Tag: Jesus

A Response to Clubschadenfreude on the 500

Is there a case here? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

For some wondering about a final reply to Matt Ferguson, we will be having a debate so I figure rather than reply, wait and save everything I see problematic for the debate, entirely my prerogative. This will likely be a month or so into the future. I’m thinking around mid-September would be the best for me. Yet meanwhile, someone has linked me to a writing on the appearance to the 500 on a blog by a Clubschadenfreude, whom I will be calling CS from now on. The first part can be found here. There is a link to part two and I do not consider it necessary that I give links to both parts.

Unfortunately, one has to wade through much of CS complaining about the way apologists and such think, which ironically I find to be really the exact way fundamentalist atheists like CS actually think. Claims of “Nothing more than a story”, etc. show up. Does any interaction with real NT scholarship show up? Well, we already know the answer to that one.

So let’s try and cut to the chase.

Note CS is responding to some others in this post so let’s see what is said first.

Now, for the claims SS and Ben have used about their religion to be true, for example that JC was a man/god and that his body vanished by magic and he came back from the dead, we need a story *and* evidence to support it. We have nothing that does so that cannot be used for other religions. You have offered stories, not the evidence that supports them. A claim that 500 people saw JC is not evidence. I can claim to have 500 people in my backyard. What would be evidence for this claim? Maybe a photo, crushed plants (I have a wee back yard), a police report from my neighbor who doesn’t like me, etc.. We can have a believable “report” if we have that corroborating evidence. A story does not stand on its own. I have no more reason to believe the stories of Indian gods being with people than I have to believe the Christian claim that there was a demigod. I ask Ben and SS: Do you believe that the gods interacted with the ancient Hindus? Or do you think that they are just stories? What would make you believe that such claims are true? For me, it would be again corroborating evidence as I have listed.

The language here is quite revealing. At the start, I am not arguing for the incarnation. I am simply arguing for the resurrection. Is the incarnation important? Yes. Do I hold to it? Yes. Yet right now, I am simply arguing for the historical claim and the ramifications of that come later. The claim is as follows:

“The historical figure known as Jesus died.”

“This same person was alive afterwards.”

That is it. If those two are established, will I move on from there? Yes, but CS does not understand that this is not an all-or-nothing game. It is not the case that unless one proves the incarnation, then one has not shown Jesus did not rise.

To refer to this as a story is also problematic. I know of no NT scholar who says the account is simply a story. All of them take it seriously, even Robert Price in saying that this has to be an interpolation.

If Paul is trying to make a convincing argument to the Corinthians, we should realize something. Even if the account is wrong, Paul certainly believes it to be true. Not only does he believe it to be true, he is willing to put himself on the line by offering it to be challenged by saying most of them are alive though some have fallen asleep. In other words, he is saying that the people are there to be questioned.

“But their names are not mentioned!” One wonders why Paul should have to write out a list of say 400+ people in an age where writing was timely and expensive. The oral tradition would take care of this and these people would have been well-known in the community.

So if Paul believes it to be true, either Paul is wrong entirely, or there’s a misunderstanding. If Paul is wrong entirely, then we need a reason to know why no NT scholar is making this claim. For instance, consider a non-Christian like Ludemann.

“The only thing that we can certainly say to be historical is that there were resurrection appearances in Galilee (and in Jerusalem) soon after Jesus’s death. These appearances cannot be denied” (Gerd Ludemann. .”What Really Happened To Jesus?” p. 81

CS’s position is one of hyper-skepticism. Now we could just as well say that perhaps this event did happen then, but it was a mass hallucination. Fair enough, yet if CS wishes to argue it was a mass hallucination, then it is up to CS to back that claim.

For our purposes, it is important to note that Paul compares this to our resurrection. CS is urged to read two works that show Paul is talking about a physical resurrection despite interpretations to the contrary. The first is Gundry’s study “Soma in Biblical Greek.” The second is Michael Licona’s work on pages 403-37 of “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.” For another view, since CS could think I’m begging the question by citing Christian scholars, they could consider chapter 5 of Dale Martin’s “The Corinthian Body.”

Note, this would require CS do some reading in NT scholarship. As we’ve seen, this could be problematic.

CS also says a story does not stand on its own. This is extremely problematic as there is no rule in historiography that says “If there is only one testimony to an ancient event, that event cannot be accepted as historical.” If CS thinks there is such a rule, it is up to them to show it.

Let’s move on.

In the story of Jesus Christ, we have four differing stories of what should be the most important event in history, and no one else in the world noticed events that should have been pretty obvious.

Unfortunately, this is moving away from the 500. How does it work to show “Paul must be wrong because the later gospels are wrong?” It doesn’t. If that’s the standard, then anyone could have disproven Christianity supposedly by just writing an account that contradicted the gospels early on. One must weigh each claim on its own.

Also, CS seems to wonder why no one else would notice these events. Here’s why. It’s quite simple. No one else would really take them seriously.

Suppose you are an official in the Roman Empire and you have a servant come to you and say “Sir! There is a report that in Jerusalem, there is a rabbi who has been traveling and teaching and though crucified, he has risen from the dead!” What are you going to be thinking?

Jerusalem…A strange area in the world known for trouble-making and rabble-rousing. The people there have strange beliefs and have been known to have rebellions regularly.

Miraculous claims-Something we don’t need to take seriously. The gods are not intervening in our lives and if they are, they certainly won’t choose a place like Judea. They would choose us.

A rabbi. Why on Earth would I take the idea of a rabbi seriously as being a Messiah figure? If anything, we’ll just send a squadron of troops down there if these people get problematic and squash them like we always have.

Why would you not be paying attention? Because you are skeptical as most people were in this time. We know, for instance, that the world did not immediately convert to Christianity despite the fact that Christians from the beginning were teaching the resurrection. Why did they not? Because people did not believe every claim they heard. Today, we know how important the claim was. Back then, it would be seen as just another claim.

If CS thinks otherwise, it is their burden to show why such a claim should have been taken seriously, especially with would-be Messiahs on every corner practically in Israel.

For example, how the Titanic sank was up for debate when it was just competing stories, but the actual ship shows what happened. Stories can be told about such things, but that doesn’t mean that the there was one ridiculously large blue diamond on board. If we have no good reason to believe in what is claimed, an event that has no evidence to have happened of to have *ever* happened, having contradictions about the event shows that there is even less reason to believe it. For instance, the bit about whether Jesus can be touched or not. If one touches him and one is not supposed to, then what? They are struck down like Uzzah? That JC ceases to become holy? He was certainly worried about it in one story, but not the others. If I can’t trust JC’s words in this, why trust it when he says “Him that believes in me shall have everlasting life.”?

With a mess like this, it is hard to know where to get started. For instance, with the Titanic, the central claim is still the same. It is the same for the resurrection accounts. The central claim is still the same. It is a wonder that the same skeptics who speak about the accounts “copying” one another and thus not being independent traditions, then say that the accounts contradict one another. We can expect that there would be some differences in the accounts. This is common for eyewitness claims. In fact, in writers like Plutarch, the same event is described differently by the exact same author. Are we to throw out Plutarch?

As for the part about touching JC, I wonder what on Earth CS is going on about. Did CS bother doing any real study on what the word touch means in John? Did CS look up any commentaries or consult with NT scholarship on the issue? I do not think we really have to ask the question. We already know the answer.

CS then goes on to talk about the standards given to juries in CA and says this in part of the reply:

People do honestly forget and make mistakes; however, there is no evidence of an honest mistake in something written decades after the supposed event. And indeed, two people may witness an event differently.

It is as if there is something to the account being written decades after the events. Does CS not know that this is common in ancient literature? The best account we have of Tiberius overall would be Tacitus, which is about 80 years after Tiberius lived. Plutarch wrote about events that happened centuries before he lived.

CS gets this idea from living in a Post-Gutenberg society where it is thought “If you want to get the truth out there, write it down!” The ancient person would not have thought that. For them, the oral tradition would in fact be more reliable. It is something you can question and interact with. In fact, a written account would reach fewer people since few people in the Roman Empire were capable of reading. Not only that, does CS know nothing about the time it would take to write such an account as well as the cost of writing such an account? It would not matter to say that they wanted to or had great motivation. One might as well say because I would love to build my wife a barn and buy her a horse to put in that barn, that despite not having money, I should be able to go out and do that right now.

CS goes on:

As in all cases, the evidence for someone existing is dependent on evidence, not only stories. I can claim that Thor Odinsson existed but unless we can find corroborating evidence, my claim has no basis in reality. Can we make an educated guess at the probability of someone existing? Yes. In this case, Thor is a god, and since we have no evidence of gods or the supernatural, the probability of his existence approaches zero. Did Julius Caesar exist? Well, we know that there was a Roman empire, there were generals and there were emperors, so the likelihood of his existence is high. Can we accept all that is claimed about him with no question? No. Same with Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Saladin, King Richard the Lion-hearted, etc. In archaeology, we can be pretty sure that a stone mason or blacksmith existed, but we may not have a name to put with the artifacts in a village.

I do not accept the so-called supernatural/natural distinction, yet we sit back and eagerly await the disproving of all theistic arguments by CS. I especially await her disproving of the Five Ways of Aquinas. If philosophy is approached the same way history is, I suspect I will be waiting a long time.

If CS also wants to go with archaeology as the main source, they will encounter problems. For one thing, one has a bare minimum of what the ancients had in archaeology. It is usually said one has 1% of 1% of 1%. What archaeological evidence would CS expect to find for some people accepted as historical. What could we expect to find of Gamaliel, for instance?

Suppose CS says we need to find coins. Why should we expect that? To begin with, a Jew would not have a coin stamped with the image of a person created. That would go against the 2nd commandment for them. Second, why should the Roman Empire have coins depicting Jesus or Gamaliel or any other Jew of that time?

Finally, there are numerous people written about in history that we would not find specific evidence for except the writings of the historians themselves. CS needs to tell us why it is we should be skeptical of such writings otherwise if we need corroboration. Should I doubt a figure in Tacitus existed if I cannot find something archaeological to back them?

Now, let’s look at the claims of about James. We have the Bible claiming he existed, as the brother of Jesus Christ, son of God. We have Josephus mentioning him: “Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.” However, if one reads about James, there are problems with calling him a “brother” if one accepts one sect’s version of Christianity. Is he brother or cousin? Or was he either? We have a few mentions in Acts, this mention in Josephus and mentions hundreds of years later. At best, we can say that there probably was a person who led the Jerusalem Christians. He may have been called James, since that seems to be a fairly common name (in regards to common names, Josephus mentions 20 men called Jesus aka Joshua, a common Jewish name). He may have been the brother to a rabbi who claimed to be the messiah. But we have nothing that shows he was the brother to a demigod. And that is the person that Christains need to show existed. I could say “sure, there was a man who thought he was the messiah. Per records from the time, there were bunches of them.” I ask Ben and SS and our other Christians here: “And then what? We know that this is not the character you wish to prove existed. I have no problem with you denying the divinity of Joshua ben Joseph, but I think your religion does. “Who do you say that I am?”

And again, we have this same problem. One must show this Jesus is in fact the incarnate Son of God supposedly. That is not what must be shown to show the resurrection. This is the kind of all-or-nothing thinking that is common to fundamentalist atheism. Note also that there is nothing here about archaeological evidence of James, yet his existence can be accepted. (In fact, do we have archaeological evidence of Josephus? Maybe he never existed.)

Yes. There are some who think James was a cousin and not a brother. What of it? Both sides agree James existed and was a relative of Jesus and was skeptical of him beforehand. Yes. There are several people named James. Again, what of it? Note this one is particularly noteworthy since he is identified by his brother who was called Christ. This must have been a famous Jesus that would have been known by an earlier reference, and indeed there is one earlier in the work of Josephus, though granted it has interpolations. Few scholars say it is a wholesale interpolation, including Josephus scholars. Most if not all Josephus scholars would say some the testimonium is authentic.

Since there is evidence for neither Horus nor Jesus Christ, there is no reason to think either theist claims to be true. Parts of Josephus, like the bible, may contain accurate information. But we know that all of it does not. This shows how some Christians cherry pick their sources. They wish to say that since Paul mentions James, James must exist. All we have are Paul’s claims, nothing more. Paul mentions demons, again, nothing shows that they exist either. In that we have stories about characters that non-Christians find true, and believe to be non-fiction, that should mean that SS, for example, should accept them for truth as much as he thinks I should accept his claims as truth. I think I am fairly safe in guessing that SS isn’t going to proclaim the authenticity of the deeds of Heracles or Hanuman anytime soon. And thus, if that isn’t proof enough that Heracles and Hanuman didn’t exist, then” nothing, simply nothing will convince you or anyone else. “

Again, this shows CS is one of three things.

CS is piggybacking on Carrier.

CS is ignorant of NT scholarship.

Or finally, both. My money is on both.

For instance, has CS dealt with the references in Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, Pliny, Mara Bar-Serapion, etc. The reality is that the idea of a Christ-myth is simply a joke in NT scholarship. Most scholars would barely even give it a foot note. If CS wants to make claims about Hercules and others, let the evidence be presented. In fact, if there can be shown to be good evidence that there was a person named Hercules in history, even though there could have been legend built up around him, then it is necessary that we accept it.

For now, let’s move on to part two.

I have said that there are only stories that Paul existed as claimed. That includes his supposed conversion. I can also say that there are only stories that Simon Magus flew around since that also cannot be shown as true either. There are many stories that have no evidence supporting them. We have the claims that King Solomon used demons to build the Temple of Solomon. I ask our Christians: Is that a story or is it the truth? How can you tell? We have no evidence of such a temple so who knows how it was built, if it existed at all. This also applies to the supposed empty tomb. We have no tomb so we have no idea if anyone was in it, or if anyone disappeared from it.

Not even Richard Carrier would accept the claim that Paul never existed! This just shows the extremes that CS is willing to go to. Has CS given a historiography by which to show that a person is historical. As for these other claims, let CS feel free to give the evidence for them. I do not discount them ipso facto, but I do ask to see the evidence.

For instance, consider the claim about Simon Magus flying. These are in works that are believed by NT scholars to be apocryphal. This is the kind of account that CS wishes to compare to the gospels, which are Greco-Roman bioi. (See Richard Burridge’s work.)

What CS doesn’t realize is that one should accept a claim that there is good evidence for, regardless of if that claim goes against one’s worldview. If it does, then one should be prepared to change the worldview, unless of course one wants their worldview to interpret the evidence.

For instance, if I refuse to be open to the possibility that there is no God, then is it proper for me to interpret all evidence in that light and whenever any evidence goes against my position, just have to re-interpret it somehow? If my central claim of my worldview is false, it would eventually catch up to me. If I would not be allowed to do that, why should CS be allowed to do the same?

CS goes on to say more about Acts being a story, though I would be impressed to see her find the scholar who says none of Acts is historical, and I suspect the only possible name that could come up is Carrier.

And yes, I do say that the appearance to the 500 is just a story. It comes from 1 Corinthians, written by Paul, some decades later than the supposed event. There is no evidence this is from some “ancient creed”, it is solely found in 1 Corinthians.

We await the news that CS has discovered that is not known to even skeptical groups like the Jesus Seminar. We eagerly await their interacting with the scholarship on this such as Dunn, Hurtado, Ludemann, Crossan and Borg, Bauckham, etc. that all say that this is a creed. If CS simply wishes to say there is no evidence, then this is a sufficient reply.

There is evidence.

If CS can make an assertion without an argument, there should be no objection to my doing the same. The difference is, I do have an argument and it is one rooted in NT scholarship. Number of scholars I’ve seen referred to by CS thus far? You could count that with all your fingers cut off.

Paul indeed says that ““Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” SS, you claim that this should be “self-explanatory”. However, it isn’t, and I ask you to do so

It is not self-explanatory indeed, but CS has not done the research on this. We know from Josephus that this is the Pharisaic language used to indicate the passing on of tradition. It is saying “I got this from my rabbi and now I am passing it on to you.” One gets the impression that CS reads no scholarship and does not argue for their claims really but simply has the position of “If Christians do not prove their claims, mine are right!” If so, that is simply wrong.

We see SS making baseless claims again when he claims that “myths of dying and rising gods never really took off in Palestine”. Well, one could make the argument that they certainly did, with the ideas being co-opted into the Jewish myths with Jesus.

One could, but CS certainly doesn’t! Has CS gone through the relevant material in Boyd and Eddy’s “The Jesus Legend”? Has CS interacted with Craig Evans in “Fabricating Jesus.” CS is simply relying on scholarship that most scholars today do not take seriously. Indeed, the internet is the place where zombies live most as dead ideas get resurrected to new life to those behind on scholarship. Not even Bart Ehrman takes these claims seriously.

If CS wishes to show that the Jews decided to copy a pagan idea, then I leave the burden of proof to CS. I suspect CS has never even read a work like Ulansey’s on a figure such as Mithras. I can assure CS that I am not impressed with Google scholarship.

No, he [Hercules] is taken to heaven and made a full-fledged god. Just like someone else we know, eh?

Why am I not surprised that CS’s source on this is Wikipedia? Hercules undergoes an apotheosis. This is not the claim of Jesus, but it is again irrelevant right now as all seeking to be shown is the resurrection. Perhaps if CS thinks this is true they can give us a general timeframe of when this happened, like NT scholars can do with Jesus. Perhaps, CS could also show the difference between a deity in a polytheistic system vs. the deity in Second Temple Judaism and how Jesus as God’s Wisdom would strongly differ from a polytheistic concept.

In the Jewish prophecies, we have no claims of being killed and returning. The messiah will come and then reign, with all of the world’s leaders respecting him. Didn’t happen so much with JC. What’s the possible answer? That the idea of a returning god is co-opted into the story to explain an inconvenient death.

We can thank CS for saying that there was no such prophecy at the time of Christ understood this way. In fact, it is only after the event that this starts being seen in Christian tradition. This would go against the idea of Jesus being made up based on the OT.

As for what didn’t happen with Jesus, as an orthodox Preterist, I only find it humorous.

I would ask SS how one could show a connection between the resurrection myths and Jesus. What would be possible ways to do this? Hmmm. Well, we have the cultures intermixing, either normally through trade and conquest, or if you believe the bible, through the supposed enslavement of the Israelites by one big culture all about resurrection, the Egyptians. We can see how religions infect each other with the modern examples of voodoo and Santeria. So we have an actual observed phenomenon versus an unsupported claim that the authors of the bible came up with the idea of resurrection on their own. Perhaps it is more important to ask: How can one show that the authors of the bible didn’t copy the myth?

Once again, CS needs to interact with Boyd, Eddy, and Evans, who go to great work to show that even in the diaspora, Jews clung tightly to their guns. Sure, they would interact with Gentiles, but they did not imbibe their ideas that way. They could learn the language, but that did not entail accepting the beliefs of people who spoke that language.

CS can point to modern examples, but to say people do this today in a belief system shows the Jews did so in theirs is just fallacious. Each claim must be taken on its own and considering the Jews were quite opposed to intermixing, especially after their having gone to Babylon for doing so earlier, the burden is on CS to show that this happened.

As for the claim that Craig is being used, I would say there is a good possibility Craig is not being used. The pointing to the creed is more along the lines of the minimal facts approach. Craig does use minimal facts outside the creed, which makes his approach more problematic. It seems CS does not know about the minimal facts approach, which again shows they are behind on NT scholarship.

If CS wishes to challenge this, then this is my challenge. Come to TheologyWeb.com and look for me there in the Deeper Waters section. Feel free to send a message there and tell me you’re here to accept the challenge. I eagerly await to see if CS shows up.

And as expected, throughout, we have seen no interaction with NT scholarship. A shame. Perhaps CS would benefit by going to the library more than going to Google.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: What Really Happened To Jesus?

Does Ludemann have a good argument against the resurrection? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I recently finished Gerd Ludemann’s book, “What Really Happened To Jesus?” Ludemann has been called an atheistic NT scholar, though I understand there are some that question that. We can say he at least is not a conservative Christian at all since he denies the bodily resurrection. So what is there in this book?

To begin with, there are some statements that I was happy to take and add to my apologetics database as I think it’s important to see what scholars who are not Christian are saying about the historical facts concerning Jesus. Two such examples suffice. The first is on page 17:

The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable, despite hypotheses of a pseudo-death or a deception which are sometimes put forward. It need not be discussed further here.

This is something important to mention since among internet atheists, this is itself often disputed. Note that Ludemann isn’t even taking seriously the claim that Jesus never existed. He’s bypassed it entirely.

Another claim that might surprise some people is found on page 81.

The only thing that we can certainly say to be historical is that there were resurrection appearances in Galilee (and in Jerusalem) soon after Jesus’s death. These appearances cannot be denied.

Yes. Even the appearances cannot be denied according to Ludemann. Of course, he does not think that they were appearances of the real risen Jesus. Instead, these would be hallucinations.

Before getting to that, there are a number of places I find Ludemann’s case straining to try to get something to fit. One such example is his looking at the appearance to the 500 described in 1 Cor. 15. Ludemann says on page 100 that:

The appearance to ‘more than 500’ as a historical phenomenon can plausibly be represented as mass ecstasy which took place in the early period of the community.

Ludemann says the likely event is the speaking in tongues in Acts 2. Is this really plausible? Are we to say people had this mass hysteria and this hysteria was enough to convince a number of the well-to-do (Since Meeks has argued that a reasonable number of early Christians were upper class) who weren’t even around at the time?

For one thing, I do not know of any case where speaking in tongues in church history was seen as an appearance of Christ. Further, at the Pentecost event, there were over 3,000 present since we know that many converted. One might say there is difficulty counting, but that does not mean that no one could tell the difference between 500 and 3,000, and a crowd for a Passover event in Jerusalem would surely be excessive.

Is Ludemann then saying this because he really thinks it’s accurate, or because the creed in 1 Cor. 15 can’t be denied and a mass appearance like that would be problematic, so we have to find some way to explain it!

I fear too often it is the conclusion that is driving the interpretation of evidence rather than the interpretation of evidence shaping the conclusion.

So what about Paul? Paul was prone to having visions.

The problem is the creed in 1 Cor. 15 doesn’t really allow that. For instance, while Paul did have visions at times, he does not treat the creed like that. These are appearances with a word used for normal every day sight. As N.T. Wright says on page 382 of “The Resurrection of the Son of God”,

The word heoraka, ‘I have seen’, is a normal word for ordinary sight. It does not imply that this was a subjective ‘vision’ or a private revelation; part of the point of it, as Newman stresses, is that it was a real seeing, not a ‘vision’ such as anyone in the church might have. The same is emphatically true of the other text from 1 Corinthians.

In fact, Paul adds that Christ appeared last of all to him, meaning that the time of appearances was at an end. Visions could still happen from time to time of course, but not appearances. Note Paul was writing this to a church that was also making much of experiences which would include visionary ones with the implication being that what the witnesses in the creed has differs in kind.

Ludemann says on page 103 concerning 1 Cor. 9:1 that

In my view it is certain that here the apostle is thinking of a vision of Jesus in his transformed spiritual resurrection corporeality. Otherwise it would be hard to understand how Paul could refer to ‘seeing’ (1 Cor. 15:4ff.) for the certainty of the bodily resurrection.

Yet how would this square with Ludemann speaking of Paul being one prone to visions yet at the same time Paul speaking of his case as a last of all sequence? Surely he would know that many in Corinth were having spiritual experiences as well! Paul’s testimony is that of claiming to have seen Christ risen himself just as much as anyone else did.

To explain why Paul would have such an experience, Ludemann has to have Paul experiencing guilt. Ludemann knows of interpretations that say that passages like Roman 7 are not biographical, but simply says his interpretation is not ruled out. Then we move on to psychology!

For all the talk we have about “God-of-the-Gaps”, most skeptics I meet when it comes to the appearances have a “psychology-of-the-gaps.” If you don’t know how to explain it, give a psychological disorder! You don’t have to understand psychology. You don’t have to study psychology. It just has to sound really good!

Psychology is difficult enough to do with the patient sitting right in front of someone and able to answer questions and ask questions. It’s far more difficult to do when the patient is dead, lived in an entirely different culture with a different way of thinking, and because of those two is incapable of interacting with you. It would be hard enough for a professional psychologist to do! (Consider Erik Erikson’s “Young Man Luther.”)

For Ludemann’s idea to work, Paul has to be thinking like a modern in our culture and struggling with guilt feelings. Paul must have secretly been wanting to be a Christian, but could not do it. Therefore, he started having a hatred for those who were and sought out to persecute them to contain his own inner hatred. On the road to Damascus, he reaches a breaking point and has a vision of Jesus.

The only problem is the theory is high on speculation and low on factual data.

Never mind all the problems there are with the hallucination idea, this is not the way we see Paul at all. If we think that we have biographical material in Romans 7, that biographical material is not about Paul’s life in persecution but Paul’s standing before the law. Note that we’re usually told the Jerusalem church, to which Paul would have been responding to the most, was supposed to be that of James which placed an emphasis supposedly on the Law. If they were really a Law-free community, whence comes this supposed dispute between James and Paul on the Law?

In the end, I will simply go with a solution that is not ad hoc and only depends on one other proposition that I think can be well-supported, “God exists.” The best interpretation then that explains all the data that Ludemann accepts is still that God raised Jesus from the dead. Nothing else I know of explains the rise of the early church when they should have not only not survived, but not even got started at all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Triumph of the Christ

What happened on Palm Sunday? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday. This is to acknowledge the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem. While we state that this is the start of what we call the Passion week, I’d like to instead look at it as the Triumph of the Christ. For those who don’t know, a triumph was a celebration held for a Roman general after a great victory. To be sure, this isn’t an exact parallel with Jesus, but there is no doubt He is getting a king’s welcome.

Also, I will be looking at this in the gospel of Matthew mainly. Right now, I’ve been spending the past month or so focusing on this gospel. I’m using it then to show how it works with an overall thesis I’ve been developing. Of course, the other gospels have valuable information, but I’d like to look at the presentation in Matthew.

I am also using the BibleGateway web site and the NIV translation.

“As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.” ”

In Matthew 8, we saw Jesus as Lord in healing a centurion’s servant from a distance. The centurion realized Jesus has under His authority sickness and even from a distance. In Matthew 14, we saw Jesus’s authority over the waters as He is able to walk on the sea. Regularly, it has been stressed Jesus has not just the authority to interpret the Law, but the authority over nature. He is the rightful ruler of the cosmos. When He comes to Jerusalem then, He is able to give the orders just as much. What is the reason? The Lord needs them. That is all that needs to be said. The king wants what He has a right to.

“4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

5 “Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’””

Fulfillment is a huge theme in Matthew. Regularly, one reads about how Jesus is fulfilling an OT Scripture. Note that this one is about kingship. The king of Israel is coming, and not just the king of Israel, but the king of the cosmos.

“6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,”

The disciples are good servants of the king. Now here, we come to a question. Did Jesus sit on two animals at once? I say no. The “them” refers to the cloaks. There’s a simple reason I don’t think Matthew intended for us to think that Jesus sat on two animals. Here it is:

Matthew is not an idiot.

Matthew grew up and lived in a society where people rode animals. He was likely an eyewitness to what happened. He knew darn well that one person could not ride two animals at once. At worse, we have an ambiguity here. For some interested in Inerrancy, I could understand attributing an error to Matthew at some part, though I don’t think there is one. I cannot understand attributing idiocy to him.

““Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!””

All of these are cries or praise and highly Messianic. Deliverance has come for Jerusalem! The Messiah is here! For the people in the city that day, they were likely anticipating the Davidic Kingdom was coming back. Jesus has a far greater Kingdom in mind, and unfortunately, it will be one that the people do not see. We must always remember that when God acts, we accept Him on His terms, not ours.

“10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.””

Once again, the question comes back to who is Jesus. This is the question Matthew wishes for us to ponder. He wants us to ask who Jesus is. The answer of the people is that He is the prophet. Matthew sees much more. Matthew sees the king coming to His people giving them a last chance to accept or reject Him.

As passion week goes, we will see how they responded.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Prayer in the Kingdom

Why do we even pray? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

In order to be fully expressive of my own tendencies here, I will say that prayer is not something I am good at. I find I am so busy throughout the day I often don’t get around to prayer and when I do, it can be difficult to focus. If a reader thinks I’m one of those people who prays an hour a day, then you are going to be gravely disappointed. Fortunately, I have recently taken to remedy this in my life, especially realizing how much my Mrs.’s well-being could depend on my prayers. I have people now holding me accountable and someone I email every day to let him know how I’m doing.

So I write this as one who needs to teach myself.

I’ve been writing much on the idea of Jesus as king. What does this mean for us when we pray? Why do we pray? That is the starting question.

While we can think the reason we pray is to get forgiveness or give glory to God or to make requests, let’s remember the first reason we pray is that we are told to. In fact, we are told how to pray and to be persistent and to even ask for things that we want when we pray. We’re told to not stop asking.

Yet how are we to do this? We are to boldly approach the throne of grace, but do we just walk into the throne room and start making requests? Not at all. In the ancient world, such would have been thought to be absurd.

Imagine you’re a first century peasant and you get a chance to have an audience with Caesar and speak with him. How are you going to do it? Are you going to go into his throne room and say “I’d like to make a list of things that I want you to do for me.”?

Such an idea is ludicrous. Instead, you will come in with the best attitude that you can. You will thank the Caesar for his rule and leadership in the empire. You will admit your own status. You are just a servant. You will tell him all the ways that you do not deserve to be in his presence. You will thank him that he has agreed to see you. Only then would you begin to start making a case for a request.

What happens when you come to God?

There are differences of course. God is all-knowing. You also don’t really need to fear that God will smite you if you make a wrong request. Yet if you realize that Jesus is king, don’t you think you ought to treat Him far better than you would be treating Caesar?

Are we coming to Christ the King and honoring Him as King? Do we dare go to the throne room and start immediately making requests of the sovereign of the universe without giving Him proper honor? Do we go in without confessing our sins to make sure that we are cleansed to speak to Him? (I do realize we are forgiven already, but we still confess anyway)

Do we take the time to thank the king for all that He has done? It is easy to overlook all the blessings of everyday and ingratitude is something that can hinder our walk with Christ. Yes. Things aren’t perfect, and they never will be until we reach eternity, but there is much to be thankful for.

What happens when you make the request and you don’t get what you want? You realize that that is the right of the king. He is under no obligation to give you anything that you ask for. He is not obligated to let your life on Earth keep going for one second longer. Every single good thing you have in your life is a gift from Him.

Recently we had a fundraiser for Deeper Waters. We didn’t raise as much as I’d like, but we raised something. What was my response? To give thanks for it. We got something and that was good. We did get enough to get a new headset for the ministry, which means hopefully before too long, maybe even this Saturday, you will hear the Deeper Waters podcast. (We have been picked up by Grok Talk Radio to be syndicated on the internet)

My king did not owe me anything. I was thankful for what He did give. Of course I hope it will be more next time, but it was enough for what we need. That is what we are told. We are to pray for our daily bread. We are told to seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness and all else will be added to us. Here’s some questions to consider. Did Jesus mean what He said? If so, was He right? How will you as a Christian answer?

Another reason to pray is to remind us that we are to trust YHWH for everything. Asking YHWH for what we desire reminds us that what we desire comes from Him. It reminds us of our complete dependence on Him in order to make it in this world, something we tend to lose in our modern age where we can go to a supermarket and get food without sweat and toil, turn on a light to see, have numerous books and entertainment tools around us, drive or fly anywhere we wish, etc.

Our world is modernized, but it is still our Father’s world.

And let us remember something else. The very Messiah walking on this Earth prayed regularly, which is something I find greatly convicting. If the very Son of God needed prayer to fully serve His Father, then it is simply arrogance on our part to think that we do not need to pray.

In conclusion, let’s all make prayer a greater priority and realize we are addressing the king. When you are praying, please pray for Deeper Waters too. Pray for our success in serving Christ in reaching the world and pray for me personally that I will learn even more the importance of prayer and follow through with it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Are The Gospels?

Do the gospels tell the gospel? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

With the Inerrancy debate going on, a lot of people are getting introduced to the idea that the gospels are Greco-Roman biographies. I have no desire to challenge that idea. I even agree with it. I’d like to come from a different perspective. Are the gospels really meant to teach us the gospel?

If you mean the idea that we have today that you need to believe in Jesus Christ for forgiveness and turn to him, then I would actually say no. That is not the point of the gospels. A possible exception could be at the end of John of course, but I’d like to suggest a different purpose that could include that and yet goes beyond it.

In Mark 1, right off the start, we have Jesus after his baptism and temptation saying the the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news. If good news there means “gospel” as we often take it to mean, then this is strange because there is nothing in there about turning to Jesus for forgiveness or believing in Him as God and Messiah.

The same happens in Matthew 4:17. In neither of these cases, Jesus has not preached a sermon yet. We have no idea what His message could be, but I’d like to suggest a different approach.

N.T. Wright wrote about how in Josephus there is a reference to someone telling someone else to repent in the meaning of “Come over to my side.” I find this to be a fascinating consideration. Jesus is telling Israel to repent, Israel that already believed they had forgiveness.

In fact, Jesus doesn’t really speak out against the system of forgiveness. He speaks against its misuse. He tells the people what God really desires more is mercy and faith, but He never goes against the system as a whole, which is interesting since Jesus was very quick to point out other areas that he thought the Jewish system was deficient.

Let’s suppose this isn’t about forgiveness per se. What could it be about? The connection with both texts is the Kingdom. Jesus is telling people that the Kingdom is here. In Matthew, we have more clues. Matthew starts off with Jesus being seen as “God with us.” Matthew has prophecy being fulfilled left and right and John the Baptist showing up marks this as a time of high eschatological fulfillment. God is doing something and He is doing it in Jesus.

When Jesus is doing His ministry, it is not just a ministry but a political statement as it were. Let us compare it to modern campaigns. There were several Messiahs running around town. Jesus was another claimant and Jesus had to show He was the real deal. Not only was He showing who He was, He was also showing what the Kingdom was like. What is the Sermon on the Mount? It is a message about what people under His reign are to be like. What are the miracles? They are showing what the Earth will be like when Jesus is fully in charge.

We have just gone through an election cycle. We should know what this is like. Each candidate goes out to the masses and presents Himself. Jesus is presenting Himself to the people as the person that they should “elect” as their Messiah and in saying repent, He is saying “Identify with me and recognize me as your Messiah.”

This is also why He tells his disciples to go to only the lost sheep of Israel. It doesn’t make any sense to go anywhere else to proclaim yourself as Messiah. What good would it be to go to a place like Greece and say “The Messiah has come!”? The people would wonder what exactly that meant. It only makes sense in Israel. Israel gets the first vote as to whether or not Jesus is the Messiah.

Unfortunately, Israel votes no.

What is the resurrection? God votes yes. Note the resurrection does not mean Jesus is the Messiah because He rose again. He is the Messiah because He claimed to be and the resurrection is God’s stamp of approval on His ministry. It is God saying “Yes. I support Jesus as Messiah.”

And the one vote of God counts as a majority.

It is after the resurrection then that all authority is given. Israel may have decided they did not want to participate in the reign of Jesus, but He still reigns and now the Christians are to go out with a new message. Jesus is the king of the world. Jesus is the ruler of all. It’s no shock the Romans weren’t happy with this message.

What does this have to do with forgiveness of sins? For those who are concerned about it, as I’ve said elsewhere not everyone was, forgiveness is found by recognizing Jesus as king. If you recognize Him as the one to trust in, you get the favor in that He forgives your crimes against Him. This trust is what we call “faith.”

The good news does include forgiveness, but not just that. The good news is that Jesus is the king right now and we are to prepare ourselves for His total reign one day. When you are evangelizing, you are campaigning for people to recognize Jesus as king. Make a good case.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

She Who Must Not Be Named

Why does Matthew not like her? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

The women in the genealogy of Jesus so far have been named, but when we come to verse 6, we meet an exception. We are told that David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.

Oh we’ve read that story several times! We all know that that woman is Bathsheba!

Do we?

It is my contention that Matthew did not think highly of Bathsheba. In fact, it could be the Old Testament writers didn’t either. The name Bathsheba could be a placeholder in fact. It literally means “Daughter of an oath.” What oath? We don’t know. This could be a name given to avoid giving her real name. She had to be addressed in some way. In fact, the entire account in 2 Samuel 11-12 is meant to be a shameful one. Let’s go back and look at it.

The writer starts off that saying it was spring when kings go off to war, since battle in the snowy conditions was much more difficult. Yet immediately, we see that David is not going to war. David sends out all the king’s men, but he himself stays behind in Jerusalem. The writer wants you to know that David is not where he is supposed to be. A king is meant to act likea king and David is not doing that. Will this lead to any sort of disaster on his part?

As the king is on the roof, he sees a woman bathing and notes how beautiful she is. This is Bathsheba. There were numerous places where a woman could have bathed and not been seen, and yet this woman chose to bathe near the king’s palace, where there would be several men who could see her. Matthew and the author of 2 Samuel likely see this the same way as not an innocent action. This is the case of someone trying to gain reputation using her body. Of course, in our modern world, we no longer have any idea what it would be like for a woman to use her body to try to get something and certainly not in the public eye.

David sends people to find out about her. Note this might sound private, but it is not. Privacy was not the norm in the ancient world. The right to privacy that we claim would make no sense to them. This would be the word that would be spreading all around the palace. Everyone would know “David wants to know about Bathsheba.” Word comes to him and he sends for her and Bathsheba dutifully comes to the king and does not have any problem with sleeping with him. (Strange that a woman who was concerned about monthly uncleanness would not mind that little weightier matter in the law about adultery)

David’s had his fun however. All is taken care of. Right?

Well, until word comes that the woman is pregnant. Note that this would have been a number of months later at least and no one has confronted David on this. David knows that this will lead to his shame if it is found that he committed adultery. What does he do? He orders Uriah to be brought back to the palace to see David with the hopes that he can entice Uriah to sleep with his own wife so everyone will think the baby belongs to Uriah. Note that Uriah is a gentile as well, a Hittite, and he is going to be acting more honorably to the God of Israel than the king is, something even more shameful to David.

The first night of his visit, Uriah refuses to go home to Bathsheba. What does he say to David when David asks why he didn’t?

““The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!””

Ouch! We can miss all that is said in here and see it as just a statement of facts, but Uriah has essentially slammed the king. Let’s look at the points.

First, the ark of Israel and Judah are staying in tents. That’s right. That which was to represent the manifest presence of God to the people is in a tent. Where is the king? He’s in a palace! The king should be out there with the ark and he is not. Why does the king get better treatment than the ark of God does?

Second, Joab is referred to as the commander of Uriah and not David. This is saying that Joab is playing the role of a real king going out and leading the people into battle. Why is David not being the king? In fact, these are camped in the open country. They are placing themselves in a position of danger. Why is the king not doing the same thing?

Therefore, Uriah will not enjoy the pleasures of home and at this point, it is quite likely that he knows all about what David has done and that David is trying to cover his own tail. Uriah is not going to do it. David tries again even getting Uriah drunk, and yet Uriah is more righteous when he’s drunk than David is when he’s sober.

David now has to try something else. He sends Uriah back with his own death warrant. At this point, David is endangering the army of Israel in a raid, all to cover his own sin. We say Uriah died, and rightly we do, but let’s be clear that the text tells us that some of the other men in the army died. There were other casualties to this action besides Uriah. In fact, David doesn’t really care about this. All that matters to him at the time is that Uriah is dead. David can take Bathsheba and no one will be the wiser.

David is fine with what has happened because no one exposes him. In the ancient world, there was not an internal conscience of guilt. Instead, your actions were shown to be right or wrong based on what others told you. That is why David is completely caught off-guard when Nathan confronts him on the matter and only then does he repent. Let’s be clear. This is something important about David that makes him a righteous man. When he’s called out, he does repent.

We know that the child born first to David and Bathsheba died, and that later there was a son born to them whom God loved and that one was named Solomon. As we see later in chapter 12, Joab continues attacking the city that they had been at war against and sends words to David to muster the troops for the final confrontation or else he will take over the city and name it after himself. In other words, Joab also wants David to act like a king as well.

Matthew refuses to name Bathsheba in his account. It is quite likely that he did this to remove honor from her. He sees her as one who vaunted herself to get into the royal family. Bathsheba must not be named and if a theory like this is correct (Which more can be found about this in “Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes”) then the writer of 2 Samuel had a similar position.

What can we get out of this for Christmas?

Most of us can look back at stupid decisions we’ve made in our lives. Note that God took no doubt a wicked act, what happened between David and Bathsheba, and stil used it in his plan of redemption. We know that God redeems us as sinners, but we do not realize often times that He also redeems our actions. Anything that we do, He will use towards His good. We should not see this as a license to sin, but we should not on the other hand view our sins as the end of everything. We can never ruin God’s plans by them and He has already taken them into account and will use them for good.

And let’s keep in mind that that good was once the birth of the Messiah.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Is Tamar There?

What is Tamar doing in the genealogy of Christ? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Tonight, I’d like to start looking at Christmas information and start with the genealogies of Christ. After all, around this time of year, Christians are asked a lot of questions about what we believe. The first place to start would be what we usually turn to at the beginning, and that is the book of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. It starts off with a genealogy. What we’ll be looking at is a few of the unusual names in there.

First, why do these genealogies exist to begin with? I have a mother-in-law who enjoys doing genealogies and a cousin who does. Shortly after our wedding, my cousin gave me the Peters family genealogy. In there, I found information on myself and my parents of course, but then I was surprised to also find my wife was already included along with her family and her birthday. My cousin had really done his homework.

Genealogies were extremely important to Jews. You had to establish your pedigree in the ancient world. When Nathaniel says “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” he is speaking a common sentiment. When the Jews have a hatred of the Samaritans, they are also going along with this. Your origins story was extremely important, and this would have to be the most important story of all Matthew was writing. What were the origins of the Son of God?

As we go through the list, we find some names we don’t expect. The first one is Tamar. What is unusual about her?

To begin with, women were not usually in genealogies. This was about men. Matthew has a number of women in his which sets it out as unusual. This had to be a purposeful addition and since a writer would only want to include the most important information in a writing, there had to be some purposeful meaning behind what was said. Matthew wants us to know that Tamar is included in the lineage and not just Judah.

Establishing that Jesus is from the tribe of Judah is important since this is where the Messiah was to come from, but establishing Tamar was not. After all, we have no mention in this genealogy of Sarah, Rebekkah, or Leah, the respective wives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Jacob did have Rachel and two concubines, but Judah was born through Leah.) The first mention we have of a woman is Tamar.

Note that I said woman and not wife. Tamar was not a wife. In fact, she was the daughter-in-law of Judah. The story is found in Genesis 38. Tamar was the wife of Judah’s son and that son was wicked so God put him to death. History kept repeating and Tamar was doubtful she would get a child then since Judah was hesitant to give his youngest son to her. So what did Tamar do? She disguised herself as a prostitute and waited for Judah to come by. Judah falls for the ruse and in that encounter, Tamar gets pregnant. She gives birth to Perez and Zerah. Perez is the one through whom Jesus comes.

In some cases in history, genealogies are given flavor to make the person look good, such as saying that one is descended from the gods. Part of the authenticity of the account of Matthew is that it includes such a shameful event. Every Jew would recognize it immediately, yet Matthew includes it. Why? Because it would not be denied for one point. The way the Christians dealt with a number of scandals was to admit them. We will look more at this in our look at the virgin birth so put it in the back of your mind for now.

Not only that, that a person of shame is used in the account can show the way of God in using that which is shameful regularly to fulfill His purposes. Many people wonder how God could use them, and the genealogy can indicate to us that anyone can be used. Also, not only can we be used, but our sinful actions can be. We should not seek to sin, but when we do, it cannot overturn the purposes of God. By biblical standards, the action between Judah and Tamar was wicked, but the child does not bear the blame. The child was still used to bring about righteousness for all people.

We today should be thankful to see these people in the genealogy of Christ and it can remind us of how the accounts are authentic due to the criteria of embarrassment that Tamar brings.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Presenting Jesus as Real

Is Jesus truly as real as the air we breathe? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

To begin with, this post is not about making an apologetics case. That does not mean that this post is useless with apologetics. On the contrary, I think it is of utmost importance for how we do apologetics today and also how we do evangelism. It is a concern that the methods we have that are so successful may not be as successful as we think.

I was thinking this today outside of a church responsible for a large local revival. If I met the pastor, I might ask how many conversions took place. I am sure I would get a sizable number. How many disciples then? Ah. That might be a more difficult question. How many times was Jesus really presented as a historical reality who walked among us? That could be a bit ambiguous.

Of course Jesus is presented that way! We open up our Bibles and there he is!

Indeed, there he is, but do we not pause to consider that the early church did not have a gospel save the Old Testament and the Old Testament does not include in it the life and death of Jesus. One can point to prophecies, but there is no explicit message as there is in the New Testament.

To say we open up our Bibles is excellent if you’re talking to people who already know the Bible is from God. It is not for those who do not. When asked by many why they should believe the Bible, it is quite likely that the answer that one will get is “faith.”

By what reason should one not believe the Book of Mormon? By what reason should one not believe the Koran? If these are not by faith, the great danger is that there will simply be an appeal to emotion. The sad problem is that the Mormon will quite easily also point to an emotion and say by what basis do you accept your emotion as being from God and not His?

This can also happen with miracle claims as well and we must admit that. It can often be assumed that the Christian rejects all virgin births and all resurrections, except for in the case of Jesus. There is absent any notion that Jesus’s are the ones that actually do have a historical case for them.

Let us be upfront about miracles then. There is no reason to reject miracles from other religions prima facie. Let us be open-minded with them as we want others to be with ours. We do not want to accept all claims blindly, but it is just as bad to reject all claims blindly.

So what are we to do?

In Season 3 of Smallville, Clark Kent finds out that his father Jor-El might actually have visited Earth at one time and even passed through Smallville. Clark tells his father Jonathan that up until now Jor-El had been a distant and powerful friend, but what if he really had come down here? Maybe he was more like Clark than Clark realized.

To be sure, Jesus did become fully human, but let us not think that God is like us. He is not. We are to be like Him instead. I am not like the image that I see in the mirror. The image that I see in the mirror is like me. That being said, what of the distant and powerful friend?

That is often how Jesus can be presented. Jesus is at a distance and He’s powerful, but what is it that He is doing in life? Too often, it is presented as if Jesus is there to fix a lot of your problems. Financial struggles? Jesus can help you. Struggle with alcoholism? Try Jesus. Problematic children at home? Jesus can help you be a good parent. Marriage problems? Jesus can help you be a good spouse.

I am not disagreeing with any of these in reality. I do think that if you truly follow Jesus, it should affect your lifestyle in various ways. My concern is that this reduces Jesus to simply the latest self-help cure. Do we have any evidence that this is what Jesus was like for the first century Christians?

Doubtful. To be a Christian then was to sign your own death warrant. How many would sign a death warrant just because the children were a problem when the cult just down the street could help me with that as well and as a special bonus, you get to participate in these great orgies rather than having to live the strict moral code the Christians followed. Oh yes. Let’s not forget that also the emperor didn’t care if you joined that group so your life could be safe.

So what does it mean if we present Jesus that way and instead get the answer back that “Medication does that for me” or “I happen to be seeing a really good therapist and he’s helped me immensely” or “Have you not read the latest self-help book?”

Now once again, I am not against any of the above mentioned, but I am against presenting Jesus as if He’s just the better product amongst competition. It’s not as if we want to make an infomercial saying “Try Jesus. We guarantee full satisfaction or your money back!”

When it comes to presenting Him, are we presenting Him as real? We can often ask people how they know the reality of Jesus and we are presented with an emotional response. The Mormons will also give the exact same answer for how they know that Joseph Smith is a prophet.

This puts us in a danger. What if your sole basis for knowing that Jesus is real is a feeling? You are a sitting duck then for the Mormon. When you have that contrary feeling from the Mormons, will you suddenly switch to Joseph Smith? Will he be a better product?

What also when you hear atheistic and liberal professors go against your most cherished beliefs that you hold on that basis? Will you go on believing but with a cognitive dissonance that thinks you have to jettison reality in order to be a Christian, or will you just abandon the faith? In either case, you will be useless for the Kingdom if not even a detriment.

The other danger is that basing it on a feeling will instead produce a chasing not after Jesus, not after holiness, but rather after a feeling. When you feel X, then the world is right, but there could be all manner of reasons for not feeling X at a point in time. Perhaps you have a cold or you had a bad night’s sleep or you ate the wrong thing or had an argument with your spouse.

This is how addictions are made and with an addiction, one does not seek the object of the addiction but rather one seeks the feeling that comes from the object. The person does not want drugs for drugs but drugs for a high. The person does not want sex out of love for the other, but rather out of seeking a strong experience and really good sensations.

Using the last example, how many people would like their marriage to be based on a feeling? Most would say that if they did that, they would have to get a new spouse every two to three years. What woman would like to know that her husband likes having her around for sexual joy, but other than that, oh well?

Now am I totally opposed to feelings in all of this? Absolutely not! Some of you out there are very emotionally oriented and praise God for it. I have no problem. Some of you like myself are more rationally oriented. Let us make sure that neither looks down on the other. We need both types. I am against a blind emotionalism. I am also against a cold intellectualism.

What I am saying is that the emotional person needs to have an emotion that is rooted in truth. A rational person needs to have an argument that produces a difference in the world. That gets us to the point then of presenting Jesus as real.

If we claim that Jesus is as real to us as the air that we breathe, we need to live that out. Jesus cannot be just the end of a syllogism or a study of historical research. He also cannot be the quick fix in our lives alone. Jesus can be the one who helps us with our problems and also the result of a historical study, but He is surely much more than that.

Jesus made the claim that He is the king of all creation. All of eternity depends on Him. If He is risen, then life has meaning. If He is not, then let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Jesus did not come down here to do miracles alone as if He was showing off His divinity. Each miracle He did had a greater purpose than just helping the person in need.

Jesus also did not come solely to forgive us of our sins. He came for that, but He did not come for just that. He came to bring life to a world that was dying. That would include the forgiveness of sins, but it would also include the transformation of lives and then that of society.

Yet for us, the transformation seems to be what we can get through self-help, therapy, or medication and the goods that He gives us are really happy feelings whenever we think about Him. Would the such have been said for another king at the time, such as Caesar? “Try Caesar as king! You’ll like him and you’ll be a better parent too!”

It is when we realize that Jesus is King, Lord, and Judge, that we come to realize how it is that we must live. History is not about us and our feelings and pitiful little desires. It is all about Him. He is really the central focus of the universe. All roads do truly end at Jesus. Some end with Him as friend. Others end with Him as foe. All end with Him as Judge giving the ultimate verdict.

Perhaps when we realize that, we will be partaking in a Kingdom agenda and with that will come again what came in the first century and onward, the transformation of society. Perhaps when we put Jesus on the throne again and take ourselves off we will come to see the good He can do. Perhaps when we realize that the way of Christ is better than our way will we start living our lives accordingly. We will realize Jesus is not distant. He is ever-present and at any time can take us out of the picture if He so desires. He does not need us for anything. We need Him for everything.

It is my sincere hope that when we do all of this, we will then get to the apologetic of backing our evangelism with the case for Jesus as the Risen King and why we believe such. When we do such, could it be that then we will have our revolution that we need to stop a world in moral decline?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Scripture and the Words of Christ

How did the early church view the Words of Jesus? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Last night I was reading Ken Bailey’s latest book “Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes.” It’s a fascinating look at 1 Corinthians and I urge everyone to read it. What I was reading was about 1 Corinthians 9 and something was said that was one of those things we know already, but we don’t really think about until it hits us right between the eyes..

Last night, I wrote about the Jewishness of Jesus and how startling He was to His contemporaries. Later as I read, I was reading Bailey’s thoughts on 1 Corinthians 9 and in there he stated that the words of Jesus were being seen immediately on par with the words of Scripture.

That is something we think about and is fairly obvious to us in some ways. If Jesus was truly God in the flesh and Scripture is that which God says, then it would follow that whatever Jesus said would be Scripture. What is amazing is that this was such a quick recognition. It wasn’t the case that we had to wait until Nicea and then people started looking back and thinking “You know, all those things Jesus said, I’m starting to think maybe he was even YHWH in the flesh!”

The idea of Jesus being YHWH was not a development that came with paganism. It came right out of a Jewish milleu. Paul is being entirely consistent with his Jewish tradition. Note also that Bailey points out that in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul does not really say he became a Gentile. Instead, he says that he became like one not under the Law, save the law of Christ. Why? Paul can’t become a Gentile because he is a Jew and that is something that will never change.

Now of course Paul can stop following Jewish customs, although he will follow them if it will help someone come to the gospel. Today there are people who can abandon Judaism altogether and become atheists, but yet they still realize that even while atheists, they are still Jews. Some of them even still follow the rules of kosher eating as atheists.

The point is that Jesus was given this high place immediately. The last of the prophets before John the Baptist that had come was Malachi and that was about 400 years before Christ. The Heavens had been silent. It is my belief that God was wanting people to think about the time He had been silent for 400 years before sending Moses. Now, He was to send the prophet like Moses but greater than Moses. The people would be truly free from slavery.

Everything from Malachi and earlier that we have in the Old Testament was seen as authoritative Scripture and that would not be taken lightly. Notice what the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus says about the Old Testament in “Against Apion”.

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them

And yet, immediately the words of Christ are given such a position and we can often take them so lightly. We have heard the gospel stories so much that often times we do not have the amazement of them that we know that we should have. Let us not lose sight of this. The words of Jesus are the words of God Himself and if we take God seriously, we must take Jesus seriously. Perhaps if we do not take Jesus seriously, we should question if we are doing the same for God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Jesus The Jew

Does it matter that Jesus was a Jew? Let’s talk about it today at Deeper Waters.

For those who don’t know, I’ve taken a new job on the night shift and since I work by myself or with one another, I have found that I can listen to the radio or to podcasts. I have been playing much of N.T. Wright who frequently speaks about the relation of Jesus to Second Temple Judaism. What makes this interesting for me is that a lady I work back there with who doesn’t mind hearing this is Jewish and not Messianic.

This is something that gets me pondering as I hear this. What does it mean to say that Jesus is Jewish? How does an understanding of Judaism at the time help us with understanding the New Testament? Do we really need to bother with all that stuff in the Old Testament to understand the New?

To begin with, imagine reading the gospels without knowing what comes prior. How confusing it would be! Matthew opens up with a genealogy that assumes you know about the persons of the Old Testament. Mark opens up with Scriptural fulfillment and Scripture quoted. Luke starts with talking about the priestly system. John has a wonderful prologue where within Jesus is seen as greater than Moses.

All of this assumes an understanding of the Old Testament. What about Jesus in particular? What we want to do is consider Jesus in light of his relationship to YHWH. Jesus shows up with the claim to be YHWH in the flesh and begins doing numerous miracles to back this claim. What on Earth is supposed to be done with this man?

Well we could shut him up as insane and if we found someone making similar claims today that would be our first thought. The Jews could not do that however because this man showed all signs of being in his right mind. He was doing numerous miracles which does not come along with insanity.

Maybe we can best him in debate! Yet at every turn, Jesus humiliates his opponents. With lines like “Have you not read?” he displays their ignorance in that which they ought to be experts on. His mind is fully rational and despite all attempts to show otherwise, those who seek to best him end up being bested themselves.

These claims however simply cannot be true. It cannot be true that a man like this is YHWH in the flesh! He does not keep the law! He works with sinners! He is lowly and disgraceful. He attends all these parties where tax collectors and prostitutes are present and he tells people to work on the Sabbath.

Within a Greek system, the idea of a man being a god and doing miracles would be unusual, but would be tolerable. Paul and Barnabas were mistook for Zeus and Hermes. Jesus is not in this system however. Jesus is in a system loyal to YHWH and while there could be openness to multiple persons being in YHWH, it wasn’t set in stone and to think YHWH would become flesh?!

Then Jesus also claims that he is the long awaited Messiah. I can think about what that means to a Jew today, but what about back then? The first thought would have been about freedom from Rome. Surely the Messiah will come to set us free. The Messiah can overcome the Roman Empire. We will enter the Davidic Kingdom once more when Messiah comes.

Messiah did not come at the head of an army. He did not come with much pomp and grandeur. There is nothing in Jesus that ever suggests that He is a military genius. He simply travels around with a bunch of ragtag followers, most of whom were going nowhere in society to begin with.

This is the Messiah?

Yes he was. What does it mean when we think about that today? I listen to Wright and I wonder what a Jewish mind is thinking when they hear about Jesus who is Lord and Savior and being worshiped as God. It is no scandal for us to do that, but let us never lose sight of the fact that it sure sounds scandalous. For the Jew listening, it likely is.

This gets us to the crucifixion. With the claims that Jesus made and how he showed no signs of insanity, I can only conclude one of two things is true. Either what Jesus said was false and the crucifixion was the most righteous act of all that put to death the most wicked man who ever lived, or what Jesus said was true, and the crucifixion was the most wicked act of all putting to death the most righteous man who ever lived.

There is no middle ground.

Now as it was then, Jesus is someone that people have to respond to and something has to be said about Him. Perhaps some of the Christ myth idea is reactionary to this, but also failing to account the awesomeness of this figure thinking that anyone could just make him up. If you’ll believe that, you will believe anything else. Ultimately, this is the case. What will the person who denies all of Jesus and His claims believe? It is not that they will believe nothing. The problem is that they will believe anything else.

It should not be a surprise that even our calendar system is based on this man and as He refused to stay dead 2000 years ago, so He refuses to stay dead today. Jesus was the true revolutionary of all time. It is not the case that Jesus turned the world upside down however. The reality is He turned it right-side up and we would hardly today recognize a world where Jesus never existed.

If we are to appreciate Jesus more however, I urge us also to not just think about Him as man and God, important and essential as both of those are, but let us think about him as a Jew in a Jewish system and may we never look at Him the same way again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters