Tag: New Testament

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 4 Part 5

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

In wrapping up his look, Bates says that he sees four problems in Catholicism today:

In my view, Catholic dogma wrongly suggests that the community of the justified (and any individuals therein) must be marked out by things other than Spirit-led allegiance to the king in at least four ways: penance, holy days, acceptance of the whole dogma, and baptism.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1780-1781). Kindle Edition.

Penance is the idea of something needing to be done beyond seeking forgiveness. Trent even says that one cannot receive forgiveness by faith alone. Penance must take place. About this, Bates says that:

Yet these dogmas about penance do not accord with Scripture or the teachings of the apostles. The Catholic bishops at Trent wrongly believed penance to be biblical because commands in the Bible to “repent” (Greek metanoeō) had been mistranslated in Latin as “do penance.” The Council of Trent’s “Decree on Justification” cites Matthew 3: 2, Acts 2: 38, and Revelation 2: 5 in support of “do penance,” but the original Greek, as opposed to the Latin Vulgate, actually says “repent” in these places. The meaning “do penance” is not possible for the Bible in the way Trent intends, since the system of penance and absolution by a priest was not in place until after the Donatist crisis in the third century. Jesus and the apostles lived in the first.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1796-1801). Kindle Edition.

And going further:

There is no evidence that Jesus or the apostles commanded penance or absolution by a human priest within the framework of the new covenant— especially since, apart from Jesus as the high priest, there is no evidence for human priests of the new covenant at all in the earliest Christianity represented by the New Testament writings.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1812-1814). Kindle Edition.

As for holy days, my understanding of Bates is that the problem is not the holy days themselves, but making their observing as mandatory.

To reinstate universally required holy days— as Catholicism does— is to reinstitute an old-order written-rule system, to turn back to the stoicheia. This plays into sin’s hand. Such rules create false walls in the one true church, and those who rely on those walls rather than or in addition to allegiance to the king compromise the one-justified-family benefit and result of the gospel. Only Spirit-based allegiance in the king allows the flesh to become obedient to the deepest intentions of the law of God.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1842-1846). Kindle Edition.

I do not need to expound on the others, but I want to give Bates’s final statement in full.

A close reading of Paul’s letters shows that personal justification is not part of the gospel, but rather is one of its leading benefits. Faith is not part of the gospel either. Saving faith is best understood as an allegiant response to the King Jesus gospel. Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith is purposed to show that there is one, and only one, righteous family and this family is the family that gives allegiance to King Jesus. I’m persuaded that Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants are not equally and fully correct in their doctrinal determinations. I’ve sketched common Protestant problems and have also shown how the doctrine of justification in Galatians should pressure the Catholic Church toward specific reforms in dogma. Nevertheless, each is equally and fully Christian inasmuch as each upholds and responds with allegiance to the royal gospel. In our overall attempt to move beyond salvation wars of the past and present, in this book’s final chapters we will return to the question of how justification is presently modeled among Catholics and Protestants, and then we will seek to remodel it. But if our remodeling is to help

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1885-1893). Kindle Edition.

Next time, we’ll look at a position that some Protestants hold to. Is baptism saving? What role does Bates see as baptism holding?

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

Book Plunge: Beyond the Salvation Wars Chapter 3 Part 4

How does politics work with the gospel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Such is the advice many of us had growing up. Well, aside from the Great Pumpkin. We were taught to never talk about politics and religion in public. (Geez. Could this be why we have so many people today who don’t really know a lot about either topic?)

Matthew Bates argues that we cannot leave politics out of the gospel. We might think of politics as a dirty word, but it is essential. In its origins, it would mean how to function in the city. While this could work on just the city level, such as my own New Orleans having its own politics, this can be applied to the county, state, and yes, the country.

So what does Bates say?

But there is another, quite different reason why we need to reinstall King Jesus at the forefront of gospel proclamation. Consider what happens when we leave kingship out: we end up with a vision of salvation focused on a savior who rescues us from sin so that we can escape to an otherworldly heaven. We have no king and no kingdom and hence no vision for how salvation might connect to today’s Christian social and political activity. This is what is at stake in a second current conversation among Protestants about the gospel’s relationship to social justice.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1244-1248). Kindle Edition.

The only area I would disagree with here is the usage of the term social justice. I tend to avoid it since it is so hard to define and it usually boils down to an idea that we need to get economic equality, which I contend is impossible, and equality in race and sex, which is also impossible. Let’s give a brief defense of my position on this.

If we could wave a wand and erase everyone’s personal possessions and they each had $1 million dollars then to spend how they wanted, economic equality would have existed for about five seconds. Some people are going to spend their money foolishly. Some people are going to buy businesses and invest and build up their money. Some don’t care about that and will simply enjoy a good life. Some could give their money to charities. We would wind up in the same situation again.

As for equality in race and sex, the overwhelming number of construction workers and sewage workers and people like that are men. Your professional football team doesn’t have women on it. The NBA largely consists of black players and very few Asian players. Different races and heritages have different strengths and weaknesses. Just read some Thomas Sowell to learn more about these.

But now, let’s get back to Bates.

The gospel today seems to not really care about this world. It is about escape from this world. Lewis once said in reply to the idea that some people are so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good, that it is those who are most heavenly minded who usually do the most earthly good. I do not think it is the same today as many people heavenly minded are simply thinking “How can I get there?”

Bates argues that if we are citizens of the kingdom, then what promotes the virtue of the king should be what we promote in the society. How do you vote? You vote in alignment with what you think King Jesus would support. What causes do you donate to? Those you think King Jesus supports. Of course, we can have disagreements on what those are, but that is for debate and we can discuss our ideas.

I take this to mean that being good citizens of the Kingdom means being good citizens where we have been placed. When Israel went into Babylon, they were told to pray for the welfare of that city. If you are a Christian in a Middle Eastern nation or a Communist nation that is hostile to the gospel, you can still long for the betterment of your country. If you do not love your country at all, you will not want it to embrace the gospel of Christ. An Iranian Christian should care deeply about the well-being of Iran. A North Korean Christian should care deeply about the well-being of North Korea. Of course, such Christians must obey God rather than men and will sometimes have to go against the government, but they do so not because they hate their country, but because they love King Jesus more.

For those of us who live in America, we ought to love this country. Many of us who are Christians do not like what this country has become in recent decades, but we still often have a great love for the country. I don’t like that my country kills babies in the womb, has said that they have redefined marriage, and has tried to allow men to play in women’s sports, but I still love this country and pray for it.

It is not true that Christians should avoid politics. We ought to embrace politics and be informed politically as well. We need to know what is going on in our culture and in our time and the best way to be salt and light in the culture.

Next time, we’ll start looking at what Protestants say about Catholics on the gospel and how we get that wrong.

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

Book Plunge: Beyond The Salvation Wars Chapter 2

What is the gospel exactly? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re continuing our look at Beyond the Salvation Wars which you can order here.

Matthew Bates considers that the most important aspect of the gospel we have left out is that Jesus is king. The gospel has actually become more about what God has done for us rather than what has been done for God in Christ. There is this idea that Jesus did all that He did for you. No. You are included, but He did it first for the Father.

In the New Testament, the word we read translated as gospel is euangelion. Bates says about this that:

Outside the Bible, we find euangelion (“ gospel”) used similarly to describe changes in imperial rule at the time of Jesus. The caesar who reigned when Jesus was born, Octavian, is described by an inscription written in 9 BC as a savior— indeed, a god— because he brought peace, order, and greater public benefits than any of his predecessors. The day of his birth is hailed as “the beginning of the gospel [euangelion] for the world that came by reason of him” primarily because he brought an ugly period of civil war to an end. “Gospel” language here connects to the emergence of a new emperor.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 590-594). Kindle Edition.

N.T. Wright has said before that it is bizarre to imagine someone going around the Roman Empire and saying “Good news. Caesar is on the throne and he has a wonderful plan for your life.” To be sure, to say that the good news is not that God has a wonderful plan for your life does not rule that out. I personally would not use that phrase, but we have to start with what the gospel essentially is and then see the outworkings of that.

Note also that this does not mean that this is good news for every individual. The day after the 2024 election, a lot of people woke up the next day and saw the news and celebrated. A lot of people also woke up and saw the news and mourned. In the ancient world, either way, a new leader would have been proclaimed as good news. The Caesars did not think at all that their rule would be good news for everyone. For instance, anyone who was willing to break the law would not see an enforcer of justice as good news.

In the New Testament, the first good news is not that forgiveness of sins is now available. The Jews already had a system in place for that. The good news is that God is king through Christ. Christ is seated at the right hand of God right now. Christ is king. This is the good news. That is what Judaism did not have. They did not have the Messiah king ruling over them. If you went to the average Jew after the resurrection and said, “Hello. I would like to tell you about how you can receive forgiveness through Jesus”, they would have said, “We have the Law for that, thank you very much.” If you went to the Gentile, they would have said “We have sacrifices and rituals through the gods.” This is even assuming that they even thought they needed forgiveness and if they did, they would be thinking “And why should I care about what this Jesus fellow thinks?”

This also means that Christians should be culture warriors. The Gospel has political implications. Imagine being in the ancient world and saying “There is a new Caesar, but he’s not going to do anything about the ruling system right now.” The statement is bizarre. Now imagine saying “There is a new king on the throne of Heaven, but He doesn’t really care about the culture.” If Jesus is the king, He cares about EVERYTHING!

The kingship of Jesus is so important that Bates says:

When Paul details the gospel’s content in Romans 1: 2– 4, the cross is not even mentioned. Here the gospel is about how God’s promises in Scripture have come to fruition in the Son’s incarnation and enthronement.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 690-692). Kindle Edition.

This does not mean the death of Jesus is unimportant, but even then, Bates points to how that is spoken of in 1 Cor. 13:3-5:

In his description of the gospel, Paul does not say that Jesus died for my or your personal sin, but rather, the Messiah died in behalf of our sins. The emphasis is not on Jesus’s death for your or my personal sins but rather on the king’s death for collective sins. This passage is about what the king has done for an entire group of people.

Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 707-710). Kindle Edition.

We have individualized the gospel. The idea of a Lone Ranger Christianity would have made no sense to the ancient world. It should make no sense to us today.

This is a lot so far today and I don’t want to rush through this, so I’m going to leave it at this for the second chapter for now. Next time, we’ll see more of the implications of this.

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

Book Plunge: Irreligion Chapter 11

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

In this chapter, we will see the exact same in-depth research Paulos has given to every other section in this book.

Which is none.

Let’s just dive into it.

As noted, the occasion for these observations is Gibson’s gory movie and an underreported fact about its basis: there is little, if any, external historical evidence for the details presented in the somewhat inconsistent biblical versions of the Crucifixion. Unless we take literally and on faith the New Testament accounts of Jesus written many decades afterward (between 70 and 100 c.e.), we simply don’t know what happened almost two millennia ago, at least in any but the vaguest way. This, of course, is part of the reason that Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, which purports to fill in the details of the story and its aftermath, was No. 1 on Amazon for so long, selling millions of copies to date.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 92). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Of course, there are no scholars here cited.

So let’s see what some say.

“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.” (Gerd Ludemann. .”What Really Happened To Jesus?” Page 17.)

Christians who wanted to proclaim Jesus as messiah would not have invented the notion that he was crucified because his crucifixion created such a scandal. Indeed, the apostle Paul calls it the chief “stumbling block” for Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). Where did the tradition come from? It must have actually happened. (Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition. pages 221-222)

 

Jesus was executed by crucifixion, which was a common method of torture and execution used by the Romans. (Dale Martin, New Testament History and Literature. Page 181)

 

That Jesus was executed because he or someone else was claiming that he was the king of the Jews seems to be historically accurate. (ibid. 186)

 

Jesus’ execution is as historically certain as any ancient event can ever be but what about all those very specific details that fill out the story? (John Dominic Crossan http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-d…_b_847504.html)

Also, none of these are Christians.

But hey, reading is hard for people like Paulos. He might have to step outside of his bubble and encounter contrary thought.

Next, he goes on to talk about obvious biological absurdities like the virgin birth (Which I do affirm) and the resurrection. He says we will set those aside, but apparently thinks saying they’re biologically absurd is sufficient.

Paulos. I hate to tell you this, but ancient people knew how babies were made and they knew dead people stay dead. You go on though and pat yourself on the head and say you know so much more than they did.

Assume for the moment that compelling historical documents have just come to light establishing the movie’s and the Bible’s contentions that a group of Jews was instrumental in bringing about the death of Jesus; that Pilate, the Roman governor, was benign and ineffectual; and so on. Even if all this were the case, does it not seem hateful, not to mention un-Christian, to blame contemporary Jews?

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 92). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Yes.

I’m sorry. Does Paulos think I think were are to hold all Jews accountable for what some Jews did 2,000 years ago?

He then decides to take on Lewis’s trilemma.

Aside from its alliteration, Lewis’s question is not compelling in the least. Did Jesus really say he was the Son of God? We don’t know. Could he have meant it metaphorically rather than literally? We don’t know. Could he be an amalgam of various real and mythic figures? We don’t even know this. (Such untestable speculations about Jesus and other figures remind me of the classics scholar who published a seminal breakthrough. The Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by Homer, he asserted. They were actually written by another blind Greek poet of the same name.) In any case, there are many ways out of this trilemma that commit one neither to abandoning admiration for (at least a good chunk of ) Jesus’ teaching nor to accepting his divinity.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 94). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Never mind that this is all said and done after Lewis has established his case already for the historical Jesus. Paulos is too busy with an agenda to care about facts. He also says “We don’t know” but I am unsure who this “we” is since Paulos never cites biblical scholars and has apparently never read them.

So again, a chapter where Paulos ignores all the scholarship and expects us to take him seriously.

Don’t.

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

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Contradicted

What do I think of Mike Licona’s latest book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Mike Licona sent me a publisher’s copy of this book. I want to say at the start that I value my relationship with him as my former father-in-law, but I also have a great relationship with Tim McGrew. Some people have asked me to give my thoughts on minimal vs maximal facts. My thoughts are I am not interested. I just want to see the kingdom spread. I can use the minimal facts, but I can also make a case for the Gospels as well. I also think everyone defending the resurrection should be able to defend the Gospels.

I say this at the front because I know there are feuds that take place on Facebook. I want no part of them. Whenever I have been asked publicly or privately what my stance is, I have said the same thing every time and that is not changing.

Also, some of you might be wondering why if I got an early copy, why am I just reviewing it now? Because I’m a seminary student and I have several other books I’m reading. As it stands, I’m just now going through volume 1 of Habermas’s resurrection series.

So looking at Licona’s book, if you have already read Why Are There Differences In The Gospels? not much here will strike you as new. That being said, there are some areas that are more covered here than there are in that one. What comes to mind immediately is a deeper look at inerrancy and a look at the subject of inspiration.

The book is certainly quite readable and that for many people will be a huge plus. Knowing Licona, it was easy to hear his voice throughout as I was reading it and it read more like a conversation to me than anything else. I understand this book was to be a popular level format of the former and with that, he did succeed.

A popular refrain throughout shows up in places like page 18. Sometimes when people are presented with differences in the Gospels, they can think the foundations of their faith are being shaken when really, it is their view of Scripture that is being shaken, and that could be a false one. As I write this, I think of a friend of mine who almost lost his faith. His doubts began when he found out that 1 John 5:7 was not authentic.

From here, Licona looks at views on what order the Gospels were written in, how biographies were written in the time of Jesus, and then to his subject of compositional devices. When it comes to my personal view on them, I think they can account for some differences. On the other hand, I think there are some times where harmonization by other means does make sense. I would not want to say compositional devices are the silver bullet that answers every problem. I also would not say they play no role whatsoever.

Then we get to the topic of inspiration and here, I find the insistence on this puzzling. In the long run, how does it help us? Let’s suppose all of Scripture is believed to be true. Okay. Good. Now we add in it’s inspired.

Alright.

And what have we gained exactly?

I understand that Paul does tell us all Scripture is inspired by God, but could that just be a way of saying it is all true? If we show it is all true, what have we gained? We have spilled much ink on a topic that won’t change how we read the text anyway?

The section on inerrancy was an interesting one. Here, I parted ways a bit more seeing as I much more prefer my own idea of contextualizing inerrancy. I didn’t really understand what Licona was meaning by flexible inerrancy. I also understand he has a lot of this depend on middle-knowledge. As a Thomist, I am somewhat skeptical of middle-knowledge claims to an extent. I also right now do not have the time to look at that topic much more, but if I am skeptical of middle-knowledge, does that mean I have to avoid flexible inerrancy? With contextualizing inerrancy, I don’t have that problem.

I also wish that while Licona does look at the ways ancient biographies were written, I would have liked to have seen a lot said about the social world of the Gospels and the New Testament, particularly how they rely on honor and shame. There were times I was surprised to see the way Licona seemed unaware of this. Consider when he refers to Psalm 137:9 and asks if the Psalmist was mirroring God’s heart when he wrote

Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

If you understand honor and shame, you realize that this was also the way the Israelites were speaking in their captivity. They were being mocked in the land they were in and so they were in essence saying “May what you did to us be done to you!” This is also the way ancient societies could often deal with anger. Trash talk was a way of letting out hostilities before they escalated to something greater. No view of middle-knowledge is needed for this. Also, if a scholar like Licona would look at honor and shame in the Gospels, maybe more people in the apologetics world on the lay level would notice.

So while I do disagree with a number of things said in that chapter, overall, the book is an enjoyable read. If you hesitated to understand his former book, get this one instead. It will be a much better read for you.

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

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 4

How did the resurrection claims end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So now we come to Paulogia’s final points. After addressing these, for the final day of the week, I plan on writing about why I do not find these convincing overall. For now, let’s see what Paulogia has to say.

The first is that Greek-speaking Gentiles who never saw Jesus began writing down the stories centuries later. Of course, there is no real interaction with scholarship that places the Gospels early, not that the case Habermas and others build depends on them. You don’t see Jesus and the Eyewitnesses dealt with.

Paulogia does say the case against traditional authorship is ironclad and has a link to that. I understand he can’t argue for everything in a post. At this, I do just want to raise up some questions.

If these were Greek speakers writing about events long before them, why did they not put anything on the lips of Jesus that addressed their concerns. Why is there nothing on the nature of the Lord’s Supper and baptism? Why is there nothing on meat offered to idols? Why is there nothing on what Gentiles have to do to be saved or on circumcision? Why does the term Son of Man show up constantly when it doesn’t in the rest of the New Testament?

If we want to say that the Gospels were written as prophecy fulfilled after the fact, then why is this not done on the topic of the resurrection where one would think you would find the most Old Testament references? You don’t even find a doctrine of the atonement here. Why not?

Also, if we are talking about authorship, why would the church pick the names that they did? Matthew was a tax collector. Surely you could find a better representative among the apostles! Mark had a reputation of being a Momma’s Boy who ran away in the first missionary journey causing a split between the church’s two first great missionaries. Luke was a Gentile who is only briefly mentioned in the epistles. The only one that makes sense is John, and that is the one the church debated! Was it John the elder or John the apostle?

The 11th point is that some Christians were punished for behavior by the Roman government. The problem is we are not told what this was. How about the fact that Christians were also seen as intolerant because they refused to acknowledge other gods? How about Christians had a Messiah who was crucified which was shameful? How about Christianity was an automatic challenge to Caesar by calling Jesus the only Lord?

Paulogia says the church grew because they gave to the poor and were accepting of others. The fact that they refused to worship other gods actually had them be seen as unaccepting of others. As for the poor, that would explain the poor coming to them, but not anyone in elite circles. You could give to the poor if you wanted without having to follow a crucified Messiah.

And then finally, Christianity eventually gained tolerance and then became the official religion. Okay, but how did it get to that point? Paulogia says other points like an empty tomb are later embellishments. One thinks he doth claim victory too quickly. Also, Paulogia never explains why we have this story as I said at the start.

He finally says the ball is in Habermas’s court.

This is likely the closest Paulogia is going to get a return serve as I have no reason to think Habermas will take Paulogia seriously.

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

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 3

Was Paul ridden with guilt? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re continuing our look at Paulogia that can be found here and today, points 7-9 will be covered.

Point 7 is that the story of Jesus spread orally with the emphasis being on recruiting new members to the movement instead of transmitting accurate history.

Paulogia appears to paint this as an either-or. It seems unheard of that you could recruit new members to the movement by transmitting accurate history. The implicit assumption is “If we tell the history accurately, we won’t get members” and “If we want to get members, we need to downplay the history.” Of course, there is no interaction with how oral societies communicate their stories.

There’s still nothing also on why this story. Why tell stories about a crucified Messiah? If you’re trying to embellish and rewrite the history, then surely one of the first statements you would want to eliminate is crucifixion. You could have resurrection without crucifixion. Jesus went into Pilate’s residence at the head of a mob and was killed in the attempt, but He was resurrected as a hero of the movement. Nope. Jesus suffers the capital penalty that was the worst in shame at the time.

Paulogia also says that the Gospels weren’t written until decades later. I suspect he is thinking of the communication being like a game of telephone with individuals talking to individuals, when it would be more stories being told in group settings. The groups would have certain members in them who would make sure the stories were told accurately. There is no interaction with people like Dunn or McIver or Bailey or others on oral communication as was said.

Now we get to Paul who had a non-veridical vision of the allegedly-resurrected Jesus. And what was the cause of that vision? Let’s say it all together boys and girls!

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!

Yes, it’s that magic term atheists like to throw out when they don’t know anything else to say. Paulogia also compares this to PTSD. Over what? Who knows?

To get to Cognitive Dissonance again, there is no reading of someone like Festinger. There is an allegation that Paul is wrestling with guilt, but that is just Paulogia throwing his own culture onto the Biblical one. In the Biblical one, as in many honor-shame cultures, behavior was done to earn the approval of the group or some other external source, such as God, and was not based on internal feelings or conscience.

What does Paul have guilt over? Killing Christians? He would have seen that as a service to God. Paulogia also says he wanted a new purpose in life, because obviously rising up the ranks in Jewish society and being an up and coming star in that field was just not worth it. Obviously, he needed to attach himself to this shameful group that gave him persecutions instead.

As for Paul being prone to hallucinations, again, this is Paulogia’s stance. Evidence they were hallucinations? Well, that doesn’t happen. Why? Because there is no God that can provide visions? If so, that is part of the claim that needs to be demonstrated. Readers know I have plenty of times made my case for theism here.

Finally, Paul met the apostles, but they did not see eye to eye. Paulogia says this explains the lack of information about Jesus’s ministry in his epistles. Once again, Paulogia is pressing his own low-context culture on a high-context society. In a high-context society, background knowledge on the part of the reader is assumed. (It would be ironic if we found out that Paulogia also complains about alleged Christian bigotry after he has pushed his own ideas of how society works onto the Biblical culture.)

Paulogia also says that this is evidence Paul’s visit was not to talk about the life of Jesus. Yes. Because obviously, when he met with the apostles and conferred with them, they were just talking about the weather or all that time or perhaps how the Jumping Jehoshophats were going to do in taking down the Egyptian Eagles in that year’s chariot races.

So once again, we have nothing but weak cases from Paulogia that run on speculation upon speculation and ignore the culture of the time.

We’ll look at the rest of the work tomorrow.

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

Paulogia on the Resurrection Part 1

Why does this story exist? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Someone sent me this wanting a reply to it. I looked through and thought it was just something pretty basic. Then I take another look and realize it’s Paulogia. He is a somewhat well-known figure on the interwebz. In this, he is responding to Gary Habermas. Apparently, Habermas says at the end of his first volume on the resurrection that few scholars are really standing up to the data. I have a copy, but with schoolwork going on, I have not read it yet. It’s amusing though to think that if this is the case and scholars aren’t putting forward these theories, that Paulogia thinks he can.

At any rate, I do not know if Habermas has even heard of Paulogia. I am sure Habermas probably wouldn’t even really bother with a response. That being said, I do know Habermas and I am sure he would be fine with me giving an answer for him.

Paulogia also quotes Bart Ehrman saying that any scenario, no matter how unlikely, is to be preferred over the one where a miracle occurs. This has powerful rhetorical flair, but at the same time, it shows that really, Ehrman is not going to be responsive to the evidence. It is saying “I do not care how much evidence you pile up. Anything else is more likely than a miracle.”

Does Paulogia really want to go that route? I have written about that here.

Again, if this is the case, then if Paulogia agrees, then he is saying he does not really care about evidence. No matter how much you bring up, he will always go with the non-miraculous case. That being said, Paulogia will now be responding to the idea that you can explain the existence of the church without the resurrection.

At the start, something that needs to be said is that Paulogia explains the story that we have. Never explained is why do we have this story? Why was it told this way? After all, a far easier story would be “Yes. He was crucified, but we believe that God has exalted Him for His righteousness and He is now sitting at the right hand of God and is ruling as king.” No resurrection would be needed. No promise of a return or second coming (I differentiate between the two) would be needed. It would also be a story that no one could really refute. Seriously. How would you begin to refute something like that?

Yet the church did not go with that story. Odd. Yet that aspect is something Paulogia never explains. I also do not see any indication that Paulogia understands the concepts of honor and shame. As we will see going through this, Paulogia unsurprisingly comes to the culture of Scripture and superimposes his own culture onto it.

Also, this will be a multi-part series.

So at the start, Paulogia argues that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. From this, he will get no complaint from me. I have read and reviewed Ehrman’s Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium on this blog. I have also reviewed his most recent work Armageddon with part one being here.

Paulogia goes to a few Scriptural passages here. The first worth mentioning is in the Olivet Discourse. While I went through Matthew, there is enough similarities in it to compare it to the Marcan version and you can find the start of that here. It’s worth pointing out that in the two Ehrman books, he nowhere mentions orthodox Preterism.

How about the transfiguration? There’s a claim about people seeing the Kingdom of God come with power before that. Is that referring to the transfiguration? Well, not exactly. Finally, what about what Jesus said when before the Sanhedrin about seeing the Son of Man coming on the clouds? This is a reference to Jesus’s second coming, not His return. He is talking about coming to the throne. Note, He is coming and sitting both. It’s not as if Caiaphas will one day look outside his window and see Jesus riding a nimbus cloud like he’s Kid Goku.

By the way, I suppose it is likely Paulogia has late dates for Gospels like Matthew and Luke. Some do date Mark to before 70. So if he dates these this way, why? Why would something be published after the fact saying Jesus will come before this generation passed away? There are a number of options.

  1. The Gospel writers were massive idiots who didn’t realize they had shown Jesus as a false prophet in their own writings.
  2. The Gospel writers wrote after the fact and knew that Jesus’s coming to His throne had already happened as He said. (See all my writings on the Olivet Discourse)
  3. The Gospel writers wrote before the events and trusted they would happen as Jesus prophesied, but if that’s the case then the Gospels are early and within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses.

The second part is that Jesus did something to get Himself arrested and He died by crucifixion. No complaint here.

So now we come to the third one where there will be serious pushback and after this we will wrap up for the night.

This is that the resting place of the body of Jesus was unknown to His followers. Paulogia says that the body would have been left on the cross as Romans did this. However, Craig Evans has a strong case in Jesus and the Remains of His Day that burial of crucified victims was allowed in Judea in peacetime. (We even have found one such victim.) This was done for the sake of Jewish sensitivities.

Jody Magness has also said that the Gospel accounts of the burial of Jesus are consistent with first century burial practices. When Ehrman wrote on this topic in How Jesus Became God, he did not cite any scholars on Jewish burial practices. That is quite a shame.

He says that Mary would not have the means to bury Jesus, which is likely so, but he says nothing about Joseph of Arimathea. Why should I not accept the account? It is consistent. As he says, the Sanhedrin would have responsibility for the body and Joseph would come forward to do what he can. I can understand Paulogia not believing that account. I cannot understand his ignoring it.

Paulogia then says Jesus would have been buried in a burial ground for condemned criminals. Okay. Even if we granted that, how does he get to that therefore it would be unknown to the followers of Jesus where He was buried? Absolutely no one would know? No one on the Sanhedrin would show them? One would think they would want to do this to gloat and shame. “See? He’s buried here right next to the criminals! Go and look for yourself!” Are we to think absolutely no one in Jerusalem, a city swarming with people for Passover, saw what happened? You have a guy who is probably the most well-known figure in the area being publicly crucified and then hours later, no one knows where his body is?

Color me unconvinced.

That’s it for today. We’ll look at parts 4-6 tomorrow.

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

Book Plunge: The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 6

What about God in the Old Testament? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Iqbal now turns to the Old Testament. The first part worth noting is when he talks about how Mark 1 quotes Isaiah. Iqbal points out that this quotation is actually a combination of a quotation from Isaiah and Malachi. He ignores that there is actually scholarship on composite quotations which occur not just in Jewish and Christian writings, but in writings in greater Greco-Roman antiquity.

He also says Jesus never refers to Himself as the Son of Man. This is a strange argument because it assumes the only way He can is if He comes out and says “I am the Son of Man.” He also rarely says “I am the Messiah.” One example that shows Jesus saw Himself as this figure is in Matthew 19 when He tells the disciples that they will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. It’s thought to be authentic since He says the twelve will which would be problematic with what Judas did. The question is, “If the apostles sit on twelve thrones, where does Jesus sit?”

There is some discussion on what the word Echad means. He does say that it can refer to a compound one, but sometimes it doesn’t.

Okay.

But sometimes it does.

Thus, just saying echad isn’t sufficient to show that this is a one that is absolutely solitary in nature. You can point out that there are many cases where this doesn’t happen and yet, that doesn’t matter. Each time it is to be interpreted based on the context of that passage.

He also asks why it refers to three in the case of God if that is the case. Why not three?

Because three persons is the number revealed throughout the Bible….

He says that the plural means the plural of majesty. In some cases, I am open to that entirely. In some cases, it doesn’t apply. Why should I think echad refers to a plural of majesty? Iqbal gives me no reason to think so.

He also says that Paul explicitly says he didn’t get information from the original apostles of Jesus on the gospel. He ignores that in Galatians 1, Paul speaks to them and presents the gospel to make sure that his race had not been run in vain. I can’t help but wonder if Iqbal has ever truly read the New Testament for himself.

So once again, we have a Muslim who tries to argue against the Trinity and really demonstrates he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. When dealing with these arguments, I tend to hit only the highlights….errr…..lowlights? It would be too much to go over every argument and some of them have been done over and over again and I try to trust on newish arguments that I have not dealt with before.

But, there are other books, so we will soon begin going through another such book sometime to see what else Muslims have to say on the topic.

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

 

 

Book Plunge: The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 2

Why didn’t He just say it? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

News flash! Jesus never came out and explicitly said, “I am God!”

This is something cultists and Muslims and others expect, to which I say “Why should you?” Think about this. What would it have meant for Jesus to say that? Would they hear Him saying He is the Father? As soon as He says “I am not” then they ask “Well if you’re God, but not the Father, who are you?” (Assuming they hadn’t already stoned Him.) With each answer, more and more questions come out.

No. Jesus handled this the same way as He did His being the Messiah, which He also very rarely came out and claimed for Himself. Others were claiming it of Him before He was claiming it of Himself. Could it be because like the God question, people had an idea of who the Messiah was to be as in what kind of person he was to be? Could it be He didn’t want to be tied to that image?

It’s not a shock that John 10 is pointed to as Jesus denying that He is God. (You know, that place where He said “I and the Father are one.”) I have already covered this one here. Not only did Jesus not deny it, He really upped the ante on His claim.

Iqbal goes on from there to make a number of other nonsense arguments, such as Moses being called a god. Yes. That was an analogical sense. No one understood Jesus as ever speaking in that way. This is also an argument Jehovah’s Witnesses make and it’s just as awful when they do it.

Israel is the firstborn. Yes. And?

Israel is referred to as the children of God. Yes. They are. Context determines meaning. In an analogical sense, we can say Jesus is the one who is the true Israel of God seeing as He is the true Son of God.

David is begotten. Yes. All kings of Israel were declared to be begotten, but again, this is not in the same way. David is a type of the greater one who was to come. The greater one of Jesus is begotten in the most unique way of all, eternally begotten from the Father and declared to be the king forevermore.

The righteous are called children of God. Yes. Our righteousness is not found in ourselves. It is found in the one who is the most righteous of all, the spotless lamb Christ. He is the righteousness and if we are in Him, then we are declared to be righteous. The sad reality is that if Iqbal had bothered to really understand these passages, he would have seen that they really argue against his position more.

I really wish I had more to give you all, but really this is it. The bulk of the argument that Iqbal had was based on John 10 which is a pathetically weak argument. I know I have often gone after internet atheists on here, but in a way, Muslim argumentation is often sadly worse.

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