Book Plunge: Why Christians Are Wrong About Jesus — Messiah Part 1

So what does it mean to be the Messiah? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Campbell starts off with listing what the Messiah is. He tells us matters that are uncontroversial at first, such as the Messiah being a king of Israel and a deliverer of the people. Then, he gets to some prophecies that he says everyone, Jew and Christian, agree the Messiah fulfills.

I am confused by #2 as he says everyone will speak one language when Messiah comes, but the text he references is Zech. 3:9. I went to look that up and saw:

“See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.”

Yeah. I’m having a hard time finding it there.

I also wonder about some of the others. Yes. One day knowledge of the Lord will cover the Earth as the waters do the sea, but what does this mean? I could argue that since Jesus came, to a large extent this has happened. What about Jews returning to Israel? A lot of your dispensationalists would agree. A number of us can’t sign on that dotted line. The same applies to a third temple being built. Actually, when Julian the Apostate became an emperor, he tried to build a third temple to DISPROVE Christianity. (For some strange reason, he died before it could take place. Odd thing that.)

Campbell wants to say all Jews and Christians agree, but he doesn’t cite any.

He also says the Messiah couldn’t be the greatest king because Israel already had one, Hezekiah. One would think that if anyone was considered the greatest king by most Jews, it would be David. But what about 2 Kings 18:5 that says about Hezekiah:

“He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”

The problem is Campbell doesn’t realize this is Hebrew exaggeration. Look at 2 Chron. 30:26 describing the Passover of Hezekiah.

“So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem.”

Wow. That must have been some Passover. Nothing like it from the time of Solomon to the present.

But then when we get to Josiah in 35:18 of the same book.

“And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

The same kind of thing shows up when God tells Solomon that no king will rival him in wisdom before or after. This is just the way Hebrews spoke to exalt a person or event. Campbell sadly reads the text like a fundamentalist, which isn’t a shock.

He also says that according to Christian theology, Jesus could not have been a dedicated lover of the Torah because He came to replace the Torah and the Temple. Which Christian theologians say this? We don’t know. He doesn’t tell us. I contend that Jesus did not come to replace the Torah but to fulfill it. He did replace the temple, but that doesn’t mean He’s not a great lover of the Torah. All Christians should be. Jesus loved the Torah. So should we.

He says also that Jesus being divine would negate His human nature. Why? He doesn’t say. He tosses this out there like it’s an uncontroversial statement. Never mind 2,000 years or so of Christian thinkers writing on this topic. Campbell just needs to make the assertion.

He says God is one alone and solitary in the Torah. We went through a lot of this looking at Anthony Buzzard and it’s not any more convincing. All Trinitarians agree that God is one.

He also says to deify or worship anything besides God would be idolatry. That’s the point of the Trinity. No one is being worshipped but God alone.

He says that Pauline Christians looked for any passage that might in some context speak about Jesus. They had no understanding of the context and no problem ignoring it. No. There is no interaction with the church fathers to see what they said. There is no interaction with communities like the Essene community to see how they interpreted the Old Testament. There is no mention of different styles of interpretation like midrash or pesher. There is no interaction with scholarship on the New Testament’s usage of the Old Testament, like Richard Longenecker. Just an assertion.

He points to the creed in 1 Cor. 15 and says Paul says according to the Scriptures and gives no citation. Of course not. Paul is talking about the whole of the Scriptural message. Considering how timely and expensive letter writing was, do we expect him to list out every single reference he has in mind?

He also points to Luke having Jesus say similar to the disciples about the Scriptures in the end of his Gospel. Obviously, the only conclusion is Luke got this from Paul. Campbell has a habit of thinking his way of reading is the only way to read the text. It could be that, oh, I don’t know, this is what Jesus actually said.

Next time, we’ll start looking at the proof texts.

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

 

Book Plunge: Why Christians Are Wrong About Jesus

How shall we begin this one? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Rather than continue going through the 101 reasons book, we’ll go through this one seeing as it seems a bit meatier. As I started reading through, I was pleased to see the topic seemed to be taken seriously. It’s sad that I was relieved that nothing was said about Jesus existing at the start of the work. Too many atheists out there think that is some hot debate in the academic world. (Spoiler alert. It isn’t.)

The book is by a guy named John Campbell who I think says he is a lawyer, which got me thinking this could probably be a bit more rigorous. In some ways, it is. In others, I do find myself being disappointed again.

Today, we’re just going to look at the introduction. First, one noteworthy point is that he says Christians have their view of Jesus too colored by Paul. In some ways, there can be a sense in which we ignore the Gospels and go to the epistles where we think the doctrine is. However, the main point to establish is that Campbell says never met Jesus or heard His teachings.

To begin with, this is just an argument from silence. We don’t have any record of Paul encountering Jesus, to be sure, but that is a far cry from saying it never happened. Arguments from silence like this are just weak. Not only that, we have Paul’s work in Galatians that no one disputes that says that he met with the disciples for a prolonged period and as has been said, we can be sure that they weren’t talking about the weather. Paul would have known the teachings of Jesus.

Not only that, Clement of Rome was the disciple of Peter and Polycarp that of John. Both of them praised Paul. Hard to think they would praise someone who got the teachings of Jesus that their main mentors had taught them wrong.

Of course, there is a statement against miracles.

This is the primary reason historians reject miracle claims–miracles have no demonstrable analogy in the present. They don’t reflect the way we currently understand the world to work. They violate natural laws for which scientists have never demonstrated a violation. Because historians work in probabilities, the principle of analogy requires that miracle claims be assigned very low probabilities.

To begin with, this book came out this year. Keener’s work has been out for some time on miracles and yet, there is no interaction with either of his books on the topic. Second, one can say they don’t reflect the way we understand the world to work. I shall blow Campbell’s mind and say they don’t reflect the way ancient people knew the world to work either. They recognized miracles as exceptions for a reason.

Finally, it is question-begging to say we have never observed a violation of natural laws. If anyone does say they have seen a miracle, their testimony is discounted. Why? We know that’s not how the world works. How do we know that? Because it’s never been seen. One would think that Hume would be evoked so at least he wasn’t. It’s not a shock that Earman’s work on Hume was not referenced either.

We are also told Jesus did not write anything down. Indeed! Most great teachers didn’t as Sandy and Walton show in The Lost World of Scripture. Then we are told that the writings in the Gospels are anonymous, despite the church fathers practically agreeing universally on who wrote them. As to why they are anonymous, E.P. Sanders wrote that

The authors probably wanted to eliminate interest in who wrote the story and to focus the reader on the subject. More important, the claim of an anonymous history was higher than that of a named work. In the ancient world an anonymous book, rather like an encyclopedia article today, implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability. It would have reduced the impact of the Gospel of Matthew had the author written ‘this is my version’ instead of ‘this is what Jesus said and did.’  – The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders page 66.

He also says the Gospels contain fiction since even Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, and Bill Craig all say the resurrection of the saints didn’t happen in Matthew 27. That doesn’t mean first that those people are interpreting it as if it was a fictional account made up. They all say there is a reason for it being there. However, even more concerning is that Gary Habermas has never said it’s a fiction at all. I even emailed him to ask him if he had ever said that and received a reply of no, he had never said the resurrection of the saints is a fiction.

He does say that after Jesus’s crucifixion, Jesus’s brother James took up the movement. There is no interaction with N.T. Wright pointing out that James was never said to be the Messiah, which would be an easy claim to make if one Messiah figure falls. Perhaps that is addressed later, but here, it is not. He does go further though and say that James established a movement called the Nazarites, or the Way, or the Ebionites. No evidence is given for any of this.

He says Mark presents Jesus as entirely human. No effort to interact with the scholarship that disagrees. After all, there are plenty of ways for Jesus to show His deity besides getting up on a mountain and saying “Hi, everyone! I’m Jesus, but you may also know me as God!”

He also says Jesus’s family being shocked at what He was doing doesn’t make sense in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke since they mention a virgin birth (Which I do affirm), but he gives no reason for this. Was the family to have perfect theology and know entirely the plan of the Messiah from the get-go? The oldest son anyway was to provide for the family and Jesus wasn’t doing that. He also wasn’t acting the way the Messiah was supposed to act.

He does say that we can be sure Jesus taught the Kingdom of God since it would be embarrassing to put it in since that Kingdom didn’t come. As an orthodox Preterist, I contend that that Kingdom did come. Jesus is king right now. We will see if this is dealt with any more when we get deeper into the book.

Again, this book is better than most, but considering the most, that might not be saying a lot. We shall see more as we go on through and see how it holds up in the end.

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

Was Paul A Deceiver?

Can you trust Paul? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you’ve spent any time here, you know I don’t really take fundamentalist atheist arguments seriously. They’re notoriously bad. Bottom of the barrel. Hard to get any worse.

With one exception.

Muslim apologetics is far worse.

So yesterday, I’m browsing through Facebook and what do I see but this?

It really hurts how bad this is. I think I’m even more embarrassed some organization wanted to put their name at the bottom of this. Yes. Someone actually wants to claim ownership and let people know that they made this.

Where do I start?

Okay. Well first off, I do question that Romans 7 is autobiographical. You can see also here. That being said, even if it was about Paul, what is the worst we get here? We get a man who is obvious about the spiritual struggles that he is going through and speaks in the hyperbolic terminology that is normal for Jewish thinkers at the time.

Keep in mind, when Muhammad started having his experiences, he was convinced for a time that he was demonically possessed or was going crazy or something similar to that. If I am to reject Paul on these grounds, should I not do the same with Muhammad? Again, I don’t think Romans 7 is about Paul, but even if I did think that, I would not see this as a problem.

So let’s look at this second one. Ah yes, look at that trickster Paul there. He’s quite the sly one isn’t he? He caught his opponents by trickery!

Unless you do something strange and actually go and read the whole passage. Go take a look. You can find it right here.

Our Muslim friends don’t seem to know it, but there’s a thing in the world called sarcasm. Paul is employing it here. Yes. He tricked those Corinthians. He tricked them so much by…..not taking anything from them and having others cover the bill.

Yep! Crafty fellow he is! He gave the Corinthians his ministry and didn’t charge them anything for it!

Keep in mind, this is something that should be easy to understand, but it is not apparently to the Muslim mind.

So let’s look at the last one. Again, Paul is a trickster. He becomes all things to all people. How sneaky he is!

Let’s suppose you love hamburgers. Let’s now suppose you want to go and do ministry in India. At this point, I don’t care if you’re Muslim or Christian. Question. If you are wanting to reach the people in India, do you think it would benefit you to go to the Indian people, tell them about your God, and then start eating a hamburger in front of them?

Absolutely not. The cow is a sacred animal to them. They would not want to have anything to do with your message at that point.

I love my tea, but when I have Mormons over to visit me, I don’t drink tea in front of them. For Mormons, that violates the Word of Wisdom. If I was to visit Muslims and do ministry, even though I don’t eat pork products, I would definitely make sure to not eat them in front of Muslims.

This is what Paul is talking about. He doesn’t want to needlessly offend his Jewish audience he wants to convert, so in front of them, he follows Jewish dietary practices and other observances. In front of Gentiles, he lives much more freely. It’s all about being culturally appropriate. That’s not being deceitful. That’s being respectful.

And really, no one has to do a lot of thinking to see what’s going on in these passages. Sadly, I have seen internet atheists use this argument. Will Muslims stop using this one if they read this blog?

We can hope, but color me skeptical.

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

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian: Appendix on John 20:28

What about John 20:28? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter is handed off to a Ph.D. candidate named Clifford Hubert Durousseau. As I read that part, I thought it curious. I have nothing against PhD candidates as I plan to be one myself someday, but I was thinking that if this is really such a strong position with more and more people coming to it, why didn’t Buzzard get a PhD already to make the case here? Could he find no Greek experts to make such a case? One wonders.

So at the start, Durousseau says that John 20:28 is often seen as the strongest Trinitarian argument. I wouldn’t go that far. One could I think hold to it and be a Oneness Pentecostal. I base Trinitarianism not on one verse, but on a plethora of different verses. Durousseau also makes an interesting comment that saying “Jesus is God” constitutes monophysitism. Unfortunately, he leaves the readers, such as myself, confused as to show this is entirely. Again, if he wants to read the statement in the worst possible light just as Buzzard does, that’s his problem.

Unfortunately, throughout this chapter, Durousseau uses much of the same kind of argumentation that Buzzard does throughout. One would hope a different playbook would surface, but it does not. Durousseau does have some different questions at least. One is that when Jesus is called Lord in numerous times in John 20, it doesn’t mean YHWH. Why does it mean that in John 20:28?

Let me take a shot at this one. Maybe it has something to do with Thomas saying “My Lord and my God.” I realize that could be a stretch, but maybe when Lord is juxtaposed next to God, then we see it as a term of deity.

He also says that Thomas is not given a blessing for identifying who Jesus is as Peter did. Why should He? Peter had already identified who Jesus was and the resurrection was more than enough to certify His divine identity. Durousseau says that Thomas is instead rebuked. Right. He had spent years with these guys and knew the claims of Jesus and had more than enough evidence that Jesus was alive again without seeing Him and yet that was not enough.

He also says the author doesn’t comment on that, but the author doesn’t comment on many statements as well. He comments on some, but not all. Durousseau says the book was written to show Jesus was the Son of God, but Durousseau makes no attempt to show what this term means. My Mormon friends will say “Yes. Jesus is the Son of God. God the Father literally had sexual intercourse with Mary. Jesus is the Son of God.” Is that what it means? (And to any Mormons reading this, this is what your past prophets have said.)

He also says Jesus says He is returning to my God and your God. (Notice He never says our God like that.) Would this be contradicted verses later? Again, this just assumes the unipersonalism. I as a Trinitarian have no problem with Jesus referring to the Father as His Lord and His God.

Durousseau also points to statements of Jesus with the Father being in Him and of Paul saying that God was in Christ and that Trinitarians ignore these. How? We agree with them. They don’t go against us and that Durousseau thinks that they do shows that he doesn’t understand what he is arguing against.

One part is worth quoting in full:

Does this mean that Jesus was claiming to be God? No, it means exactly what it says: Jesus was claiming to represent his Father and God. The fourth Gospel (12:49; 14:9) expands the teaching of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Jesus is “the image of God.” And in Colossians 1:15, Jesus is called “the image of the invisible God.” The author of Hebrews says of him, as the New Jerusalem Bible puts it, “He is the reflection of God’s glory [764] and bears the impress of God’s own being [hypostasis]” ( Heb. 1:3; compare Wisdom of Solomon 7:26: “For she [Wisdom] is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God’s active power, and image of his goodness.”)

It is mind-boggling that Durousseau looks at these statements and doesn’t really think about what they mean apparently. Jesus is not made in the image of God as we are. He IS the image of God. What God is invisibly, Jesus is visibly. He is theJesu reflection of God’s glory, the idea being that of taking a stamp and putting it on Jesus such that what God is, Jesus is. If Jesus is a reflection of eternal light, then He Himself is eternal.

Something else incredible in this is that Durousseau actually quotes the Qur’an to back his point. Why not just go to the Book of Mormon as well? I wish I was joking about this, but I’m not.

He also uses the Acts 2:36 argument we have dealt with in earlier posts here.

He then asks that if Jesus can be called God, why can’t Thomas or anyone else be called the brother of God? Frankly, if you wanted to refer to the actual brothers and sisters of Jesus as that, I really wouldn’t have a problem. Mary got the title she got in church history because of debates over her nature and her role in the incarnation. (Seeing as she kind of played a more pivotal role in it than any other human.)

He also references Julian saying that John was the first to call Jesus God. I have repeatedly shown on my blog that this is false, but it’s worth pointing out that Durousseau says nothing about Julian being an apostate, an enemy of Christianity, and wanting to return the Roman Empire to the pagan worldview. It’s okay to say anything bad about Constantine, but keep secret about who you yourself are quoting. The same applies when Durousseau later cites Ehrman.

He also asks why if Jesus is God He was given a revelation to give to John by God on the Isle of Patmos. Oh, I don’t know. Because the Son submits to the Father and gives a message to John that the Father wants Him to give? He references Rev. 5:14 but says nothing about how Revelation 5 ends with all creation worshipping Him who sits on the throne and the Lamb, which differentiates between the Lamb and creation.

Overall, there is really not much here to comment on.

And with that, I conclude my look at this book. I walk away sadly seeing the author as being more dishonest in his presentation than anything else. I take no delight in saying that, but I have made my case why. I leave it to the reader to decide if he thinks I have been wrong.

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

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 12

Does the church really believe in the Trinity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter is asking if everyone believes in the Trinity? Well, no. I can’t think of a single statement that you would find EVERYONE agrees with or believes. There are always differences. However, let’s look at the “arguments” Buzzard puts forward this time.

One statement he makes is about your average churchgoer who he says believes that:

1) “Jesus Christ is God”; 2) “God is our Heavenly Father”; 3) “Jesus Christ is not our Heavenly Father”;4) “There are not two Gods.” Yet he has never considered how to reconcile these four separate opinions of his together; it probably has not occurred to him that they are inconsistent with one another…The average Englishman has not troubled himself with the matter.

Unfortunately, he’s correct in that the average church member hasn’t thought about this and will get flummoxed by it, which makes sense. Unfortunately, this is again something I consider dishonest on Buzzard’s part for he should know that no one believes this and if you think a simple set of statements can make a position look absurd, you’re probably wrong. So what is the answer?

Saying “Jesus is God” is theological shorthand. It does not mean that Jesus is the entirety of the Godhead. It means Jesus fully possesses all the attributes of deity. When we then say that God is our Heavenly Father, that’s because we normally think of God as the source of deity who begets the Father and the Son and the Spirit are subsumed under Him in the divine identity while still maintaining being their own persons.  Difficult to think about? Yep. Still, it resolves the problem and again, Buzzard should know this.

Buzzard goes on to say that some famous New Testament scholars grant that the Trinity is not a New Testament doctrine by quoting one saying:

No responsible New Testament scholar would claim that the doctrine of the Trinity was taught by Jesus, or preached by the earliest Christians, or consciously held by any writer in the New Testament.”

But this is NOT saying the Trinity is not a New Testament doctrine. It’s saying that for the first part, Jesus was not walking around Palestine talking about the doctrine of the Trinity. Correct. The early Christians were not going around quoting the Chalcedonian Creed. Right. The writers of the New Testament did not have fully laid out in front of them the Trinity. Yes. All the seeds were there and the view is being formed in the New Testament. Again, statements like this are just dishonest on Buzzard’s part.

He does go to the question of the rich young ruler saying Jesus differentiated between Himself and God and saying that only God is absolutely good.

Well, there you have it.

For Buzzard, Jesus is NOT absolutely good.

I cannot see any way around that. If Buzzard wants to have that differentiation, he has to have all of it. To defend Unitarianism, he not only has to deny the deity of Jesus, but He has to say this sinless man who lived a perfect life among men is NOT absolutely good.

Yep. This position sure is honoring the savior.

He also looks at Genesis 1:26 and Isaiah 6:8 where God uses the “us” language. Now some people have said that this is a hint at the Trinity. All Buzzard says is that the address is obviously to attendant angelic beings.

Obviously?

He doesn’t have an endnote to make his case. He just says it’s obvious and moves on. When he thinks a Trinitarian in interpreting a passage is throwing his ideas onto the text, that’s bad! Buzzard gets a free pass though!

Keep in mind, I’m not saying he’s wrong in his interpretation. I’m saying that he doesn’t get to just say what it is and move on. He needs to make a case. There are a number of positions one could take.

It could be the Trinity.
It could be the Divine Council as someone like Michael Heiser argued.
It could be the royal we.
It could be angels.

There could even be possible other interpretations. These are the ones I know. If there are at least four, you should make the case.

Imagine if we read the Olivet Discourse and in arguing for my position of orthodox Preterism I just said “The text is obviously referring to events within the first century.”

I would hope my fellow Preterists would call me out on that if I did that. I need to make an argument for it. The same applies here.

He says also to see veiled signs of the Trinity in the Old Testament is to go beyond the intent of the sacred writers. Does the same apply to any idea of Jesus in the Old Testament. 1 Peter 1 tells us that the prophets themselves didn’t understand what they were necessarily referring to.

If so, then therefore, to read Jesus into Old Testament prophecy is to go beyond the intent of the sacred writers. Right? Again, Buzzard cannot have it both ways.

He returns to John 1 saying that in verses 3-4, many translations say “through him all things were made” when it should be through it. Buzzard really is going against the largest number of translators on all sides. Technically, the word from my reading could be translated masculine or neuter. Why does Buzzard assume it has to be the neuter without an argument? Again, rules for thee, but not for me.

He also quotes someone saying that “a person is created by his relationships with other people and especially by his interaction with his parents and family.” First off, this is going by a modern idea of personhood. Even going past that, there is a much bigger problem here.

What makes God the Father a person?

If Unitarianism is true, it was just God alone at the beginning and no one else so thus, no relationships and definitely no parents or family. Was God not a person then? If God had to create to have a relationship, then in some way, God is dependent on His creation to be a person.

If these are the rules Buzzard wants to live with, he gets to pay the price.

Not only that, we could ask about angels. Do angels have parents and family? Angels don’t reproduce and metaphysically, it can be argued that each angel is his own species. How does this work?

Buzzard doesn’t tell us.

He goes back to Ehrman reminding us to see Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet of the new millennium. I have responded to that book here. No word on Ehrman’s position is given. Buzzard knows it, but he doesn’t care to share it. He also references Tom Harpur again later on, nowhere letting the reader know the even more bizarre stances that Harpur holds.

Well, we’re almost done with this book. Thank the Trinity for that!

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

 

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 11

Does having more support change a position? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Buzzard lists several people who he says support his cause. Sadly, they all use pretty much the same kinds of arguments. There is really less and less to comment on, but let’s go on with what one of these people says about the history of the doctrine of the Trinity:

Fourth-century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching…It developed against constant unitarian opposition and was never wholly victorious. The dogma of the Trinity owes its existence to abstract speculation on the part of a small minority of scholars.

In response, here’s at least one good thing that came out of the later Star Wars movies.

Indeed. For one thing, this was not a fourth century doctrine as much as it was one started in the second century and further refined up to that point and is still being refined. We have made plenty of arguments against Buzzard’s idea that Trinitarianism is a deviation, but also there was not constant Unitarian opposition and finally, it was hardly a minority. I would expect to find this more in the Da Vinci Code!

Buzzard also writes about the Angel of the Lord and how that was accepted to be a theophany without proof. As to why Stephen who talked about the Angel in his speech before the Sanhedrin never said that, why should he? For one thing, Buzzard assumes that statement would be controversial to say that the Angel of the Lord was an appearance of deity. This assumes they held to Buzzard’s strict unitarianism. Second, if they don’t accept Jesus, what good would it do to say “This Angel was Jesus all along!” Not a bit.

Those interested in seeing the Angel of the Lord can search through my blog where I have stated that He is an appearance of deity. Go to the verses under question and look for them here or just search for Angel of the Lord. Either way, Buzzard is begging the question.

Finally, he says that Hebrews not only says that Jesus is greater than the angels, but if Jesus was the Angel of the Lord, what about how Hebrews also says in these last days God has spoken by His Son? The first one is quite easy in that the angel of the Lord is the messenger of the Lord and not an angel in the same sense as all the other angels. In the second, these appearances are also definitely not the same as a full incarnation taking on human nature. It’s sad Buzzard thinks these are great objections when one can come up with an answer easily with a moment’s thought.

Buzzard also says:

It is encouraging to hear scholars say that the Trinitarian dogma “was determined neither by scripture nor by experience but by the Arian controversy on the doctrine of the Trinity.”

Why does he consider this encouraging? Error has always led to the refining of truth. It was Marcion’s false canon that led Christians to establish the true canon. It is failure in modern fields that leads to success.

Finally, I want to bring out this closing remark of his:

Unitarianism has of course continued since the early twentieth century when the Schaff-Herzog article was penned. In general Unitarians have become less “biblical,” meaning that they lost a grip on central biblical teachings such as the virgin birth, the resurrection and the Second Coming. The loss of these central truths is hardly likely to make unitarianism attractive to evangelicals and the fault lies in this respect with the Unitarianism which has lost its biblical basis, other than its rejection of creeds which superseded the creed of Jesus.

I highlight this as I found it revealing of Buzzard’s character. Any time any Trinitarian has done something he despises, he has pointed to how dreadful the doctrine is and what it does. However, when Unitarians consistently start denying other essential biblical doctrines, including the virgin birth, which I do affirm, well that’s just that these people have lost their Biblical Basis. It has nothing to do with rejecting the Trinity!

It must be nice to live in Buzzard’s world where the rules are always different for you than they are for the other side.

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

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian Chapter 10

Does the Trinity contradict Math? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, Buzzard pretty much has one main argument and that is how he keeps playing the game over and over. Here, he wants to keep stressing that there is one God. The Jews at the time of Jesus would have said they worshipped one God. This is never challenged in the New Testament. Nor should it be! Buzzard apparently doesn’t know that Trinitarianism doesn’t challenge this either. In reality, we couldn’t be Trinitarians if there was more than one God.

He says that the important point about Messiah is that He is a human representative. If He is God Himself, then we have two who are God and biblical monotheism is threatened. One would have hoped that by this point, Buzzard would have moved beyond this argument, but no. If you made a drinking game based on how many times he presented this argument, you would die of alcohol poisoning before finishing the book. (Except for my fellow Baptists as we would just have drunk a lot of grape juice.)

He says that in the Shema, Trinitarians have done verbal acrobatics to argue that one does not mean one. No. None of us have. Now there have been arguments that echad can refer to a compound unity, which is true, but no one has denied that an echad is one. One reads this wanting to see if Buzzard will ever get it through his head that his opponents believe in one God. I don’t know what position Buzzard is arguing against, but it sure isn’t one his opponents hold.

We have talked already about how he says the sense of the Greek word eis when used of Jesus and God is that they are one person. This is the game Buzzard plays. When we point to our interpretation, we are adding to the text. When Buzzard says eis means one person instead of just, you know, one, that’s solid and faithful interpretation!

Rules for thee, but not for me!

It’s arguments like this that lead me to think Buzzard is just being dishonest. He is counting on the average Christian reading this not being skilled in Biblical interpretation, and sadly, he will likely be right. We have plenty of Christians who will be able to jump to Revelation and argue for the rapture, but they won’t have a clue how to answer someone like this.

We have a problem.

He has also brought up the claim of Jesus and the rich man with Jesus asking “Why do you call me good?” This is one we have already dealt with in this series. He also says James was a unitarian also saying that you believe God is one? Good. So do the demons, and they tremble. Well, yes, but again, I as a Trinitarian will say the exact same statement. God is one.

Again, Buzzard is counting on his audience being ignorant and suspecting they won’t know the counter-arguments to his positions. I fear he is right in that. We need to do a lot more to educate our churches on the essential positions of their faith and what they believe instead of secondary doctrines and making every sermon about application.

He later makes another type of argument meant to fool the unsuspecting saying:

Later church fathers admitted that their Trinitarian view of God was not found in Moses. Church father Epiphanius says: “The divine unity was first and foremost proclaimed by Moses, the duality (the distinction between Father and Son) was heavily stressed by the prophets, and the Trinity was clearly shown forth in the Gospel.”

But this is just progressive revelation. We might as well say to Buzzard, “Then please show where in Moses we find the Messiah will be crucified and raised from the dead in the middle of space and time and sit at the Father’s right hand? Oh! You can’t find it spelled out there? Then your view of Jesus is not found in Moses!”

This is the absurdity of Buzzard’s position. If the rules were changed for the doctrines he believes, then they would be seen just as false. Does he want to say nothing new about God was revealed in Jesus? If he believes in any kind of progressive revelation in Jesus, then he has views that aren’t found in Moses.

Keep in mind the rules. They only apply to what Trinitarians believe. What Buzzard already believes is exempt.

Lastly, he concludes with saying that if the Torah had wanted us to know God was more than one, it would have told us about the Trinity. Again, we hold that God is one. We might as well still ask where the Torah talks about the crucified Messiah.

Rules for thee, but not for me.

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

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 9

Is Buzzard a good detective? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter which Buzzard calls Detective Work and Word Tricks, we’ll get to see Buzzard try to deal with some arguments against his position, but not very well. The first one to point out is again Titus 2:13. There is still no mention of the Granville Sharpe Rule and he does go back to the KJV, which was put together before that rule was brought to light. He says that evangelicals say the text is clear, but then says translations can strikingly differ and as was said, points back to the KJV. Then in the next paragraph after saying the verse is not as clear, says God and Jesus are clearly separated.

So when you don’t want to go with how it’s interpreted, it’s unclear. When you want to go with your interpretation, it’s suddenly clear. Got it!

He then goes back to begetting saying it means to be brought into existence and then says how can that apply to Jesus then in Psalm 2:7. “You are my Son. Today, I have begotten you.” Well, considering that Psalm was to be said on the day a king was coronated, we can easily say that the king was not brought into existence that day. Could it be that Buzzard’s idea of what begetting is is just wrong?

He says that for the early church, the origin of Jesus was an embarrassment. No indication is given of this. No church father is cited. This is still trying to push his point on Psalm 2:7 where Buzzard is still ignoring the context of the psalm.

He then says that orthodoxy says that Christ did not come into existing the way we do. In some way, His conception was His own doing. He assumed freely and consciously our own nature. While I wouldn’t phrase it that way exactly, yes. This is what the Son did for us.

His interpretation of John 1:1 is frankly bizarre. For Buzzard, the Word is an it instead and is the plan of God to bring about the Messiah. No word yet on how the plan can have a divine nature. Not only that, but saying the Word became flesh only means it got embodied. It doesn’t mean that it became a rational person. We would need the word Kardia for that instead.

Another quote later gives us again Buzzard is either ignorant or dishonest. Your choice:

If Mary was taking into herself a being undergoing transformation from a spiritual being to a human person , Luke and Matthew have misled us. There is no room in the womb for two persons, one added to the other. Would this be a form of twins? Mary did not bear a person who is two “wholes,” fully God and fully man. She did not bear a “double person, ” a preexisting spirit person adding to himself a human being. The biblical account of the genesis of Jesus is much simpler ]. Mary bore the blood descendant of David, one person, the promised Messiah whose coming into existence was promised for a definite moment in history. Mary conceived a child six months later than her relative Elizabeth. She did not take in and transform a person into a fetus.

Unfortunately, after seeing so much of this book, I have to go with dishonest for my guess. Buzzard should know very well Chalcedon and the rejection of Nestorianism. Despite that, he treats a Nestorian view as if it was the orthodox view. I look at this and see absolutely nothing resembling the position he should be arguing against.

He says in John 8:58, Jesus was speaking of Abraham seeing his messiahship and said “I am He.” No word on when Abraham saw this. Nothing also about why the words seem to strangely mirror the usage of the divine name in both Isaiah and Exodus. I guess Buzzard doesn’t want to deal with that.

I really wish there was more to deal with, but the arguments are so repetitive. These are the ones I have chosen to highlight this time. We’ll look at more another time.

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

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 8

What about Nicea? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Buzzard looks at questions surrounding the Council of Nicea and the sort of Da Vinci Code claims. Thankfully, I can’t think of any place in the book where Buzzard uses the pagan copycat idea. Give credit where credit is due, but it’s a small credit considering how bad the book is.

Unfortunately, he uses Bart Ehrman a lot (Not giving the uninformed any idea of who he is.) of usage. He says Ehrman asks how could Jesus and God be God without there being two Gods? This is still the assumption of unipersonalism and the problem is treating God as a nature in one sense and treating God as a unipersonal person in another. When we say Jesus is God, we are using theological shorthand saying that Jesus has the full nature of God.

He does use Mark 13:32 with Jesus not knowing the day and hour of His return (I think it’s His coming to His throne, but it doesn’t matter). This is at least a substantial argument. In my thinking, Jesus takes on the limitations of knowledge for His ministry where He didn’t need to know the time of His coming.

He brings up the claim later that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is one God. He declares this problem insoluble when again, it is simple. There are three persons that each have the nature of God.

Later he says:

The great ecumenical councils that formulated the old theology were the scene of unchristian antagonisms, and bitter strife and fightings that were never rivaled in the history of any other religion, and no religion of which history has a record was ever guilty of such cruel persecutions as Christianity, whose founder was the meek and lowly Jesus of Nazareth…

Yep. Those were far fiercer than the constant raiding of the Muslims up until the time of Charles Martel and than the Crusades. Thank goodness those Muslims with suicide bombers and raiding parties were at least not as violent as the Christians. Seriously. He makes the above claim in the book and I just can’t help but think he knows NOTHING of world history on religion.

He again brings up the idea that Jesus never said “I am God.” Buzzard constantly speaks out of both sides of his mouth. At one time, he will point out the confusion that would be brought about if Jesus said this. Then in the next point, he will say that He never said this. Then he will make the same earlier point again.

He also brings up Isaiah 44:24 saying that God created all things by Himself. Who was with Him? Good question. This is especially so since we see Jesus is with Him in John 1, Hebrews 1, 1 Cor. 8, and Col. 1. I’d also include Proverbs 8.

At a later point, he says that he is not assuming that monotheism = unitarianism. He says that, but he never makes an argument to the effect to establish that. He looks in-depth at Luke 1:35 and Psalm 110:1, but he never does any in-depth exegesis of the Shema, the main passage he wants to use.

He does say that Jesus said He and the Father are one in John 10:30, but prays that the disciples be one as well. Context as always determines meaning. The Jews there seemed to understand Him and as I have said, He was pointing out that if wicked people sarcastically can be called gods, how much more a right does He, the righteous one, have the right to be called the Son of God, which they understood to be deity.

On Jesus being tempted which shows up, see here.

The next quote I want to bring up is:

The falsehood that Jesus being called “lord  proves that he is the One Lord God needs to be challenged and dismissed. Yes, there are some Old Testament “Yahweh verses” fulfilled by Jesus as Yahweh’s unique representative in the New Testament, but this no more makes Jesus identical in person with Yahweh, than the angel of the Lord is identical with the Lord God. The angel could bear the divine name without actually being God. “An agent is as his master’s person” is the well – established principle known to Judaism and so obviously true of Jesus in relation to God. Jesus spoke of the persecution of Christians as the persecution of himself ( Acts 9:4 ; 22:7 ; 26:14). This does not make Jesus and the Church identical.

No prophet ever spoke as if he were God Himself, but the Angel of the Lord certainly did and those who saw Him thought they were seeing God at least. Also, Jesus is not identical with the church, but there is something about saying the church is His body. It is true an agent can act on behalf of the person, but he is never understood to be the agent himself.

He does go to 1 Cor. 15:24-28 referencing James Dunn with the Son being subject to the Father, but notice this. Paul treats it as a change. Then the Son HImself will be subject. That is what the text says. What does that say about the Son now?

Something to think about….until next time.

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

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 7

Did we listen to Gabriel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Buzzard bases his case largely on Luke 1:35. If we had listened to that verse, the Trinitarian debates would have never happened. Color me skeptical again. Let’s dive in and see what it says.

At the start, one new remark he has first goes to Luke 24 where the disciples on the road to Emmaus talk about Jesus as a man. Jesus is seen as a New Moses. Okay. What’s the problem? A Trinitarian can agree. We can say that of all the figures in the Old Testament, Jesus was the fulfillment Par Excellence!

He says that in the start that Luke is writing to Theophilus. It is then unthinkable that Luke would have written something believing in a preexistent Son and making it impossible for his readers to understand that. The problem with saying X is unthinkable is that a lot of people have thought that Luke was writing about a preexistent Son.

Imagine if I decided to go to John 1:1 and say “It is unthinkable that anyone can walk away from this verse without holding that Jesus is fully God in nature.”

Does that sound powerful to you? Nope. Good. It shouldn’t.

Yet it’s one of Buzzard’s most common techniques.

Buzzard says that the word “beget” means to bring into existence. No argument is given for this claim. It is just asserted. The word simply means born and it can refer to the new birth in Christ in John 3.

One of Buzzard’s favorite passages to go to is Psalm 2:7. “You are my Son. Today, I have begotten you.” This is not about the birth of a child, but about the coronation of the king. It is not at all saying that that day, the son was born. That day, the son was in a sense adopted into royalty as the new king of Israel.

Unfortunately, this is another one of Buzzard’s common argument techniques. Say what he thinks the word means or what the text is interpreted as and that ends it.

He goes to another text, Titus 2:13, later on, that he reads as being translated as the glorious appearing of our great God and our savior Jesus Christ. No word mentioned of when God is supposed to appear. Nothing about the Granville Sharpe rule at all on this passage. Then he just says that this text can’t be used to defend the deity of Christ because translations differ and Greek ambiguity.

Hear that?! Buzzard wants to debate and he wants to tell you what you are not allowed to use. If there is any question on what the Greek means or if translations differ, throw it out!

Unless, of course, that verse is used to argue AGAINST the Trinity and then it’s all good.

He also says that He claimed always to be the Messiah, but wait. Why is it then that at very few places do we have Him saying “I am the Messiah.” He told it to the woman at the well and He said it when He was put under oath on trial. You don’t have Jesus walking all over Israel stopping at every meeting and saying “I am the Messiah!”

Buzzard has a weird definition of always.

He then goes after the term pre-existing as if to say He existed before He existed. He tells us to try to make sense of it. Explain it to your friends.

Okay. I think I’ll take a shot!

It means that Jesus existed in some sense before He existed in the incarnation.

Wow. That was sure difficult! I can’t believe no one in church history ever thought of that before!

Oh wait. They did.

He then says that a problem cannot be avoided. How can there be someone who is God on Earth while there is someone who is God in Heaven? The one on Earth also has a human body that the one in Heaven does not. How do you distinguish between the God who became man and the God who did not without destroying the unity of God?

Oh, wow. Now that’s a stumper! Let me try again!

First off, it’s not that there’s one God in Heaven and one God on Earth. We are not tritheists no matter how much he wants to make us tritheists.

Second, we can distinguish the persons then by saying one became incarnate and one didn’t. We can also say one begets and one is begotten.

Third, they are unified by having the same nature.

Folks. I am just in awe here because I can’t help but be thrilled at the amazing insights I have here that no one in church history….what? You’re saying that this has been official Christian doctrine from the church fathers on?

Oh. Yeah. I guess Buzzard didn’t know.

I also don’t expect all of Christology to be contained in Luke 1:35. We did listen to Gabriel. We also listened to everyone else.

About the only one not worth listening to is Buzzard.

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