. Christians need to realize that the reason we are the wealthiest nation in the world is not because of the industry of Bill Gates, but the fact that we are living off the accrued capital made from the resources given to the Puritans about 400 years ago. God has made us rich for a reason – not merely to give our children the latest version of Play Station – but to use these new computer resources to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

If you have a computer, a camcorder and live in an area where high speed internet access is available, God expects you to use it to His glory and not merely for your own edification and entertainment. If you don’t already do this, consider using Blogger.com or Myspace.com to start your own blog. If you own a camcorder, you can easily create a short Bible teaching and upload it to YouTube.com. The cool thing about these secondary publishing services is that you no longer need to know too much about web publishing or even have your own domain name or server. But I encourage Christians to maintain their own websites as well. For some it is a big learning curve, but I liken it to the Puritans who had to learn to read and teach their children in the 1600s.

As in the parable of the talents, God is going to reward or punish us in the ratio to whom “much was given.” And we American Christians have been given very much.

The “Jesus Myth” theory refuted (part 2)

Within 60 to 100 years of Christ’s death, there are about half-dozen Jewish and Roman historians who corroborate the story of Jesus even though it is apparent from their accounts that they had not read the New Testament, which at that point was a collection of books and letters circulating among a few dozen churches. But their history corroborates much of the New Testament account of the life and teachings of Jesus and the history of Apostles.

That these pagans did not begin to write volumes about Jesus Christ soon after his death is a moot point.

First, few historical records from this period survived in writing. That is because durable vellum had not been invented and papyrus was a fragile medium that lasted only a few years until it deteriorated. Unless books were copied every 50 years or so, they disintegrated and were lost. The fact that so many writings about Jesus survived is an amazing phenomenon in itself and speaks of divine intention.

Second, there really were not more than a few thousand Christians in the whole world and probably less than 50 cities with churches in the entire New Testament period up until the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. Some say that all the New Testament was compiled by 70 A.D. forty years after Jesus death. Some say by 90 A.D. But most of the New Testament was written from 50 to 70 A.D. In the 20 years before that before that there was an oral tradition and a few letters that are recorded in the context of other writings later on. The Gospel tradition began immediately after the death and resurrection of Jesus (c. AD 29) and continued in an unbroken oral tradition until the Gospels and Epistles were compiled from 50 to 70 AD.

Third, we know from some early Roman records and the book of Acts itself that the Christians were thought of as a Jewish sect, because most early Christians were Jewish up until the destruction of Jerusalem. It wasn’t until the early second century that Christianity began to swell to large numbers among important people and took in as members many Gentiles citizens of the Roman Empire.

The claim that there is a “lack of records” is false and would not be surprising even if it were true. The Jesus Myth relies on positivist thinking -- that since we don’t have written accounts or official records by non-believing pagans then Jesus simply didn’t exist. It is more logical to say that all of the people who met Jesus and were sufficiently impressed enough to write about His life and teachings would have been His followers.

The person to read on the Internet on this topic is J.P. Holding. I first met J.P. when I started to do some research on the Jesus Myth. He has written more in refutation of the “Jesus Myth” than any writer I know. He is one of the foremost apologists on this issue. And I was surprised to find that J.P. lived less than 15 miles from my house.

When we first met, he basically confirmed my exact same thought: “These people are just stupid. They will sap you of your time. They will not listen to reason. And because of them, I have a new policy on my web site: No stupid people.”

Unkind though it may sound, it is true. Their arguments are stupid. Their research is wrong. They lack credentials. Even the most liberal scholars do not take them seriously. The Jesus Myth people are just plain dumB with a capital “B.”

The problem is that with the explosion of Blogs and now YouTube, documentaries and discussions of the Jesus Myth have proliferated. In fact, the “Jesus Mythologists” are the ones who have commented the most on my Real Jesus series on YouTube – even though the documentary does not deal at all with the heresy of the Jesus Myth – but rather the Jesus Seminar. Even the arch liberal Jesus Seminar theologians admit Jesus existed because it is so unlikely that He did not -- even if one takes a modernist, positivist approach.

The “Jesus Myth” Theory Refuted (part 1)

When I started my Forerunner Discussion Board in 2006, I posted the script to a video I had been working on for a few months, The Real Jesus. This video was inspired by and critiques a Peter Jennings special from a few years ago called, The Search for Jesus. A lot of Christians tune in to programs such as this one thinking they’ll find documentaries on the historical background of the Gospels. Instead we were treated to a two-hour commercial for the Jesus Seminar, a group of liberal scholars who are essentially regurgitating the Higher Criticism of over 100 years ago. The Higher Criticism is a positivist, modernist view that is ironically based solely on conjecture.

The tenet of logical positivism is that theological and ethical statements are nonsense and serve merely to express the feelings rather than rational thought. Only mathematical and scientific statements are literally meaningful, or “true.” Whatever cannot be proven by science and especially direct observation does not exist.

The Higher Criticism is distinguished from the so-called “lower criticism” -- rightly known as just plain “textual criticism” -- that seeks to discover what the original autographs of the New Testament books contained by comparing the earliest and best of the manuscripts and fragments that we have available today. Scholars are pretty much in agreement that we can be 95 to 99 percent certain that what is written in today’s New Testament is reliable and accurate compared to the original autographs.

The Higher Criticism on the other hand is purely speculative and ends up arguing in a manner opposite of the positivism that it claims to represent. Further, the claims of the Higher Critics were almost thoroughly refuted by the archaeological discoveries of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Some of the Higher Critics back in the 1800s went as far as to say that Jesus was a myth -- that He never even existed as a man -- but today due to the overwhelming archaeological evidence corroborating in minute detail the history of the New Testament, most liberals agree that Jesus was a man and most are even constrained to admit that the Gospels were written in the first century -- not the second as the early liberals tried to say. For example just a few years ago, there was physical evidence found concerning several of the contemporary New Testament personalities such as Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas the High Priest. These were previously unproven from a positivist view except through written accounts. But now we know that these contemporaries of Jesus mentioned in the New Testament did exist. Today, the liberals continue to doubt the miracles and divinity of Jesus. But virtually all agree that He was a true historical person.

As soon as I posted my script on the Real Jesus, I began to get almost daily posts from a few people who insisted that Jesus was a myth, that there was no historical evidence that he existed, that the early Christians were Gnostics that took pagan myths and placed them on this allegorized fictional character. This argument went on for a few months until I got weary of them saying the same thing again and again.

The Jesus Myth proponents begin with the comparisons between pagan gods and Jesus. One of the problems with these is that many examples are fabricated out of thin air -- such as the claim that the Hindus teach that Krishna was resurrected (he was cremated). But Christians throughout the centuries have always noted the similarities between the god-man stories and Christ. These actually lend credence to the Gospel. The idea is that God has placed “eternity in our hearts” -- so to speak -- and these myths just resonate with the true historical Jesus even though Christ appeared after some of these stories were created. The same is true for most of the Genesis story, the creation, the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, the flood, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, and so on. These are universal truths found in all religions -- just as the promise of a messiah is recognized in many religions. It shows the truth of the Gospel that we all had a common origin, that we sinned and came under an ancient series of judgments and received the promise of redemption through a messiah sent from God from the beginning (Gen. 3:15).

The Jesus Myth argument is also positivist. They insist that because there are not numerous first century historians who mention Jesus prior to 50 AD -- a full 20 years after His death -- He simply did not exist.

But in fact, there is a short list of first and second century Jewish and pagan historians who mention Jesus. The Jesus Myth proponents counter that these were either later Christian forgeries or they are not credible because they were writing what they heard from Christians secondhand and were not eyewitnesses from the time of Jesus ministry that lasted three and a half years.

Another common trick is to appeal to the “thousands and thousands” of Roman records of trial proceedings and crucifixions “none of which mention Jesus.” The odd thing about this claim is that there is no evidence that the Romans kept such records and certainly none exist today -- at least not from the period in which Jesus was crucified in Judea. So the lack of Roman records is this logical fallacy that doesn’t make any sense.

Instead of Roman records, what we have are the accounts of eight or nine New Testament writers seven of whom were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry. We also have late first century accounts of those who knew the Apostles who wrote the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament. These people were called the Church Fathers because they were the second generation of Christian bishops who received their authority and the New Testament writings directly from the Apostles. We also have the third generation writings of the so-called Apologists who heard and knew the second generation Church Fathers, some of whom lived into the second century.