Category: Historical Jesus

Book Plunge: Jesus Contradicted

What do I think of Mike Licona’s latest book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Mike Licona sent me a publisher’s copy of this book. I want to say at the start that I value my relationship with him as my former father-in-law, but I also have a great relationship with Tim McGrew. Some people have asked me to give my thoughts on minimal vs maximal facts. My thoughts are I am not interested. I just want to see the kingdom spread. I can use the minimal facts, but I can also make a case for the Gospels as well. I also think everyone defending the resurrection should be able to defend the Gospels.

I say this at the front because I know there are feuds that take place on Facebook. I want no part of them. Whenever I have been asked publicly or privately what my stance is, I have said the same thing every time and that is not changing.

Also, some of you might be wondering why if I got an early copy, why am I just reviewing it now? Because I’m a seminary student and I have several other books I’m reading. As it stands, I’m just now going through volume 1 of Habermas’s resurrection series.

So looking at Licona’s book, if you have already read Why Are There Differences In The Gospels? not much here will strike you as new. That being said, there are some areas that are more covered here than there are in that one. What comes to mind immediately is a deeper look at inerrancy and a look at the subject of inspiration.

The book is certainly quite readable and that for many people will be a huge plus. Knowing Licona, it was easy to hear his voice throughout as I was reading it and it read more like a conversation to me than anything else. I understand this book was to be a popular level format of the former and with that, he did succeed.

A popular refrain throughout shows up in places like page 18. Sometimes when people are presented with differences in the Gospels, they can think the foundations of their faith are being shaken when really, it is their view of Scripture that is being shaken, and that could be a false one. As I write this, I think of a friend of mine who almost lost his faith. His doubts began when he found out that 1 John 5:7 was not authentic.

From here, Licona looks at views on what order the Gospels were written in, how biographies were written in the time of Jesus, and then to his subject of compositional devices. When it comes to my personal view on them, I think they can account for some differences. On the other hand, I think there are some times where harmonization by other means does make sense. I would not want to say compositional devices are the silver bullet that answers every problem. I also would not say they play no role whatsoever.

Then we get to the topic of inspiration and here, I find the insistence on this puzzling. In the long run, how does it help us? Let’s suppose all of Scripture is believed to be true. Okay. Good. Now we add in it’s inspired.

Alright.

And what have we gained exactly?

I understand that Paul does tell us all Scripture is inspired by God, but could that just be a way of saying it is all true? If we show it is all true, what have we gained? We have spilled much ink on a topic that won’t change how we read the text anyway?

The section on inerrancy was an interesting one. Here, I parted ways a bit more seeing as I much more prefer my own idea of contextualizing inerrancy. I didn’t really understand what Licona was meaning by flexible inerrancy. I also understand he has a lot of this depend on middle-knowledge. As a Thomist, I am somewhat skeptical of middle-knowledge claims to an extent. I also right now do not have the time to look at that topic much more, but if I am skeptical of middle-knowledge, does that mean I have to avoid flexible inerrancy? With contextualizing inerrancy, I don’t have that problem.

I also wish that while Licona does look at the ways ancient biographies were written, I would have liked to have seen a lot said about the social world of the Gospels and the New Testament, particularly how they rely on honor and shame. There were times I was surprised to see the way Licona seemed unaware of this. Consider when he refers to Psalm 137:9 and asks if the Psalmist was mirroring God’s heart when he wrote

Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

If you understand honor and shame, you realize that this was also the way the Israelites were speaking in their captivity. They were being mocked in the land they were in and so they were in essence saying “May what you did to us be done to you!” This is also the way ancient societies could often deal with anger. Trash talk was a way of letting out hostilities before they escalated to something greater. No view of middle-knowledge is needed for this. Also, if a scholar like Licona would look at honor and shame in the Gospels, maybe more people in the apologetics world on the lay level would notice.

So while I do disagree with a number of things said in that chapter, overall, the book is an enjoyable read. If you hesitated to understand his former book, get this one instead. It will be a much better read for you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Final Thoughts on the Paulogia article

So what is there left to say? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The problem many times with so many critiques of the resurrection is that they just say the same things. They treat the whole situation as if they just do some simple thinking, and boom, there’s the answer and no one noticed it for 2,000 years.

Worldviews are rarely like that.

I am in a debate group with Jehovah’s Witnesses and I find it so amazing when they post a verse like it stands alone and think they have disproven the Trinity. Yes. This is a verse that no one in Christian history ever noticed. Lo and behold, the Witnesses came along and showed us the truth that everyone before them overlooked.

Or let’s be fair and use a secular example as well.

Suppose a Christian is arguing with an atheist about evolution and says “Well if people came from apes, then why are there still apes?”

Yes. Absolutely no scientist ever thought about that question at all. With that question, the National Academy of Sciences can now abandon evolution and several dissertations will have to be shredded immediately.

I’m not saying that evolution is false and I’m not saying it’s true. If you read my blog, you know that I do not know and I do not care. I have some questions about it, but I am willing to accept just for the sake of argument. However, if you want to be a Christian and argue against it, God bless you, but know that it will require that you actually seriously study the science and build a strong scientific case.

One statement I often make with atheists is that too many of them live in constant fear of contrary thought. Yes, sadly so do so many Christians. I am always reading at least one book that I disagree with. When I argue with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I encourage them to read some of the commentaries out there on the verses they share. They never do.

I am not saying that atheists should not try to mount a case against the resurrection. If anyone thinks it is false, they should. I am saying that too many atheists I encounter seem to give just-so stories that they think are plausible, but really upon close examination do not hold up. Sometimes they explain one facet of the data and sometimes do that quite well, but they ignore the greater parts.

This is also a problem in our time. Look at our presidential debates. “The economy is in shambles. How do you plan to fix it? You have two minutes. Go.”

This question is hugely multi-faceted. It doesn’t matter which candidate you prefer, no one should be able to give a full answer in two minutes, but we have become that soundbite culture. Arguing against the resurrection will likely take a book-length work to give full credibility to it. I’m not saying blog posts can’t be made, but I would suggest if Paulogia wants to do this again, to try to make a blog post on each point entirely.

This is also why when I go through a book to respond to it, I do it over multiple parts. Arguments are serious and they require deep dives. It’s hard, but someone has to do it.

We’ll see what next week brings!

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 4

How did the resurrection claims end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So now we come to Paulogia’s final points. After addressing these, for the final day of the week, I plan on writing about why I do not find these convincing overall. For now, let’s see what Paulogia has to say.

The first is that Greek-speaking Gentiles who never saw Jesus began writing down the stories centuries later. Of course, there is no real interaction with scholarship that places the Gospels early, not that the case Habermas and others build depends on them. You don’t see Jesus and the Eyewitnesses dealt with.

Paulogia does say the case against traditional authorship is ironclad and has a link to that. I understand he can’t argue for everything in a post. At this, I do just want to raise up some questions.

If these were Greek speakers writing about events long before them, why did they not put anything on the lips of Jesus that addressed their concerns. Why is there nothing on the nature of the Lord’s Supper and baptism? Why is there nothing on meat offered to idols? Why is there nothing on what Gentiles have to do to be saved or on circumcision? Why does the term Son of Man show up constantly when it doesn’t in the rest of the New Testament?

If we want to say that the Gospels were written as prophecy fulfilled after the fact, then why is this not done on the topic of the resurrection where one would think you would find the most Old Testament references? You don’t even find a doctrine of the atonement here. Why not?

Also, if we are talking about authorship, why would the church pick the names that they did? Matthew was a tax collector. Surely you could find a better representative among the apostles! Mark had a reputation of being a Momma’s Boy who ran away in the first missionary journey causing a split between the church’s two first great missionaries. Luke was a Gentile who is only briefly mentioned in the epistles. The only one that makes sense is John, and that is the one the church debated! Was it John the elder or John the apostle?

The 11th point is that some Christians were punished for behavior by the Roman government. The problem is we are not told what this was. How about the fact that Christians were also seen as intolerant because they refused to acknowledge other gods? How about Christians had a Messiah who was crucified which was shameful? How about Christianity was an automatic challenge to Caesar by calling Jesus the only Lord?

Paulogia says the church grew because they gave to the poor and were accepting of others. The fact that they refused to worship other gods actually had them be seen as unaccepting of others. As for the poor, that would explain the poor coming to them, but not anyone in elite circles. You could give to the poor if you wanted without having to follow a crucified Messiah.

And then finally, Christianity eventually gained tolerance and then became the official religion. Okay, but how did it get to that point? Paulogia says other points like an empty tomb are later embellishments. One thinks he doth claim victory too quickly. Also, Paulogia never explains why we have this story as I said at the start.

He finally says the ball is in Habermas’s court.

This is likely the closest Paulogia is going to get a return serve as I have no reason to think Habermas will take Paulogia seriously.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 3

Was Paul ridden with guilt? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re continuing our look at Paulogia that can be found here and today, points 7-9 will be covered.

Point 7 is that the story of Jesus spread orally with the emphasis being on recruiting new members to the movement instead of transmitting accurate history.

Paulogia appears to paint this as an either-or. It seems unheard of that you could recruit new members to the movement by transmitting accurate history. The implicit assumption is “If we tell the history accurately, we won’t get members” and “If we want to get members, we need to downplay the history.” Of course, there is no interaction with how oral societies communicate their stories.

There’s still nothing also on why this story. Why tell stories about a crucified Messiah? If you’re trying to embellish and rewrite the history, then surely one of the first statements you would want to eliminate is crucifixion. You could have resurrection without crucifixion. Jesus went into Pilate’s residence at the head of a mob and was killed in the attempt, but He was resurrected as a hero of the movement. Nope. Jesus suffers the capital penalty that was the worst in shame at the time.

Paulogia also says that the Gospels weren’t written until decades later. I suspect he is thinking of the communication being like a game of telephone with individuals talking to individuals, when it would be more stories being told in group settings. The groups would have certain members in them who would make sure the stories were told accurately. There is no interaction with people like Dunn or McIver or Bailey or others on oral communication as was said.

Now we get to Paul who had a non-veridical vision of the allegedly-resurrected Jesus. And what was the cause of that vision? Let’s say it all together boys and girls!

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!

Yes, it’s that magic term atheists like to throw out when they don’t know anything else to say. Paulogia also compares this to PTSD. Over what? Who knows?

To get to Cognitive Dissonance again, there is no reading of someone like Festinger. There is an allegation that Paul is wrestling with guilt, but that is just Paulogia throwing his own culture onto the Biblical one. In the Biblical one, as in many honor-shame cultures, behavior was done to earn the approval of the group or some other external source, such as God, and was not based on internal feelings or conscience.

What does Paul have guilt over? Killing Christians? He would have seen that as a service to God. Paulogia also says he wanted a new purpose in life, because obviously rising up the ranks in Jewish society and being an up and coming star in that field was just not worth it. Obviously, he needed to attach himself to this shameful group that gave him persecutions instead.

As for Paul being prone to hallucinations, again, this is Paulogia’s stance. Evidence they were hallucinations? Well, that doesn’t happen. Why? Because there is no God that can provide visions? If so, that is part of the claim that needs to be demonstrated. Readers know I have plenty of times made my case for theism here.

Finally, Paul met the apostles, but they did not see eye to eye. Paulogia says this explains the lack of information about Jesus’s ministry in his epistles. Once again, Paulogia is pressing his own low-context culture on a high-context society. In a high-context society, background knowledge on the part of the reader is assumed. (It would be ironic if we found out that Paulogia also complains about alleged Christian bigotry after he has pushed his own ideas of how society works onto the Biblical culture.)

Paulogia also says that this is evidence Paul’s visit was not to talk about the life of Jesus. Yes. Because obviously, when he met with the apostles and conferred with them, they were just talking about the weather or all that time or perhaps how the Jumping Jehoshophats were going to do in taking down the Egyptian Eagles in that year’s chariot races.

So once again, we have nothing but weak cases from Paulogia that run on speculation upon speculation and ignore the culture of the time.

We’ll look at the rest of the work tomorrow.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 2

How well-known was Jesus after His death? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Continuing the look at Paulogia, the next point he wishes to make from here is that before the crucifixion Jesus had some followers, but most of them disappeared from reliable history aside from Peter, never to be heard from again.

So many vague terms here.

Paulogia refers to self-serving and fanciful church traditions here (Not sure what that means entirely.), Paulogia says that only Peter and John really get mentioned in the narrative. He does say that Sean McDowell says that Peter is the only member of the twelve whom we have a high degree of probability for with regard to martyrdom. It has been awhile since I read that book, but even granted that, what follows from that?

When it comes to what we have from the ancient world, what we have to have to get to us is that first, someone observed it, then someone wrote it, then it managed to be copied, then it somehow lasted to our times. Sometimes this is difficult and we know that there are many books that have been lost to history. The writings of Papias come to mind as an example.

Yet despite this, I wonder what Paulogia means by disappeared into history. Does it mean that they had no impact? Are the only lives worth recording those who were martyred? Paulogia leaves too much unclear on this point.

Paulogia’s fifth point is that after the death of Jesus, Peter was distraught and experienced a bereavement hallucination.

Okay. How do we know he was distraught?

Paulogia might say “Wouldn’t you be if the man you thought was the Messiah was gone?” Maybe, or maybe Peter was more “I can’t believe I spent around three years of my life following this fraud!” We don’t know his psychological state. There is a reason psychohistory has by and large been abandoned. I have been in therapy and still am and it’s hard enough to diagnose someone who you are talking to in person. Doing it with someone in history is more difficult.

Besides that, even if Peter was having a hallucination, the ancient world was familiar with bereavement hallucinations. It never led to them thinking that the person was alive again. One would also think that surely by the time Peter is being crucified he would be saying “You know, that probably was a hallucination.” Normally unless someone is in advanced stages of dementia or has a psychiatric disorder of some kind, they know when they have had a hallucination.

The next part is that James joined the movement after as well as John. But why James? Paulogia suggests social contagion, but why should anyone think this? What would it take to convince you that your brother was alive again and not only was alive, but was the Son of God?

He also suggests maybe James took over the family business. What business? James is never declared to be the Messiah even though he would have been an obvious pick. James is mentioned a number of times in Acts, but he is certainly not a highlighted figure in comparison to Peter and Paul.

Thus we conclude reasons 4-6 and what do we find but more of the same kind of material?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 1

Why does this story exist? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Someone sent me this wanting a reply to it. I looked through and thought it was just something pretty basic. Then I take another look and realize it’s Paulogia. He is a somewhat well-known figure on the interwebz. In this, he is responding to Gary Habermas. Apparently, Habermas says at the end of his first volume on the resurrection that few scholars are really standing up to the data. I have a copy, but with schoolwork going on, I have not read it yet. It’s amusing though to think that if this is the case and scholars aren’t putting forward these theories, that Paulogia thinks he can.

At any rate, I do not know if Habermas has even heard of Paulogia. I am sure Habermas probably wouldn’t even really bother with a response. That being said, I do know Habermas and I am sure he would be fine with me giving an answer for him.

Paulogia also quotes Bart Ehrman saying that any scenario, no matter how unlikely, is to be preferred over the one where a miracle occurs. This has powerful rhetorical flair, but at the same time, it shows that really, Ehrman is not going to be responsive to the evidence. It is saying “I do not care how much evidence you pile up. Anything else is more likely than a miracle.”

Does Paulogia really want to go that route? I have written about that here.

Again, if this is the case, then if Paulogia agrees, then he is saying he does not really care about evidence. No matter how much you bring up, he will always go with the non-miraculous case. That being said, Paulogia will now be responding to the idea that you can explain the existence of the church without the resurrection.

At the start, something that needs to be said is that Paulogia explains the story that we have. Never explained is why do we have this story? Why was it told this way? After all, a far easier story would be “Yes. He was crucified, but we believe that God has exalted Him for His righteousness and He is now sitting at the right hand of God and is ruling as king.” No resurrection would be needed. No promise of a return or second coming (I differentiate between the two) would be needed. It would also be a story that no one could really refute. Seriously. How would you begin to refute something like that?

Yet the church did not go with that story. Odd. Yet that aspect is something Paulogia never explains. I also do not see any indication that Paulogia understands the concepts of honor and shame. As we will see going through this, Paulogia unsurprisingly comes to the culture of Scripture and superimposes his own culture onto it.

Also, this will be a multi-part series.

So at the start, Paulogia argues that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. From this, he will get no complaint from me. I have read and reviewed Ehrman’s Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium on this blog. I have also reviewed his most recent work Armageddon with part one being here.

Paulogia goes to a few Scriptural passages here. The first worth mentioning is in the Olivet Discourse. While I went through Matthew, there is enough similarities in it to compare it to the Marcan version and you can find the start of that here. It’s worth pointing out that in the two Ehrman books, he nowhere mentions orthodox Preterism.

How about the transfiguration? There’s a claim about people seeing the Kingdom of God come with power before that. Is that referring to the transfiguration? Well, not exactly. Finally, what about what Jesus said when before the Sanhedrin about seeing the Son of Man coming on the clouds? This is a reference to Jesus’s second coming, not His return. He is talking about coming to the throne. Note, He is coming and sitting both. It’s not as if Caiaphas will one day look outside his window and see Jesus riding a nimbus cloud like he’s Kid Goku.

By the way, I suppose it is likely Paulogia has late dates for Gospels like Matthew and Luke. Some do date Mark to before 70. So if he dates these this way, why? Why would something be published after the fact saying Jesus will come before this generation passed away? There are a number of options.

  1. The Gospel writers were massive idiots who didn’t realize they had shown Jesus as a false prophet in their own writings.
  2. The Gospel writers wrote after the fact and knew that Jesus’s coming to His throne had already happened as He said. (See all my writings on the Olivet Discourse)
  3. The Gospel writers wrote before the events and trusted they would happen as Jesus prophesied, but if that’s the case then the Gospels are early and within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses.

The second part is that Jesus did something to get Himself arrested and He died by crucifixion. No complaint here.

So now we come to the third one where there will be serious pushback and after this we will wrap up for the night.

This is that the resting place of the body of Jesus was unknown to His followers. Paulogia says that the body would have been left on the cross as Romans did this. However, Craig Evans has a strong case in Jesus and the Remains of His Day that burial of crucified victims was allowed in Judea in peacetime. (We even have found one such victim.) This was done for the sake of Jewish sensitivities.

Jody Magness has also said that the Gospel accounts of the burial of Jesus are consistent with first century burial practices. When Ehrman wrote on this topic in How Jesus Became God, he did not cite any scholars on Jewish burial practices. That is quite a shame.

He says that Mary would not have the means to bury Jesus, which is likely so, but he says nothing about Joseph of Arimathea. Why should I not accept the account? It is consistent. As he says, the Sanhedrin would have responsibility for the body and Joseph would come forward to do what he can. I can understand Paulogia not believing that account. I cannot understand his ignoring it.

Paulogia then says Jesus would have been buried in a burial ground for condemned criminals. Okay. Even if we granted that, how does he get to that therefore it would be unknown to the followers of Jesus where He was buried? Absolutely no one would know? No one on the Sanhedrin would show them? One would think they would want to do this to gloat and shame. “See? He’s buried here right next to the criminals! Go and look for yourself!” Are we to think absolutely no one in Jerusalem, a city swarming with people for Passover, saw what happened? You have a guy who is probably the most well-known figure in the area being publicly crucified and then hours later, no one knows where his body is?

Color me unconvinced.

That’s it for today. We’ll look at parts 4-6 tomorrow.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Problem of Unipersonalism

What assumption do Arians make? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I regularly debate the Trinity with Jehovah’s Witnesses and others. If there’s one big mistake that they make, it is what I call the assumption of unipersonalism. The topic under debate in these discussions is whether God is one person or not. What happens in the assumption is that it is automatically taken for granted that God is one person and every text is read in that light.

Imagine going to the Shema where we read “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” “Ah!” says the Arian! “That settles it! The Lord is one!”

The automatic assumption is that since the text says that God is one, that means that God is one person. All Trinitarians would agree that the Lord our God is one. They would not agree that that means that He is one person. If you say that Trinitarians ipso facto deny the oneness of God, then you are not understanding our position.

Another case of this is where you have verses of Scripture that mention God and then mention Christ as well as if they are two different persons. At this point, the Arian thinks they have won again. “See! The text mentions God and then it mentions Christ as someone else! They are two different beings!”

Several passages of Scripture have this kind of language. A search through BibleGateway reveals them. So you look at all of these and it sure looks like those are two different beings.

The problem is Trinitarians look at those and do not have any problem. It is actually what we expect. We expect God the Father to be spoken of in one way and Jesus to be spoken of in another.

If you do not believe in the Trinity, just consider this. If it is true, how else should this be spoken of? You have people realizing that Jesus is somehow included in the divine nature. They also know that there is still God the Father. They do not say God through God to avoid confusion. They treat Jesus as included in the divine nature and yet distinct from the Father. One common way of doing this is calling Jesus, Lord, and calling the Father, God.

Also, one has to be quite ignorant to look at all these verses and think that every single Trinitarian in church history just completely ignored all of them. Sadly, people who are Witnesses will extremely rarely ever read anything that disagrees with them. It would be easy to go to a library and find a commentary on these verses and see what was said about them in the past, but that will not happen.

Trinitarian theology is not easy to understand, nor should it be. We are talking about the nature of God! Why on Earth would anyone consider that to be easy to understand? People who argue against the Trinity owe it to themselves to at least try to understand the doctrine they are arguing against.

Doing so shows respect for truth as you are open to making sure you are not wrong by listening from the other side directly.

It shows respect for your opponents in saying you do not want to straw man them and you want to make sure you represent them accurately.

It shows respect for God as you want to make sure you are speaking about Him accurately and not just believing what any one person or group says.

On the other hand, avoiding this tells your opponents you do not really care about truth, that you do not really care about them, and that you are more interested in your idea of God than you are in God Himself.

Not only that, but when I see arguments anti-Trinitarians make that they think are super-powerful, too often I just shake my head. They think they are destroying us when they are revealing their own ignorance instead. If you want to try to change the mind of someone like myself, you need to show me you have at least tried to seriously interact with my viewpoint.

Avoid the assumption of unipersonalism.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 6

What about God in the Old Testament? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Iqbal now turns to the Old Testament. The first part worth noting is when he talks about how Mark 1 quotes Isaiah. Iqbal points out that this quotation is actually a combination of a quotation from Isaiah and Malachi. He ignores that there is actually scholarship on composite quotations which occur not just in Jewish and Christian writings, but in writings in greater Greco-Roman antiquity.

He also says Jesus never refers to Himself as the Son of Man. This is a strange argument because it assumes the only way He can is if He comes out and says “I am the Son of Man.” He also rarely says “I am the Messiah.” One example that shows Jesus saw Himself as this figure is in Matthew 19 when He tells the disciples that they will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. It’s thought to be authentic since He says the twelve will which would be problematic with what Judas did. The question is, “If the apostles sit on twelve thrones, where does Jesus sit?”

There is some discussion on what the word Echad means. He does say that it can refer to a compound one, but sometimes it doesn’t.

Okay.

But sometimes it does.

Thus, just saying echad isn’t sufficient to show that this is a one that is absolutely solitary in nature. You can point out that there are many cases where this doesn’t happen and yet, that doesn’t matter. Each time it is to be interpreted based on the context of that passage.

He also asks why it refers to three in the case of God if that is the case. Why not three?

Because three persons is the number revealed throughout the Bible….

He says that the plural means the plural of majesty. In some cases, I am open to that entirely. In some cases, it doesn’t apply. Why should I think echad refers to a plural of majesty? Iqbal gives me no reason to think so.

He also says that Paul explicitly says he didn’t get information from the original apostles of Jesus on the gospel. He ignores that in Galatians 1, Paul speaks to them and presents the gospel to make sure that his race had not been run in vain. I can’t help but wonder if Iqbal has ever truly read the New Testament for himself.

So once again, we have a Muslim who tries to argue against the Trinity and really demonstrates he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. When dealing with these arguments, I tend to hit only the highlights….errr…..lowlights? It would be too much to go over every argument and some of them have been done over and over again and I try to trust on newish arguments that I have not dealt with before.

But, there are other books, so we will soon begin going through another such book sometime to see what else Muslims have to say on the topic.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 5

Can the Trinity withstand examination? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You know a chapter is not going to go well when this is one of the earliest points you see.

1 + 1 + 1 = 1.

It gets worse when you see Iqbal describe this as a great challenge.

No. It’s an ignorant one. It also assumes that every Trinitarian mind in history has never noticed that 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 and somehow at all the biblical councils that this basic fact escaped notice. As someone who loves math, let’s try a different one.

1x + 1x + 1x = 1y.

You would have to know what X and Y are to answer this one. Either way, this is also NOT a description of the Trinity anyway. The Trinity is not that if you add up three persons, you get one God, as if each person was a part of God. Ugh. No person of the Trinity is 33.3% God. Each is 100% God. What you have in the Trinity is three persons that each fully share a divine nature.

He goes on to quote their “Messiah” as saying:

As far as the Christians are concerned, they are clearly opposed to the Oneness of God, for they believe in three ‘Gods’— the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Their explanation, that they believe ‘three’ to be ‘one’, is really quite absurd. No sane person can be expected to accept such flawed logic, especially when the three Gods are considered to be permanently self-existing and each is thought to be a complete God in Himself. What kind of arithmetic is it that shows them to be one, and where is it taught? Is there any logic or philosophy that can explain how beings which are permanently three can be counted as one? It is only a deception to argue that this is a mystery which human reason cannot understand, for human reason clearly understands that if there are three perfect Gods, they will have to be ‘three’ and not ‘one’.

No, no, no, and no. All that is being done here is a straw man. Monotheism is ESSENTIAL to the Trinity. Muslims start from their failed misunderstanding, argue against that, and then proclaim victory.

Iqbal claims the Trinity was invented by Tertullian. Actually, Theophilus used the term Trinity before Tertullian did and neither of them had to explain it, which indicates it was something known to their audience. I do not expect the apostles to be quoting the Creed of Chalcedon immediately after the resurrection. They were too working out and understanding what Jesus told them. Acts 10 indicates Peter didn’t even understand that Christianity had to go to the Gentiles.

He then refers to a Muslim who asked a pastor that if he wished to pick up a pencil on the table, would he call his friends for help. The pastor thought that was crazy, understandably so. The Muslim then said that if God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all could create the world it seems strange they should work together.

Because?…..

All three were involved because it was an act of love on the part of all three. All three do everything together. This is an appeal to ignorance. “I don’t know why God would do it this way, therefore He didn’t.”

So once again, close out another chapter entirely disappointed.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 4

Does Jesus have the attributes of God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Early on, Iqbal brings up two passages of Scripture to show Jesus was not omnipotent.

John 5:30 — By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

And

Mark 6:5 — He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

With the former, what does he expect Jesus to say? “I do everything on my own and I make judgments the way I want to regardless of the Father?” This is a claim of strong unity with the Father. He is saying “When I judge, it is the judgment of God. When I act, it is the act of God.”

As for the latter, it seems strange to think Jesus’s ability to do miracles depend on faith when in the Gospels, His followers weren’t expecting His resurrection and yet, there it was. We can grant Muslims don’t believe in the resurrection, but that doesn’t change that it is in the Gospels and thus they are primary sources for Christian doctrine. What is going on is Jesus is responding to loyalty there. Since the people don’t welcome Him and want Him, He doesn’t do many miracles there.

Iqbal also says God does not pray to anyone, but this assumes that God is unipersonal, which is the statement under question. If there are at least two persons who are God, what is wrong with one of them “praying” to the other one? This is especially the case since Jesus was fully human. Iqbal needs to show why this is a problem and not just assume it is.

He then looks at what Warfield said about how Jesus acted in both His humanity and His deity. This is certainly true, but then Iqbal jumps to full Nestorianism saying that this means Jesus had two persons in Him. That was a position the early church called heretical. (And interestingly, could have been the kind of Christianity that Muhammad was most in contact with.)

He also says one idea also among Christians is that Jesus laid aside His powers based on Philippians 2. No. That’s known as the kenotic heresy nowadays and you will not find it espoused, at least by Christians who know what they’re talking about.

He then has D.A. Carson being quoted arguing against this in The Case for Christ and then treats it as if Carson is saying he doesn’t know how to explain the incarnation. Unfortunately, I do not have my copy of the book with me, but I do remember Carson goes on to explain what he thinks is going on in this passage. Strange that Iqbal doesn’t show that part.

Iqbal also stresses that Jesus never says “I forgive you” but “Your sins are forgiven” and saying that Jesus is saying the forgiveness comes from God. Yes. And? This is something a Trinitarian has no problem with. What is unusual is Jesus pronounces forgiveness even without a person actually repenting (Hard for that paralyzed man to repent) and acting as if He is the temple Himself where the presence of God dwelt.

He goes on to list eleven signs Jesus was a human, which no one is disputing. One is that Jesus died on the cross, but God cannot die. When people present this to me, I ask them what it means to die. If they say it means the person ceases to exist, then yes, God cannot cease to exist. But if that is the case, then what happens to passages like Colossians 1 that say the Son holds all things together? The Son could never cease to exist. If instead it means, the soul of Jesus left the body of Jesus, then we have no problem.

It’s odd to see that he says Jesus is guilty of falsehood. In one case, Jesus says to the thief that the thief will be with Him in Paradise, but Jesus went to hell for three days. I take hell to be best understood as the realm of the dead. I do happen to think Jesus did go to Paradise with the thief. Iqbal also talks about Jesus’s harsh language like calling the Pharisees broods of vipers. Statements like this are allegedly unbecoming of the Son of God. We are not told why this is.

Finally, there’s the idea Jesus got prophecy wrong. Just do a search on this blog for Preterism and what I have said about it. There are far too many to link to.

We’ll continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)