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Is Habermas a Heretic?

Can we trust Gary Habermas any more? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

While checking up on affairs today, I noticed that Norm Geisler has responded to an interview that Mike Licona did.

Yes. That’s right. Responding to an interview.

My ministry partner, J.P. Holding, has already critiqued several aspects of this long article that Geisler has written. Links will be available to both at the end. For now, I wish to take the time to comment on some of the matters that Holding did not.

First off, nowhere in this is a response to the writings that have been put forward against Geisler’s handling of this and nowhere in this is there any recognition that Geisler has decided to deal with the responses that have been put forward. One wonders if Geisler has any problem with Richard Dawkins speaking on topics where the challenges he raises have already been addressed.

Also in here is the idea that Mike’s son-in-law, being me, and J.P. Holding produced a video. Geisler has an odd idea of producing. All that was done was that I did some voice in the film for the ghost of Inerrancy Future. If that is producing, then there are several producers including some members of TheologyWeb who did the voices of Geisler and Licona and my own wife who did the voice of Inerrancy Past.

In case anyone does not know, I don’t have a clue how to do that. As it stands right now, the layout of this blog is not really anything stupendous and the reason for that is that I do not possess the computer knowledge to know how to do that. My reading is in theology, philosophy, history, etc. It is not in computer knowledge. I would not know the first thing about putting together a video and putting it on YouTube. Let alone would I know anything about animation.

Furthermore, Geisler also speaks about the ongoing debate. I used to check regularly on the internet for new mentions of this, but the reality is that no one really writes about this anymore. In the blogosphere, there are far more important issues being discussed. Frankly, Mike has moved on to get a job at Houston Baptist University and has started his ministry going full throttle.

Geisler can complain about being referred to as a tar baby all he wants, but perhaps could it be that there is a grain of truth to the criticism? Could it be Licona is being quite wise in not getting himself tangled into this debate when he could be doing far more important things such as, oh, I don’t know, presenting and defending the Christian gospel in a secular world. Keep in mind, the central proclamation of the gospel after all is “He is risen!” It is not “It is Inerrant!” While Mike and I both hold to Inerrancy, it is not the gospel.

The most unique aspect of all of this now is that Habermas is now definitely included in the Rogues’ Gallery. Anyone can see this in point 9 of the article written.

“Licona also mentions the strong influence Gary Habermas was on him and that they became close friends. Indeed, he refers here and elsewhere to the advice given to him by a close friend not to engage in dialog with me on this matter. However, Habermas’s view on inerrancy straddles both sides of the fence. It is for this that he was let go from the Faculty of Veritas Evangelical Seminary, namely, “It was “…because of your own view of inerrancy that was contrary to the Veritas Seminary doctrinal statement on inerrancy. That is, your view accepts: the belief that inerrancy is consistent with the view that rejects Gospel narratives as completely historical (angels at the tomb, falling down of those seizing Jesus, and resurrection of saints)….” (VES Letter from the president, 11/21/11).”

So now, it’s Habermas. What’s it going to be then? Is Geisler going to take the leading scholars on the resurrection who have done invaluable work for the kingdom and let them be shunned by the Christian community because of this? Is there going to be an open letter to Liberty saying they need to get rid of Habermas for his views on Inerrancy?

Is this really worth it? One gets the impression that this is more about Geisler than it is about Inerrancy.

What needs to be done? First, this whole thing needs to be dropped as several have said on Geisler’s own Facebook page. There needs to be reconciliation. Note that Mike has been the one offering a face-to-face meeting and has even said that if an apology came forward, all would be forgiven. Mike has simply asked for witnesses to be present. There is nothing unreasonable about this request.

Second, evangelicals needs to speak out on this and not just on the blogosphere. Evangelicals in scholarship and apologetics should speak. We can all sit back some and say “He’s going after Licona now and a little bit he’s going after Habermas. He won’t go after me.” How would that be known? Furthermore, even if he wouldn’t, he’s going after someone else in the body in a way that shouldn’t be done and over something that is not worth it.

A silly debate like this is being an embarrassment on the body of Christ. How long will it go on? Will we, the evangelical church who have stood so strong for orthodox beliefs also take a stand for orthodox behavior and how we will handle debates in our midst in a way that avoids bullying?

Let us hope so, for if we cower before those within the church, we will most certainly cower to those without.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Geisler’s article can be found here.

J.P. Holding’s response can be found here.

Mr. Fix-It Jesus

Can Jesus fix you up? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

How many of you growing up or maybe even still today hear that when you have a burden, you should just take it to the Lord and leave it there.

Any idea how someone is supposed to do that?

I never figured it out. It was like you were supposed to be worrying about something and then when you took it to God, it would have been completely gone from your mind. It would be nice if that happened to more of us, but the reality is is that we know it does not.

Of course, we also know that we all have problems. All of us have issues and a lot of us have a subscription. Am I then saying that if we have Jesus in our lives that that should play no part whatsoever in dealing with our problems? Aren’t we regularly encouraged to come to Jesus with our prayers?

Well, yes. Of course we are. I am also not saying that prayer is a waste of time or that knowing Jesus will not help you with your problems. I believe that we Christians should be people of prayer and I believe that knowing Jesus can help you with your problems.

So where is the happy medium?

To begin with, notice that we usually think we come to Jesus and He helps us with our problems and we get on with our lives. Back when I lived in Charlotte, I knew some boys who were twins. They were even groomsmen in my wedding. We were and are good friends and I’d spend Sunday nights with them.

Their Dad happened to be a doctor. I had a good relationship with him, but he was also my wife’s doctor. One night I was having really bad stomach pains and my wife, who can’t drive, called him up due to the fact that I was screaming. When he got there, he decided I should go to the Emergency Room to which he took us since my wife can’t drive (As it turns out, I had to have my gallbladder removed). This doctor was a constant friend to us as we prepared to move here.

What kind of friendship would it have been however if my only talk to him was “Will you help me with my problems?”

Now we do go to doctors for that on an instrumental basis. Sometimes friendships do form. Sometimes they don’t. At that point, the doctor does what he does as a service to keep his job and so he can bring home the bacon for his own family.

Jesus is not like that in the Bible. The reason doctors exist is to serve us when we are sick. The reason Jesus exists is not to be our servant. We rather exist to be His servants. The way we live often shows that we have that system in reverse.

When we treat Jesus like this, we are in fact saying “I am coming to you and asking you to fix me up so I can get back to living my own life of ignoring you.” This is the same thing many people do when they are in financial stress and suddenly find that they need to turn to God.

The reality is Jesus is under no obligation to fix anyone. There are several good reasons he might not want to. When we treat Jesus as if His purpose for being is to just fix us, we are diminishing His sacrifice and resurrection and all that He has done. We are making the Lord of the universe our personal repairman.

What can we do? One step in this is to realize that if we want Jesus, we need to want Him for more than just what He does. Jesus is Lord and when we come to Him, we are to respect Him.

Many of our problems also need the aid of those who He has gifted. God has gifted many people in the body to be wonderful counselors and we should seek to partake of their services. I myself have seen a counselor a number of times and it’s quite helpful. To this day, when there is a problem, I can often call a good friend and get their input. There is nothing anti-Christian about going to other people. In fact, it is anti-Christian to not do so as we are to bear one another’s burdens. None of us is to be a Lone Ranger.

What does this mean for us? It means we can accept it if Jesus does not take away our problems. If He does not, we can be sure based on Romans 8 that He is going to use them for our good to conform us to His likeness. We know ultimately He will take away all such problems in the eschaton, but we are not there yet. When the last day comes, we will be free, but until then, our ultimate problem is sin and our way of dealing with it is to receive forgiveness and seek to be more like Him.

The reality is that we have instead shaped Jesus to be our servant. He is not. We are His. Jesus can heal us, but it is not so we can live for ourselves but rather so we can live for Him.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Boring Bible

Why is the Bible so hard to understand? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

All Christians know about the Bible. The Bible is that book that you open it up and when you do God speaks to you in wondrous and powerful ways. We have sermons about how when the Bible is opened by a Christian that they will just learn something new about it every time and what a joy it is to read it.

For a lot of Christians, this doesn’t ring true entirely.

Let’s consider some other relevant information. First off, in our age, there is a sad tragedy in that we have heard the Bible all our lives so much that we have become familiar with it. Because of this, whatever our first impression of a Bible story can be, usually those are the ones that we have for the rest of our lives and when those get disproven, we don’t know how to separate them from the whole of Christianity. Could it be possible for instance that Christianity could be true and there not literally be a pre-trib rapture? I in fact know of Christians who are convinced that if the Bible is not inerrant, then Jesus did not rise from the dead.

This familiarity can make it so that we find it hard to read the Bible for the first time. Consider it like when you watch a movie with a surprise twist at the end, such as “Unbreakable.” Now you can still enjoy that surprise ending the second time, but it sure doesn’t have the same punch to it.

The other problem with this is our theology. We have affirmed many false beliefs about God. Consider this. Regularly it is said that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. Thus, whenever we read the Bible, there is no need to study. God will tell us what we need to know and lead us into the truth.

First, this was said to the apostles and was about their teaching of what their Lord said and did in his earthly life. I don’t think any of us were around for that.

Second, if we really believed this, then do we even need a Bible? Are we to think that the Holy Spirit would have to have a book to communicate the message? Paul should have just written back to every congregation with the message of “Don’t you have the Holy Spirit? Just ask God. He’ll tell you.”

Third, we are not purely passive creatures. We have all manner of things that affect our outlook every day. Today, for instance, it’s been raining in Knoxville recently and my allergies are going berserk. That could affect some of my reasoning capacities. What if you’re tired? What if you’re really happy about something? What if you’ve just had a romantic day with the spouse or what if you’ve just had an argument? All of those will come into effect.

The great danger is that we can usually say that what we feel is equivalent to what God thinks about us. Where did we get this idea that God speaks through our feelings? Is there any Scriptural mandate for this?

The study of the Bible must consist of the study of other books. If someone does not think this, then don’t go to church. Why? After all, who needs to hear what the pastor has to say? You have enough on your own with just your Bible. If you want to know what the Bible says, it will benefit you to know what the most studied people have to say.

Some of you might be against having academics help you with the Bible. I hope not because first off, you won’t enjoy this blog, but most importantly, the Bible that you read has been translated for you by academics, unless you know Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, and if you know those, chances are you have not only been helped by academics, but you are one yourself.

In fact, it could be when we read others and get their insights that those thoughts spark those of our own and we learn more about the Bible. If one stays on the same level with the Bible all their lives, it will lose interest. However, the more one loves something, the more they will want to know it and the level one’s on will keep growing deeper and deeper.

If you treat the Bible superficially, you will have a superficial understanding, kind of the way the new atheists do. Considering them on the Bible is like saying because you’ve had a high school course on evolution that you’re able to speak with authority on it. Not at all. You need more.

If we want to get a lot out of our Bibles, we will have to put more into the study of it. We will only get out of it what we put into it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

On Atheist Quote Mining

Is that really an accurate quote? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I woke up this morning to find on my Facebook a request from a friend of mine concerning a debate she was in on the Unbelievable page asking if I would know the correct source for a quote an atheist had given. I’m going to use one as an example.

“There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn.”
— St. Augustine (354 – 430), one of the “great” church fathers, Confessions

Okay. Confessions is a big book. It has several chapters to it. It’s not feasible to just pick it up and start reading, so the best thing to do is to do a search for the quote, although one can go to google books and look for some quotes there. What I do in this case is to take the first sentence, go to google, put it in quotes, and search.

Interestingly, the search comes up with several atheist web sites that have that same quote along with several others. Even Richard Dawkins has it in his book “The God Delusion” on page 159 and his source is Freeman. This tells me that Richard Dawkins has not even bothered to check the original quote.

So is the quote accurate?

Not really, for not too long in our search we find this:

http://sntjohnny.com/front/outright-lies-illiteracy-or-just-bad-scholarship/33.html

Keep in mind that was not found on the 23rd page of a search. That was on the very first page. How many atheists then have even bothered to check the original quote? Considering how Dawkins can complain about creationists taking him out of context, it seems he doesn’t mind checking to see if he’s doing the same thing to Christians.

So I thought I’d take the last part that had “great” in quotations as if to make fun of Augustine. Let’s put this through the google search. How did the search results start off?

With the exact same links that the other one started off with.

This little exercise provides us with two pieces of information. The first is that we get a better understanding of what Augustine said. The second is that we understand better that too many atheists don’t bother to do any checking and simply just puke out what their cohorts have told them. Sad that a technique meant to show how blind Christians are reveals that instead of atheists.

This is a simple exercise anyone can do when given a quote. Now you won’t find every quote, but you can find some and if you can’t find the quote, ask for a clear reference, and for that you will need book and page number. If they don’t have one, I wouldn’t take it seriously then as they haven’t bothered to look it up themselves.

There’s no need to be fooled by this and you don’t need to be a person who mindlessly repeats as it seems too many atheists online are.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Perissos Conference

Would you like to make another conference possible? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

My good friend Lynn Erhorn of Perissos Resources, a Christian ministry, is in the works of preparing a conference. While there will be apologetics involved, which piques my interest, this will not be just apologetics. There will be venues of all types based on TheologyWeb.com.

Some of you know that I am a member on staff at TheologyWeb. This is my favorite place to debate and Deeper Waters has its own section there. At TWeb, as we often call it, there’s something for everyone. You want to discuss TV shows, movies, and video games? You can. Want to discuss your pets or cooking? You can. Want to discuss psychology and philosophy? You can. Do men just want to get together and talk man stuff and women get together and talk women stuff? There are places for that. There are naturally places for just silliness.

We want to have a conference with the same format. There will be numerous guests and speakers. That also includes Yours Truly, though I have no idea yet for sure what I’ll be speaking on. We are also hoping to be able to get Tim Tebow to come and speak on the relationship of God to sports.

I have been to two TWeb conventions and both of them have been thoroughly entertaining and informative and also a precursor of the Kingdom I’d say. At the end of the first one, I remember being the worship leader and leading as many of us sang a hymn together from all over the world and many different denominations united in Christ and how I thought that this is what eternity is meant to be like.

I hope this conference sounds as exciting to you as it does to me.

Now here’s the problem.

This conference could possibly never be.

Why? We need interest generated and for that, we need just 250 people to fill out the survey that we have. It will only take a few minutes of your time and you could be benefiting yourself as well as numerous others who want to see this as a possibility.

Some of you might be skeptical. I know Lynn Erhorn, the one in charge of Perissos. She is a trusted friend in all areas. As I prepared for marriage, she has been one I can talk to and at some points when I’ve wanted to get some advice, she has always been a good advisor. We were greatly pleased to have her be one of the guests at our wedding. (And she was greatly pleased I understand to discover Cheerwine after the wedding. All of that of course I got secondhand.)

Friends. I don’t normally write a post like this that would be a pure advertisement, but this time I am making an exception. Would you please take a few minutes of your time and fill out this survey and give some feedback on what you’d like to see at the conference?

The links are included below.

In Christ,
Nick Peters.

www.theologyweb.com.

http://www.perissosonline.org/2012/05/01/large-theology-conference-coming-soon/

http://www.perissosonline.org/forms/conference-survey/

5–Hour Christianity

Is Christianity just a burst of energy to help you? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Here in the Knoxville area, we have right now going on a revival to last for six days with six big area churches coming together. As my wife and I were driving and seeing two churches with signs about it I asked her “Am I the only one who seems skeptical about all of this?”

I remember growing up in the church and seeing as because of my having Asperger’s, I was not ready to go on these overnight youth trips. The youth would all come back and they would be so excited and in love with Jesus and they were just ready to take on the world for Christ!

And then a week passed.

By then, everything was back to normal.

It was always disappointing for me. I always felt like the kids were putting on a show for the time being. That same skepticism comes to me when I hear about revivals going on. Personally, I don’t even like the term because to me, revival implies that something is dead. The church is alive. It does not need a revival. It needs a revolution.

Some of you might think I’m being too hard. Let me state up front I am not against someone being more emotionally focused in Christianity. We need many members and not everyone is called to be an intellectual. That is just fine. We all have our place in the body.

I am concerned about emotionalism devoid of intellectual backing however. To be fair, I am also against a cold intellectualism that cares nothing about the hearts and souls of men and has no desire for God. Of course, such expression might not be strongly emotional. I would not say my own love for God in my life is really emotional, but that does not mean I would deny it is there.

Usually, such revivals act like the five hour energy drinks. A friend of ours, who happened to marry my wife and I, recommended that if I go on a long car drive, halfway through, I should drink one of those energy drinks. Now I don’t think I need to, but it does make people rest easier. It also makes my wife wonder what planet I came here from when I can down the whole thing in one gulp. (As anyone knows, every thing else about me is perfectly normal, and I’m sure if she read this her eyes would roll.)

For most people, you can be driving along and get really tired and need that energy to keep going. If that’s the case, that would be fine. The problem comes with trying to make a consistent diet out of those. You could not live off of energy drinks. At the same time, you cannot make a diet out of revivals.

“Well people aren’t doing that!”

Okay. The way to demonstrate that would be to make sure people are getting a healthy diet of Christianity elsewhere. This is more than just how to be a good person. Christianity has too often been reduced to a set of ethics. It would also be why those ethics are so important. It’s more than just “What can I believe so I can go to Heaven when I die?” It’s “What does what I believe do to bring Heaven to Earth here?”

This means getting emotional and intellectual needs both met and sadly, today the church by and large caters to the emotional needs. We need both. Sorry, but when the college student who has been in Sunday School for years without having any substance to his faith meets a professor armed with a load of “facts” that are supposed to disprove Christianity, he needs more than a feeling to make it.

My concern with the revivals is that our churches aren’t succeeding where they should be and feel the need to correct that with an occasional shot of Christianity. It won’t do it. If you want your Christianity to grow, like a good garden, it must be tended to regularly.

What’s the solution? How about what Jesus said. Those that worship must worship in Spirit and in truth. We need both. Having a good deal of spirituality won’t matter if you don’t have a clue about what the truth is. Maybe then, we won’t need to bring revival to ourselves, but will rather bring it to those outside the church.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Ehrman/Carrier debate

How’s the view from under the bus? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I have yet to read Ehrman’s “Did Jesus Exist?” although I do have a copy of it here, but library books come first. That having been said, it has been amusing on some web sites to see how Richard Carrier is now going after Bart Ehrman and this no doubt places the usual village atheist in a bind.

Typically, fundy atheists online have relied on Bart Ehrman. One can hardly read the new atheists without seeing a reference to Bart Ehrman as the authority. At the same time, the new atheists seem quite open to the idea that Jesus never existed and now, the champion that online fundy atheists have claimed for so long has come out with a position deemed heretical.

So now what to do? Apparently for fundy atheists, in the past, Ehrman’s books were seen as excellent because Ehrman is a scholar and he is right in what he says, but now that this one has come out, what to do? Do we want to still say he’s a scholar and value what he says, but if so then we have to drop the idea that Jesus never existed? How could Ehrman give such a betrayal as this?

For the rest of us in reality who actually look at claims on a case-by-case basis and have it be more than “X says so”, this isn’t a problem. We can recommend the works of someone on a case-by-case basis realizing some positions we agree with and some don’t. Not so for the typical fundy atheists who treats the paragons of his faith more seriously than most Christians treat Scripture.

Enter Richard Carrier. Carrier has long been the go-to man for online skeptics and is one of those few people who still holds to this position that Jesus never existed. Carrier also seems to think he’s an authority on several issues and gets called out quickly when someone else comes along who is one. Most notably, he has quite an ego online.

Watching these two fare off is quite amusing, but even more so is the fact that Ehrman is shown to know what he’s talking about by and large while Carrier is picking at tiny little points thinking that this somehow makes a difference in the overall argument.

Not to be outdone in the “X says so” category, we’ve also seen that P.Z. Myers has applauded Carrier for dealing with Ehrman and that Stephen Law has come out against the existence of Jesus. Keep in mind that both Myers and Law in their respective fields will be demanding evidence to believe something, which in itself I have no problem of, but when it comes to history which they do not study professionally, they are quick to say the evidence is not enough.

By all means, let them do it. By doing so, the new atheist movement is becoming more and more out of sync with reality and when they have to defend this historically atrocious position, then they will have to keep doing more and more all in the attempt to save face rather than face that dreadful alternative of saying “I was wrong.”

This has to be done in fact because the last thing that can be admitted is that the Christian theist actually has a point. Once that is done, then the atheist has to admit that it is no longer blind faith. It is faith that has reason behind it and there goes another one of their favorite cards in their deck.

The idea seems to be that we’re all supposed to stand together and Ehrman has gone against that stand. He must be dealt with. It will be amusing to see if this means online atheists will quickly move away from Ehrman when in a debate someone says “Ehrman. Ehrman. Isn’t he the guy who wrote that book demonstrating that Jesus did exist?”

For now, let the new atheists continue their strong defense of Carrier as their champion and just wait and see what happens when it is shown that the emperor has no clothes. Perhaps then we can ever hear a biblical lament at that point about how the mighty have fallen.

After all, when you’re married to an ideology, why let a little thing like evidence get in the way at that point?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus Interrupted

What are my thoughts on Ehrman’s book “Jesus Interrupted?” Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Jesus Interrupted says that it’s about the hidden contradictions in the Bible with the added emphasis of “and why we don’t know about them.” Ehrman starts off early talking about how seminaries have to have “Baby Bible” exams where students are tested on their basic knowledge of the Bible. I remember such an exam. I had to take one when I entered Bible College. Ehrman is sadly right that most students are unprepared for this aside from a strong fundamentalist view which I believe Ehrman had.

Much of what Ehrman says at the start is not really disagreeable. In fact, it points to a great lack we have in really training our young people to know how to study the text. I say our young people since they’re the ones that normally leave and go off to college and hear this, but everyone in the church needs to know about this stuff.

For now, let’s go through the chapters starting with the second that gets into the substance matter.

Chapter 2- A World of Contradictions.

A noticeable aspect of this book is that Ehrman continues with the baby Bible talk as if many of his readers are unfamiliar with the stories of the Bible. Unfortunately, I also agree. Many readers will be atheists and skeptics who pick up the book not knowing a thing about the Bible, and walk away convinced. Ehrman only gives one side of the equation. He normally presents “contradictions” without pointing out that evangelical scholarship also has an answer to such.

I also will not say that every contradiction Ehrman presents is an open and shut case that is easily resolved. They aren’t all that way. Ehrman is wrong however to present this as if this is something new and the church for centuries has been unaware. On the contrary, the church has been entirely aware.

For instance, on pages 35-39, he points out the differences with the genealogies of Jesus. I do agree that this needs an answer, but this is not a new discovery. I believe the early church in fact had at least four different solutions for the problem and they did debate this. These people noticed what was going on in their books.

Ehrman also cites claims that aren’t really contradictions which is problematic. For instance, on page 32, he writes that no record exists of Herod ordering the execution of the children in Bethlehem. Why the New Testament record is sufficient itself is not given. After all, we do accept some claims in history with only one source. Why not what happened in Bethlehem? It’s not miraculous. It fits with the nature of Herod as well. Could it be that we have to be skeptical because it’s the Bible?

Yes. There’s actually a double-standard in studying the Bible.

Ehrman also has a problem with what is said at Jesus’s baptism. Do we agree that different gospels say different things? Yes. This is a problem only if you think the text had to be written to say exactly what was said instead of a paraphrase of what was said.

Finally, on page 50, Ehrman speaks about the triumphant entry and says that the disciples brought two animals, a donkey and a colt, and Jesus apparently rode in on both of them.

It’s hard to really take something like that seriously.

Let me put up the text as it is in the ESV:

“They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.”

Other translations like the NIV and the NASB make it clearer, but let’s state something. For the sake of argument, Matthew could be wrong. It could be this event never happened. It is disingenuous to Matthew to make him into an idiot. Matthew certainly knew you can’t ride two animals at once. Let’s look at that sentence again.

Does anyone else see any noun there that is in the plural that could be the referent of “them.” I’ve got an idea. How about the disciples put the cloaks on the colt and Jesus sat on the cloaks that were on the colt. See? All you have to do is look up the text and it makes sense.

For many other contradictions, I suggest the reader go check some good commentaries. Another excellent site to go to is that of my ministry partner at Tektonics.org.

Chapter 3-We kind of have more of the same in this chapter. There are some helpful insights and keep this as a reminder to students. Reading the other side is not without some merit and it’s not just so you can expose their errors. They can teach you some things too.

However, there are problems again and I will use an example I found most fascinating, that of supposed differences between Paul and Matthew. Ehrman says on page 90 that Jews must keep the law if they are to be Christians. You must keep the least of these commandments in the law in order to be saved.

This is the same Matthew who in Matthew 15 has Jesus saying that what goes into a person’s mouth cannot defile that person. This would be seriously taboo under the Jewish Law as one could not eat certain foods. It was what came out of a person that made them unclean. Could it be that in reality, the problem is Ehrman’s interpretation of Matthew 5:17-20? Keep in mind Ehrman is a textual critic. That means he knows the languages of course, but it does not mean he is an authority on interpretation. That is a separate field.

Chapter 4

Much of this will be familiar to readers who read my reviews of Forged here and here. Let’s go over a few basic points.

Ehrman makes much about the gospels being anonymous, not noting that the huge majority of books in the ancient world were anonymous. For skeptics, this is a code word indicating that the accounts are not reliable. Absent is any mention of why we believe we know who wrote the books.

Take Matthew for instance. Let’s suppose someone did not know who wrote this book in the early church and they start looking through a list of people in their short church history and the apostles and say “Hey! How about that guy Matthew? Let’s pick him!”

It might sound plausible at first, but why would you? Why not choose James or John or Peter who were part of the inner circle and more prominent? In fact, when one reads the gospels, one hardly even notices Matthew at all save for the scene of his calling. Why choose Matthew? If you wanted a name with strong authority, there were better ones to use.

Or could it be the church fathers paid attention to claims of authorship and had enough information from sources to believe it was indeed Matthew who wrote the book. In fact, if we were just picking authors, why would we have said Mark and Luke? Those are really no-names.

Ehrman gives no indication that any of this has taken place in church history nor does he mention the debates the church had. True, he mentions some church fathers, but Ehrman finds a point of disagreement and then is quick to throw out all of them. How much history would we have if the same was done with Plutarch, Pliny, and others?

Ehrman makes a point about how the Pastorals are forged since they were written in a later period when the church had deacons. However, the genuine letter of Philippians is addressed to deacons in the church as well and Romans 16 refers to a deaconess who delivered the letter. Why didn’t the same happen with 1 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians is likely an encyclical that went to that church first and then went on to other churches to give them guidelines in worship and doctrine.

Other claims just leave one puzzled. On page 113, Ehrman says the book of James was no doubt written by someone named James. What is the argument for this? None is given. What is the source? None given. If the books were anonymous, why think the claim of the church that it was written by James makes that certain, but not the same for, say, the Johannine epistles?

Chapter 5-

This deals with the trilemma of Lewis asking if Jesus was Lord, liar, or lunatic. In this, Ehrman deals with the beliefs that came up about Jesus. Early on, he says on page 145 that the gospels know about historical events like the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (btw Ehrman, I don’t know of non-Christian sources besides Josephus that even mention the destruction. Maybe based on what was said about Herod, that never happened either.)

This is something that cannot be known from a literary study. It assumes that predictive prophecy is not possible. That’s no longer textual clues guiding the text but a metaphysical claim that one approaches prior. Now some of you might say “Well I don’t believe that can happen.” That’s fine, but the best thing to do is to say “I’m skeptical, but I am open so I will take a non-dogmatic approach.” You can say then you don’t believe it happens, but you are open. Anything wrong with that?

On pages 146-7, Ehrman compares the spreading of the accounts of Jesus to the telephone game children play. Scholars know this is a problematic claim. For one thing, when you play telephone, you cannot hear again what the other person said. They can’t repeat it. You can’t check back with them to see if you got it right. That’s what makes the game so much fun.

“Well of course! If you could have it repeated and checked back again then it’s quite likely there wouldn’t be confusion and the game wouldn’t be fun. The checking back makes it less likely mistakes will be transmitted.”

Wow. Don’t you think early Christians would do that also?

Ehrman gives no impression of that. He says nothing about oral transmission in those societies. He says nothing about scholarly studies. The skeptic is left without any idea of what scholarship of oral transmission has to say on the issue and is left with a view that bears no similarity to what happened in the ancient world.

To his credit, Ehrman does give some criteria for historical verification of claims and some readers will be benefited. A lot of mythicists, as we will see in our next chapter, would definitely be benefited if they took the time to study this kind of methodology.

Towards the end of the chapter, Ehrman handles the resurrection and his argument is basically that of Hume’s. His idea is that miracles are the least likely events to have happened, therefore they did not happen. We should always go for the most plausible.

No. We should always go where the evidence lies regardless of if we think it plausible or not.

Ehrman presents another scenario to explain the resurrection and it doesn’t do that. It just explains the empty tomb. It does not explain the claims of the apostles that they saw the resurrected Christ nor does it explain the conversion of Paul. What does Ehrman think about his scenario?

He himself says it is not likely at all and he is not proposing at all that that is what happened, but even though this is a claim that has zero evidence to back it, it is more probable than that a miracle happened.

Hence the great danger if a person will not believe the truth. They will believe in anything else.

Chapter 6

Much of this is about Ehrman’s problem with not having the inspired words of the text handed down exactly. Apparently, for God to make sure His Scripture was handed down, God would have to be a micro-manager. Did Ehrman expect something like a lightning bolt to strike whenever someone wrote a wrong word frying them as a warning to others? He does not say how He thinks it should have happened. Does He think the NT should have just fallen from Heaven? If so, where? in what language? Should this have to be repeated regularly as cultures and languages change?

Ehrman makes a point that we don’t have the originals. Nor do we have the originals of any ancient work that I can think of. So what? This has never been a problem, but somehow when it becomes about the Bible, it is a problem. It’s the double-standard again.

Ehrman also makes much of the situation of how we got the canon that we have. There is a simple solution to his query. If someone wants to know why some gospels weren’t included, the simple way to find out is to actually sit down and read them. I’ve done it. If you don’t know why they weren’t included then, I can’t really help you.

In all of this of course, Ehrman is too quick to identify anyone as a Christian. Upon what basis? We are not told.

Ehrman also presents Bauer’s hypothesis about various groups having different Christianities that they had at the start and orthodoxy was the second position. Bauer’s position has been highly challenged since his time and even a critic like Robin Lane Fox finds it problematic.

Chapter 7

Not much new here. Much is made about supposed anti-Judaism. Ehrman has written in this book about how some Christians even said the Jews were responsible for the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. because they crucified the Messiah. This would be anti-semitism.

But why? What if I said that in World War 2 we fought against the Germans. Does that mean that all Germans for all time are automatically part of what happened at World War 2 and are held responsible? Not at all. Any Christian who wants to condemn all Jews for all time for what one generation did needs to be took aside as that is anti-semitism. The claim that Ehrman is against is not anti-semitic. It focuses on one generation of Jews in a particular time and place for one action, not because they are Jewish.

In fact, it seems many of Ehrman’s problems do stem from his eschatology. Is this an off-shoot of his fundamentalism? Quite likely. Ehrman can write about how we now know that you don’t go up to Heaven, for instance. Jesus is not literally coming back on clouds. The reality is the ancients knew that as well. Ehrman is putting an Enlightenment approach on the text and saying “Now we know that’s not how it is so they were wrong” when it is really the Enlightenment thinking that is wrong, the thinking Ehrman himself has inherited.

Chapter 8

Finally, is faith possible? Ehrman is all for presenting scholarship to the people. So am I. For Ehrman, faith would have to be blind to the discrepancies. I don’t think so. Faith should instead wrestle with them and grow deeper. Ehrman to thinks it should, but only after one accepts the contradictions are irreconcilable.

In conclusion, I do not find Ehrman’s work in this regards persuasive, and it’s a shame not because I wanted to be persuaded, but because I expected much better. To his credit, he does have much to say about Christ mythers and we will cover that more when I review his book “Did Jesus Exist?”

That’s for another time. I think anyone interested in NT studies should read this book, but atheists who just read this do not have a real understanding of Scripture.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Homophobia Fails

What were my thoughts on the debate on homosexual marriage on Unbelievable? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently on Unbelievable?, host Justin Brierley had a debate on homosexual marriage between Peter Tatchell and Peter D. Williams. Tatchell has been a lifelong advocate of what he prefers to call “gay rights.” Peter D. Williams is an apologist who works with Catholic Voices. There will be a link to the program at the end.

To begin with, this is a debate I thought was an absolute trounce on the part of Williams. Williams knew the material that Tatchell was citing and what the problem was with it. Furthermore, Williams himself never appealed to Scripture to defend his case so it wasn’t just “The Bible says so.” (I have heard some apologists say they think homosexuality is wrong just because the Bible says so. I really don’t think this is the way to go. It’s not that X is true because the Bible says so. The Bible says X because it is true.)

I could tell the way the debate was going to go when right at the start Tatchell started talking about homophobia. Williams was right when he said that this is more often a way of shutting down debate. It becomes more about the motives of the person presenting the argument rather than the argument itself.

Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that Williams really did have a hatred towards homosexuals and homosexuality. Let’s suppose that he was filled with nothing but vitriol towards them and thought that they were less than human in any sense of the word.

Question. Does that make his arguments against homosexual marriage wrong?

No. It just makes him a jerk. He could be entirely right in his opinion and entirely wrong in his attitude. It would not work against his argument to say that he was a jerk. You still have to deal with what is said and the claim about someone being homophobic does not do that.

Furthermore, let’s think about this. What does the term mean? Phobias are not funny things. They’re terrifying things. I have a phobia of water for instance. My wife and I honeymooned at Ocean Isle Beach and it took a lot for her to get me into the water. I got out into the ocean deeper than I ever had before. Most noteworthy was she got me into the pool about 5 feet deep and away from the edge.

There was a part of me that was inside screaming “My wife is trying to kill me!” while I was doing that, but the rational side of me was saying “My wife loves me and if anything does happen, she’s fully capable of saving me.” I did trust her. It took a lot, but I trusted her.

Now let’s suppose someone was walking by who saw this and said “Wow! Look at that! The little wimp is afraid of water!” Now some of you might think that fear is bizarre, but there would not be sympathy for someone who holds that kind of attitude. I can assure them they would need to pray for God to have mercy if my Mrs. had heard that because she sure wouldn’t.

Phobias are not terms you should use to mock or denigrate someone and yet that is exactly what the term homophobia is. It is the idea that the only reason Christians are against homosexuality is because they are afraid of it or homosexuals. Does that mean I have kleptophobia because I’m opposed to theft? Do I have nymphophobia if I am opposed to sex outside of marriage? Do I have homocidophobia if I am opposed to murder? Could it actually be that I might have moral reasons for objecting to homosexuality?

The next term Tatchell used regularly was discrimination. This is playing the victim card because who wants to be on the side of the discriminators. The reality is that we all do discriminate on various topics. We discriminate on who we’re friends with, who we do business with, who we marry, and who we have sit our kids.

The law itself discriminates. You have to be a certain age to drive. You have to be a certain age to vote. You have to be a certain age to drink alcohol. If you want to carry a gun, you have to show that you are qualified to do that. This is discrimination and it is good discrimination.

Williams made the point that Tatchell is not denied any right. He is wanting different rights. He’s correct. No one has the right to marry someone of the same sex. Instead, everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex, and even then there’s some discrimination, such as that you can’t marry a close family member.

Williams is also right when asking “Why not polygamy?” We could go further and ask “Why not NAMBLA?” or “Why not incest?” Now for polygamy Tatchell was of the opinion that no one would want that. He can say that, but I’m pretty sure the Mormon church here in America would certainly get a “new revelation” if polygamy became allowed.

One important aspect of the debate was that marriage sets a normative route for society that shows what is needed for the ideal raising of children. It doesn’t mean that all marriages have children or will have children, but it means that children are ideally raised by a mother and a father both. Of course, there are some tragedies that happen, such as the death of a spouse, that leave some single parents, and these can do very admirable jobs, but I am sure most would say it would be a whole lot easier if the other spouse was around.

The key point was in the idea of which sex it is that is not needed to raise a child. For me, this is the main point. Allowing homosexual marriage will be saying that men and women are really interchangeable. There is no difference between the two. Which sex will be the one to be cast aside? It’s very easy to tell you that. Fathers will be seen as superfluous.

Being a man means something. It matters. Being a woman means something. It matters. I am thankful God made me a man and when the Princess and I have children some day, as we hope to, I will be very pleased that I get to be a father and she gets to be the mother of my children and we will both play our essential roles in their proper raising.

Let’s hope the society in the U.K. recognizes what marriage really is, the union of a man and a woman, and let’s also hope that here in the states we do the same thing. For those of us who are married, let’s start living the joyful life of marriage for a watching world. The reason other people lessen marriage is because we did it ourselves in the first place.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The debate can be found here:

http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={45A7CC8B-2EE9-4394-B030-54C00AA7CA39}

SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

Should we take up the serpent? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently a local radio show here in Knoxville had 21 year-old Andrew Hamblin, a pastor of a snake-handling church, on to discuss the concept of snake handling. I called in and did not get much time to talk, but it is a topic that is not discussed much so I figured I’d say a few words.

To begin with, I was quite concerned that this pastor was unfamiliar with the verse under question, which was Mark 16:18, not being in several Bibles. It is in the KJV, and KJV-onlyism itself is problematic enough to me, but even most KJV-onlyists are aware that other translations do not have the verses. Hamblin already struck me as someone who was living by a verse without doing any real study on it other than reading it in one translation.

Part of this was shown to me as the caller before me had got to have a conversation with Hamblin, but in my call he was completely silent. To begin with, the host had said he thought Mark was written 50 years after Jesus. I was placing it earlier to 30 years which would place it in the 60’s, although some could date it to the 50’s. Essential? No. However, it is helpful in establishing early eyewitness testimony.

So when I called, I posed a problem with the KJV saying that I was sure Hamblin held to the Trinity. I got silence. I then pointed out that the Trinity consists of three persons. Again, silence. I then stated that in Romans 8:26-27 in the KJV, we read about “the Holy Spirit itself.” That it is quite problematic as it can be seen as denying the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Of course, I don’t think the KJV translators denied the personhood of the Spirit. I don’t think they were going into heresy. I think like many translators can do, they simply had a mistranslation. Overall, the KJV is still a good translation if that’s the one someone prefers.

My greatest concern was with the safety of the people as it seemed from what Hamblin said that some people had died from snake handling and I do remember that no one under 18 was allowed to pick up a serpent. (Is God incapable of protecting someone who is under 18? Does Mark 16:18 present any criteria that says this only works for adults?)

I could not say how many have died, but one is too many.

I can already hear the reply. “But Nick. Several people die in the service of Christ! We’re doing the same thing!”

To begin with, it is a tragedy of course when anyone dies in the service of Christ at the hands of a persecutor. It is an evil we should all be willing to fight, but it is an event that if we are ever called to die for our Lord, we should all hope we are able to do. There is a marked difference between what the martyr does and what the snake handler does.

The martyr dies from something without and he dies explicitly because he is obeying the command of Christ. The snake handler dies because of his own sin and he is not explicitly obeying the command of Christ. Even if Mark 16:18 was authentic, it does not command Christians as the word is not in an imperative sense.

To be fair, the church I understand does even have some drinking of poison going on, which consists of strychnine. This is just as problematic however. Who is doing this? Someone’s son. Someone’s daughter. Maybe someone’s brother or sister. Maybe someone’s wife or husband. Maybe someone’s mother or father.

What I heard Hamblin talking about most was the feeling that comes when it’s time to take up the serpent. I simply wonder about someone who is willing to act on a feeling on a text that is most probably inauthentic and base their whole life on that and risk removing themselves from everyone else around them causing them great harm. Sorry, but I think you need more than a feeling.

Keep in mind I do not doubt that these people do have a great love for God. I do not doubt their sincerity. What I doubt is whether they are truly being biblical. We see no evidence in church history that congregations regularly got together and took up serpents and drank poison.

Let us also not forget this little thing that we read in the Bible about putting the Lord to the test. This was the temptation of Jesus when He was asked to jump from the temple mount. When the angels caught Him that would be proof to the people that He was the Son of God and the Messiah.

Jesus refused. He refused by saying you shall not put the Lord to the test. That passage still hangs true today. We do have authentic statements instead that show that we are to be known by our love.

I am not saying Hamblin and others do not have love, but the greatest sign of being a follower of Christ will not be a taking up of the serpent, but rather the treading on the serpent, which refers to the powers of evil in the world that Christians are said to have power over. This does not refer to literal serpents.

The other sign of course involves the love Christians are to have. Are we growing in holiness? That will be our greatest sign. If you want to know if you’re in covenant with God, the place to go to is not to ask if you can take up a snake and not be bitten. The place to go is to ask if you are seeking to die to yourself and follow Jesus to the cross if need be. Are you seeking to be more holy or not?

Now how do I explain what happens that people are able to take up snakes? I have no certain answers as animals are not my specialty and maybe someone who knows snakes better would like to comment. However, I have heard stories about people who can look at dogs that would normally be vicious and speak to them in such a way that will have them cowering. Could the snakes themselves sense such confidence? Maybe.

My final conclusion on this is just that I fear that groups in this position will not be any good the Christian cause. They will either be withdrawn into themselves away from academia so much so that they won’t touch the great questions on the authenticity of Christianity today, or they will be out presenting an image that the rest of us have to work against when debating new atheist types, whom I fear these people will be easy pickings for.

I hope that it is realized what is going on with this. One death is too many.

In Christ,
Nick Peters