Tag: Jesus

Deeper Waters Podcast 2/22/2014: Lynn Cohick

What’s coming up this Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

We live in an age where equality is praised as a good. Today one idea that we try to value equality in is men and women. Of course, we know they’re not identical, but women are allowed to vote, to own property, to have jobs, to drive, etc. Yet if women are privileged to have such rights in our society, where did they come from?

I would contend that if we want to see the one who most helped us break down many of the barriers between male and female, we start with Jesus and how he revolutionized the world, including in his treatment of women in the society that he lived in. To discuss this, who better to bring in than a female scholar?

That’s why my guest will be Lynn Cohick out of Wheaton. Cohick is the professor of NT there and she is a highly accomplished author with numerous books and articles to her name. We’re going to be talking about the role of women in the NT and if there’s anyone who is equipped to handle it, it’s her.

Cohick has been in several peer-reviewed journals and is a member of a number of professional organizations with regards to her writing. She has writings not only on women, but on the patristics in church history and on Paul.

Cohick graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Bible and Religion from Messiah College in Grantham, PA. She went on to get her PH.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

What was life like for a woman in the Greco-Roman world where Jesus lived? If you were a pagan, what could you expect being part of such a world as a woman? What rights would you have and how would you be treated?

On the other hand, if that wasn’t so good, how would it be if you were a Jew. Did Jews have a high view of women or not? We can already suspect that many did not such as by the fact that a woman’s testimony was not worth much and yet women were the first ones to witness the resurrected Jesus and the empty tomb.

So how did Jesus actually come to change the way that we view women and get us to the point in our society where women have reached the place that they are at? What about Paul? Did Paul have a view that was anti-woman or did he have a view that really lifted up women beyond where they had been before? What about problem passages in the Pauline epistles? Was Paul a misogynist or not?

These are all important questions and I will be discussing them with my guest this weekend. I hope that you will join me as we welcome Lynn Cohick to the Deeper Waters podcast. The show will air this Saturday from 3-5 PM EST. The call-in number with your questions is 714-242-5180. The link can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: A Serrated Edge

Is there a role for sarcasm and satire in the spreading of the Gospel? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

serratededge

The age of the internet has helped to bring a tough approach to dialogue. Go to any blog and you can find a side of people that you might not normally see in public. Go watch debates between atheists and Christians on YouTube or Facebook and you’ll see the same thing.

Now Christians today will often have none of that. There’s no need to have any sarcasm or satire whatsoever in your witness! You are to walk like Jesus walked after all. Jesus was gentle Jesus meek and mild and there’s no justification for any negativity or mocking or anything of that sort.

It seems we’ve forgotten this is the same Jesus who cleaned out the temple and lambasted the Pharisees and teachers of the Law in Matthew 23 and Luke 11.

Douglas Wilson is in charge of a magazine that has several parts with satire and sarcasm, many of them poking fun at various parts of the evangelical world. After several instances of people asking about him and the justification, he decided to write the Serrated Edge.

This is a book that has several good points that are thoroughly worth discussing in our ministry today. Wilson shows that it is not his position that is the anomaly when it comes to the Bible. It is in fact the modern position that is the anomaly. His technique is used all throughout the Bible.

Go to 1 Kings and what will you see? Elijah saying to the prophets of Baal when they’re cutting themselves trying to get fire to fall “Maybe your god is on the toilet!” Go to Amos 4 and see Amos talk to the women of his day and refer to them as cows. Go to Isaiah and see how he laughs about a man who goes out and cuts down a tree, uses some of the wood to get a fire to make a meal, and then makes an idol with the rest and says “You are my god!” He even has to properly place the idol so that it doesn’t topple over. Isaiah just thought that was hysterical.

Wilson definitely shows the passages like Matthew 23 and Luke 11. Luke 11 is a favorite of mine in this regard. Jesus in this one is railing on the Pharisees and then the teachers of the Law say “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us as well.” Jesus then immediately turns to them and says “Okay. Your turn!” He doesn’t stop! He just keeps going!

Wilson does distinguish between two types of satire. One is a more tongue in cheek kind of satire that is not direct but can still be caught on. The other one is a more “in your face” approach and doesn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade.

Now there are some who will say that we are not to do this because we don’t know the hearts of people so we can’t walk as Jesus did here. Wilson says that if we don’t know the hearts, then we can’t love as Jesus did either. After all, we can’t guarantee that the person we’re trying to do good for is indeed a good person who deserves it. Perhaps that person we’re rescuing from an oncoming car is really someone who is on the way to murder another person. We don’t know.

Actually, there is no exception made. We are told to walk as Jesus did. That would mean we treat the sheep of the flock the way that Jesus treated them and treat the wolves that want to devour the flock the way that Jesus would. It won’t help to come to a compromise with the wolves. You’ll just end up with happy wolves and fewer sheep.

Wilson in this work also seeks to return us to the holiness of God and that our attitudes even in worship can often be flippant. The Christian marketing culture often just takes any concept, attaches something Christian on to it, and considers it being a witness to the world.

Also, Wilson explains that those who use this kind of methodology are not necessarily prideful and arrogant and bigoted people. Some of them can be extremely kind. Wilson says that at the magazine people are genuinely kind and caring to one another. Too many times if you have a tough word for an opponent of the Gospel, it’s assumed you must be a jerk and have pride.

Well to an extent, we’re all jerks in some ways and have pride, but if this is the case, then we must say the same about Jesus, and we cannot. We must remember that Proverbs 26:4-5 gives us two ways to answer a fool and we must do so accordingly depending on the situation.

It is entirely possible to be as tough as nails on wolves who seek to devour the flock and parasites within the flock that seek to destroy it, and show grace and love and mercy to those sheep who are in their hour of need. The two do not contradict.

Now someone might say “Well I don’t feel right doing something like that.” Okay. That’s fine. That’s you. But does that mean that your conscience is the grounds that everyone else must bow down to? As Paul would say “Let each be convinced in his own mind.” I often think the situation would be better if more people would actually listen to those who take a more tough approach (As I do sometimes) instead of just assuming that their position is in the right and we are the ones that need to be corrected. (Which in its own way is pride and being a jerk. We must all be open to being wrong.)

Wherever you stand on this issue, Wilson’s book will give you something to think about and I hope also give you an appreciation for why it is that the Gospel that has been proclaimed is in fact one worth defending, and sometimes, you might have to defend it with a Serrated Edge.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Defending The Resurrection

What do I think of Holding’s book on the Resurrection? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

 

DefendingTheResurrection

 

In the interest of being upfront, I am Holding’s ministry partner.

Defending the Resurrection (DTR) is really a different book from other books you will find on the resurrection. Many books will examine many of the historical details. If you read Licona, you will hear about the eyewitness appearances, the empty tomb, the conversion of Paul, etc. If you read Wright, you will hear about the place of Jesus in the story of Israel.

I think both of these are excellent and absolutely essential.

I’d also round them all off by reading DTR. DTR will not go into the history of Israel. It also will not make many claims about the creed in 1 Cor. 15 or why scholars think that Jesus did in fact appear to eyewitnesses. It’s not that these don’t matter, as DTR does have an extensive chapter on the topic of hallucinations, but that DTR wishes to focus its work on another area altogether.

DTR mainly focuses on the social setting of the NT and why resurrection was so important and why we can indeed believe it happened. It goes into extensive detail of the relationship of Christianity to the Roman Empire with such ideas as tolerance, the rejection of the new, claims of exclusivity, and others.

An interesting one for many readers will be the concept of resurrection itself. Today, we tend to view resurrection as a good thing, provided we have a new body. Who wouldn’t want another go around in life? Yet to the world of the NT, it was a different story.

In that world, the body was a prison to be escaped and you did not want to return to it. This is why so many of the lower class did in fact flock to the mystery religions. Christianity did not even really offer them something that they wanted, which would be another strike against it. It could have easily gone with the docetic heresies that were floating around, and yet it didn’t.

DTR also compares the survival of the Christian religion in comparison to Mormonism, Mithraism, and Muhammad. Readers of Holding will realize that this is pointing back to another work of his, The Impossible Faith, and that only Christianity truly qualifies as an Impossible Faith.

Also, you will find responses here to the internet theories that you won’t find responses to in many other books. What about the idea for instance of Cavin that Jesus had an identical twin show up who acted like he was the resurrected Lord? Most don’t take that one seriously for a reason, but DTR doesn’t want to leave you unprepared and will give you what you need to know in order to meet the objections that you will normally find on the internet.

In conclusion, I do recommend this book, though I recommend you read works like Licona and Wright first to get the case entirely there and then get this one to answer the objections that come up afterwards. DTR will be a valuable reference in any library for dealing with those.

In Christ,

Nick Peters

Sense and Goodness Without God Part 10

Why do I not buy Carrier’s “refutation” of the resurrection story? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

As we continue through Richard Carrier’s “Sense and Goodness Without God” we come to a favorite piece of mine. In this, Carrier compares the evidence for the crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar to that of the evidence for the resurrection.

Now to be sure, I am not making any claim about the quality of the evidence for Caesar crossing the Rubicon in 49 B.C. I am simply looking at Carrier’s argument to see if it holds up or not and I contend that it does not.

So what are the points? Carrier’s first is that this event is a physical necessity. Rome’s history would not go as it had without it. Yet is this the case? Caesar did have to move his troops into Italy of course, but did he have to cross the Rubicon? We can say that would be the most convenient way to do so, but it was not the only way that it could have happened.

Carrier says all that is needed to explain Christianity is a belief, but this is not the case. Of course one would need to believe in a resurrection, but what events would have to happen for there to be a belief in the resurrection?

First, you would need a historical Jesus, which Carrier does not accept

Second, you need to have it known that he died.

Third, you need something to explain that this death was not the end.

This isn’t even counting all the social factors that go into play with Christianity.

The next piece Carrier points to is physical evidence. To begin with, what kind of physical evidence does Carrier want to see? He really thinks the evidence for a crucified Jew in Palestine should be compared to that of a major event by Julius Caesar?

Well actually, we do have some physical evidence. We do in fact have documents. We have the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, Acts, and of course the rest of the New Testament. We also have writings outside of the NT such as Tacitus, Josephus, Suetonius, etc.

We also have the claim that the tomb was empty, which would be a physical claim that could be checked, and the claim that one could talk to eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. Carrier also says it has been proven the Shroud of Turin is a forgery. Unfortunately, he does not say by who or when this was done. Perhaps he wants me to take it by faith.

Carrier also says we have unbiased or counterbiased corroboration for Caesar. Well not really. His enemies could attest to this in fact to show that Caesar was a threat. It is also interesting that Carrier says we have unbiased sources when he says his friends wrote about it. How are those unbiased?

Yet what does he expect for the resurrection? Obviously, if someone believes Jesus was raised, then they are going to be biased. Who will write a testimony saying Jesus was raised and still reject Christianity in Jesus’s day? (I say then because today, Pinchas Lapides is a Jew who holds that Jesus was raised but does not believe He was the Messiah.)

On the other hand, if someone writes against the resurrection, we can just as well say they are biased. The resurrection would focus on the claims Jesus made for Himself so you could not approach the subject or speak about it without some bias.

The fourth one is my favorite. In this, Carrier says the crossing of the Rubicon appears in almost every history of the age, and this is by the most prominent scholars. Who are these guys? Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, and Plutarch.

What about the resurrection? It’s not mentioned until two to three decades later. There’s also the point that the ones who wrote about the Rubicon were quite scholarly and show a wide range of reading and citation of sources, whereas the historians of Christianity in the first century did not.

Yes. Paul was definitely a slouch in scholarship. Only trained under the best of his time and his writing shows a great skill in Greco-Roman rhetoric and argumentation.

Also, the Gospels do cite eyewitnesses in their own way. For an example, in Mark’s Gospel, Peter is the first and last disciple mentioned. What’s the point of this? It shows it’s an inclusio account whereby Peter is thus known to be the source. Aspects like this can be found in “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” by Richard Bauckham.

But what’s most interesting about this is the fact of every scholar of the age. Let’s use a site like this.

Here we find Suetonius was born in 71 A.D. At the start, this puts us at 120 years+. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that Suetonius waits until he’s 30 to begin writing. That would mean this reliable account is 150+ years later.

Appian?

He was born in 95 A.D. That puts us at 144 years+. Let’s suppose he waited until the age of 30, and it’s more likely he waited until later. If we give 30, then that means he wrote 174+ years later.

Cassius Dio? He was born in 164. This puts at at 213 years+. He started writing the Roman Histories at the earliest in 211. That puts us at 260 years+.

Someone had said something about the accounts of the resurrection being two to three centuries later….

But strangely enough, Cassius Dio two to three centuries later is okay.

Plutarch would be the earliest being born in 46 A.D., but this puts us at 95 years+ and if he waits till thirty, well that’s 125 years+.

That means not ONE of these sources could have talked to an eyewitness of the event. Not one of them was a contemporary of Caesar either. Not one of them would have been a firsthand account.

And yet they’re all accepted.

And you know what? I have no problem with that. That’s the way ancient history is done, but when Carrier gives these names, he doesn’t tell the audience when these people lived and wrote. It’s a double-standard.

The final piece of evidence is that apparently, we have Caesar’s own words. Unfortunately, we have no such statement of “I crossed the Rubicon” or “I crossed the river” that I know of in relation to this event. So how do we have Caesar’s own words?

Carrier then says we don’t have any writings of Jesus. This is true. We also don’t have writings of Socrates. As is pointed out in “The Lost World of Scripture” most teachers did not write out their works. Instead, they left it to their disciples. Most teachers also did not care for writing their works since they feared their works could be misunderstood. For those interested in where to find information on this, see here and here.

Carrier also says the names of the Gospels were applied later and on questionable grounds. What were these grounds? Well he doesn’t tell us. Here you can listen to Tim McGrew answering this question and if one is interested in charges of forgery, go here.

Carrier also says Paul saw Jesus in a vision. Evidence of this given? None. Of course, if Jesus did not rise, it would have to be a vision, but what if He did rise? And further, did Paul really think He had just had a vision, or did he think that Jesus physically appeared to him?

In the end, I conclude that Carrier’s argument is just based on false assumptions all throughout and at times, not entirely honest.

We’ll wrap up on history next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/3/2014: Life Is Beautiful

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Well first off, the bad news. The bad news is we’re having to bump back the show with David DeSilva. My wife has a beauty pageant she’s due to be in with Joni and Friends to see if she can be Miss Shining Star. This is an important event for her and it’s on Saturday. DeSilva has said he will be back. As I’ve stressed many times to other apologists, family comes first and do you really think I’m going to miss a chance to see Allie in a beauty contest?

Fortunately, my good friend Gretchen Passantino Coburn has agreed to come in and talk about an issue near and dear to her heart. To work with the time, the show will actually air on Friday, January 3rd from 3-5 PM EST.

What’s that? Why it’s the beauty of life. She’s had to go through much with her husband having recovered from being in critical condition and has seen how these end of life issues affect Christians. Yet since January is the month of Roe V. Wade, it’s important to realize that these issues don’t just affect end of life issues, but also beginning of life issues.

Coburn already had much preparation to do such thinking. She has been one of the minds behind the apologetics ministry of Answers in Action for years. Her perspective will come with sound reasoning and with the devout Christian character that we should all seek to provide.

This is also an issue important to me knowing much about the sufferings of others. What about those who have considered suicide and even attempted suicide? Does the message of Jesus have anything to say to them about their own lives?

What about people who are diagnosed in the womb with disabilities. We have a couple at our church who told us that their baby was diagnosed as having Down’s Syndrome in the womb and the doctor tried to hint at the possibility of getting an abortion. It was totally out of the question. Was that the right response to have? Coburn will tell us what she thinks.

What Coburn will be discussing in answer is that all of our lives from the womb to the tomb belong in the hands of God and that He is the one in charge of when we go. Every life has value and purpose because it in its own way is a reflection of the image of God. Finally, suffering is not a waste. God can take the suffering that you undergo and redeem it for a far greater good.

I am highly looking forward to this show. Coburn has been a good friend of mine for some time and we’ve got to enjoy commenting on one another’s posts a number of times, plus she’s a very real and humorous lady to work with. I think you’ll find her presentation to be engaging and entertaining both.

The show will air Friday from 3-5 PM EST. The call in number if you want to ask Coburn a question is 714-242-5180. The link to the show can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Christmas Eve Thoughts

What am I thinking on the eve of Christmas? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Christmas sure has changed over the years for me. As a kid, it was all about the presents. Was I going to get that new video game I wanted (Often two of them) and then spend the rest of the day hibernating in my room? Quite likely. I had a list made of various items that I wanted and eagerly awaited them. My family is Christian, but I don’t think I really thought too much of the religious aspect.

Today, it’s quite different. Now I won’t deny, it’s nice to get gifts, but for me, the greater joy is giving the gifts and seeing people open them, especially with my wife. She and I went to the mall together and would take pictures of items that we wanted, but I don’t really remember most of them.

My folks have a really big gift for me this year at least by looking at the box. Allie asks me if I know what’s in it. Of course, I don’t. She asks me if I wonder. Well I am curious of course, but I don’t spend much time thinking about it. I really have no idea what I’m getting tomorrow, and I’m fine with that. It’s nice, but that’s not my focus any more.

In fact, as I type this, my wife has the TV on a channel just playing Christmas music and I quite enjoy hearing them, most especially the ones about Christ. I listen more and more now to see if I can hear good theology in a song. Honestly, when a song like “Mary, Did You Know?” is played at my church, I just have to sit down. I can envision everything and it’s a powerful thought.

I also think back to great Christmases over the years.

I think it was the Christmas when I turned 17, but I remember I came downstairs as usual to get my gifts and after I had opened several, my Dad asked my Mom where the other gift was. She said his friend Kenny had brought it over and left it in the garage. Well he called to confirm and then went downstairs to the garage saying he’d bring it in. Turns out, he called from there saying he needed some help and asked me to come down. Odd. Today I weigh about 120. I probably weighed 100 then. What could I really do to help?

So I went to the garage.

That’s when I found out my folks had gone all out that year and my first car was sitting in the garage. For those interested, it was a Beretta.

Yes. I went to see all my friends that Christmas to show off my gift.

It would be hard to top a Christmas like that, but it is doable. This one I know the year easily. It was 2009. Allie and I had been dating for nearly four months, but I’d done a lot of work for this one. It was my turn to give the gift and I knew it was going to be one of the best gifts ever.

Allie was to spend Christmas with me and my family in Knoxville. I lived in Charlotte at the time and she in Atlanta. I picked her up at the airport and before we left, took her to the statue of Queen Charlotte right outside the terminal. She has always been my Princess after all and I wanted her to see something special.

And yeah, I had a hidden agenda.

While out there, I asked her if she’d ever thought about being a queen. She replied by saying “Only if you’re the king.”

“Well I guess you’ve made this easy for me.”

Then the silence from her as she opens her mouth in shock seeing me get down on one knee and open a little box with a little ring in it and ask “Allie Licona, will you marry me?”

And yes, I still smile thinking about it.

And I find it amusing that my cell phone went off at just that time.

Of course, I didn’t answer, but when we were done, I checked to see who it was thinking “Mom. You always call at the worst times. It figures you would call right now.”

Well, that was half-right.

It was Mom. It was just the wrong Mom. It was hers to let me know that Allie’s plane had arrived early. (Naturally, her parents knew all about this. I had asked their blessing beforehand)We’ve said that if we ever have kids, the story of what their grandmother did will be immortalized forever.

I guess I’ve just added to it right now by putting it up on my blog. (And in all seriousness as well, be praying for my mother-in-law. She has back surgery today)

Now Allie and I live in Knoxville and since we went to see her family last Christmas, this is the first Christmas where we’ll be here in our home and since we always went out of town in Charlotte for Christmas, this will be our first Christmas with our cat Shiro as well.

Christmas has certainly changed then from being a little boy with my own family to being a husband now with my own family, but there is something about Christmas that has never changed.

That would be Jesus of course.

Yet I can say my recognition of this holiday has improved over time. I now see it as a day of revolution. I see Christmas as God’s opening shot heard around the world. I see it as a call to arms. I see it as God setting in motion his plan to retake this world and deal with the problem of evil.

In the hustle and bustle of everything going on, it’s easy to lose sight of that reason for Christmas. I pray this year that I do not. Now that I have my own family, I have to be the one after all to help remember the focus. Being the one in ministry in my own family as well, I will often be looked to for the theological meaning and I have to hope to provide accurately.

So for me, Christmas has gone from being excited about getting gifts, to getting to share with other people gifts and to think about the greatest gift of all, the coming of Christ.

Merry Christmas everyone!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/14/2013

What’s coming up this Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

You all know that on the Deeper Waters Podcast, I strive to bring you the best in Christian scholarship. I also want to share the work of others who are coming up in the field and are quite able apologists themselves, such as when I interviewed my friend Chris Winchester on dealing with Mythicists.

But every now and then I make an exception and get a guy like Eric Chabot to come on.

Naw! Eric is a good friend of mine and his specialty is in Messianic apologetics, which means this week we talked about Jesus and Judaism, something relevant for Christmas time as we talk about the incarnation and the fact that this happened for the Jewish people.

The show was recorded earlier today. It’s not the pattern that I normally follow, but I did it this time to work with our schedules. Therefore, anything I tell you about in the show is something that we already discussed. Unfortunately, this also means we were unable to take your calls, but it is a topic that is important and will be coming up again.

The incarnation is a stumbling block to Jews because they have the idea that God is not to become a man. This gets into for them what they consider to be idolatry and polytheism. Is this the case? Is this what we see in the NT? Do the Jews who wrote it ever think for a minute that they are engaging in idolatry or polytheism? How do we answer the charge that that is in fact what they are doing?

This will get us into the OT interpretation. Does the OT teach the deity of the coming Messiah? If it doesn’t right at the start, does it anywhere? Does the doctrine of progressive revelation play any role in the Jewish understanding of the OT?

Also, what about Judaism at the time of Jesus? How would Jesus have been viewed in light of Second Temple Judaism? What in fact is Second Temple Judaism? What categories did they have for the Word, the Wisdom, and the Shekinah glory of God? Did Jesus make any claims about Himself that would relate to the understanding of Second Temple Judaism of those topics?

Why is it that someone can be an atheist and be accepted just fine by several Jews, but when someone becomes a Messianic Jew who believes in Jesus, they can be rejected? Why is it that to believe in Jesus is seen as being tantamount to denying one’s Jewish identity?

And of course, what role does the OT have to play for Christians today? Is it irrelevant to us, or should we instead view it as the Bible that Jesus, Paul, and the early church all used? How ought we to read the OT today?

It was a fascinating show and I ask that you listen in. I am counting on the CYI staff to be playing it from 3-5 PM EST this Saturday. You could if you want listen to it early and do so here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Arguments From Silence Are Weak

Does silence on cases involving Jesus reveal a problem? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

One of the #1 arguments used by people like Christ-mythers is the argument from silence. Surely if Jesus was a historical figure, more people would talk about him! This was the Son of God! This was someone going around doing miracles! Why isn’t he being talked about everywhere?

Some people compare this to the modern world. If some great phenomenon happened, such as, say, a meteor hitting Mt. Rushmore and destroying it immediately, this would be talked about the world over immediately. You would suddenly have bloggers writing everywhere! News teams would swamp the area! Even as far away as the other side of the world, people would be talking.

Yes. Yes they would be. The problem is these modern comparisons fail. Let’s note some important differences.

First off, this all takes place after what Brent Sandy and John Walton have called in their book “The Lost World of Scripture”, the Gutenberg Galaxy. (The title is not original with them) Readers interested in The Lost World of Scripture are invited to listen to my interview with one of the authors, Brent Sandy, here and read my review of it here.

After Gutenberg everything changes. People can produce books much more quickly and efficiently. As a result, the number of books goes up and the cost to make them goes down. Because of this, literacy will go up as more books can be distributed to the public and there is in fact more leisure time rather than much time spent on the tedious task of copying a manuscript. Of course, it’s still not as efficient as today’s methods, but it is much more efficient.

Move forward to today and everyone can get their opinion out there. As soon as you see a story on the news, someone can comment on it and it can be anyone. Twitter is an excellent example of this. A news story takes place and people are immediately sharing it and in fact sharing links to it.

Over Thanksgiving while visiting the Liconas, we were watching a football game on Thanksgiving night. (I say we loosely. Allie and Mike were watching. I was reading more. Football just bores me honestly, but my wife and father-in-law are both Ravens fans.) Mike was getting tired and so was Allie and we all decided we’d just go to sleep.

Now this game was not played in the city where we were, but there was no doubt that when we woke up in the morning, we would be able to tell who won. In fact, immediately when the game was over, we could have been told who won. The age of mass communications has made this kind of knowledge much easier to come by.

Second, if literacy is up, then it turns out that the written word can often become the best way to spread information, though even this is not always the case. Today, we can use videos on YouTube or for news just go to a news broadcast. The visual is still a powerful aid to get the message out. Something that made the Vietnam War so different was we could really see the images of it. People who heard the Kennedy/Nixon debate for the most part said Nixon won. Those who watched for the most part said Kennedy won. The visual is definitely having an impact.

Third, when information is written down more and more, memory will take less and less place in society. An oral culture thrives on memory far more than we do and seeks to have all its information not so much in individual memory, but rather in collective memory. (Again, see Sandy and Walton above) You could change some secondary details in a story, such as some chronology, but the primary details had to stay the same.

We still do this today. If I have Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons visit me, I will certainly call my own parents to give an account of what happened, but my parents are not apologists so I give a basic account. When I call Mike then or my former roommate or write it out here, the account gets more and more detailed. Why? Because these are the people that know the language and I can communicate it to them in a different way.

It’s not for these reasons alone that written sources were not used the most in the ancient world. As alluded to earlier, cost was an issue.

Here is what one writer says about the issue who happens to have a PH.D.

“By the estimates of William Harris, author of Ancient Literacy (1989), only 20% of the population could read anything at all, fewer than 10% could read well, and far fewer still had reasonable access to books. He found that in comparative terms, even a single page of blank papyrus cost the equivalent of thirty dollars—ink, and the labor to hand copy every word cost many times more (p. 195). As a result, books could run to the thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in value each. Consequently, only the rich had books, and only elite scholars had access to libraries, of which there were few.”

Of course, I already am sure that several out there are saying that this is just another Christian excuse for not having writing. It’s a convenient little remark that is meant to explain away a problem. For those who think that, there is a problem. Here is the source for this statement.

“Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness Without God, 2005. p. 232”

Carrier himself is a Christ-mythicist, but I have no problem with this here. To get just the papyrus of a single page could cost $30. Ink and labor would cost more. Add in as well that for these books someone else would have to deliver the book which would be a delivery charge and you’d have to make sure someone was there who could read the book. Usually, the deliverer would serve as a reader and he would have to know the content well enough to be able to explain it to the audience, properly read it with all the nuances in speech, etc. This was a costly enterprise!

So let’s compare these methods.

One method, writing, costs an exorbitant amount to produce and reaches only about 10% of the population at the most. Oral tradition, which in the ancient world was just as reliable if not more reliable, was absolutely free and could spread the word far and wide to everyone who could speak the common language.

Which one will be done? Decisions decisions….

Today we value the written word the most, but the problem is this is an anachronism on our part where we throw our modern mindset back into the ancient world. It is saying “We value writing today and seek to write things down immediately. Weren’t the ancients the same way?” No. No they weren’t.

Another point when it comes to Jesus is as I have written about elsewhere, Jesus would have essentially been a nobody in the ancient world. He could have been popular in some circles where he was, but that does not extend everywhere.

Many a town can have its own celebrities and such. Politicians in states can usually be known in their states, but unless they do something really big or have a scandal of some sort, that fame won’t likely extend much beyond that. A professional athlete who’s not that well-known can still be a celebrity in his own town.

Jesus lived in an area that was important as a trade route that connected three continents, but it was not viewed as important for its culture. The culture was certainly tolerated by the Romans due to it being old, but it was not something that they celebrated. What was Rome interested in? Power and glory. What were the Greeks interested in? Knowledge.

So who was Jesus?

Jesus was a rabbi. He was a preacher who supposedly did miracles (Oh who would believe in that stuff? Not an educated Roman). He never ran for political office. He never as an adult traveled outside of his own country. He never led any troops into battle. He was such a weak figure that it only took a small cohort to arrest him. The Romans didn’t have to call in an army or anything. The movement was put down in a weekend. (Of course, the resurrection did change that) Worst of all, He was crucified, the most shameful death of all, something that any Messiah and Son of God claimant would surely avoid.

It’s quite amusing to hear Jesus then being compared to other people at the time who we have records of such as, say, the Caesar on the throne. Yes. We all know that a Jewish rabbi should get as much attention as the reigning Caesar at the time. Let’s keep in mind that some who have made the mistake of thinking that the sources are equal have in fact admitted it was a mistake. See here for details. Of course, we all will make mistakes in our research from time to time. By all means, check all claims from everyone.

Yet we are told that there are no contemporary eyewitness accounts for Jesus. Indeed, there are none for Alexander the Great. Tim O’Neill at Armarium Magnum gives a comparison with this in using Hannibal. As he says:

“To highlight how easily a peasant nobody like Jesus could very easily pass without any surviving contemporary notice at all, I held up the example of someone at the other end of the scale of fame and significance to Jesus and who, despite this, also has zero contemporary references that have survived to us. Hannibal was about as far from a Jewish peasant preacher in terms of fame and significance as you could get in the ancient world, yet we have no contemporary references to him at all. None. This shows that the nature of ancient source material is such that we have contemporary references for virtually nobody, including people much more significant than Jesus. So making an argument about the existence of any ancient figure based on the lack or otherwise of contemporary references is patently ridiculous; doubly so for a peasant preacher.”

Source here.

And once again, before someone writes this off as another Christian grasping at straws, please keep in mind Tim O’Neill is an atheist. He has no desire to promote Christianity, and while I disagree with him on his historical conclusions concerning who Jesus is and what He did, I have great respect for his methodology and for his also not putting up with atheists making bad historical arguments.

If Hannibal does not receive this then why should we expect such for Jesus?

In fact, all of this assumes that the gospels are not contemporary and are not eyewitnesses or based on eyewitness accounts. Luke explicitly says he spoke to the eyewitnesses. Few people in fact I see are actually responding to a work such as Richard Bauckham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” to see if it could be that the gospels are eyewitness accounts.

As for contemporary, I recently had Dr. Paul Maier on my show which can be heard here who said no scholar he knows of who studies the ancient world would accept the idea that only contemporary accounts are to be used. If we followed such an account, we would have to throw out much of ancient history. In fact, Carrier saying why he thinks the accounts of the crossing of the Rubicon are more reliable than that of the resurrection says the following:

“Fourth, we have the story of the “Rubicon Crossing” in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age: Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, Plutarch.” That can be found here. Little problem with this. Not one of those scholars is a contemporary.

Let’s consider Appian. From Livius.org, we get this. This tells us that Appian would have written in the second century A.D. Carrier dates the crossing of the Rubicon to 49 B.C. This means that Appian wrote at least 149 years later and unless he wrote when he was 5 years old, it could have been written around 200 years later.

Information on Suetonius is here.

What does this mean? Suetonius was born 120 years after the event and would have written later as well of course.

Cassius Dio is even worse. We are told he started his work in the 190’s and wrote the Roman History from 211-233. So let’s go with 211 being the date of the writing of the event just to be as generous as possible.

This is 260 years later!

Finally, there’s Plutarch. Plutarch’s information can be found here.

This means Plutarch was born 95 years after the event.

Now if all of these are acceptable to be seen as accounts of historians of the age writing about these events, then if the gospels are before 125 A.D. (30 + 95) then we should be on good grounds. In fact, most liberal scholarship today would date the gospels to around 80-95 A.D. This isn’t even counting the Pauline Epistles which speak of these events even earlier. If 95+ counts for Caesar, why does it not count for Jesus?

In fact, James Crossley has argued for an early date of Mark, perhaps going into the 40’s. Once again, I’d like to remind readers that Crossley is not a friend of evangelical Christianity. He is an atheist. See an interview here.

Another claim is that the gospels are anonymous. We are not told what this has to do with the price of tea in China. I suppose if every skeptic was immediately convinced of traditional authorship, then they would suddenly accept them as valid historical accounts.

Yet as Paul Maier told me on the show, this is really a weak argument. A large number of works from the ancient world are anonymous and we know about who wrote them from outside sources. Besides, even if there was a name on them, why think that would be accepted? The Pastorals have the name of Paul on them, but most critics do not accept Pauline authorship of those works. To establish authorship of a document requires more than having the name on the document. This will require a methodology of determining authorship. Unfortunately, most skeptics today have no such methodology and just want to shout out “anonymous!” as if that alone is an argument. For those interested, I plan on writing in the near future why I consider the gospels to be by their traditional authors. Those interested in more right now can look at my interviews with Dr. Tim McGrew and with Andrew Pitts.

Let’s also not forget something else. Much of the writing of the ancient world has sadly not survived. Some of it was destroyed intentionally unfortunately, but some of it is just lost due to the ravages of time, and this includes Christian writings. Much of what we could find about Jesus would be in the area of Jerusalem and yet we are told by Josephus that after its destruction one would never know a city had been there.

It is for all of these reasons that arguments from silence is weak. The principle to follow is that where we would expect silence anyway, the argument from silence is weak. The rest of the world would not have been interested in a failed Messiah who was crucified and never ran for office or led an army. Miracles would only be scoffed at.

What is required? Doing real history which will require real work, including reading as much as one can on an argument. Too many atheists for too long have been using simple arguments without doing the heavy lifting of real historical work. They may think they are damaging the Christian cause, but in reality, they are only hurting their own cause.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Inconsistency in Historiography

Does the NT get treated differently than other works? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Ancient history can be difficult. For that matter, so can modern history. We can have a hard time piecing together events that happened yesterday if we try to remember them. For ancient history, there are definitely no memory accounts today that are oral. Instead, we rely largely on archaeology and written documents.

Yet when it comes to Jesus, we find that while these methods generally serve us well, the rules change when He shows up.

We are often told about how important it is to have eyewitness testimony. Now by and large, that’s always great, but what about someone like Alexander the Great? What about someone like Hannibal? We do not have contemporary accounts of the existence of these people, and these people both did remarkable things. Alexander conquered the world around the age of 30! Isn’t that something worth mentioning? Hannibal was a general that nearly conquered the Roman Empire. Isn’t that something worth mentioning?

And yet, contemporaries are silent.

Now someone could say that we have archaeological evidence such as coins of Alexander the Great. Wonderful. We also have coins of Zeus. Now I’m not saying the coins of Alex are useless. I do affirm he existed and did indeed conquer the world. I’m just pointing out the differences in methodology.

But now what we will be told is “Yeah, but none of these others are claimed to have risen from the dead and have a religion based on them. For that kind of claim, we need to have some sort of extraordinary evidence!”

Because we all know conquering the world and nearly conquering the Roman Empire are not extraordinary claims to make about someone in the ancient world at all.

The more important point to realize is that the standards have indeed changed. Yet if we are to have a consistent methodology, how can it be that we have one if we change the standards based on the kind of claim that we see? Why not use the same standards? If you don’t have to have eyewitness testimony for Alexander and Hannibal, why is it a necessity for Jesus? (To which we do have eyewitness testimony. I don’t encounter people with a refutation of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Bauckham.)

Now I’m not saying don’t be skeptical. Skepticism is fine. In fact, I’d say every apologist in the world can understand someone being skeptical of the claim. What I have a problem with is unreasonable skepticism, the kind that says that I will only believe in the resurrection if God Himself appeared to me. (To which, I think most of these people would still disbelieve even then and chalk it up to a hallucination.)

The only statement I wish to make here is let’s simply be consistent. If we are not, then the skeptic is proving the Christian right in that the Bible is treated by a different standard than every other work out there in ancient history. Could it be the skeptic might be frightened what he will come across if he uses the same standard?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Japanese People Love Jesus

How far has the gospel reached? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

My mother-in-law recently got an IPhone and thus, no longer needs the ITouch that she’d got for Christmas. She sent it to my wife instead. Now my wife, Allie, has a love for most everything Japanese, except their food. She can’t stand their food. One app she downloaded was a Japanese radio app. She was surprised to find a Christian station on there and one that included hymns. Allie doesn’t care for hymns too much, but she knows that I love them.

So last night as we’re going to sleep we hear these Japanese singers singing hymns and I am just moved with amazement. Japan is a religious country in many ways and a highly technological country, but Christianity does not have too much of an impact there sadly. It’s because of my wife’s great love for the country that we pray God will bring the gospel there every night and we’d love to get to be a part of that somehow. (I have this great dream still that someday I’m going to get to take my wife to Japan.)

The weddings in Japan are usually Christian, but births and deaths are more done in Shinto and Buddhist style. It’s not the case that Christianity is unheard of. It’s just not ranked well, although there actually are Japanese seminaries which makes me glad to know that even there, young ministers are training for the gospel.

It’s also an honor based system which would make it even harder to go outside of one’s family lines and take on a different religion. I heard these singers last night and thought that these people are getting no recognition most likely for what they do. Many of our singers in even Christian music today can go on concert tours and be recognized. Probably not so over there. I wonder how a radio station supporting hymns and other Christian music even stays open.

But what’s incredible the most about this? They love Jesus. I just thought last night about how cool it is that in this country out in the ocean so far away in time and space from where the story of Jesus took place, that there are several people who love Jesus. As Allie pointed out, they probably love him more than many of us do, and their great reason could be that they sacrifice so much more to love Him.

Often times, skeptics of Christianity tell me that if God wanted to get His message out, He chose a poor way to do it. Yes. It’s a way that’s so poor that here, 2,000 years later, in our own neck of the woods (Here in America at least), greatly separated by time and space, we are still talking about this subject constantly to this day. It was such a bad method that today in America, there are numerous people who would be willing to die for Jesus at this moment and you’ll find millions more, if not billions more all over the world.

Some you’ll even find in Japan.

Because some Japanese people love Jesus. How cool is that?

In Christ,
Nick Peters