Tag: historical Jesus

Book Plunge: Jesus’s Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions

What do I think of Rob Bowman’s book published by Deward Publishing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If there’s any area in the study of the resurrection we needed a great source on, it was comparing the resurrection to the visions of Joseph Smith. After all, aren’t what happened to Paul and Joseph comparable? Aren’t the witnesses to the golden plates and the witnesses to the resurrection comparable? If we accept one, are we not obligated to accept the other?

Thankfully, that niche has been filled. Rob Bowman has written an excellent book looking at the visions of Joseph Smith and comparing them to the resurrection. The bulk of the book is dedicated to Smith which isn’t a surprise since most Christians are familiar with the resurrection who read these kinds of books. Also, Smith came from a much more literary time so there are more writings to go through around his time.

However, even if you have read material defending the resurrection of Jesus, and I hope you have, you still need to go through what Bowman says about it. It’s really an excellent defense of the doctrine and very easy to understand. If you want a short defense of the resurrection of Jesus, this is an excellent one to go through.

When we get to Smith, Bowman truly shows his mastery of the information. There is hardly a stone left unturned here and Bowman interacts with the very best of Mormon apologetics. His familiarity with the material is simply astounding.

As he goes through Smith’s visions, he goes through piece by piece and points out in detail that could be painstaking if it wasn’t such an enjoyable read all that is questionable and why, always making sure to say it’s not because it’s miraculous. It gets down to the real historical claims such as when was the revival that Joseph Smith talked about and was he truly persecuted for claims of a vision.

He’ll also ask about the appearance of Moroni because even if you grant miraculous events and angelic encounters, there are reasons in the account itself to really question that the event happened. This is not the usual approach of using DNA testing or lacking archaeological evidence to go after Mormonism. This is striking at the heart. After all, Mormonism often is said to stand or fall on the first vision of Joseph Smith.

If you are someone who wants to interact with Mormons, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you don’t interact with them, but you debate the resurrection of Jesus with skeptics, you need to read this book. This is a thorough and excellent reply to one common objection.

If I could recommend one book on dealing with Mormonism now, it would be this one. This is really one that any Mormon who is wanting to stay a strong Mormon needs to interact with. It will be a great reference for counter-cult apologetics for many years to come.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Coming Kingdom

What does the Kingdom of God refer to? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the big debates in eschatology really centers around the Kingdom of God. This is something that I disagree with the way I see futurism and dispensationalism presented. The question is what does it mean for the Kingdom of God to come and then when does it begin.

I plan to look at various passages about the Kingdom of God, but mainly I want to talk about what it means. Even secular scholars today now agree that one of the main messages of Jesus was the Kingdom of God. One of the great gifts N.T. Wright has done for the church is to open our eyes to what this means.

When Jesus shows up in the Gospels even at an early point, aside from John which hardly mentions this, He is talking about the Kingdom of God. This would be significant because though Israel had returned to the land, the land wasn’t their home again entirely. After all, the Romans were ruling over the land. Israel was supposed to be sovereign over the land.

A number of figures rose up wanting to end Roman rule and claiming to be the Messiah. These figures were often going to bring an end to Roman rule. As you should know, none of them did. Jesus shows up and He claims the Kingdom of God, but He has something different in mind than booting out the Romans.

Jesus is saying that God is going to be king again. The true monarchy that God intended through David is going to be restored. David had been one king in history who had fulfilled three roles of prophet, priest, and king. His son, the Messiah, would fulfill those roles.

The true enemy though was not the Romans. It was sin. God was through Jesus proclaiming that His rule would begin and it wouldn’t be limited to just a piece of land in the Middle East. God was going to rule the whole world.

This then gets to a debate about when the kingdom of God began. For a Preterist like myself, when Jesus says “soon”, He means it. God is going to being His rule. He is going to defeat the devil. He is going to conquer. He will reclaim the world for Himself.

Thus, the question then is when did Jesus become king or when is He going to be king? For someone in my position, the answer is Jesus is king right now. Now I know some of you could be saying “Well if Jesus is king right now, then why is there still evil in the world?” That was answered in part in our look at Psalm 110:1 and we will see more of this in the Gospels. Jesus is reigning now and His enemies are being made a footstool for His feet. We are His ambassadors going around announcing the news that Jesus Christ is king of this Earth.

So as we look at eschatology, expect a lot of verses to look at the Kingdom of God. There’s more in there than you likely realized.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Bedrock of Christianity

What do I think of Justin Bass’s book published by Lexham Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Justin Bass’s book is a book to look at what scholars across the board are saying about the historical Jesus in regard to His resurrection. This is a wonderful book that has great data, humor, and a nice pastoral touch. It is not only short and powerful, but it is also fun to read.

Bass also thankfully starts at the beginning with dealing with mythicism severely. He is familiar with Carrier’s work and does the work to show that this is not a claim that is taken seriously. From there, he goes point by point through the historical Jesus to show what is said.

Each chapter is a good number of pages long and has quotes all throughout to back everything Bass is saying. In the early chapters, Bass makes no argument really about the resurrection of Jesus. He instead saves that for the very end. If you go through the book, you will get a great plethora of quotes that you can use.

The humor in the book is really good. At one point, for example, Bass is making the case about what it means when we say that Paul was zealous for Judaism. He compares it to several zealous figures in the Old Testament, including Jehu who destroyed as much of King Ahab’s family as he could. He ends by saying the life of Jehu is a great bedtime story to read to your children. I found myself wondering what it would be like if he teamed up with Andy Bannister or Michael Bird to write something.

He also gets a pastoral touch. Now in some ways, this isn’t my favorite part because too often if you point to something like this, skeptics of Christianity will just discount everything you say as if the only reason you have for believing in Christianity is emotional. There is nothing wrong with emotional reasons playing a part though in your worldview thinking. We are emotional creatures as well as rational creatures for the most part. The stories are quite powerful thinking about the unique life Jesus lived and how His life has transformed the lives of others.

The appeal at the end is very evangelistic. Bass wants you to at least consider taking the claim seriously. He can accept that if you come to the data and say, “I don’t know what happened” that’s one thing you can say, but he urges you to not stop there. Isn’t it really worth looking into? Isn’t it worth considering?

In the end, he gives an argument for the resurrection based on this and the importance of new creation. Jesus didn’t just come and rise again so we could know Christianity is true. He rose again so that He could bring about the new creation. The new has come. The old has passed away.

In conclusion, Bass’s book is highly accessible and one worth reading by skeptic and Christian alike. I give it a full recommendation.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:31

What role will angels play? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, we have a verse that many futurists assume is about something in the future. After all, look at angels going out and this gathering together and the sounds of a trumpet. A trumpet sounds at the resurrection. Right? Surely that’s what’s going on here! Let’s look at the verse.

“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

This would be an incredibly vague reference to a resurrection and trumpets have many more uses in Scripture and in the Roman Empire at the time. They could be used for war and they could also be used as a royal proclamation. I would go for a mixture of both of these. The Kingdom of God wages war on the kingdoms of man and the proclamation is the gospel going forth.

What about angels though? Angels are heavenly messengers aren’t they? Are they not the ones that are around the throne of God? If they’re going out, then surely that must mean something future is going on. Right?

No. The Greek word is aggelos and it can refer to a member of the heavenly entourage, but it can also refer to a messenger. John the Baptists is referred to as an aggelos. The word describes more function than anything else.

By the way, it’s worth noting the high Christology here. These are not the messengers of God, though they are that indeed, but in the text, they are the messengers of the Son. It’s one of those casual references easily missed.

The gathering of the elect refers to those who are Christians. At this point, there is zero interest in whether this is meant in a Calvinistic, Arminian, or some other sense. I really avoid that debate as much as I can.

And what about to the ends of the Earth? For the first-century Jews, this would not mean going all the way to North America or something, contrary to Mormon claims. This would mean going throughout the Roman Empire. By the end of the book of Acts, we see that this has been done. Not a shock to a Preterist that shortly after that, the temple gets destroyed.

We’re nearing the end of the first part. We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Review of Tom Jump vs Jonathan Sheffield

What did I think of this debate? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Someone recommended I look into the work of Tom Jump. I have heard a lot about him. Something interesting is that I saw that he said he has Aspergers which means he and I have a similarity. I saw him debate Gil Sanders on the existence of God with Thomism and think Gil was the one who knew most what he was talking about in that debate.

Some of you might cry bias, but realize I try to be as objective as I can in debates. I can think the atheist is wrong with his conclusion, but I can think he presented the better argument. When my father-in-law does a debate and I watch it, I give an honest feedback and if I don’t think it was a great debate on his part, I tell him.

My main area is the historical Jesus so I decided to see what Tom Jump had to say about the resurrection. I only found one such debate thus far and that was against Jonathan Sheffield. Right off, Sheffield’s argument for the resurrection I found quite unusual and was one I had never heard before. Those interested in the whole debate can go here.

Sheffield argues that many claimants of various religions were investigated by the Roman Empire and dealt with. Nothing was ever found about Christianity and a forged statement arguing that an investigation had been done was made. Sheffield argues that if Christianity was false, it would have been easy to shut it down at the time.

This is not the argument I would use, but it was interesting. I’m more interested in Jump’s response. Jump gave sadly the usual responses we see such as ECREE and of course, there had to be an appeal to Richard Carrier in there. At one point, he did reference the work of Mike Licona, but I wonder if he read it himself or just got it secondhand.

I would have liked to have seen more information on the historical data itself. I would have especially liked to have seen more on the burial. Jump goes with the position that Jesus was likely thrown in a common grave which is a position that was held by Crossan at one point at least and is held by Ehrman today.

I really don’t know after watching the debate where Jump stands on many issues aside from he doesn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead. Does he believe Jesus even existed? (If he likes Carrier, there’s reason to think he doesn’t.) When does he think the Gospels were written and who wrote them? What does he think of Paul?

I naturally don’t find ECREE convincing at all as an argument. Extraordinary is never defined and what is extraordinary for one person isn’t for another and how do you recognize extraordinary evidence. Does it glow in the dark? A young-earth creationist finds evolution and atheism an extraordinary claim. An atheist finds theism and young-earth creationism an extraordinary claim. If you went to a third world country and told them we landed on the moon (Assuming they had never heard of such an event), they would find that claim extraordinary.

At any rate, while I would not use the argument Sheffield used, though it was interesting and if he has success with it, wonderful, I found Jump’s response was less than adequate. I wouldn’t mind seeing what else he might say in debate on the resurrection, but so far I haven’t seen anything that calls it into question.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus, Skepticism, and the Problem of History

What do I think of Darrell Bock and Ed Komoszewski’s book published by Zondervan?

This book is largely a response to Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne’s book Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. The editors have put together a fine team of scholars to write various chapters illustrating that the criteria do still work. In the end, there are also three responses from those who can be critical looking at what was said.

For those not aware, the debate largely centers around checking various criteria to see if we can know if the historical Jesus did and said certain things or didn’t do and say certain things. These have been debated various times, but for the most part what we have is generally accepted with some qualifications. If anything, it really seems to come down to worldview a lot of the times.

A number of the essays in here provided some interesting viewpoints. I don’t know if I agree with Beth Sheppard on Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount in a theater, but her other insights on the culture and Jesus is excellent. Who would have thought that the Roman guard getting a sponge with wine for Jesus when He was crucified would also be an insult along the lines of toilet humor?

I appreciated also Paul Anderson’s essay on the Gospel of John. This is a Gospel that has sadly been neglected, and yet there is much in there that is supportable by new evidence that has come forth from the Dead Sea Scrolls and archaeology. However, I don’t think the Gospel of John will spark the fourth quest for the historical Jesus. If anything, I think the fourth quest should be involving a look not just at the Jewishness of Jesus, but also at the honor-shame culture that Jesus lived in.

Also, everyone who is familiar with New Testament studies will find something they like in here and also someone that they like in here. You can find Blomberg, Wallace, Licona, Bird, Keener, Evans, and several others contributing to this volume. You will have topics covered like the burial of Jesus, the resurrection, and the book of Acts.

The responses are also interesting. Scot McKnight’s was probably the most engaging and the one that I am thinking about the most. McKnight argues that the problem is not the methods but the results and that the premise of historical Jesus scholarship is to find the real Jesus instead of the one that is presented in Christianity. I wonder if this is really the case.

After all, if two people are doing the same methodology and reach different conclusions, either wrong data was used or someone made a mistake or some combination thereof. If we are doing history right, will we not find the Christ of Christianity if Christianity is true? It’s the same approach I take to science in that if Christianity is true, science can never contradict it.

At any rate, this volume is definitely a great defense of using the criteria in historical methodology to demonstrate several facts about the historical Jesus to be likely true. Even if you are not interested in that debate, the reader will gain much knowledge on other areas reading this. I highly recommend this volume for those interested in historical Jesus studies.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/28/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What are the Gospels? I understand that we can say they’re the accounts that we have of the life of Jesus, but what are they? What purpose do they really serve? What did the writers want us to get out of them?

Not only that, what purpose did they serve? How did the ancient people view the Gospels? What did they expect when they read the Gospels? Did they think the authors really believed there was a historical figure who did these things or did they think this was a nice set of novels?

Let’s go even further. What were the writers of these works thinking? Did they have any ideas for the best way to go about telling the accounts of Jesus? What liberties did they have with the source material? Why didn’t they cite source material? What sources did they even use and were they right to use them?

These are questions we can ask when we approach the Gospels. We can also ask then about the reliability of the Gospels. Was memory that reliable? What about the distance in time? What about the Gospels being anonymous?

If only we had someone who had really studied all of these kinds of questions and was an excellent scholar in the field.

Oh, wait. We do have such a person, and he is my guest this Saturday for the Deeper Waters Podcast talking about his latest book (Although he’s sure to have written another one in the time it took me to write this blog), Christobiography. Returning to our show is Craig Keener.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Bio sketch: Craig S. Keener (PhD, Duke University) is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is author of twenty-eight books (thirty-three volumes), six of which have won awards in Christianity Today, plus other awards. He has also authored roughly one hundred academic articles; seven booklets; and more than one hundred fifty popular-level articles. His IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, which provides cultural background on each passage of the New Testament, has sold more than half a million copies. Craig is the New Testament editor for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, which won the International Book Award for Christianity and Bible of the year in the Christian Book Awards. In 2020 Craig is president of the Evangelical Theological Society, and he is married to Dr. Médine Moussounga Keener. His blog site is http://www.craigkeener.com/.

Now that the holidays have passed, hopefully, we’ll be able to devote the time to getting the shows back on schedule again. I hope you’ll be waiting. Be there for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Can We Trust The Gospels?

What do I think of Peter J. Williams’s book published by Crossway? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book is a short read on the reliability of the Gospels. Don’t be deceived by its size. It is small, but it puts forward a succinctly powerful argument. Williams has written a book that is useful for the layman and yet incredibly scholarly at the same time.

It starts with just looking at bare facts about Christianity from outside of the New Testament. The information about Tacitus, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger, with an emphasis on Tacitus, is extremely helpful. Williams doesn’t spend time arguing with the idea that Jesus never existed, but he could have it in his sights.

Don’t think that means the information is light. It’s quite good and Williams still deals with popular objections, such as the spelling of the reference of Christ when it comes to the writings of Tacitus. Tacitus is probably the best extra-Biblical source we have on the base existence of Jesus and it’s quite helpful.

He then moves to an overview of the Gospels. This discusses what they are, why they are, and when they were written. Each of these chapters is short enough to read on its own, though reading the book as a whole will be more rewarding.

Then we move into Gospel reliability. In this, Williams leans heavily on Bauckham, and for good reason. This is the longest chapter, but it also contains a number of charts to help catalog the information. Williams looks at details like names, geography, finances, and even botany, to show that the Gospel authors did not make things up and were not writing from a standpoint where they were unfamiliar with the area.

Williams also looks at the idea of undesigned coincidences, made especially famous by the recent work of Lydia McGrew. This is not an extensive look, but it is a sufficient look. You could say this chapter is meant to pique your interest and if it succeeds, you could look into the research of McGrew on this.

From there, we get more into if we have the words of Jesus and if the text has been changed. Again, these chapters are short, but they contain a lot of really good information on the subject. I really encourage you to consider reading this even if you are knowledgeable on the subject. Williams has material that you won’t find in your regular apologetics book.

There is a brief chapter on contradictions and then one asking why this stuff would be made up. This last one ends with a powerful appeal to consider really recognizing who Jesus is and taking Him seriously. Naturally, that includes an argument for His resurrection.

This book is a gift to the church and one that skeptics will also need to take seriously. The layman will greatly appreciate how helpful and scholarly it is. The experienced apologist will appreciate having a brief guide to several key facts on the Gospels. Bottom line is to get this book and read it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Christian Delusion Chapter 10

What do I think of Robert Price’s chapter? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter in John What’s-his-name’s book is by Robert Price. I find it interesting to know that Loftus has no problem tying himself in with Jesus mythicists. At any rate, this is largely a chapter written in reply to Boyd and Eddy’s The Jesus Legend.

That is a wonderful book, but I find a problem with a chapter like this. I am not going to go and read the book again, which I read at the library, just to know about Price’s response. Those who have not read the book will find themselves disappointed. It’s much the same with Avalos responding to Copan and Carrier to Stark. Why not present your argument on its own?

So a few points to touch on. Price asks “If someone says he saw Uncle Mel alive again after his cremation, will you believe him?” Well if you mean just seen, why not? Many people do experience individual grief hallucinations of their loved ones. I have a great aunt who has seen her dead husband at least one time. If the only claim we had with Jesus was one or two people saw him alive after He had died, it would be nothing. That is not what we have.

Now Price goes on to say what if you were introduced to Uncle Mel. You would be skeptical. Of course, Price leaves out that you could do some fact checking. You could take a picture and ask people if this is really him. You could ask Mel some things that only he would know. Can you be skeptical? Yes. I am saying that my worldview does not require me to rule it out.

Even if it was true, how is that a problem for a Christian? We believe God can raise someone from the dead. If you’re a naturalist of some sort, then this is not an option so of course, it is presented as a ridiculous option. This is what I call presuppositional atheism. “No one would believe this claim and we know this claim is nonsense because of atheism, therefore no one should believe this other claim like it in Christianity.”

He also says Boyd and Eddy will not go further beyond miracle claims to read Christian theology into a claim. If it happened, to say it was a revelation of God in say, raising Jesus from the dead, that would require faith. Price says this mockingly, but it’s absolutely right. History could show you Jesus died on a cross. It cannot demonstrate alone Jesus did it to die for the sins of the world and that grants forgiveness.

In the same way, being convinced Jesus rose from the dead is not the same as being convinced one must trust Him as savior and Lord. Look at someone like Pinchas Lapides, a Jewish scholar who was convinced Jesus was resurrected, but He did not become a Christian. The trust in what that act means does require faith.

Price also has something about how modern academia tends to discount third world experiences since those people are superstitious, while Boyd and Eddy go on to argue that they weren’t all as credulous as we make them out to be. They are exactly right in this. When people say we know that dead people don’t rise or that virgins don’t give birth (And I do affirm the virgin birth), we are not saying anything they did not know.

It is ridiculous to say we know better because of modern science. Ancient people buried their dead and they had laws about adultery and paternity because they knew dead people stay dead and it takes sex to make a baby. These aren’t exactly grand discoveries of modern science. It’s not as if people were having sex for thousands of years and then modern science came along and said, “Whoa! This is actually where babies come from!”

Price also asks about 2nd-3rd century synagogues with zodiac signs. Not knowing for sure when these were occupied, we could just as easily say that these were after the attack on Jerusalem and were desecrated by the Romans. Price doesn’t supply any information about these synagogues so it’s hard to tell.

Price also asks if the followers of Lubavitcher Rebbe who was a Jew who was said to have risen from the dead and was the Messiah would have really borrowed from the Christians. Why not? If they want to say their figure is the Messiah, they need to top the reigning Messiah figure.

Price also says the crown jewel of oral tradition, Kenneth Bailey, was trumped by Theodore Weeden. Unfortunately for Price, I dealt with this in my review of Ehrman’s Jesus Before the Gospels.

Well yes, Weeden did critique Bailey. In turn, James Dunn critiqued Weeden. Dunn is no slouch in the area. He has a Ph.D. and D.D. from Cambridge and wrote the book Jesus Remembered. (A book cited only once in the bibliography) Dunn’s critique is awfully biting showing the numerous flaws in Weeden’s critique even saying on page 60 that “So, when he sets up a KB story in contrast to or even opposition to the ‘uncorrupted original account’ of the event being narrated, TW is operating in cloud cuckoo land at considerable remove from the realities which KB narrates.” It’s a shame Ehrman did not avail himself of this. For this reason, I think Bailey’s model still suffices and is an excellent example.

I conclude that I still hold Boyd and Eddy in great regard. There are a number of things that I actually do like about Price. His approach to the historical Jesus is not one of them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Zealot

What do I think of Reza Aslan’s book published by Random House? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife is an anime fan and when we go to the mall, she always wants to stop at the anime store there and see what they have. During a recent visit there, we somehow got started talking with the guy working there and the topic of religion came up. He asked me if I had read Reza Aslan’s Zealot and if so, what were my thoughts on it. I told him that what I had heard wasn’t good, but I would be willing to read it myself.

So I went to the library web site and ordered it. Aslan’s book has a generally good enough writing style to it. A difficulty is all the referencing is in notes in the back instead of properly footnoting or even endnoting what is found. I do want to make some statements about some matters early on in the book.

Aslan starts with his personal testimony (It’s like some people never get the fundamentalism knocked out of them!) and how he became a Christian before abandoning it. On xix he says “The bedrock of evangelical Christianity, at least as it was taught to me, is the unconditional belief that every word of the Bible is God breathed and true, literal, and inerrant.”

I wish I knew who it was who was teaching this stuff to him. The bedrock of evangelical Christianity should be the death, burial, and resurrection of the God-man, the Messiah Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, too many evangelicals do place a premium on Inerrancy and too many do so on literalism as well. This is largely an American phenomenon as well.

He also says on the next page that if you have a well-attested, researched, and authoritative argument for a position, someone on the other side has one just as well done critiquing yours. Of course, people on all sides do research well, but this would end up in an epistemological relativism if it was really believed. If this is the case, why should I believe Aslan instead of his opponent?

But I need to get into the meat of the work. For a surprise, much of it was well-researched, although there are a few blunders and such. It’s certainly not on the level of the zaniness of Jesus mythicism. I went through for awhile wondering what all the fuss is about.

Aslan is certainly off on Jesus being a zealot since that movement as he recognizes did not come till later. If all he meant was that Jesus was zealous for God, then He certainly was a zealot and may all Christians be. Unfortunately, Aslan takes one side of God, the side of the Conquest specifically, and then says this is the God Jesus worshipped, completely ignoring other passages in the Old Testament on love and grace.

Aslan’s book as I said starts off fine enough, but the further you go, the more strange it becomes. Aslan never offers an explanation for the rise of the Christian church or tries to explain the resurrection. In many cases, he acts like a naturalist in explaining the text, especially when it comes to miracles. Somehow people have this idea that reasonable people can’t believe in miracles. It is a wonder why this is. They do not contradict science or logic. They actually presuppose both as you must have a working order to recognize the exception.

The main stuff I want to hit on is really in the center of the book. Aslan writes about the Kingdom of God and how it was revolutionary. Indeed it was, but it was not a kingdom that would come by the will of men or by political might. As an orthodox Preterist, I believe the Kingdom of God has been established. Jesus did it by His death and resurrection. I am writing this right now in a location thousands of miles from where Jesus lived and in another language and 2,000 years later. I’d say his message spread well as did His kingdom.

Aslan does not see this as eschatology seems to play no major role in his work. It could be he has a hang-up on the literalism he spoke of earlier and reads passages like Matthew 24 in a literalistic sense instead of seeing them along the lines of Old Testament prophecies that were not to be seen as literal.

This problem shows up again when he gives references to Jesus saying He did not come to bring peace but a sword. Sure, but this is not a literal sword. Jesus knew what His kingdom would do. Jesus was the dividing line. You are either for Him or against Him. That would tear one’s very household apart. The sword is a metaphor.

On 121, Jesus also says the idea of love your neighbor applied only to a fellow Jew. Aslan leaves off interaction with the parable of the Good Samaritan where Jesus specifically addresses the question of who one’s neighbor is and goes with someone completely reprehensible to His fellow Jews. This was so much the case that in the end when Jesus asks who it was who was the neighbor, the lawyer says “The one who showed mercy.” He cannot bring Himself to say, “The Samaritan.”

Aslan also says on 122 that if one thinks Jesus is the begotten Son of God, His being Jewish is immaterial. WOW! Really? I think Jesus is that and His being a Jew is essential. That’s the only way He can be the promised Messiah and in the lineage of David. Jesus has to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament to truly be the revelation of God.

This also explains Aslan’s puzzle that the Kingdom never came in 135. The Kingdom Jesus preached is not what Aslan thinks it was since he is hung up on the literalism. Interestingly, Aslan gives no Scripture references in describing the Kingdom on this page.

Aslan writes about how the Gospel writers wanted to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus moving further and further away from the Romans, yet on 156 he’s quite clear the Romans killed Jesus and this was clear to Luke. Luke also doesn’t present Pilate as a saint in Luke 13.

Some ask why Pilate would seem to be so weak and light on Jesus when he had a reputation for being a cruel leader. Cruel sure, but that doesn’t mean he held execution parties whenever the Jews wanted someone executed. Pilate knew it was just the Jews being jealous and was thinking, “Yeah. Not going to be your person to do your bidding.”

Furthermore, there is debate on when Jesus was crucified, but it could have been around the time of Sejanus who had been executed for treason. He and Pilate had had a close relationship. Pilate could have been walking on thin ice and didn’t want to upset Rome by causing any more riots.

Aslan also makes much out of the trial of Jesus being totally out of sync with how Jewish trials were to be done. At this, most every conservative scholar wants to say, “Duh!” That’s the point. The Jewish courts were breaking laws left and right to get rid of Jesus. Something like this isn’t news if you’ve been reading scholarship.

At 166, I have to wonder if Aslan meant Daniel 9:26 instead of 7:26. On this page, he also says Peter uses Acts 2 to say it’s about Jesus when it’s really about David. Aslan ignores that in the very passage of Acts 2, Peter says it could NOT be talking about David since David was still in his tomb.

On 168-9, Aslan looks at Stephen’s vision of God and says he no longer sees the Messiah, but a God being coming in judgment. Aslan never seems to consider to ask if there was any reason Jesus would be standing instead of sitting which He was supposed to do. Perhaps there is a simple one. That simple one is Stephen is before the Sanhedrin to be judged by them, but when He sees Jesus standing, the standing is because Jesus is pronouncing judgment. The Sanhedrin is putting Stephen on trial, but Jesus has put them on trial and found them wanting for killing the first Christian martyr.

Aslan tries to deal some with the resurrection on 174 saying that obviously a man dying a gruesome death and rising again 3 days later defies all logic, reason, and sense. It does? In what way? The only way is if you rule out ipso facto miracles, but this has not been done. All that has happened is the question has been begged for naturalism. Aslan does admit that people were convinced they had seen the risen Jesus, but He gives no explanation for this.

It’s also clear that Aslan really has it in for Paul and wants nothing to do with him. Aslan doesn’t look at how the church fathers treated Paul and it is bizarre to think that Paul would be able to distort Christianity so badly and yet the people who wrote the Gospels seemed to give messages that according to Aslan would contradict Paul. One wonders what is going on here.

Aslan’s book can be interesting reading, but it is not a theory that has caught on well and for good reason. Aslan has Jesus as a zealot, but then the zealots weren’t really around, and has just begun with what he wanted to find. He also still has a fundamentalism in him found in his introduction that shapes his approach. Scholars long ago abandoned the idea that Jesus was a zealot. Aslan has not brought back the idea enough to have it be considered by scholars again.

A fuller review can be found by my friend David Marshall here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters