The Logos

Jesus: First for the Jew, then for the Gentile

2009-09-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

Many Muslims misrepresent the Bible. I am sure they do not do this as an act of dishonesty, but it is that the Qur’an forces them to engage in such dishonest behaviour.

But let us see what Jesus and the Bible actually teach. Firstly, we shall turn to Romans 1:16 – I believe this to be a succinct summary of Jesus’ earthly mission:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:16 (NET)

It is true. Jesus was first for the lost sheep of Israel, and then to the Gentiles. This was clearly demonstrated within his public ministry. Early on we are told:

"Jesus sent out these twelve, instructing them as follows: “Do not go to Gentile regions and do not enter any Samaritan town. Go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Matthew 10:5-6 (NET)

But this is not where Jesus stopped. Just as the scriptures predicted, Jesus’ ministry was not to be forever limited to the Jews. In Luke, alluding to prophesy in Isaiah, we see Jesus’ full mission:

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
Luke 2:29-32 (ESV)

He was to be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32a) and a “a light for the nations” (Isaiah 42:6). Jesus was conscious of this and made it clear:

Then Jesus spoke out again, “I am the light of the world. The one who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12

The light of the world? Hmm

At the end of the Jesus’ ministry he brought this in action. He commissioned his disciples to spread the gospel to all the nations of the world.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
Matthew 28:19

and [Jesus] said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem
Luke 24:46-47 (ESV)

[Jesus said to them]… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8 (ESV)

As is evident, Jesus fulfilled what said about him and he said of his self. He instructed his disciples to spread the message to all nations and this is what they did. Taking the message of Jesus to both Jews and Gentiles.

Reviewing the Jesus Puzzle: The Conspiracy of a Conspiracy of Silence

2009-09-11T00:07:00.001-07:00

Following is a short examination of the first piece of the puzzle presented in Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins. Within the article, Doherty breaks down the evidence for Jesus into 10 pieces in an attempt to demonstrate a mythical origin of Christianity.

The first piece of the puzzle is the Conspiracy of Silence. The argument behind this piece simply put is that the early Christian writings do not contain the Gospel narrative. The absence of narrative includes the following:

No reference to Jesus' life and ministry.
No mention of miracles performed by Jesus
No mention of physical teaching of Jesus

Furthermore, he attempts to diffuse the historical references in the epistles. For example, he alleges that 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 is a later interpolation. Metzger's A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament makes no mention of a viable interpolation here on textual grounds. Paul's mention of the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23 is simply written off as "a mythical scene Paul has himself developed" without justification. Evidently, the many exceptions to his rule are conveniently interpolations or myth.

When we get to the non-Christian sources, Josephus' mention in Antiquities of the Jews 18 is a "Christian interpolation" as is the mention of "James the brother of Jesus, the one called (the) Christ" in Antiquities 20.

Response:

Regarding the mentions in the epistles, we have seen that they are simply written off as (1) later interpolations and (2) mythical inventions of the author. This process does not seem to be a function of historical investigation but simply modifying the evidence and parameters to fit the pre-conceived conclusion. This same sort of evidence tampering continues with the mentions in the non-Christian sources. Josephus' clear and acknowledged mentions are placed into the realm of later Christian interpolations and tampering. In this way his thesis can once again be qualified.

It seems that the conspiracy of silence is one created by Doherty himself. With regard to the later pagan sources, they are beyond this investigation simply as they are a fallacious standard. Where historians mention Jesus, they are interpolations - when other historians who one would not expect to record the ministry of a Jew of Nazareth do not mention Jesus, this is evidence for his conclusions. At best, he is circular.

Now, regarding the claims of Josephus, Doherty is clearly against the consensus of scholars. The second mention of Jesus in the words of Professor Edwin Yamauchi, "Few scholars have questioned the genuineness of this passage." Any survey on the historical evidence for Jesus from both liberal and conservative commentators will make this fact known. With regard to the longer reference to Jesus there is evidence of Christian embelishments. However, once again, the consensus is that there was a clear mention of Jesus as a physical person placed in history here. Bruce Chilton, Craig A. Evans and Jacob Neusner in The Missing Jesus state:

"In the part of this embellished text that virtually all regard as authentic Josephus describes Jesus as a teacher and wonderworker who was accused by the leading men (i.e., ruling priests) before the Roman governor." (p.21)

From what scholars see as the authentic text of Josephus we can learn 10 facts about Jesus:

(1) Jesus was known as a wise and virtuous man, one recognized for his good conduct. (2) He had many disciples, both Jews and Gentiles. (3) Pilate condemned him to die, (4) with crucifixion explicitly being mentioned as the mode. (5) The disciples reported that Jesus had risen from the dead and (6) that he had appeared to them on the third day after his crucifixion. (7) Consequently, the disciples continued to proclaim his teachings. (8) Perhaps Jesus was the Messiah concerning whom the Old Testament prophets spoke and predicted wonders. We would add here two facts from Josephus’ earlier quotation as well. (9) Jesus was the brother of James and (10) was called the messiah by some. (Gary Habermas, The Historical Jesus : Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ)

The scholarly understanding of Josephus' mentions of Jesus are very different to that entertained by Doherty.

Now, with regard to Doherty's points on the silence of the various epistles. As was demonstrated above, those that conflict with his overall thesis are designated as either myth or interpolations. However, there are many more points that Doherty seems ignorant of. Regarding placing Jesus in history, from the Pauline epistles alone we can learn enough to blast Doherty's marginal thesis. These historical points are collated by prominent New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce in his book 'Paul and Jesus':

"Paul is out earliest literary authority for the historical Jesus. True, he does not tell us much about the historical Jesus, in comparison with what we can learn from the Evangelists, but he does tell us a little more than that Jesus was born and died. Jesus was an Israelite, he says, descended from Abraham (Gal 3:16) and David (Rom. 1:3); who lived under the Jewish law (Gal. 4:4); who was betrayed, and on the night of his betrayal instituted a memorial meal of bread and wine (I Cor. 11:23ff); who endured the Roman penalty of crucifixion (I Cor. 1:23; Gal. 3:1, 13, 6:14, etc.), although Jewish authorities were somehow involved His death (I Thess. 2:15); who was buried, rose the third day and was thereafter seen alive by many eyewitnesses on various occasions, including one occasion on which He was so seen by over five hundred at once, of whom the majority were alive twenty-five years later (I Cor. 15:4ff). In this summary of the evidence for the reality of Christ’s resurrection, Paul shows a sound instinct for the necessity of marshalling personal testimony in support of what might well appear an incredible assertion..

Paul knows of the Lord’s apostles, of whom Peter and John are mentioned by name as “pillars” of the Jerusalem community (Gal. 2:9), and of His brothers, of whom James is similarly mentioned (Gal. 1:19; 2:9). He knows that the Lord’s brothers and apostles, including Peter, were married (I Cor. 9:5), and incidental agreement with the Gospel story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:30). He quotes sayings of Jesus on occasion, e.g., His teaching on marriage and divorce (I Cor. 7:10f) and on the right of gospel preachers to have their material needs supplied (I Cor. 9:14); and the words He used at the institution of the Lord’s Supper (I Cor. 11:24ff).

Even when he does not quote the actual sayings of Jesus, he shows throughout his works how well acquainted he was with them. In particular, we ought to compare the ethical section of the Epistle to the Romans (12:1-15:7), where Paul summarizes the practical implications of the gospel for the lives of believers, with the Sermon on the Mount, to see how thoroughly imbued the apostle was with the teaching of his Master. Besides, there and elsewhere Paul’s chief argument in his ethical instruction is t example of Christ Himself. And the character of Christ as portrayed in the Gospels. When Paul speaks of “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (II Cor. 10:1), we remember our Lord’s own words, “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29). The self-denying Christ of the Gospels is the one of whom Paul says, “Christ did not please himself” (Rom. 15:3); and just as the Christ of the Gospels called on His followers to deny themselves (Mark 8:34), so the apostle insists that, after the example ofo Christ, it is our Christian duty “to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Rom. 15:1)….” (pp. 19-20)

Evidently, this is much more information than a conspiracy of silence. Similarly, Paul makes it clear that he is familiar with the teachings of Jesus such as on the issues of divorce.

However, the death blow to the epistle conspiracy occurs when one considers the circumstances of the epistles. These circumstances are two-fold:

The epistles were written to communities that probably already knew gospel narrative. It would not be necessary to recount a biography of Jesus in every letter composed to another community acquainted with the narrative. Take for example, epistles from the Johannine community. They make few references to a historical Jesus yet they produced the Gospel of John which claimed to be based on the eyewitness testimony of the beloved disciple. Evidently, this community which was thoroughly acquainted with the gospel narratives made few references in the epistles. The logic behind such expectations is emphasised when we consider the genre of the epistles.
The genre of the epistles were letters. Letters were not biographical narratives.

As prominent liberal New Testament scholar Marcus Borg states:

"But Paul’s letters tell us very little about the life and message of Jesus. This does not mean that Jesus’s historical life was unimportant to Paul, as some scholars have suggested. Rather, Jesus mattered greatly to Paul. Paul spoke of Jesus as Lord and as God’s Son, as did early Christians generally. He wrote about life “in Christ,” “Christ crucified,” and “imitating Christ.” But narrating the story of Jesus was not the purpose of his letters. Rather, as the literary genre of “letters” indicates, Paul was writing to Christian communities about issues that had arisen in their life together." (Marcus Borg, Jesus p.32)

As has been clearly demonstrated, the grounding for Doherty's thesis is questionable at best.

Codex Sinaiticus and the Media - Dan Wallace

2009-07-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

Dan Wallace blogged about some of the errors in the hyped up media on Codex Sinaiticus. The full article can be found here.

“The world’s oldest Bible”—a headline in countless newspaper articles. It is the world’s oldest complete New Testament, but Codex Vaticanus is probably older than Sinaiticus. Both are incomplete in the Old Testament, and Vaticanus is also incomplete in the New Testament. Thus, if an incomplete manuscript can be considered as the oldest Bible, Vaticanus would be the one.

“The earliest surviving copy of the Gospels”—numerous sources, including New York Daily News and Welt (7-6-09). No, there are several manuscripts, especially papyrus fragments, that are older: P52 (c. 100-150 CE, thus a good 200 years older than Sinaiticus) contains five verses from John’s Gospel; P66 (c. 175 CE) contains most of John; P75 (early third century) contains most of John and Luke; P45 (third century) contains large portions of all four Gospels, etc. There are well over twenty papyri that are both older than Sinaiticus and have portions of at least one of the Gospels. In addition, Codex B has the complete Gospels and is probably older than Sinaiticus.

“In earlier centuries there were all manner of documents in scroll form of gospels, epistles and other Christian writings. As time went by, some were judged to be authoritative and included in the canon; others were deemed to be apocryphal or errant” (The Independent, 7-7-09). This is not exactly true. There are only three or four early Greek New Testament manuscripts on scrolls, and each of them is on the back side (or verso) or some other manuscript. From all the evidence available, Christians used the codex as the book-form of choice rather than the scroll. To be sure, some apocryphal books are on scrolls, but no early Greek New Testament books are. If the form of the book is any indication, this may suggest that very early on Christians recognized certain books as intrinsically of more worth than others. At the same time, some apocryphal books are also in codices. Nevertheless, the consistency of having the NT books in codex form while non-NT Christian and subchristian books were often on scrolls may suggest a trend that mirrors how the early church viewed the New Testament books.

“It includes two works which have since been dropped from both Catholic and Protestant Bibles”—the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas (The Independent, 7-7-09). This presupposes that these books were considered canonical in the fourth century. But that is doubtful in the extreme. It is, in fact, doubtful whether such books would have been considered scripture at any time by a majority of Christian churches. That they are under the same cover as the OT and NT does not necessarily indicate that they were regarded as scripture, especially since we have no corroborating evidence to suggest this. In the least, the reason why Barnabas and Hermas are within Sinaiticus’s covers is open to more than one interpretation.

The same article says that Sinaiticus says that Jesus was angry, rather than compassionate, when he healed a leper (Mark 1.41), but this is not the case. Codex Bezae says this, but not Sinaiticus. The article also says that Sinaiticus omits “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” from the Lord’s Prayer, even though these are “words which Protestants add to the end of the Lord’s Prayer.” In this instance, the author is right about Sinaiticus, but what his basis is for saying that Protestants add these words is not given. It certainly is not based on modern Bibles that Protestants use: neither the ASV, RSV, NRSV, ESV, NIV, TNIV, TEV, NEB, REB, or NET have this sentence, yet these translations account for the great majority of modern English Bibles in use today.

“You might suppose it [the virtual reunification of Sinaticus] would upset those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, since the Codex shows there have over the centuries been thousands of alterations to today’s Bible. But they can counter that there are earlier, individual manuscripts of almost all the books in the Bible; the Codex just pulls them together into a single volume. In any case, fundamentalists have long been adept at ignoring the evidence of historical biblical scholarship” (ibid.). A whole host of faulty assumptions occur in this paragraph, such as that inerrantists and fundamentalists are synonymous, that the changes made to the codex in later centuries can have any impact on one’s belief in the inerrancy of the autographs, that the whole issue of canonicity is in some way altered by this codex, or even that knowledge of this manuscript is only now coming to light. All this really shows is that the author is ignorant of both inerrantists and Sinaiticus.

“The first part of what is now considered the Bible — from Genesis to 1 Chronicles — is missing” (CBC News [Canada], 7-6-09). Not completely true. Portions of the early books of the Old Testament were discovered in 1975 at St. Catherine’s Monastery and are now on-line. As far as the extant Sinaiticus, this statement was true prior to 1975, but the article is a bit behind the times.

“The Codex is not a work of perfection but a work in progress, bearing the material traces of emendation and construction. You can see how the Christian narrative was constructed and revised” (The Guardian, 7-8-09). This is not exactly false, but it is misleading. It sounds as if the author is saying that the Christian faith was materially affected by the ‘corrections’ in this manuscript. But textual critics know that later corrections to a manuscript are generally done by a different standard and do nothing to help us determine the wording of the original text of said manuscript. In this case, as Klaus Wachtel of Muenster demonstrated at the Sinaiticus Conference in London this last week, the later correctors (after the manuscript left the scriptorium) were conforming the text of Sinaiticus to the medieval Byzantine standard text, not to the text(s) from which it was copied.

“And some familiar—very important—passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus” (CNN, 7-6-09). Another rather misleading statement. The one text that refers to the resurrection that CNN has in mind is Mark 16.9–20, a passage that biblical scholars for the past 125 have increasingly come to view as inauthentic. Yet, what is lacking in Sinaiticus has been known for centuries, since the same passage is not found in Codex Vaticanus, a manuscript known since 1475. Further, it’s not the resurrection, but resurrection appearances to the disciples that is missing from Sinaiticus’s ending of Mark. However, three times in Mark (in Sinaiticus) Jesus predicts his own resurrection, and the abrupt end of the Gospel at 16.8 thus seems to function as an open-ended invitation to those who would follow Christ. (See my chapter, ““Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel,” in Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views, ed. D. A. Black [Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008]).

“Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years” (ibid.). I can only assume that CNN garbled what Garces actually said. As this statement scans now, it seems that Garces is saying that modern Bibles are based on the latest copies of manuscripts, rather than the earliest ones. Of course that’s not true, nor would Garces have suggested that it is. In the past 125+ years, scholars are getting closer and closer to the wording of the autographic text of the New Testament because of improved methods of investigation, better historical reconstructions, new discoveries, and clearer photographs of these manuscripts.

Introducing Sheik Hilali

2009-07-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

I believe this video makes an excellent introduction of Sheik Hilali, former Grand Mufti of Australia. His track record is disgusting and I believe Bolt makes a good point - if he isn't meant to represent the psyche of Australian Muslims, why is he still in?

The Deity of Christ Hub

2009-07-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

The hub page for posts related to the issue of the deity of Christ.

Jesus said, "I and the Father are One" - some examples of Jesus' claims to be deity
The Myth: The Early Church did not Believe Christ to be Divine - the deity of Christ was a belief before the New Testament was even written.
The Deity of Christ - R.C. Sproul
The Subordination of Christ - R.C. Sproul
Dr James White responds to Zakir Naik - the Deity of Christ (video)

Examining Ehteshaam Gulam's Deceptive Use of Josephus

2009-06-15T01:40:00.000-07:00

Here Gulam attempts to use Jesus' non-existence arguments against the historicity of the crucifixion. By dismissing the non-Christian evidence as such (in line with the extremely unsound hypothesis of G.A. Wells he cites in Who Was Jesus?) he is dehistoricizing Jesus. This approach is rather unsound.

The manner by which he approaches this is a clear demonstration of his inadequacy in historical investigation and complete ignorance of historical scholarship. For Josephus' accounts he states:

Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, lived as the earliest non-Christian who mentions a Jesus. Although many scholars think that Josephus' short accounts of Jesus (in Antiquities) came from interpolations perpetrated by a later Church father (most likely, Eusebius), Josephus' birth in 37 C.E., well after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus, puts him out of range of an eyewitness account. Moreover, he wrote Antiquities in 93 C.E., after the first gospels got written! Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay.

As is evident in his first sentence he is tainted greatly by the fringe Christ Myth theorists. He states Flavius was the earliest non-Christian to mention "a Jesus". Josephus mentions other Jesus' who we know are not the historical Jesus we have in mind. For example, there is Jesus the son of Sapphias (Wars 20.4.566) and Jesus the brother of John (Antiquities 7.1.298). Any reading of the primary source material (Josephus' various texts) or secondary text will make this fact abundantly clear.

The second point made is that, "many scholars" believe that Josephus' mentions of Jesus of Nazareth came from later interpolations. This is simply incorrect. Most scholars do not think this.

The shorter mention of Jesus:

... 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,[1]

In line with the New Testament accounts we have James the brother of Jesus. This mention is not doubted by any major scholar as anything other than authentic. Also to note, this text is recounting a history that we do not find in the New Testament. Therefore, we have reliable extra-biblical witness to the events of Jesus and his early ministry.

This text in light of Gulam's snide 'a Jesus' remark makes it clear that this Jesus (of others mentioned in Josephus) is the Jesus we are after. The brother of James and the one who was called the Messiah (Christ).

Regarding the authenticity:

"Josephus (Ant. 20.200) describes how the high priest Ananus took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus in A.D. 62 to organize a mob to stone James, whom he identifies as "the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ." Few scholars have questioned the genuineness of this passage."
Professor Edwin M. Yamauchi

The next mention of Jesus is where we have some problems. This is a longer text that shows some Christian embelishment. However, the fact that Josephus mentioned Jesus here is not a question of doubt.

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek [meaning “Gentile,” that is, non-Jewish] origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day, the tribe of Chris tians (named after him) has not died out.

What do scholars have to say on the authenticity?

"In the part of this embellished text that VIRTUALLY ALL REGARD AS AUTHENTIC Josephus describes Jesus as a teacher and wonderworker who was accused by the leading men (i.e., ruling priests) before the Roman governor."
Bruce Chilton, Craig A. Evans, Jacob Neusner, 'The Missing Jesus' p.21

So, from Josephus we can take away 10 facts that most scholars agree upon:

(1) Jesus was known as a wise and virtuous man, one recognized for his good conduct. (2) He had many disciples, both Jews and Gentiles. (3) Pilate condemned him to die, (4) with crucifixion explicitly being mentioned as the mode. (5) The disciples reported that Jesus had risen from the dead and (6) that he had appeared to them on the third day after his crucifixion. (7) Consequently, the disciples continued to proclaim his teachings. (8) Perhaps Jesus was the Messiah concerning whom the Old Testament prophets spoke and predicted wonders. We would add here two facts from Josephus’ earlier quotation as well. (9) Jesus was the brother of James and (10) was called the messiah by some.[2]

Gulam goes on to say that the source was probably Chrisitans anyway - however, this need not be so. A probable scenario as suggested by Marcus Borg is that "he learned about Jesus from non-Christian Jews, probably before moving to Rome in the 60s. Perhaps this is how non-Christian Jews commonly spoke about Jesus." (Marcus Borg, Jesus p.31)

As is evident, the scholars present a very different picture to that Gulam would insist everyone think

_______
1. Josephus, Flavius ; Whiston, William: The Works of Josephus : Complete and Unabridged. Peabody : Hendrickson, 1996, c1987, S. Ant 20.200
2. Habermas, Gary R. ; Habermas, Gary R.: The Historical Jesus : Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. Joplin, Mo. : College Press Pub. Co., 1996, S. 195

Who was Jesus? A Christian-Muslim Debate

2009-05-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Cost of Discipleship (Matthew 10:34-38)

2009-05-11T05:02:00.000-07:00

Some commentaries on Matthew 10:34-49

10:34. Throughout the next section (vv. 34–39) the focus is upon the absolute priority of one’s relationship to Jesus (note the personal pronouns “I,” “me,” and “my”). The tone of the section is set by Jesus’ startling announcement that the purpose of his coming was not to bring peace, but a sword. The words are intended to counter the faulty notion (μὴ νομίσητε, mē nomisēte, cf. 5:17) that Jesus’ messianic vocation means that an era of peace and tranquility has now come. Although some Jewish traditions anticipated an age of peace when the Messiah arrives (see Isa 9:5–7; 11:6; 66:25; Zech 9:9–10; 1 Chr 22:9; cf. Luke 2:14), the peace that Jesus offers does not insure the absence of conflict or social disruptions. In fact, Jesus has not come to bring a stability associated with the absence of fighting, but rather his presence provokes a hostility associated with open warfare. The symbol of the “sword,” not the “dove,” is more appropriate when describing the impact of Jesus’ messianic vocation. The metaphor of “sword” is not intended to convey the use of violent force, but symbolizes divided loyalties, even within family units, because of the demands of the kingdom. As the next two verses make clear (vv. 35–36), the closest of human relationships are sometimes divided by the “sword” that Jesus brings.

10:35–36. Jesus’ coming has the effect of turning members of the same household against one another. Using the language of Micah 7:6 (see v. 21), Jesus envisions discord and animosity among family members because the message of the kingdom places people in a crisis of decision, either for or against. Basic conventional norms and loyalties are shattered by the priority of the kingdom of God as announced by Jesus. There is no neutrality or mutual toleration, one either responds favorably to the message or violently rejects it. The result is that a man’s enemies will be members of his own household. Such disruptions are inevitable in households because light and darkness cannot mutually coexist.

10:37. In the midst of such conflict and the loss of familial security it is tempting to compromise one’s loyalties. However, Jesus insists that absolute priority must be given one’s relationship to him, even over family ties. In other words, when the “sword” of the kingdom results in family divisions the disciple must make his allegiance clear. The failure to be aligned with Jesus, even against family members, means the forfeiture of one’s status as a disciple (=not worthy of me). Jesus’ demand of total allegiance on such a personal level is certainly unprecedented within the rabbinic tradition.

10:38–39. The extravagant devotion called for by Jesus in verse 37 is graphically spelled out in verses 38–39. The vivid metaphorical reference to taking up one’s cross captures the imagery of a condemned man forced to carry the means of his own execution. Jesus charges the one who would follow him to actively take up the cross and follow him in a voluntary act of self-denial and obedience. Their solidarity with Jesus demands that the disciples walk the same path of sacrificial obedience. As noted by Hagner: “Taking up one’s cross refers not to the personal problems or difficulties of life that one must bear, as it is sometimes used in common parlance, but to a radical obedience that entails self-denial and, indeed, a dying to self. To take up one’s cross is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who is the model of such radical obedience and self-denial (cf. 4:1–11).”¹¹ With these words Jesus has provided the most explicit reference to the violent fate that awaits him (cf. 16:21–24). The paradoxical saying of verse 39 reinforces the message of verse 38 and puts it into proper perspective.¹² If the disciples are to emulate Jesus’ sacrificial ministry they must embrace a perspective wherein “life” for Jesus’ sake is perceived as of greater value than even one’s physical life. While alignment with Jesus may result in the sacrifice of one’s present life, in the end the faithful disciple reaps the reward of eternal life. It is thus in the interest of life in the fullest that the disciple fearlessly faces the prospects of death.

¹¹Hagner, Matthew, p. 293.

¹²Weaver, Missionary Discourse, p. 116.

Chouinard, Larry: Matthew. Joplin, Mo. : College Press, 1997 (The College Press NIV Commentary), S. Mt 10:34

The Cost of Discipleship

10:34.
It was generally believed that there would be great sufferings before the end, and that the Messiah would lead his people in a triumphant war, followed by a time of peace. Jesus assures his listeners that the promised era of peace is yet some time off and goes on to explain the nature of the current sufferings and conflict.

10:35–36.
The context of Micah 7:6, cited here, describes the awful evils in the land and the untrustworthiness of even the closest relatives and friends that would continue until the Lord would come to vindicate those who hoped in him. Given the belief held by many Jewish people that a time of sufferings would precede the end, the disciples would probably have understood this saying as suggesting that they were already experiencing the sufferings of that time.

10:37.
Jesus here expounds on the text just cited (Mic 7:6) to make a point virtually inconceivable to most of his hearers. Loving family members, especially parents, was one of the highest duties in Judaism; the only one who could rightfully demand greater love was God himself (Deut 6:4–5; cf. Deut 13:6–11; 2 Macc 7:22–23).

10:38.
A condemned criminal would carry on his back the horizontal beam of the cross out to the site of his execution, generally amid an antagonistic, jeering mob. This verse means a shameful, painful road to a dreadful execution.

10:39.
Most Jewish people contrasted the life of this world with the life of the world to come.

Keener, Craig S. ; InterVarsity Press: The IVP Bible Background Commentary : New Testament. Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1993, S. Mt 10:32-39

A Price to Pay 10:34–39

As noted above in the preview of the unit, verses 34–39 stress the high cost of following Jesus. Matthew has combined several shorter sayings here (cf. Luke 12:49–53; 14:25–33; 17:33). In the first saying (vv. 34–36), Jesus speaks of the conflict (sword) that his mission evokes and contrasts this with the peace expected in the messianic era (cf. Isa. 9:2–6). The source of this conflict is the need to decide for or against Jesus, which divides households right down the middle. As a result, family members may turn against each other, a situation described with language from Micah 7:6 (cf. v. 21).

The second saying (vv. 37–38) continues to address the topic of family opposition, making it clear that discipleship must take precedence over all other relationships (cf. the even stronger language in Luke 14:26). In this saying we find the first of two references in Matthew to taking up one’s cross (cf. 16:24). Here the metaphor denotes a readiness to endure family hostility—and the violent end to which that ultimately might lead. The final saying, on finding and losing one’s life (v. 39), is found in one form or another in all four of the gospels (cf. Mark 8:35; Luke 17:33; John 12:25). According to Jesus, faithful witnesses who endure maryrdom will find life anew in the kingdom. Those who deny Jesus to preserve their lives, however, will lose the life that matters most.

Gardner, Richard B.: Matthew. Scottdale, Pa. : Herald Press, 1991 (Believers Church Bible Commentary), S. 178

Constantine and Christianity

2009-05-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

Dr Greg Clarke of the Centre for Public Christianity discusses Constantine and early Christianity with Emeritus Professor Edwin Judge. This is just one of a number of interviews with Professor Judge on a number of historical issues and their relation to Christianity which can be found here.

Importance of the Historicity of Jesus (Quote)

2009-04-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

"...despite numerous attempts in this century to turn Christianity into a philosophy of life, it is and has always been a historical religion - one that depends on certain foundational events, particularly the death and resurrection of Jesus, as having happened in space and time.

A faith that does not ground the Christ of personal experience in the Jesus of history is a form of docetic or gnostic heresy, for it implies that what actually happened in and during Jesus' life is inconsequential to Christian faith."

Ben Witherington III, 'The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth' p.11

Brief Commentary: Was Jesus Crucified? (Answering-Christian-Claims.com)

2009-04-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

The claim by Ehteshaam Gulam of answering-Christian-claims goes:

Some Christian Apologetics claim that Jesus had to have been killed on the cross, due to the historical record. They claim that there are several documents in the 1st century that prove that Jesus was crucified. However the fact is that these "sources" of the crucifixion of Jesus come from authors who lived after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus.none of their accounts serve as eyewitness evidence for any alleged crucifixion of Jesus. There were over 60 historians in the 1st century in the Roman world. Yet only two non-Christian sources in the entire 1st century mention that Jesus was crucified. Here I'll analyze both Josephus and Tacitus sources and explain why they shouldn't be trusted as evidence.

Interestingly enough, a Muslim who bases their belief in the actions of Muhammad from traditions penned hundreds of years after the death of Muhammad is attacking the reliability of first century historians. The crucifixion of Jesus in the minds of even the most skeptical of historians is seen as a historical fact. As stated by John Dominic Crossan, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.”[1]

We are informed that there were over 60 historians in the Roman world in the first century, yet we only have two non-Christians recording Jesus’ crucifixion. I invited anyone to take note of the size of the Roman Empire within the first century here. Now, tell me the logic behind expecting every non-Christian historian to record an event that occurred on the outskirts of the Empire in a region not even seen worthy enough to be ruled by the senatorial class or aristocracy of Rome.

If we look at what we do have, we have a substantial number of independent historical witnesses that testify to the crucifixion of Christ.

The author then goes on to dismiss Josephus and Tacitus without any solid justification. because they were not primary witnesses to the event. They claim that “many scholars’ believe Josephus’ reference to Jesus to be interpolations. This is incorrect, and a misrepresentation of textual critical scholarship on Josephus. It is to be noted, that the majority of scholars believe Josephus to have authentically mentioned Jesus and his crucifixion. The claims of interpolation refer to embellishments such as admission of Jesus being the Christ. To dismiss Josephus’ account on this bases is scholarly dishonest.

Furthermore, without establishing reasons against the historicity of Josephus and Tacitus they are simply dismissed for writing after the event. In fact, they go as far to say that Christians “unwittingly or deceptively violate the rules of historiography by using after-the-event writings as evidence for the event itself.” With regard to this, I hate to point out that all literary historical evidence is composed after the event. That is why it is history and not the present – or a real-time media source such as a photograph or video from the first century.

As all historians know, simply dismissing a historical source as hearsay for being composed within a generation or two is simply bad history. This is especially significant in the case where oral testimony of historical matters was generally reliable and the true way in which the people of the time engaged in history. It is not Christian apologists who embarrass themselves by allegedly abandoning historical method but our Muslim friend. In short, no reason to reject the historical evidence is presented.

Our friend then turns to the Bible to prove his point, and I shall touch on this briefly before I end this part:

Now it gets interesting, nowhere in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John does it say that Jesus was resurrected. In the words of Dr.Naik "Not a single verse in any of the Gospels mention that Jesus was resurrected."

This is very interesting, especially as the historical account for the resurrection is so firmly grounded in these texts. I am sure this is another semantics game – although the text clearly and repeatedly state that Jesus was crucified, died, buried, rose again and visisted the disciples – it did not happen unless the text states verbatim “Jesus was resurrected on Easter.”

If we turn to the Gospel of John, for example:

Jesus is crucified and died:

Whenhe had received the sour wine, Jesus said, “It is completed!”Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:30

Jesus was checked and confirmed dead:

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

John 19:33

Just incase they double checked:

But one of the soldiers piercedhis side with a spear, and blood and water flowed out immediately.

John 19:34

Jesus’ body was laid in a tomb:

And so, because it was the Jewish day of preparationand the tomb was nearby, they placed Jesus’ body there.

John 19:42

The tomb is then found empty:

So she went running to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

John 20:2

Jesus was then alive, visiting his disciples who confirmed the marks of his crucifixion:

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

John 20:20

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and examine my hands. Extend your hand and put it into my side. Do not continue in your unbelief, but believe.

John 20:27

This reminds me of an explicit resurrection. Some might even say that the text talks about that Jesus rose from the dead and the disciples were not expecting it, “For they did not yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead.” (John 20:9)

…To be continued

A 'Scholarly' Polemic/Apologetic site?

2009-04-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

Another Muslim site that I probably would never have come across if David Wood had not debated its author. Wood recently debated Ehteshaam Gulam on the topic of Was Jesus Crucified?

What they do right...

I empathise with the motives of the site. Gulam wishes to propagate his beliefs and he wishes to do so at a convincing academic and scholarly level:

Because here I use the best scholarship possible to respond to various claims about Christianity and Islam. This site is a “academic” site in favor of Islam.[1]

This claim seems to be a hallmark which is often appealed to. Of course, it is a noble idea and he attempts to carry it out with integrity. For example, Gulam reviews the book What Did Jesus Really Say by Misha’al Ibn Abdullah. Gulam takes the initiative to critique the complete disregard for solid scholarship of a fellow Muslims polemicist against Christianity which is something I do not see from most amateur Muslim polemicists.

However, although he can recognise the flaws in other polemics what if we were to turn the light on his use of scholarship? It is one thing to claim to endorse a scholarly approach - and it is also another thing to employ it within your own writings.

Who are the scholars?

As a student of history, specifically Second Temple Judaism, Sectarian writings and Early Christianity, I am well aware of where the mainstream of academic scholarship stands. When illinformed critics present outdated and generally poor arguments about Christainity I can get rather irritated. So at the forefront of my mind when applying this historical method to early Islam, I am always conscious of where my sources stand within the generally accepted scholarly view.

In observing the references of Gulam's site, it seems his claims are far from the scholarly level he wishes to believe in. His main references seem to be those of fringe scholars at best, and often people who are neither scholars nor proficient in the topic they present. Among them:

Richard Carrier
Robert Funk
Gerald Massey
Zakir Naik
Ahmed Deedat

This is not all, but most of those whom I have seen cited or praised across the website. Within the list, only two would be considered scholars. Ahmed Deedat and Zakir Naik are by no stretch of the imagination scholars - nor can any of their works even almost be passed off as something scholarly. Their respective texts are generally no more than unreferenced fantastical criticisms or affirmations with a sole agenda of propagating Islam, often through deception. With regard to Gerald Massey, he was a 19th century poet and hobby Egyptologist.

Now, with the remaining two - they are indeed educated scholars. The late Robert Funk was one of the few real and reputable scholars of the controversial Jesus Seminar and Dr Carrier is prominent online Greco-Roman historian and naturalistic philosopher. However, these scholars and their works stand in a special place on the scholarly spectrum - that is, to the fringe. Their controversial theses are thoroughly contested by the mainstream of both believing and unbelieving scholarship. Personally, with my background in sectarian literature of the Second Temple periodS I feel very strongly against Dr Carrier's approach but that is another issue.

The Point...

When people claim to utilised scholarly argumentation you must ask yourself who are their scholars. If, like in the above case, the majority are not scholars and the few scholars only represent a fringe of academic thought - is their representation truly honest?

Just some final recommendations to Ehteshaam Gulam. To broaden your spectrum on the issues of the historical Jesus and early Christianity I recommend a few books:

Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth by Professor Ben Witherington III. This text covers where the majority of scholars stand on the issue of historical Jesus studies. It emphasises the Jewish context of the historical Jesus, among other things.
The Missing Gospels by Professor Darrell L. Bock - on early Christian diversity and 'alternative' texts.
A few books by N.T. Wright on the historicity of Jesus and the physical resurrection.

Post Script:

Just to reitarate something I have mentioned earlier while commenting on the abuse of scholarship. I am not setting a caveat against the use of fringe scholars. I myself have used fringe scholars - however, for my readers I do employ caution and point out that to most the thesis is not widely accepted. Why I use controversial scholars sometimes, as do others, is not for the personal affinity to the scholarship for polemic or apologetic reasons. I use them when I find their arguments convincing and sound in some way or another.

See also:

Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts at San'a - Gerd R. Puin

2009-04-28T08:01:00.001-07:00

I have recently digitised Gerd R. Puin's 1996 article Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts at San'a. The paper was originally published in English in The Qur'an as Text (edited by Stefan Wild).

If you leave your email address below I will forward a PDF copy of the article. Alternatively, in picture form:

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[The order is currently incorrect, I will fix this shortly]

Muhammad's Marriages

2009-04-26T00:06:00.000-07:00

On a Muslim website there was a question in the category of "Many Allegations from a Christian." The question was answered in a very dishonest way.

16) Why did he instruct Muslims to only have 4 wives yet he changed it for himself to have more than 20?

The author answers, "This is yet another lie against Prophet Muhammad as he never married more than 20 wives."

The author intentionally avoids answering the question. It is a fact that the Qur'an stated that a man should have only up to four wives (Surah 4:3). Muhammad even forced men to divorce wives so they had less than four:

Narrated Al-Harith ibn Qays al-Asadi
I embraced Islam while I had eight wives. So I mentioned it to the Prophet (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Select four of them.
Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 12, Number 2233

However, Muhammad, who is exhorted as being the perfect example for human kind took more than four wives. This is attested to by mulitiple authentic hadith and accepted by Muslims:

Narrated Qatada:
Anas bin Malik said, "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the Prophet the strength for it?" Anas replied, "We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men)." And Sa'id said on the authority of Qatada that Anas had told him about nine wives only (not eleven).
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 5, Number 268

Narrated 'Ata:
We presented ourselves along with Ibn 'Abbas at the funeral procession of Maimuna at a place called Sarif. Ibn 'Abbas said, "This is the wife of the Prophet so when you lift her bier, do not Jerk it or shake it much, but walk smoothly because the Prophet had nine wives and he used to observe the night turns with eight of them, and for one of them there was no night turn."
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 5

Narrated Anas bin Malik:
The Prophet used to pass by (have sexual relation with) all his wives in one night, and at that time he had nine wives.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 142

Once again, we find the author employing deception to hide the hypocrisy of Muhammad.

A Critique of "We Love Jesus Too" (DiscoverIslamAustralia)

2009-04-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to appeal to the Christian culture of Australia, Discover Islam Australia makes much use of Jesus. They attempt to propagate a similarity between the Jesus of the historical New Testament and the Jesus of Muhammad, the Qur'an and the spurious traditions.

They have taken the liberty to launch the blog "We Love Jesus Too". Here is a brief evaluation of some of the points:

His name is Esa in Arabic as well as in the Aramaic which is the language Jesus spoke.

This point is actually incorrect, and being such causes many problems for Islam.

Jesus' name in Aramaic was Yeshua from the Hebrew Yehoshua. Similarly, his Arabic name would not be Esa ('Isa) but Yasu.

With regard to the origins of Isa, scholars have this to say:

“The fact that Isa has no satisfactory derivation and no pre-Koranic history should have alerted scholars to the possibility that the word is a mistake”.
Professor James A. Bellamy, 'Textual Criticism of the Koran', Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 121 No 1 (Jan-Mar).

Hence, there is no reason to suggest that Jesus' name was Isa. In fact, Professor Bellamy sees its origins in the Qur'an as a mistake.

"We do not believe that he was crucified but that God raised him to the heavens"

Regarding the claim that "We do not believe that he was crucified but that God raised him to the heavens" one is going against historical facts. Even the most anti-Christian historians agree that Jesus was crucified (which, ironically is in fulfilment of the scriptures). Some of these non-Christian scholars:

“One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Ponitus Pilate.”
-Bart D. Ehrman

“Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”
- Gert Lüdemann

“That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”
- John D. Crossan

“The passion of Jesus is part of history.”
- Geza Vermes

“The single most solid fact about Jesus’ life is his death: he was executed by the Roman prefect Pilate, on or around Passover, in the manner Rome reserved particularly for political insurrectionists, namely, crucifixion.”
- Paula Fredriksen

“The support for the mode of his death, its agents, and perhaps its co-agents, is overwhelming: Jesus faced a trial before his death, was condemned, and was executed by crucifixion”
-L.T. Johnson

(I thank the team of answeringmuslims.com for providing these references.)

Regarding the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, see an earlier post, A three part video series by Dr John Dickson of the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX).

Conclusion

I do not understand how you can believe in Jesus but not believe what he had to say about himself. You state, "We do not believe that Jesus is God or the son of God."

Jesus identified himself as the only "Son of God" (John 3:18); he stated "I and the Father are one." (John 10:30); he was worshipped by his disciples and called Lord and God, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28); He claimed to exist in the beginning, "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” (John 17:5); the list goes on.

See also:

A Critique of Why Follow Muhammad? (DiscoverIslamAustralia)

2009-04-24T14:09:00.000-07:00

A Critique of Why Follow Muhammad?

A short booklet titled Why Follow Muhammad? appears on the page. It makes a number of outstanding and dishonest claims, specifically towards Christianity.

The authors state:

None of these [New Testament] writings is dated prior to the year 70CE.

The claim that none of the writings of the New Testament are dated to prior 70CE is simply false. Scholars, including the liberal John A.T. Robinson, have dated the composition of the entire New Testament corpus prior to 70AD (see John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament p.352 for an overview). Some of the dates by Robinson's hypothesis include the Epistle of James in 45-46 AD; the Gospel of Mark in c. 45-60; the Gospel of John c. -40-65+.

More mainstream dates among sceptical scholars still generally place the Pauline corpus of texts to before 70 AD with texts such as Galatians from around 45-55 AD.

In short, such a statement has no genuine scholarly support and for that reason it remains unreferenced.

Thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament were collected, but none of them is older than the fourth century CE;...Some scattered papyrus fragments found in Egypt can lay claim to no greater antiquity than the third century.

Here we find a claim more alarming than that of above. The author claims that from the thousands of Greek manuscripts we possess, "none of them is older than the fourth century CE" and that we have "some" fragments that are no earlier than the third century.

There is no truth to the claim that we have no Greek manuscripts of the New Testament until the 3rd-4th century and those strained to be dated to the 3rd are fragmentary.

First thing to note, we do contain a substantial amount of the New Testament from before the 4th century AD. One of our oldest manuscripts (generally held to be the oldest by many) is a fragment of the gospel of John known as Papyrus 52. This text has been dated to as early as the first quarter of the 2nd century. In fact, from the second century alone there are 10-13 manuscripts.[1] According to the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung ten of these manuscripts from within the second century alone include:

P⁵² (100-150), P^{90, 104} (2^nd century), P⁶⁶ (c. AD 175-225), P^{46, 64+67} (c. AD 200), P⁷⁷, P¹⁰³, 0189 (2^nd or 3^rd century), P⁹⁸ (2^nd century?). [2]

From these manuscripts (which according to our Muslim friend do not exist) we find that, "over 43% of all the verses in the NT are already found in MSS within 100 years of the completion of the NT"[3]

Once again we find the claim to be unfounded conjecture.

The author then goes on to make some false claims with regard to the Bible and translations. For example, he asserts that the Greek was a 3rd century translation from Syriac. However, as is demonstrated above we have Greek manuscripts from the beginning of the 2nd century.

It is curious that some seventy different versions of the Gospel were prepared, four of which were approved by the leaders of the Christian religion

First, it is evident to note that the claim is unreferenced and the citation only links to their own false assertions.

With regard to the crux (that appeared within the text and not footnoted), the claim is made that Christian leaders chose four of seventy different versions of the Gospels. This is simply not true. The only case that is remotely similar to this is the following event: "About the year 332 the Emperor Constantine, wishing to promote and organize Christian worship in the growing number of churches in the capital city, directed Eusebius to have fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures made by practised scribes and written legibly on parchment."[4] First thing to note is this event, which took place 7 years after the Council of Nicaea, was with regard to distributing copies of the Scriptures. They were not many different versions. It is also important to note that the Council of Nicaea, which the author links to the council where the alleged events occured, did not deal with the issue of canon.

For the development of the canon in clear English see my previous post, Canon, Textual Criticism and More with Bruce Metzger.

These were the main objections made against the New Testament. As is evident, they have all been false. However, let us look at how they approach the Qur'an.

Although the author took the time to criticise the New Testament manuscript record, this is avoided in their evaluation of the critique. However, it is to be noted that the Qur'an has issues in this regard, unlike the New Testament, which puts it to the authors advantage to ignore:

"There is no hard evidence for the existence of the Koran in any form before the last decade of the seventh century, and the tradition which places this rather opaque revelation in its historical context is not attested before the middle of the eighth. The historicity of the Islamic tradition is thus to some degree problematic: while there are no cogent internal grounds for rejecting it, there are equally no cogent external grounds for accepting it…the only way out of this dilemma is thus to step outside the Islamic tradition altogether and start again.”

P. Crone, M. Cook (1977) Hagarism: the Making of the Islamic World, p. 3

That is a convenient point to avoid after making such false claims about the manuscript witness of the New Testament.

The Quran is the pure Word of God not one word in it is not divine. Not a single word has been deleted from its text. The Book has been handed down to our age in its complete and original form since the time of Muhammad.

First of all, we know that the Qur'an is not perfectly preserved. Earlier this year I posted a blog with regard to my careful exmination of a few lines of texts as found in one of our oldest Quran manuscripts and compared it to those in use by Muslims tooday. Not only were there many variants in so few lines, the meaning of the text was actually contradictory depending on which text was used. This post can be found here.

This is another false claim propagated by the Muslim apologist. Unlike the New Testament, the Qur'an suffers from primitive corruption. That is, the entire Qur'an suffered so much editing and the remnants of such were lost that it is impossible to reconstruct the text prior to this. The great debates over the variant and evolving contents of the Quran can be found in this exert of the scholarly article, Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur'ān: A Brief Survey.

If we turn to the Islamic traditions, which the author defends as reliable, we find that there were in fact differences amongst the Quran verses delivered by Muhammad. As this narrative demosntrates, the differences were so great that the followers would physically fight:

"Umar bin Khattab [the second Caliph] said, 'I heard Hisham bin Hakim bin Hizam reciting Surat Al-Furqan ["Al-Furqan," the title of the 25th surah, has no meaning in any language.] during the lifetime of Allah's Apostle. I listened to his recitation and noticed that he recited it in several ways which Allah's Apostle had not taught me. So I was on the point of attacking him in the prayer, but I waited till he finished, and then I seized him by the collar. "Who taught you this Surah which I have heard you reciting?" He replied, "Allah's Apostle taught it to me." I said, "You are lying. Allah's Apostle taught me in a different way this very Surah which I have heard you reciting." So I led him to Muhammad. "O Allah's Apostle! I heard this person reciting Surat-al-Furqan in a way that you did not teach me." The Prophet said, "Hisham, recite!" So he recited in the same way as I heard him recite it before. On that Allah's Apostle said, "It was revealed to be recited in this way." Then the Prophet said, "Recite, Umar!" So I recited it as he had taught me. Allah's Apostle said, "It was revealed to be recited in this way, too." He added, "The Qur'an has been revealed to be recited in several different ways, so recite of it that which is easier for you." (Bukhari:V6B61N561)

Conclusion

The deception of this text is clear. The author maliciously lies with regard to the textual integrity of the New Testament to slander the texts reliability whilst on the other hand they lie about the perfect preservation of the Qur'an to increase the claims of its reliability.

1. Daniel B. Wallace, Second Century Papyri: "This means that there are at least ten and as many as thirteen NT MSS"
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origins, Development, and Significance p.206

DiscoverIslamAustralia.com - An Examination of the Claims

2009-04-24T13:52:00.001-07:00

I recently came across a website by the name of Discover Islam Australia. The site is flashy and attempts to propagate Islam - specifically to Christian audiences (as evident by the multiple references to Jesus.) After a few minutes reading the site acnd its literature - many dishonest claims popped up. I will use this page to document the many lies and provide meaningful rebuttals.

Index

I have recently started a new blog to respond to the deception of the site:
http://discoverislamaustralia.blogspot.com/

www.discoverislamaustrali.com discover islam australia "Discover Islam Australia"

Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur'ān: A Brief Survey

2009-04-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

This post in an exert from the scholarly article, "Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur'ān: A Brief Survey" by Hossein Modarressi.

Sunnite literature contains many reports that suggest that some of the revelation had already been lost before the collection of the Qur'an initiated by Abi Bakr. It is reported, for example, that 'Umar was once looking for the text of a specific verse of the Qur'an he vaguely remembered. To his deep sorrow, he discove-red that the only person who had any record of that verse had been killed in the battle of Yamama and that the verse was consequen-tly lost. (16) 'Umar allegedly had a recollection of a Qur'anic verse on stoning as a punishment for adultery.(17) But he could not convince his colleagues to insert it in the Qur'an because nobody else came forward to support him,(18) and the requirement that there be two witnesses for any text to be accepted as a part of the Qur'an was therefore not met. Later, however, some other Companions recalled that same verse,(19) including 'A'isha, the Prophet's youngest wife. She is alleged to have said that a sheet on which two verses, including that on stoning, were recorded was under her bedding and that after the Prophet died, a domestic animal(20) got into the room and gobbled up the sheet while the
household was preoccupied with his funeral. (21) 'Umar also remembered other verses he thought dropped out (saqata) from the Qur'an(22) or were lost, including one on being dutiful to parents (23) and another on jihad. (24) His claim regarding the first of the two was supported by three other early authorities on the Qur'an: Zayd b. Thabit, 'Abd Allah b. 'Abbas, and Ubayy b. Ka'b. (25) Anas b. Malik remembered a verse which was revealed in the occasion of some Muslims who were killed in a battle, but was later "lifted." (26) 'Umar's learned son, 'Abd Allah, (27) as well as some later scholars, (28) maintained that much of the Qur'an had perished before the collection was made.

Similar reports specifically addressed the official 'Uthmanic res-cension of the Qur'an. They reported that many prominent Companions could not find in that official text portions of the reve-lation they had themselves heard from the Prophet, or found them in a different form. Ubayy b. Ka'b, for instance, recited sura 98 (al-Bayyina) in a form he claimed to have heard from the Pro-phet. It included two verses unrecorded in the 'Uthmanic text. (29) He also thought that the original version of sura 33 (al-also Ahzab) had been much longer, from which he specifically remem-bered the stoning verse that is missing from the 'Uthmanic text. (30) His claim was supported by Zayd b. Thabit,(31) by 'A'isha (who reported that during the Prophet's lifetime the sura was about three times as long, although when 'Uthman collected the Qur'an he found only what was made available in his text), (32) and by IHudhayfa b. al-Yaman (who found some seventy verses missing in the new official text, verses that he himself used to recite during the lifetime of the Prophet). (33) Hudhayfa also contended that sura 9 (al-Bara'a) in its 'Uthmanic form was per-haps one-fourth (34) or one-third (35) of what it had been during the time of the Prophet, an idea later supported by the prominent 2nd/8th century jurist and traditionist Malik b. Anas, founder of the Maliki school of Islamic law.(36) There are also reports that suras 15 (al-Hijr) and 24 (al-Nur) had once been of a different length. (37) And Abf Musa al-Ash'ari recalled the existence of two long suras (one verse of each he still remembered) that he could not find in the present text. (38) One of the two verses he recalled ("If the son of Adam had two fields of gold he would seek a third one...") is also quoted from other Companions such as Ubayy,(39) Ibn Mas'ud,(40) and Ibn 'Abbas.(41) Maslama b. Mukhallad al-Ansari offered two further verses that are not in the 'Uthmanic text,(42) and 'A'isha came forward with a third.(43) Two short chapters known as Sarat al-Hafd and Sirat al-Khal' were recorded in the collections of Ubayy,(44) Ibn 'Abbas, and Abu Musa. (45) They were allegedly also known to 'Umar(46) and other Companions, (47) although no trace of either chapter is found in the official text. Ibn Mas'ud did not have suras 1, 113, and 114 in his collection, (48) but he had some extra words and phrases that were missing from the 'Uthmanic text. (49) He and many other Compa-nions also preserved some verses that differed from the official text.(50) There were also widely transmitted reports that after the death of the Prophet, 'All put all the parts of the Qur'an together(51) and presented it to the Companions; but they rejected it, and he had to take it back home. (52) These reports also sugges-ted that there were substantial differences between the various versions of the Qur'an.

Can we take the resurrection seriously?

2009-04-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

A three part video series by Dr John Dickson of the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX).

Part 1

Can we take the resurrection seriously? Part 1 from CPX on Vimeo.

Part 2

Can we take the resurrection seriously? Part 2 from CPX on Vimeo.

Part 3

Can we take the resurrection seriously? Part 3 from CPX on Vimeo.

Beating the Dead Horse: Da Vinci Code

2009-04-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

Contents:

Arianism = Islam?

1. It has been a while since the verbatim claims of the Da Vinci Code were levelled against myself. It was rather tedious, but this time there was an Islamic perspective attached. For example, apparently Arius and Arianism believed that Jesus was simply a prophet of God - no crucifixion, resurrection, atonement, et - and that the heretical sect lived on until Muhammad delivered the Qur'an in the 7th century.

This may not be the most effective way to deal with the issue, but it is historically correct and makes use of some good sources. So, was the Jesus of Arius the prophet of Islam 'Isa?

An Encyclopaedia

"Arius’s concept of the Christian godhead was monarchic, that is, it held that the first and unique absolute principle of divinity is the Father. Consequently, any other divine reality was considered by him as secondary to the Father. He applied this view first of all to the Logos, the Word of God, the Son who becomes the instrument of the divine plan of creation and salvation. The Son, being bound to the decision of the Father in the very process of his own generation as the Son, is not eternal in the same sense as the Father is eternal; more important, he is not eternal because only the Father is ungenerated. On the other hand, being the instrument of the fulfillment of the Father’s will, the Son is by nature linked with the divine creation. He is, so to speak, the first transcendent creature, the principle of all things."

Arianism, Gale Encyclopedia of Religion 2nd edition Volume 1.

A Sceptical non-Christian

"Arius tried to resolve the problem of the identity of Christ by maintaining that in the beginning there was only God the Father. But at some point in eternity past, God brought his Son into existence, and it was through this Son of God, Christ, that he created all things. Christ, then, was a divine being—but he was subordinate to God the Father as his first creation. And Christ was the one who brought into existence all else. He then became a human by being born of the Virgin; he died for sins, was raised from the dead, and continues to dwell with God, as God’s own Son, in heaven."

Bart D. Ehrman, Fact and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, p.21

A Christian

Arius believed that Jesus was a god, a created being, who then co-created the universe with the Father. But there was a time when He was not, declared Arius.

D. James Kennedy et al (2006), The Da Vinci Myth versus the Gospel Truth, p.40

I assume this fuflfills a requirement of multiple attestation. An Encyclopaedia, a champion of anti-Christian criticism and a conservative Christian. In my opinion, it is clear that the Jesus of Arius is most definately not the mere prophet 'Isa of Islam.

First Thoughts on Barbara Thiering and 'Jesus the Man'

2009-04-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

I will base this review on simply examining the unsound suppositions on which Thiering relies on building her fantastical thesis found on one single page of her book Jesus the Man. By no means will I attempt to deconstruct her entire thesis or delve into her gritty use and abuse of 'pesher'/'pesharim'[1].

The page to be examined is p.136 (which in actual fact is half a page of text as the chapter title takes up most of it). Page 136 is the first page of Chapter 30: 'Saul the Indignant Student'.[2]

1: In late AD 37, a young member of the order of Benjamin, by the name of Saul, was spending part of his prenovitiate year at Qumran.
2: Born in September, AD 17, he was just twenty years old.

Thiering makes a bold assertion. She adamantly claims that Saul (Paul of Tarsus) was spending time in Qumran near the Dead Sea. No footnote is provided and within the Pauline corpus of texts or the Dead Sea Scrolls (where Thiering's eisegetical approach is not employed) there is no evidence to backup this claim. She is using her own conjectural history as the starting point for the rest of her thesis on Paul.

We jump a head a few lines.

9. But it was not before Saul had taken part in the composition of a pesher on the prophet Habakkuk, a work that survived and has come to us in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Here, we find that Paul was not just at Qumran according to Thiering, but he also took part in composing the pesher of Habakkuk.[3] This assertion of Thiering is important in the framework of here thesis - however, does it stand up to scrutiny?

At the peripheral level, it is improbable that a man (whom by using Thiering's date was in their teens/early twenties at the time of composition) would be that "to whom God made known all mysteries of the words of His servants the prophets" (1QpHab 7:4-5; Vermes) and charged as the inspired interpreter of a couple of hundred year old community. One would also be left wondering why Paul would identify himself as a Pharisee (Acts 23:6; Philippians 3:5) while showing such contempt and distaste for the Pharisees in the pesher branding them defilers of the temple, seekers of smooth things, etc.

However, and more importantly, is the dating of the text 1QpHab that Thiering claims that Paul had a hand in composing. If we turn to the palaeographical findings as well as the AMS/C14 dating of the scrolls - there is no evidence to suggest a date as late as that which Thiering places the text.

If we turn to Geza Vermes in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English:

[T]he Habakkuk Commentary, chief source of the history of the Qumran sect, is definitely put in the pre-Christian era between 120 and 5 BCE. (p.13)

The palaeographical dating of the manuscript (30-1 BCE) has been confirmed by radiocarbon tests (120-5 BCE...) (p.509)

Timothy H. Lim in Pesharim (2002) explains the results of an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) test that took place in Arizona:

The results showed that 1QpHab has a calibrated age of 104-43 BCE in the one standard deviation range of confidence and of 120-125BCE (97%) in the two sigma range. These radiocarbon dates match the palaeographical date of 30-31 BCE of the early Herodian hand.(p. 21)

We find that the the bedrock for Thiering's hypothesis in regard to Paul, which can be tested, does not stand up to scrutiny. At the very least, there is a 60 year gap between the the dating of the text and when Thiering claims Paul composed it.

---------
1. Pesher/Pesharim is a method used by the Sectarian community of Qumran in exegeting and contemporising biblical texts. Although the scholarly consensus (as indicated by all evidence found within the Dead Sea Scroll corpus) on this sort of Midrash is just that - Thiering claims that these communities also constructed cryptic histories that she, using her own method of pesher, can uncover. Ironically enough, she claims these communities constructed the New Testament.

2. A picture of p.136: http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9171/picture018s.jpg

3. The pesher of Habakkuk is a Qumran Sectarian commentary on the minor prophetic book of Habakkuk found within the Hebrew Bible.

Christos Anesti! Alithos anesti!

2009-04-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today is the day I, and the (majority of) Eastern Churches, celebrate Easter. Easter is the celebration of Christ conquering death and antoning for our sins. One of the earliest creeds we have, received by Paul no later than 37AD from the Apostles of Jerusalem the historicity of the crucifixion and resurrection is established. It states:

For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,
15:5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
15:6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive,though some have fallen asleep.
15:7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
15:8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.
1 Corinthians 15:2-9 (NET)

I have attached an article by William Lane Craig on the historicity of the resurrection:

Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence
for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

William Lane Craig

After an appraisal of recent scholarship on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Professor William Craig contends that "the resurrection appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of the Christian faith - all point unavoidably to one conclusion: the resurrection of Jesus".

Source: "Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Truth 1 (1985): 89-95.

"Man," writes Loren Eisley, "is the Cosmic Orphan." He is the only creature in the universe who asks, Why? Other animals have instincts to guide them, but man has learned to ask questions. "Who am I?" he asks. "Why am I here? Where am I going?"

Ever since the Enlightenment, when modern man threw off the shackles of religion, he has tried to answer these questions without reference to God. But the answers that came back were not exhilarating, but dark and terrible. "You are an accidental by-product of nature, the result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death. Your life is but a spark in the infinite darkness, a spark that appears, flickers, and dies forever."

Modern man thought that in divesting himself of God, he had freed himself from all that stifled and repressed him. Instead, he discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself.

Against this background of the modern predicament, the traditional Christian hope of the resurrection takes on an even greater brightness and significance. It tells man that he is no orphan after all, but the personal image of the Creator God of the universe; nor is his life doomed in death, for through the eschatological resurrection he may live in the presence of God forever.

Continued...

See also:

Can we take the resurrection seriously? (Video with Dr John Dickson)

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T01:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter to everyone!
Christos Anesti!

When our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die--then at last the Scriptures will come true: "Death is swallowed up in victory."
1 Corinthians 15:54

Ehrman, Interrupted - A resource on Bart Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted

2009-04-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

Contents:

Ehrman on The Colbert Report
Ehrman on the divinity of Christ?
Dr James White's video response to Jesus, Interrupted
Professor Ben Witherington's Detailed Analysis of Jesus, Interrupted
Professor Darrell L. Bock's brief response and thoughts

1. Ehrman on The Colbert Report

Ehrman recently released a new book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). An amazing title.

To start off with something a little lighter - Ehrman appears on The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert to promote the book:

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Bart Ehrman

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

2. Ehrman on the Divinity?

Having read a lot of Ehrman's work, I find it odd that he is now arguing that the early traditions of Jesus did not believe him to be divine. In the interview he states, "Jesus who is portrayed as a human Messiah in the earliest parts of Christianity" For example, the earliest writings we have on Jesus portray him as divine. We have the creed in Philippians 2 which scholars believe pre-dates any other preserved Christian text. In fact, Ehrman argues this point in his 2003 book Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code.

For Paul—and presumably for the Philippians to whom he wrote—Christ was “in the form” of God and was, in some sense, equal with God, even though he became human.
Similar teachings can be found in other writings of the New Testament. One of Jesus’ common designations throughout these writings is “Son of God.” This is scarcely an epithet that came to be applied to Jesus on the basis of a close vote at the Council of Nicea hundreds of years later! Our earliest Gospel, that of Mark, begins by announcing its subject matter: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God” (Mark 1:1).
p.16

But wait, there is more:

"...the Gospels of the New Testament portray him as human as much as they portray him as divine;"
p.16

"This view of Jesus as divine is not restricted to Paul and the Gospels, however. It is the common view held among Christian writers of the early centuries."
p.17

This interview and what Ehrman has previously stated are difficult to reconcile.

In regard to the claim that the synoptic gospels do not present a divine Jesus, Dr James White has recommended the book Lord of Glory - A Study of the Designations of our Lord in the New Testament with Especial Reference to His Deity by Benjamin B. Warfield. The book may be purchased here, or freely (and legally) downloaded here.

3. Dr James White video response to Jesus, Interrupted

Dr James White addresses Ehrman's claims in Jesus, Interrupted including the issue raised by Ehrman with Colbert:

Dr James R. White - Ehrman vs. Luke and Mark

4. Professor Ben Witherington's Analysis of Jesus, Interrupted

Ben Witherington III is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is author of a number of good books on the historical Jesus (and Paul) among others.

His two part analysis may be found on his blog:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 (Coda)

5. Professor Darrell L. Bock's short Analysis

Darrell L. Bock is the Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. Bock is the author of a number of great books - his most famous among laymen being his Breaking the Da Vinci Code.

His short analysis can be found here

Jay Smith vs Adnan Rashid: Muhammad in the Bible?

2009-04-09T05:10:00.000-07:00

A great debate between Adnan and Jay. It is clear that the Qur'an (and this Adnan's claims) do not have a leg to stand on. Jay debates rather well, throwing the claim back in the Muslim corner - if you want to accept that this is Muhammad then you must accept what the Bible says about that person.

Rant on Wikipedia and Biblical Scholarship

2009-04-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

To declare my agenda - I am in a ranting mood.

I have been working on a research project on the use of biblical interpretation in the Jewish Sectarians at Qumran. (I.e. the people from the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.) I decided to check out what the Wikipedia article had to say on the topic (yes, a very scholarly resource!) and to my surprise - it was terrible. Okay, I lie - it was not to my surprise.

This brings me to the question - can Wikipedia be trusted on issues of Biblical scholarship?

The answer is a big NO.

The articles and their use/abuse of scholarship is simply disgusting. I turned to the article on Pesher. It only scratches on the surface of what Pesharim is but - bam - we have time for a massive chunk on "Barbara Thiering's Interpretation". Nevermind the fact that no one other than Thiering agrees with Thiering, we will present it as a salient approach to the topic.

If you were to turn to the long standing Gospel of Mark page prior to a few recent edits - you would go away thinking that everyone believes Mark was written after 135AD. In reality, I can only think of one person who believes that (i.e. Detering) but I am sure there are a few others out there. And just a little note - if anyone has actually read Detering's building up of this thesis in the infamous Journal of Higher Criticism you would make me proud if you could resist laughing. Simply dismissing history because, umm? My thesis wouldn't work without doing such - isn't an all too sound approach. But I do not count myself Journal of Higher Criticism or even Jesus Seminar material.

[NB: If I am ever in desperate need of quick cash I may become worthy of such with the publication of my new thesis 'Elements of Michael Bay filmography in the Synoptic Gospels: A New Perspective'. In short, I clearly idenfy where the authors of Luke & Matthew do not just source from Mark and Q but also incorporate narrative elements of Transformers (2007) and The Island (2005). I am sure that if I were to run into problems in claiming that the New Testament was only written in 2008 Detering could help me out.

And just a further note - even though I do not agree with the majority of what I have read with said authors, I see no reason to impede on their right to do such. My belief is simply that when their view is propagated - it should be done so with consideration where it stands as a fringe form of scholarship.]

Honestly, from the multitude of Wikipedia articles I have visited you would be convinced that- the author of John was a Pythagorean because he mentioned the number "153"; Paul was a Gnostic because - well, someone on a website said so; Bart D Ehrman shares the views of every radical scholar (whether it be associating him with the Jesus Seminar or agreeing with Pagels); scholars are convinced of Jesus' non-existence; the original orthodoxy was Gnostic; etc, etc.

Wikipedians have a serious problem - they take fringe scholarship, present it as the academic consensus, and then take it a step further and add their own 'and this disproves Christainity/the Bible/etc' hypothesis summary. In the end, we end up with an unscholarly and unsound opinion built on what is generally unsound and fringe pseudo-scholarship.

/rant

The 'New' Atheist's Questionable History

2009-04-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

A video by Dr John Dickson regarding the 'New Atheist's' use and abuse of historical evidence:

Dr John Dickson's article of a similar nature can be found here.

Does the God of Christianity exist, and what difference does it make? - William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, Lee Strobel, Jim Den

2009-04-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

Islamic Higher Criticism of Luke

2009-04-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

A few objections that were raised with me, copied from the infamous AC.

Who wrote Luke?

Claim:

The following is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
http://newadvent.org/cathen/14625b.htm http://newadvent.org/cathen/14625a.htm

If Theophilus existed in either the 2nd or the 4th centuries then how could the writer of this gospel be the same Luke who is supposed to be with Jesus in the 1st century.

Did he live for 200 years?

Response:

Here, the claim is that the Gospel of Luke was written in either the 2nd or 4th century because - well, they identified two Theophilus' whom were alive in those periods. The arbitrary nature of this claim is simply laughable. How do we know it wasn't talking about Theophilus Lindsey (1723–1808)? Or some pre-Christian Theophilus? It seems that this very thorough investigative technique of typing 'Theophilus' into the New Advent search was sufficient to expose the heavly guarded secrets of the Roman Catholic Church.

Just to clarify - there is absolutely no reason to suggest that those two (of many) Theophilus' are whom the gospel of Luke was written to and for. Similarly, some reasons against the arbitrary dating would be that we physically have manuscript evidence of the Gospel of Luke dating to the 2nd half of the 2nd century (e.g. P4 & P75).

Pathetic Polemics: literary styles of the Bible

2009-04-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

The state of Islamic polemics against Christianity is usually pathetic at best. Here is a clear example by 'Yahya Ahmed' in their article Carm.org agrees with the Quran on the Bible's corruption.

The argument:

"That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:-" (Quran 4:157)
Conjecture i.e Guesswork, fiction.

The above Quranic verse says that whoever differs in the matter of crucifixion and agrees that Christ (pbuh) was crucified are actually following conjecture(Guesswork,fiction).

See how Carm.org confirms the Quranic verse.

"The Bible contains many different styles of writing such as poetry, narration, fiction, history, law, and prophecy and must be interpreted in context of those styles. It is the source of the Christian religion in that the Bible contains the words of God and how the Christian is to apply the words of God to his life."

Response:

First things first. Does anyone other than Yahya see how the quote from Carm.org confirms the Qur'anic claim that:

Jesus was not crucified?
The Bible is corrupted?

The Carm.org quote says nothing of Jesus' crucifixion or Biblical corruption - and if you were to read the site an honest individual would struggle to claim the authors hold such positions.

To examining the quote. It seems that Yahya is attempting to persuade us that Carm.org is claiming the Bible is fiction. Even a cursory reading of the quote will not leave such a nonsensical belief in someone's mind - but alas, it is the deceptive meaning Yahya finds himself propagating.

The quote is rather clear- the bible contains "different styles of writing". No one can argue with that. As mentioned there is "poetry" such as is found in the Psalms, and there is "fiction" such as the parables. Although the parables were factually told the narrative recounted by Jesus is fiction - invented to illustrate a point.

I do not believe I have to comment any further. The pathetic nature of such dishonest attacks on Christianity, the Bible and apologists is what I have assuredly come to expect.

James White vs Osama Abdullah - A Preview

2009-03-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

The integrity of a Christian debater versus the infamous Osama Abdullah of answering-Christianity. Whenever a Muslim defaults to copy/pasting Osama's arguments I do get rather disappointed. Anyway, here is a preview...

Super Brief Response to Gnostic Gospel Attacks

2009-03-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

I link to a video - The Case for Christ: Gnostic vs Synoptic Gospels. I will just take a few minutes to deal with the claims coming up. [NB: This was a quick post so it is a tad incomplete - feel free to comment suggestions.]

The Gospel Dates

[T]he Gospel of Thomas Pre-dates the book of Revelation, & the "canonical" gospels were written in the about the year 100-150 from second and third hand accounts.

The two issues here are the dating of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and the dating of the canonical gospels. The claim above is clear- they want to make the reader believe that the 'alternative' gospels were written first and the canonical gospels were written far later.

Firstly, the majority view of respectable scholars is that the Gospel of Thomas was written into the second century - as the earliest alternative gospel. If we turn to scholars who are hostile to Christianity this point is clearly illustrated.

Professor Bart D. Ehrman[1] dates the Gospel of Thomas to the "early 2nd century"[2]. Regarding the contents of the text:

Collection of 114 sayings of Jesus, some possibly authentic, others embodying Gnostic concerns; discovered at Nag Hammadi.[3]

In general, Ehrman states:

For the record, I do not date any of the Gnostic Gospels to the first century...[4]

With regard to the claim that the canonical gospels were composed between 100-150, there is no academic push for such dating. I cannot think of a respect scholar who has dated the gospels that late - and we have physical evidence of the last gospel to be written, the Gospel of John, from the date 125AD.[5]

The Oldest Manuscripts

The oldest NT manuscript is only from the year 350

Apparently, the oldest New Testament manuscript is only from the year 350. Having personally seen NT Papyri that pre-date this time substantially, I find it difficult to follow. There are 10-13 manuscripts from the second century alone.[6]

According to the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung ten of these manuscripts from within the second century alone include:

P⁵² (100-150), P^{90, 104} (2^nd century), P⁶⁶ (c. AD 175-225), P^{46, 64+67} (c. AD 200), P⁷⁷, P¹⁰³, 0189 (2^nd or 3^rd century), P⁹⁸ (2^nd century?). [7]

Again, we find this attack unsubstantiated and historically inaccurate.

References:
1. Professor Bart D. Ehrman, James A. Distinguished Professor is author of a number of works attacking Christianity such as NY Times Bestseller 'Misquoting Jesus'. Just a note - I agree with Ehrman in a lot of his scholarly works, however, I often find conflict with his open conclusions, popular works and when he attempts to exegete. For a review of Misquoting Jesus I recommend Professor Dan B. Wallace's The Gospel According to Bart.
2. Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities p. xii
3. Ibid, p. xii
4. Bart D. Ehrman on the Textual Criticism Board
5. See dating of Papyrus 52
6. Daniel B. Wallace, Second Century Papyri: "This means that there are at least ten and as many as thirteen NT MSS"

N.T. Wright on Hyper-Scepticism

2009-03-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

This quote got a chuckle out of me so I felt compelled to share it. Those of you not accustomed to the field of higher criticism may not understand where it is coming from - but I am sure it is something even the most Price-Deterring-esque 'scholar' would be compelled to reflect on:

The guild of New Testament studies has become so used to operating with a hermeneutic of suspicion that we find ourselves trapped in our own subtleties. If two ancient writers agree about something, that proves one got it from the other. If they seem to disagree, that proves that one or both got it wrong. If they say an event or saying fits a prophecy, they made it up to look like that. If there are two accounts of similar events, they are a "doublet" (there was only one event); but if a single account has anything odd about it, there must have been two events, which are now conflated. And so on. Anything to show how clever we are, how subtle, to have smoked out the reality behind the text...Suspicion is all very well; there is also such a thing as a hermeneutic of paranoia. Somebody says something; they must have a motive; they must have made it up.

N.T. Wright, 'The Meaning of Jesus' p.18

Muhammad in the New Testament Revisited

2009-03-28T05:14:00.000-07:00

In a previous post of mine I set out a few quick ways to expose the claims that Muhammad is found in the Bible. From that list, regarding the New Testament, I have expanded it to 8 questions that must all be satisfied if Muhammad is the Parakletos of John 14/16.

They are as follows:

1) Was Muhammad sent in Jesus' name? (John 14:26)

2) Did Muhammad teach the disciples? (John 14:26)

3) Did Muhammad help the disciples remember Jesus' preaching? (John 14:26)

4) Was Muhammad invisible? (John 14:17)

5) Did Muhammad convict the world for not believing IN Jesus? (John 16:8-9)

6) Did Muhammad live forever? (John 14:16)

7) Did Muhammad abide with the disciples forever and abide with Christians forever?(John 14:16)

8) Was Muhammad in the disciples? (John 14:17)

In reality, Muhammad does not satisfy any of those requirements - and when put on the spot Muslims find a number of pathetic ways to try and avoid it. One of these responses I recently received and responded to is as follows:

NB: Their rebuttal is in Green, my responses in default black.

Codex Syriacus reads John 14:26 as " Paraklete, The Spirit" and NOT " Paraklete, The Holy Spirit"
Any difference between Spirit and Holy Spirit?
YES. A Spirit in Biblical language means a Prophet (see 1 John 4:1 &1 John 4:6 & 2 Thessalonians 2:2)
So in primary Conclusion The Paraklete can't be the Holy Spirit.

The fact that Codex Syriacus is NOT in Greek makes it impossible to contain the Greek word Parakletos - or any GREEK word. [1] The oldest witnesses in Greek (including those found at Sinai like Syriacus) read "ὁ δὲ παράκλητος, τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον" identifying the Parakletos as the Pneuma hagion (Holy Spirit). [2] There are no variants that I am aware of in any of the families (Alexandrian, Western or Byzantine) to suggest an alternative reading to this.[3]

Regarding the claim that "[a] Spirit in Biblical language means a prophet", it is simply unfounded conjecture. The use of the word Spirit in 1 John 4:1 is not identifying the prophet as a spirit but the Pneuma is in regard to the spirit and force behind such a message. The allusion to false prophets is simply that the spirit for that 'prophecy' is not from God. If you have ever read any Jewish literature from around that period (such as Serekh Ha Yahad also known as 4QS of the Dead Sea Scrolls) you would understand how common the idea in verses 1 & 6 are. With regard to the Thessalonians verse, I see no logical way by which you concluded the Spirit was a prophet.

In short, there is no basis for the primacy conclusion you assert.

In John 16 it syas the the Parakelete will 'AKouo' & 'Laleo' which means MATERIAL HEARING and SPEAKING with human organs
One again the Parakelet can’t be the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit only inspires.

There is simply no justification for this statement. For "Akou" (actually ἀκούσει in the text) whether or not it is a literal quality or a personification is determined within the context. As we are speaking of a spiritual Pneuma (that the world cannot see, etc) there is no reason to even suspect that the ability to 'hear' or 'speak' implies a physical human body.

If we turn to John 9:31 the same word is used in relation to God.

“We know that God does not hear (ἀκούει) sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him."
" οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὁ θεὸς (GOD) οὐκ ἀκούε (HEAR)ι, ἀλλʼ ἐάν τις θεοσεβὴς ᾖ καὶ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ ποιῇ τούτου ἀκούει (HEARS)."[4]

As is evident, there is no reason to entertain such an outrageous claim.

Jesus is also a Parakele, how ? :)
1 John 2:1 reads:
And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the "Paraklete" (see the Greek text).

This nonsensical claim stems from having no understanding of the word Parakletos. Parakletos - advocate/helper/etc is not a title but a description of the Holy Spirit in John 14-16. Jesus is a Parakletos just as a lawyer in a court case is a Parakletos. But in John 14 etc, the Parakletos of the text is a SPECIFIC Parakletos - identified as the Holy Spirit[5] - personifying such characteristics in the eight points above.

See how the deceiving translation translates the same word Paraklete one time to comforter and another to righteous.
Why this double standard in translation?

There is actually no deceptive translation here - the only deception is your false claim.
No translation translates Parakletos as "righteous". In 1 John 2:1 the word translated "righteous" is actually the word for righteous - "δίκαιον".

Τεκνία μου, ταῦτα γράφω ὑμῖν ἵνα μὴ ἁμάρτητε. καὶ ἐάν τις ἁμάρτῃ, παράκλητον (PARAKLETON) ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν δίκαιον· (DIKAION = righteous).[6]
1 John 2:1

John 14:26 reads "Another Paraklete"
Another from the same type or different type?
The word here is "ALLOS" = the same type like Jesus = Human
Once again the Paraklete can't be the Holy Spirit

No where in John 14:26 does the word 'allos' appear:
ὁ δὲ παράκλητος,(Parakletos) τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον (Holy Spirit), ὃ πέμψει ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐκεῖνος ὑμᾶς διδάξει πάντα καὶ ὑπομνήσει ὑμᾶς πάντα ἃ εἶπον ὑμῖν.[7]

You are talking about John 14:26 which contains 'allon' (ἄλλον). I see no reason to infer that allon implies in human form as the text is specific that they will come as another comforter (Parakletos).

Finally is it Paraklytos or Periklytos?

As no text out of the thousands of Greek New Testament manuscripts mention "periklytos" it is a safe bet that the texts state what they clearly state - Parakletos.

Conclusion

None of the rebuttal points addressed my 8 questions above. All of the rebuttals were simply errant with much of the points simply being made up. Again, there is no reason to even entertain the possibility that Muhammad is the Parakletos - especially as Jesus identifies Him as the Holy Spirit.

_____________
1. "The Codex Syriacus is a 5 th century translation of the Gospels in Syriac..."
http://www.sinai4you.com/santa/
2. Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 27th Edition
3. Bruce Metzger, Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament
4. Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 27th Edition: John 9:31 - interprative prompts mine.
5. See John 14:26
6. Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 27th Edition: 1 John 2:1
7. Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 27th Edition: John 14:26

Jesus said, "I and the Father are ONE"

2009-03-27T23:02:00.001-07:00

I have decided to continue with the theme of the deity of Christ. In an earlier post, we have established that the earliest Christians believed Christ to be divine. Although some examples were previously provided, I have chosen to narrow down on two example of Christ's revelationary self-identification.

In John 10:30 Jesus makes a very important claim - a claim that those in his presence recognised and Christians and non-Christians alike recognise. This claim is one that sets Jesus' apart from the prophets (both from God and false).

Jesus said:

"I and the Father are one."

One of the greatest ways to understand this verse is to see how those living in Jesus' context saw it. So, how did they react?

"Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"

"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, CLAIM TO BE GOD." "
John 10:31-33

The enormity of the statement, “I and the Father are one,” within the context of the Gospel of John is difficult to overstate. There are several reasons for this. First, this is a type of “I am” statement for Jesus, this time “we are.” There is a continued reference to the divine name of Jehovah God, I AM (see John 8:58 below). Second, there is a further divine claim in obvious allusion to the famous Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” This was the monotheistic bedrock of the Jewish religion, that there was only one God. Yet Jesus has now included himself in this monotheistic confession. He does not mean that he has achieved some type of mystical unity with God that might be more at home with Hinduism. He is speaking of the very essence of his relationship with the Father, that there is a sameness about them. The theological math here is that 1 + 1 = 1 (cf. John 1:1). And yet a third element in this should be noted. Jesus does not say, “I am the Father.” Although he makes a mighty claim here, he continues to maintain a certain level of distinction between the Father and himself.

But this isn't the only time Jesus made this claim. We turn to John 8:58-59:

"Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham 1was born, I am.” "

Now, how did those Jews in Jesus' context react to this?

"Therefore they apicked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple. " (verse 59)

At this point Jesus makes one of the most sensational statements in all of the recorded Gospels, and one of the most staggering statements in John, “before Abraham was, I am.” This is the climax of the “I am” statements in John. Here the “I am” has two very important implications.

First, the “I am” (ἐγὼ εἰμί, egō eimi) is an intentional play upon the divine name of God found in the Old Testament. At the burning bush, when Moses asked God what his name was, the answer was “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14). In Hebrew, this name is יהוה (YHWH), which is sometimes transliterated as “Jehovah.” It is based upon the Hebrew verb for “being,” and so God’s personal name revealed to Moses is literally “the I am.” Here, as in verses 24 and 28, there is no complement for the verb. The statement is not “I am (something).” It is just “I am.” Jesus has already said that one must “believe that I am” (v. 24) and “know that I am” (v. 28). To make these demands is to claim the name of God for personal use. In some ways Jesus is saying, “I am the ‘I am.” I am God.”

Second, this claim has other enormous theological implications. By saying “before Abraham was, I am,” Jesus is asserting his transcendence over time and history. He does not say “I was there with Abraham.” In effect, he says “I am there with Abraham, and even before.” Time does not limit God, and it does not limit Jesus. As John has said, “In the beginning was the Word” (1:1; cf. Rev 22:13).

We must be careful here. For us these theological truths can be dangerously overstated as in the simplistic bumper-sticker theology that says, “Jesus is Jehovah.” Although we may not completely understand all the distinctions, Jesus does not remove everything that separates the Father from the Son. In fact if there is no difference between the Father and the Son, much of what Jesus has said in this chapter is nonsense: God is not his Father; he is his own “father.” The Father did not send him; he sent himself. He does not know the Father; he knows himself. This results in a loss of the humanity of Jesus, a loss that orthodox Christianity has never tolerated. At the end of the day we must affirm both the full humanity and the full divinity of Christ, and that is precisely one of the major agendas of the Gospel of John.

Time for talking is now over as far as the Jews are concerned. They understand exactly what is at stake in Jesus’ claim to be “I am.” He has gone far beyond being an irritation to them. He is now a dangerous blasphemer, a threat that cannot be ignored. Mob violence mentality takes control, and preparations for a stoning/ lynching begin. But this is not the time, place, or method for Jesus’ death, so the text says he hid himself and he gets away safely (implying a miraculous escape).

Hence, these two statements are so powerful that one cannot deny that Christ claimed to be divine.

[Related posts: The Myth: The Early Christians did Not believe Christ to be Divine| The Deity of Christ | The Subordination of Christ ]

The Myth: The Early Church did not Believe Christ to be Divine

2009-03-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

This is one of those myths riding the legacy of The Da Vinci Code. Historically, it is one of little value - however, among many critics of Christianity it is played up as a historically accurate and viable criticism. In actual fact, the earliest witness of Christianity testify to the divinity of Christ whether they be Biblical, pre-scriptural hymns and creeds or non-Christian hostile witness.

One example I like to use occurs in Philippians 2 where Paul makes reference to what scholars believe to be a pre-Philippian creed and hymn.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

This exert of Philippians 2:5-11 is very clear in who Jesus is. It affirms the Apostle Thomas' understanding of Christ as "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).

While responding to this claim I shared an exert by a scholar I am a fan of - Professor Darell L. Bock. Professor Bock, who has a blog here, is highly respected and renowned in his field and currently serves as Research Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor of Spiritual Development and Culture at Dallas Theological Seminary. He authored a New York Times Bestseller which addresses this claim (as presented in the Da Vinci Code) rather well. I have provided an exert from Breaking the Da Vinci Code:

1. The First-Century Evidence from Paul and Early Traditional Materials

Our investigative search takes us not only to the Gospels but also to the apostle Paul, a Jew who in his own words had persecuted Christians and approved of their arrest and execution until he saw the risen Jesus (Gal. 1:11–24). This event produced a personal revolution in his theological view. The writings from Paul date between A.D. 50 and 68, almost three hundred years before Nicea. Paul used traditional materials showing that others shared and confessed his core theological beliefs. No one knew who Constantine was when Paul wrote. Two key classes of texts permit us to see Paul's theology and the theology of others who shared his views: those that involve a confessional statement of the church, and places where he referred to Jesus using language from the Old Testament that pertained to God.

The first class of texts involves confessional statements like 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 (RSV). Paul noted that while those in the world around him worshiped many gods, he and the Christians worshiped one God and one Lord Jesus Christ: "Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many `gods' and many `lords'—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

The title "Lord" often referred to God. In the Greek Bible of the Jews, a work known as the Septuagint, the title "Lord" often substituted for "God." To call Jesus Christ Lord was to refer to His deity, especially in a passage that mentioned other gods of the religious faith of others. According to Paul, Jesus was involved in the Creation as Creator. For a person of Jewish background, that would be the declaration of an activity of God the Creator. Centuries before Nicea, a major Christian leader was affirming the divinity of Jesus not by the mere use of a title, but by a description of activity.

A second class of texts in Paul involves substitution texts like Philippians 2:9–11 (RSV). Without embarrassment, Paul applied to Jesus language that the prophet Isaiah applied to God in the Hebrew Bible. This text reads, "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." In this passage, Jesus is the object of worship as every knee bows before Him, even as He bears the title of Lord. The language comes from Isaiah 45:23 where the prophet cited God as speaking ("By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: `To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear"' [RSV] ). Jesus is placed in the same position as God. Jesus receives homage as God does. These are not the only texts where this occurs in Paul. And it occurs in other writings from other authors of what became the New Testament (for example, Ps. 102:25–27 in Heb. 1:1—13). Jesus is not a mere prophet in these texts. He shares equal glory and honor with God.

Darell L. Bock, 'Breaking the Da Vinci Code', p.49

2. The first-Century Evidence from the Rest of the New Testament

Paul was not alone. The gospel of John, probably written in the nineties of the first century, contains an unambiguous statement of Jesus' divinity in its first chapter (RSV):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and all that God was, the Word was [NET; alternatively, and the Word was God, RSV]. (v. 1)

He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him. (vv. 2—3)

And the Word became flesh. (v. 14)

John made it clear in this opening to his gospel that the Word became flesh is Jesus, the actual and full incarnation of deity. Once again, participation in the Creation pointed to deity, just as Paul argued.

Some suggest that what Paul and John affirmed about Jesus stands in contrast to the other three gospels. This would be misleading. Mark, Matthew, and Luke were written, probably in this order, sometime between the sixties and eighties. These dates are debated among scholars, and I use the least conservative range. These are also first-century documents, and they tell the story of Jesus in a more restrained manner than is found in John, by which I mean they are less overt in attributing deity to Jesus. They tell Jesus' story "from the earth up." I document this point in my study of Jesus called Jesus According to Scripture, where I examine every passage on Jesus in Matthew through John. In other words, the first three gospels tell the story like a narrative or even a mystery working up to their final confession of who Jesus is. But make no mistake, all three ultimately declare Jesus to be God.

In these gospels, when Jesus is taken to be crucified, He is put to death for being blasphemous. Jesus claimed that God would indicate that Jesus was Son of man, One who was seated at the right hand of God and rode the clouds (something only deity does in the Bible). This is the same divine honor and glory shared with God that Paul and John referred to in their writings. All of these writings agree that Jesus is divine.

In the background of this Son of man statement were two ideas, both of which suggested a unique status for Jesus. One was the imagery of the Son of man, a human figure in Daniel 7:9–13 who will be given divine authority to judge at the end and will be brought into God's presence. The other was that this figure will sit with God in heaven, not just visit God in heaven. These ideas pointed to a unique vindication of Jesus.

The Jews who heard this utterance believed that Jesus blasphemed, which meant He insulted the unique dignity of God by His claim. To understand the Jewish background of the scene is to appreciate the exalted self-claim that Jesus was making.

The details of this view of Jesus and its background are treated in a full study of two hundred pages I wrote years ago while doing research at the University of Tubingen in Germany. In Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus I consider the Jewish view of who gets to sit with God in heaven and under what circumstances. At the examination before the Jewish leaders Jesus' claims were either a unique and legitimate exaltation or remarks that offended the unique glory of God.

The Gospels recorded the event to make clear their view. In light of Jesus' subsequent resurrection, Jesus is a divine figure worthy to sit in God's presence because He is capable of sharing God's unique glory. We shall come back to this later. For now, understand that these Gospels and Paul's writings, first-century documents, portrayed Jesus as a fully human figure and as One who uniquely bears the full marks and honor of deity. These beliefs were widespread in Christianity almost three full centuries before Nicea.

I am not alone in holding this view and in arguing for it in detail. Larry Hurtado, professor of New Testament at the University of Edinburgh, has produced a recent study that traces the history of this understanding of Jesus through the early centuries, even beyond the period of the earliest texts. It reinforces what is argued here. His book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (2003), raises questions about aspects of this "new" reading of the history that argues Jesus was not believed to be divine until the fourth century.

Darell L. Bock, 'Breaking the Da Vinci Code', pp. 50-51

I hope these texts are useful.
Please note, if you wish to copy the quotations from above or are interested in the text I exhort you to purchase the book if it is a financial reality. Professor Bock has put work into his books and he is one of the great scholars out there who brings scholarship to the lay person responsibly and honestly.

With this in mind, I plan to do a little Professor Bock promo and adverstise some of his book and their uses.

Some of his notable texts:

Breaking the Da Vinci Code - Darell L. Bock (as cited in this post)
The Missing Gospels - Darell L. Bock
Dethroning Jesus - Darell L.Bock and Daniel B. Wallace
And more...

The Deity of Christ - R.C. Sproul

2009-03-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

I have attached an exert of R.C. Sproul's Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. In a previous post I employed an exert to address the issue of subordination within the Trinity. The reason for such is reference purposes - I have again engaged with debates on the issue of the Deity of Christ in the New Testament. For a person who has honestly read the New Testament, this is a non-issue as the understanding and revelation of Jesus is clear in that he is deity - but Muslims are obliged by faith in the Qur'an to ignore this.

Although many Muslim polemic sites contain 'rebuttals' (as used in the most loosest of terms) to these arguments - I have found them a useful starting point.

The confession of the deity of Christ is drawn from the manifold witness of the New Testament. As the Logos Incarnate, Christ is revealed as being not only preexistent to creation, but eternal. He is said to be in the beginning with God and also that He is God (John 1:1-3). That He is with God demands a personal distinction within the Godhead. That He is God demands inclusion in the Godhead.
Elsewhere, the New Testament ascribes terms and titles to Jesus that are clearly titles of deity. God bestows the preeminent divine title of Lord upon Him (Philippians 2:9-11). As the Son of Man, Jesus claims to be Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28) and to have authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12). He is called the “Lord of glory” (James 2:1) and willingly receives worship, as when Thomas confesses, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

Paul declares that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily (Colossians 1:19) and that Jesus is higher than angels, a theme reiterated in the book of Hebrews. To worship an angel or any other creature, no matter how exalted, is to violate the biblical prohibition against idolatry. The I ams of John’s Gospel also bear witness to the identification of Christ with Deity.

In the fifth century, the Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451) affirmed that Jesus was truly man and truly God. Jesus’ two natures, human and divine, were said to be without mixture, confusion, separation, or division.

Summary

1. The deity of Christ is a doctrine essential to Christianity.

2. The church has had crises of heresy regarding Christ’s deity in the fourth, fifth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

3. The Council of Nicea (a.d. 325) affirmed the deity of Christ, declaring that He is of the same substance or essence as the Father and that He was not a created being.

4. The New Testament clearly affirms the deity of Christ.

5. The Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451) declared that Jesus was truly God.

Biblical passages for reflection:

Mark 2:28

John 1:1-14

John 8:58

John 20:28

Philippians 2:9-11

Colossians 1:19

a.d. anno domini (year)

Sproul, R. C.: Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1996, c1992

[Related posts: Jesus said, "I and the Father are ONE" | The Myth: The Early Christians did Not believe Christ to be Divine]

James White Responds to Zakir Naik

2009-03-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

Dr White responds to some of the weak and unconvincing arguments against the deity of Christ.

The Subordination of Christ - R.C. Sproul

2009-03-27T04:17:00.000-07:00

What is a subordinate? In our language it is clear that to be subordinate to someone is to be “under” that person’s authority. A subordinate is not a peer; a subordinate is not on an equal level of authority with his or her super-ordinate. The prefix sub- means “under” and super- means “over” or “above.”

When we speak of the subordination of Christ we must do so with great care. Our culture equates subordination with inequality. But in the Trinity all members are equal in nature, in honor, and in glory. All three members are eternal, self-existent; they partake of all aspects and attributes of deity.

In God’s plan of redemption, however, the Son voluntarily takes on a subordinate role to the Father. It is the Father who sends the Son into the world. The Son obediently comes to earth to do the will of the Father. We must be careful to note, however, that there is no sense of begrudging obedience. As they are the same in glory, the Father and the Son are also of one will. The Father wishes for redemption equally as much as the Son. The Son is eager to perform the work of salvation, just as the Father is eager for Him to do so. Jesus declared that zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him (John 2:17) and that His meat and His drink was to do the will of the Father.

Finally, it should be noted that Christ’s subordination and obedience was not only unto suffering. The plan included all aspects of Christ’s work for us and Christ’s ultimate glorification. The Westminster Confession explains the interconnectedness of the Father’s purpose and Christ’s work:

It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest and King, the Head and Savior of His Church, the heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom He did from all eternity give a people, to be His seed, and to be by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified and glorified.¹

By submitting Himself to the perfect will of His Father, Jesus did for us what we were unwilling and unable to do for ourselves. He obeyed the law of God perfectly. At His baptism Christ told John, “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Jesus’ entire life and ministry demonstrate this perfect obedience.

By obeying the law perfectly, Jesus accomplished two vitally important things. On the one hand He was qualified to be our Redeemer, the Lamb without blemish. Had Jesus sinned, He could not have atoned for His own sins, let alone for ours. Second, by His perfect obedience He earned the rewards God promised to all who keep His covenant. He merited the rewards of heaven that He bestows upon us. As the subordinate One, He saved a people who had been insubordinate.

FATHER = SON

Equal in being and eternal attributes

Summary

1. Although Christ is equal to the Father in terms of His divine nature, He is subordinate to the Father in His role in redemption.

2. Subordination does not mean “inferior.”

3. Christ’s subordination is voluntary.

4. Christ’s perfect obedience qualified Him to be the sin bearer for His people and earned the rewards of heaven promised to the redeemed.

FATHER

Son subordinate in economy of redemption

SON

Biblical passages for reflection:

John 4:34

John 5:30

Philippians 2:5-8

Hebrews 5:8-10

Hebrews 10:5-10

¹Westminster Confession, chap. 8, sec. 1.

Sproul, R. C.: Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House, 1996, c1992

Does God Exist?

2009-03-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

An article by Dr William Lane Craig, Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. The article may be found at Dr Craig's website ReasonableFaith.org however, to access the article free registration is required. For that reason, I have placed the article here so people can easily find it and entice them to explore the resources of Reasonable Faith.

Does God Exist?

William Lane Craig

C. S. Lewis once remarked that God is not the sort of thing one can be moderately interested in. After all, if God does not exist, there's no reason to be interested in God at all. On the other hand, if God does exist, then this is of paramount interest, and our ultimate concern ought to be how to be properly related to this being upon whom we depend moment by moment for our very existence.

So people who shrug their shoulders and say, "What difference does it make if God exists?" merely show that they haven't yet thought very deeply about this problem. Even atheist philosophers like Sartre and Camus—who have thought very seriously about this problem—admit that the existence of God makes a tremendous difference for man. Let me mention just three reasons why it makes a big difference whether God exists.

1. If God does not exist, life is ultimately meaningless. If your life is doomed to end in death, then ultimately it does not matter how you live. In the end it makes no ultimate difference whether you existed or not. Sure, your life might have a relative significance in that you influenced others or affected the course of history. But ultimately mankind is doomed to perish in the heat death of the universe. Ultimately it makes no difference who you are or what you do. Your life is inconsequential.

Thus, the contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the research of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race—ultimately all these come to nothing. Thus, if atheism is true, life is ultimately meaningless.

2. If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. If there is no God, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence.

For example, there is no hope for deliverance from evil. Although many people ask how God could create a world involving so much evil, by far most of the suffering in the world is due to man's own inhumanity to man. The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed the 19^th century's naive optimism about human progress. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope for deliverance from evil.

Or again, if there is no God, there is no hope of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. Although it may be hard for you as university students to contemplate, the sober fact is that unless you die young, someday you—you yourself—will be an old man or an old woman, fighting a losing battle with aging, struggling against the inevitable advance of deterioration, disease, perhaps senility. And finally and inevitably you will die. There is no afterlife beyond the grave. Atheism is thus a philosophy without hope.

3. On the other hand, if God does exist, then not only is there meaning and hope, but there is also the possibility of coming to know God and His love personally. Think of it! That the infinite God should love you and want to be your personal friend! This would be the highest status a human being could enjoy! Clearly, if God exists, it makes not only a tremendous difference for mankind in general, but it could make a life-changing difference for you as well.

Now admittedly none of this shows that God exists. But does show that it makes a tremendous difference whether God exists. Therefore, even if the evidence for and against the existence of God were absolutely equal, the rational thing to do, I think, is to believe in Him. That is to say, it seems to me positively irrational when the evidence is equal to prefer death, futility, and despair over hope, meaningfulness and happiness.

But, in fact, I don't think the evidence is absolutely equal. I think there are good reasons to believe in God. And today I want to share briefly five of those reasons. Whole books have been written on each of these, so all I have time to do is to present a brief sketch of each argument and then during the discussion time we can go more deeply into any of them that you'd like to talk about.

As travelers along life's way, it's our goal to make sense of things, to try to understand the way the world is. The hypothesis that God exists makes sense out of a wide range of the facts of experience.

1. God makes sense of the origin of the universe.

Have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from? Why everything exists instead of just nothing? Typically atheists have said the universe is just eternal, and that's all.

But surely this is unreasonable. Just think about it a minute. If the universe never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But mathematicians recognize that the existence of an actually infinite number of things leads to self-contradictions. For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory answers. This shows that infinity is just an idea in your mind, not something that exists in reality. David Hilbert, perhaps the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century, states,

The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.1

But that entails that since past events are not just ideas, but are real, the number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can't go back forever; rather the universe must have begun to exist.

This conclusion has been confirmed by remarkable discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. In one of the most startling developments of modern science, we now have pretty strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning about 13 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang. What makes the Big Bang so startling is that it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing. For all matter and energy, even physical space and time themselves, came into being at the Big Bang. As the physicist P. C. W. Davies explains, "the coming into being of the universe, as discussed in modern science . . . is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization . . . upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing."2

Of course, alternative theories have been crafted over the years to try to avoid this absolute beginning, but none of these theories has commended itself to the scientific community as more plausible than the Big Bang theory. In fact, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe which is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. Vilenkin pulls no punches:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.3

That problem was nicely captured by Anthony Kenny of Oxford University. He writes, "A proponent of the Big Bang theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing."4 But surely that doesn't make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes. So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? Where did it come from? There must have been a cause which brought the universe into being.

We can summarize our argument thus far as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Given the truth of the two premises, the conclusion necessarily follows.

From the very nature of the case, this cause must be an uncaused, changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the universe. It must be uncaused because we've seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be timeless and therefore changeless—at least without the universe—because it created time. Because it also created space, it must transcend space as well and therefore be immaterial, not physical.

Moreover, I would argue, it must also be personal. For how else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe? If the cause were a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without the effect. For example, the cause of water's freezing is the temperature's being below 0˚ Centigrade. If the temperature were below 0˚ from eternity past, then any water that was around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze just a finite time ago. So if the cause is permanently present, then the effect should be permanently present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any prior determining conditions. For example, a man sitting from eternity could freely will to stand up. Thus, we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator.

Isn't it incredible that the big bang theory thus confirms what the Christian theist has always believed: that in the beginning God created the universe? Now I put it to you: which makes more sense: that the Christian theist is right or that the universe popped into being uncaused out of nothing? I, at least, have no trouble assessing these alternatives!

2. God makes sense of the the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

During the last 40 years or so, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions given in the Big Bang itself. Scientists once believed that whatever the initial conditions of the universe, eventually intelligent life might evolve. But we now know that our existence is balanced on a knife's edge. The existence of intelligent life depends upon a conspiracy of initial conditions which must be fine-tuned to a degree that is literally incomprehensible and incalculable.

This fine-tuning is of two sorts. First, when the laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations, you find appearing in them certain constants, like the gravitational constant. These constants are not determined by the laws of nature. The laws of nature are consistent with a wide range of values for these constants. Second, in addition to these constants there are certain arbitrary quantities which are just put in as initial conditions on which the laws of nature operate, for example, the amount of entropy or the balance between matter and anti-matter in the universe. Now all of these constants and quantities fall into an extraordinarily narrow range of life-permitting values. Were these constants or quantities to be altered by a hair's breadth, the life-permitting balance would be destroyed and life would not exist.

For example, the physicist P. C. W. Davies has calculated that a change in the strength of gravity or of the atomic weak force by only one part in 10¹⁰⁰ would have prevented a life-permitting universe. The cosmological constant which drives the inflation of the universe and is responsible for the recently discovered acceleration of the universe's expansion is inexplicably fine-tuned to around one part in 10¹²⁰. Roger Penrose of Oxford University has calculated that the odds of the Big Bang's low entropy condition existing by chance are on the order of one out of 10 ^{10 (123)}. Penrose comments, "I cannot even recall seeing anything else in physics whose accuracy is known to approach, even remotely, a figure like one part in 10^{10 (123)}."5 And it's not just each constant or quantity which must be exquisitely finely-tuned; their ratios to one another must be also finely-tuned. So improbability is multiplied by improbability by improbability until our minds are reeling in incomprehensible numbers.

Now there are three possibilities for explaining the presence of this remarkable fine-tuning of the universe: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first alternative holds that there is some unknown Theory of Everything (T.O.E.) which would explain the way the universe is. It had to be that way, and there was really no chance or little chance of the universe's not being life-permitting. By contrast, the second alternative states that the fine-tuning is due entirely to chance. It's just an accident that the universe is life-permitting, and we're the lucky beneficiaries. The third alternative rejects both of these accounts in favor of an intelligent Mind behind the cosmos, who designed the universe to permit life. Which of these alternatives is the most plausible?

The first alternative seems extraordinarily implausible. There is just no physical reason why these constants and quantities should have the values they do. As P. C. W. Davies states,

Even if the laws of physics were unique, it doesn't follow that the physical universe itself is unique. . . . the laws of physics must be augmented by cosmic initial conditions. . . . There is nothing in present ideas about 'laws of initial conditions' remotely to suggest that their consistency with the laws of physics would imply uniqueness. Far from it. . . .
. . . it seems, then, that the physical universe does not have to be the way it is: it could have been otherwise.6

For example, the most promising candidate for a T.O.E. to date, super-string theory or M-Theory, fails to predict uniquely our universe. In fact, string theory allows a "cosmic landscape" of around 10⁵⁰⁰ different universes governed by the present laws of nature, so that it does nothing to render the observed values of the constants and quantities physically necessary.

So what about the second alternative, that the fine-tuning of the universe is due to chance? The problem with this alternative is that the odds against the universe's being life-permitting are so incomprehensibly great that they cannot be reasonably faced. Even though there will be a huge number of life-permitting universes lying within the cosmic landscape, nevertheless the number of life-permitting worlds will be unfathomably tiny compared to the entire landscape, so that the existence of a life-permitting universe is fantastically improbable. Students or laymen who blithely assert, "It could have happened by chance!" simply have no conception of the fantastic precision of the fine-tuning requisite for life. They would never embrace such a hypothesis in any other area of their lives—for example, in order to explain how there came to be overnight a car in one's driveway.

Some people have tried to escape this problem by claiming that we really shouldn't be surprised at the finely-tuned conditions of the universe, for if the universe were not fine-tuned, then we wouldn't be here to be surprised about it! Given that we are here, we should expect the universe to be fine-tuned. But such reasoning is logically fallacious. We can show this by means of a parallel illustration. Imagine you're traveling abroad and are arrested on trumped-up drug charges and dragged in front of a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen, all with rifles aimed at your heart, to be executed. You hear the command given: "Ready! Aim! Fire!" and you hear the deafening roar of the guns. And then you observe that you are still alive, that all of the 100 trained marksmen missed! Now what would you conclude? "Well, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised that they all missed. After all, if they hadn't all missed, then I wouldn't be here to be surprised about it! Given that I am here, I should expect them all to miss." Of course not! You would immediately suspect that they all missed on purpose, that the whole thing was a set-up, engineered for some reason by someone. While you wouldn't be surprised that you don't observe that you are dead, you'd be very surprised, indeed, that you do observe that you are alive. In the same way, given the incredible improbability of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life, it is reasonable to conclude that this is not due to chance, but to design.

In order to rescue the alternative of chance, its proponents have therefore been forced to adopt the hypothesis that there exists an infinite number of randomly ordered universes composing a sort of World Ensemble or multiverse of which our universe is but a part. Somewhere in this infinite World Ensemble finely-tuned universes will appear by chance alone, and we happen to be one such world.

There are, however, at least two major failings of the World Ensemble hypothesis: First, there's no evidence that such a World Ensemble exists. No one knows if there are other worlds. Moreover, recall that Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin proved that any universe in a state of continuous cosmic expansion cannot be infinite in the past. Their theorem applies to the multiverse, too. Therefore, since the past is finite, only a finite number of other worlds can have been generated by now, so that there's no guarantee that a finely-tuned world will have appeared in the ensemble.

Second, if our universe is just a random member of an infinite World Ensemble, then it is overwhelmingly more probable that we should be observing a much different universe than what we in fact observe. Roger Penrose has calculated that it is inconceivably more probable that our solar system should suddenly form by the random collision of particles than that a finely-tuned universe should exist. (Penrose calls it "utter chicken feed" by comparison.7) So if our universe were just a random member of a World Ensemble, it is inconceivably more probable that we should be observing a universe no larger than our solar system. Or again, if our universe were just a random member of a World Ensemble, then we ought to be observing highly extraordinary events, like horses' popping into and out of existence by random collisions, or perpetual motion machines, since such things are vastly more probable than all of nature's constants and quantities' falling by chance into the virtually infinitesimal life-permitting range. Observable universes like those are much more plenteous in the World Ensemble than worlds like ours and, therefore, ought to be observed by us. Since we do not have such observations, that fact strongly disconfirms the multiverse hypothesis. On atheism, at least, it is therefore highly probable that there is no World Ensemble.

So once again, the view that Christian theists have always held, that there is an intelligent designer of the universe, seems to make much more sense than the atheistic view that the universe just happens to be by chance fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision for the existence of intelligent life.

We can summarize this second argument as follows:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

3. God makes sense of objective moral values in the world.

If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so. It is to say, for example, that Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good; and it would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them. And the claim is that in the absence of God, moral values are not objective in this sense.

Many theists and atheists alike concur on this point. For example, the late J. L. Mackie of Oxford University, one of the most influential atheists of our time, admitted: "If . . . there are . . . objective values, they make the existence of a God more probable than it would have been without them. Thus, we have a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a God." 8 But in order to avoid God's existence, Mackie therefore denied that objective moral values exist. He wrote, "It is easy to explain this moral sense as a natural product of biological and social evolution . . . ."9

Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science, agrees. He explains,

Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says "love thy neighbor as thyself," they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction . . . And any deeper meaning is illusory.10

Friedrich Nietzsche, the great 19^th century atheist who proclaimed the death of God, understood that the death of God meant the destruction of all meaning and value in life.

I think that Friedrich Nietzsche was right.

But we must be very careful here. The question here is not: "must we believe in God in order to live moral lives?" I'm not claiming that we must. Nor is the question: "Can we recognize objective moral values without believing in God?" I think that we can.

Rather the question is: "If God does not exist, do objective moral values exist?" Like Mackie and Ruse, I don't see any reason to think that in the absence of God, human morality is objective. After all, if there is no God, then what's so special about human beings? They're just accidental by-products of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe and which are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time. On the atheistic view, some action, say, rape, may not be socially advantageous and so in the course of evolution has become taboo; but that does absolutely nothing to prove that rape is really wrong. On the atheistic view, apart from the social consequences, there's nothing really wrong with your raping someone. Thus, without God there is no absolute right and wrong which imposes itself on our conscience.

But the problem is that objective values do exist, and deep down we all know it. There's no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world. The reasoning of Ruse at best proves only that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved. But if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm. Most of us think that we do apprehend objective values. As Ruse himself confesses, "The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5."11

Actions like rape, torture, and child abuse aren't just socially unacceptable behavior—they're moral abominations. Some things are really wrong. Similarly love, equality, and self-sacrifice are really good. But if objective values cannot exist without God, and objective values do exist, then it follows logically and inescapably that God exists.

We can summarize this argument as follows:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

2. Objective moral values do exist.

3. Therefore, God exists.

4. God makes sense of the historical facts concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The historical person Jesus of Nazareth was a remarkable individual. New Testament critics have reached something of a consensus that the historical Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority, the authority to stand and speak in God's place. That's why the Jewish leadership instigated his crucifixion for the charge of blasphemy. He claimed that in himself the Kingdom of God had come, and as visible demonstrations of this fact he carried out a ministry of miracles and exorcisms. But the supreme confirmation of his claim was his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus did rise from the dead, then it would seem that we have a divine miracle on our hands and, thus, evidence for the existence of God.

Now most people would probably think that the resurrection of Jesus is something you just accept on faith or not. But there are actually three established facts, recognized by the majority of New Testament historians today, which I believe are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus: His empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances and the origin of the disciples' belief in his resurrection. Let's look briefly at each one of these.

Fact #1: Jesus' tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers on Sunday morning. According to Jacob Kremer, an Austrian scholar who has specialized in the study of the resurrection, "by far most scholars hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements about the empty tomb." 12 According to D. H. Van Daalen, it is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions.

Fact #2: On separate occasions different individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death. According to Gerd Lüdemann, a prominent German New Testament critic, "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ."13 These appearances were witnessed not only by believers, but also by unbelievers, skeptics, and even enemies.

Fact #3: The original disciples suddenly came to believe in the resurrection of Jesus despite having every predisposition to the contrary. Think of the situation the disciples faced following Jesus' crucifixion:

1. Their leader was dead, and Jewish Messianic expectations included no idea of a Messiah who, instead of triumphing over Israel's enemies, would be shamefully executed by them as a criminal.

2. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead to glory and immortality before the general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world.

Nevertheless, the original disciples suddenly came to believe so strongly that God had raised Jesus from the dead that they were willing to die for the truth of that belief. Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar at Emory University, states, "Some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was."14 N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, "That is why, as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him."15

Attempts to explain away these three great facts—like the disciples stole the body or Jesus wasn't really dead—have been universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. The simple fact is that there just is no plausible, naturalistic explanation of these facts. Therefore, it seems to me, the Christian is amply justified in believing that Jesus rose from the dead and was who he claimed to be. But that entails that God exists.

We can summarize this argument as follows:

1. There are three established facts concerning the fate of Jesus of Nazareth: the discovery of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of his disciples' belief in his resurrection.

2. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the best explanation of these facts.

3. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" entails that the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth exists.

4. Therefore, the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth exists.

5. God can be immediately known and experienced.

This isn't really an argument for God's existence; rather it's the claim that you can know God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing him. This was the way people in the Bible knew God, as professor John Hick explains:

God was known to them as a dynamic will interacting with their own wills, a sheer given reality, as inescapably to be reckoned with as destructive storm and life-giving sunshine . . . They did not think of God as an inferred entity but as an experienced reality. To them God was not . . . an idea adopted by the mind, but an experiential reality which gave significance to their lives.16

Philosophers call beliefs like this "properly basic beliefs." They aren't based on some other beliefs; rather they are part of the foundation of a person's system of beliefs. Other properly basic beliefs would be the belief in the reality of the past, the existence of the external world, and the presence of other minds like your own. When you think about it, none of these beliefs can be proved. How could you prove that the world was not created five minutes ago with built-in appearances of age like food in our stomachs from the breakfasts we never really ate and memory traces in our brains of events we never really experienced? How could you prove that you are not a brain in a vat of chemicals being stimulated with electrodes by some mad scientist to believe that you are here listening to this lecture? How could you prove that other people are not really androids who exhibit all the external behavior of persons with minds, when in reality they are soulless, robot-like entities?

Although these sorts of beliefs are basic for us, that doesn't mean that they're arbitrary. Rather they are grounded in the sense that they're formed in the context of certain experiences. In the experiential context of seeing and feeling and hearing things, I naturally form the belief that there are certain physical objects which I am sensing. Thus, my basic beliefs are not arbitrary, but appropriately grounded in experience. There may be no way to prove such beliefs, and yet it is perfectly rational to hold them. You'd have to be crazy to think that the world was created five minutes ago or to believe that you are a brain in a vat! Such beliefs are thus not merely basic, but properly basic.

In the same way, belief in God is for those who seek Him a properly basic belief grounded in our experience of God.

We can summarize this consideration as follows:

1. Beliefs which are appropriately grounded may be rationally accepted as basic beliefs not grounded on argument.

2. Belief that the biblical God exists is appropriately grounded.

3. Therefore, belief that the biblical God exists may be rationally accepted as a basic belief not grounded on argument.

Now if this is right, then there's a danger that arguments for the existence of God could actually distract one's attention from God Himself. If you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you. The Bible says, "draw near to God and he will draw near to you" (James 4.8). We mustn't so concentrate on the proofs that we fail to hear the inner voice of God speaking to our heart. For those who listen, God becomes an immediate reality in their lives.

In summary, we've seen five good reasons to think that God exists:

1. God makes sense of the origin of the universe.

2. God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

3. God makes sense of objective moral values in the world.

4. God makes sense of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

5. God can be immediately known and experienced.

These are only a part of the evidence for God's existence. Alvin Plantinga, one of the world's leading philosophers, has laid out two dozen or so arguments for God's existence.17 Together these constitute a powerful cumulative case for the existence of God.

Therefore, I think that Christian theism is a plausible worldview which commends itself to the thoughtful consideration of every rational human being.

Endnotes

1 David Hilbert, "On the Infinite," in Philosophy of Mathematics, ed. with an Introduction by Paul Benacerraf and Hillary Putnam (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 139, 141.

2 ABC Science Online, "The Big Questions: In the Beginning," Interview of Paul Davies by Philp Adams, http://aca.mq.edu.au/pdavies.html.

3 Alex Vilenkin, Many Words in One: The Search for Other Universes (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), p. 176.

4 Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways: St. Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p. 66.

5 Roger Penrose, "Time-Asymmetry and Quantum Gravity," in Quantum Gravity 2, ed. C. J. Isham, R. Penrose, and D. W. Sciama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 249.

6 Paul Davies, The Mind of God (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 169.

7 See Roger Penrose, The Road to Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), pp. 762-5.

8 J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982),pp. 115-16.

9 Ibid., pp. 117-18.

10 Michael Ruse, "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262-269.

11 Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended (London: Addison-Wesley, 1982), p. 275.

12 Jacob Kremer, Die Osterevangelien--Geschichten um Geschichte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977), pp. 49-50.

13 Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 8.

14 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996), p. 136.

15 N. T. Wright, "The New Unimproved Jesus," Christianity Today (September 13, 1993), p. 26.

16 John Hick, "Introduction," in The Existence of God, ed. with an Introduction by John Hick, Problems of Philosophy Series (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1964), pp. 13-14.

17 Alvin Plantinga, "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments," Lecture presented at the 33^rd Annual Philosophy Conference, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, October 23-25, 1986. Available online at http://philofreligion.homestead.com/files/Theisticarguments.html.

Paul and the Historical Jesus

2009-03-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

A claim that has been levelled to me is that Paul knows nothing of the historical Jesus. This is usually levelled by people who constantly attack the Bible but have never actually read it. Anyone who has read Paul's epistles knows this isn't the case! But for your convenience I have attached an exert from F.F. Bruce's 'Paul and Jesus':

"Paul is out earliest literary authority for the historical Jesus. True, he does not tell us much about the historical Jesus, in comparison with what we can learn from the Evangelists, but he does tell us a little more than that Jesus was born and died. Jesus was an Israelite, he says, descended from Abraham (Gal 3:16) and David (Rom. 1:3); who lived under the Jewish law (Gal. 4:4); who was betrayed, and on the night of his betrayal instituted a memorial meal of bread and wine (I Cor. 11:23ff); who endured the Roman penalty of crucifixion (I Cor. 1:23; Gal. 3:1, 13, 6:14, etc.), although Jewish authorities were somehow involved His death (I Thess. 2:15); who was buried, rose the third day and was thereafter seen alive by many eyewitnesses on various occasions, including one occasion on which He was so seen by over five hundred at once, of whom the majority were alive twenty-five years later (I Cor. 15:4ff). In this summary of the evidence for the reality of Christ’s resurrection, Paul shows a sound instinct for the necessity of marshalling personal testimony in support of what might well appear an incredible assertion..

Paul knows of the Lord’s apostles, of whom Peter and John are mentioned by name as “pillars” of the Jerusalem community (Gal. 2:9), and of His brothers, of whom James is similarly mentioned (Gal. 1:19; 2:9). He knows that the Lord’s brothers and apostles, including Peter, were married (I Cor. 9:5), and incidental agreement with the Gospel story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:30). He quotes sayings of Jesus on occasion, e.g., His teaching on marriage and divorce (I Cor. 7:10f) and on the right of gospel preachers to have their material needs supplied (I Cor. 9:14); and the words He used at the institution of the Lord’s Supper (I Cor. 11:24ff).

Even when he does not quote the actual sayings of Jesus, he shows throughout his works how well acquainted he was with them. In particular, we ought to compare the ethical section of the Epistle to the Romans (12:1-15:7), where Paul summarizes the practical implications of the gospel for the lives of believers, with the Sermon on the Mount, to see how thoroughly imbued the apostle was with the teaching of his Master. Besides, there and elsewhere Paul’s chief argument in his ethical instruction is t example of Christ Himself. And the character of Christ as portrayed in the Gospels. When Paul speaks of “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (II Cor. 10:1), we remember our Lord’s own words, “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29). The self-denying Christ of the Gospels is the one of whom Paul says, “Christ did not please himself” (Rom. 15:3); and just as the Christ of the Gospels called on His followers to deny themselves (Mark 8:34), so the apostle insists that, after the example ofo Christ, it is our Christian duty “to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Rom. 15:1)….”

p. 19-20 (All typographical errors mine)

More Variants than Words in the New Testament!

2009-03-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day:

there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.
Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus p. 10

This is one of the most abused quotes from Ehrman's NY Times Bestseller Misquoting Jesus. Strictly speaking the quote is not factually incorrect - there are around 200,000-300,000 textual variants among our New Testament manuscripts.

However, there are two main issues with this quote that allows it to be abused. (1) Firstly, there is the use of these figures for what Ehrman calls "comparative terms" (Misquoting Jesus, p. 10). (2) Secondly, there is the unambiguous opening for what these textual variants are and mean.

The first issue is rather easily explained. By no means is this comparison suggesting that every word of the New Testament is disputed (or that there are thousands of errors!). What this figure actually demonstrates is that we have a lot of manuscripts for the New Testament. We have to put this claim into perspective - we have over 1 million+ pages of NT manuscripts. So, these variants don't seem as big as a deal as those attacking the NT would like us to think - and this is without exploring the next question! That is, what are these variants and what do the actually mean?

What are the variants?

As Prof. Daniel Wallace (Professor of New Testament Studies; Director for the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts) puts it:

"Once it is revealed that the great majority of these variants are inconsequential—involving spelling differences that cannot even be translated, articles with proper nouns, word order changes, and the like—and that only a very small minority of the variants alter the meaning of the text, the whole picture begins to come into focus. Indeed, only about 1% of the textual variants are both meaningful and viable. The impression Ehrman sometimes gives throughout the book—and repeats in interviews—is that of wholesale uncertainty about the original wording, a view that is far more radical than he actually embraces."

‘The Gospel According to Bart', Daniel B. Wallace

Or as Prof. Bart D. Ehrman (James A. Gray Distinguished Professor) himself puts it in Misquoting Jesus:

"To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.

'Misquoting Jesus', Bart D. Ehrman.

"In fact, most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and and away the [sic] most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple—slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another”

'Misquoting Jesus', Bart D. Ehrman

So now we know what these hundreds of thousands of variants are. In my experience (as testified to above by the experts) it is a rather difficult task in finding textual variants that lead to a change in meaning. But, alas, there are still some, albeit very few, textual variants among the thousands of NT manuscripts - so onto the next question!

What is the Impact of these variants?

As so simply put by the late Bruce M. Metzger (Collard Professor Emeritus of New Testament Language and Literature) in an interview with Lee Strobel:

Strobel: "How many doctrines of the church are in jeopardy because of variants?"

Metzger: "I don't know of any doctrine that is in jeopardy"

Strobel: "So the variations, when they occur, tend to be minor rather than substantive?"

Metzger: "Yes, yes, that's correct...The more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the church. Any good Bible will have notes that will alert the reader to variant readings of any consequence. But again, these are rare."

In short - there is nothing new or changeable about this statement. The quote is simply there for shock value - to present a meaningless comparison and playup these variants.

Don't be fooled by it!

Jesus vs Paul - An Interesting Point

2009-03-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

It should be clear from all this that if Paul had simply trotted out, parrot-fashion, every line of Jesus' teaching-if he had repeated the parables, if he had tried to do again what Jesus did in announcing and inaugurating the kingdom-he would not have been endorsing Jesus, as an appropriate and loyal follower should. He would have been denying him. Someone who copies exactly what a would-be Messiah does is himself trying to be a Messiah; which means denying the earlier claim. When we see the entire sequence within the context of Jewish eschatology, we are forced to realize that for Paul to be a loyal `servant of Jesus Christ', as he describes himself, could never mean that Paul would repeat Jesus' unique announcement of the kingdom to his fellow Jews.

N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham
Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/04/Who-Founded-Christianity-Jesus-Or-Paul.aspx?p=3

The Nouveau Atheists on the Historical Jesus

2009-02-17T08:17:00.001-08:00

A paper given at the May Conference by Dr JOHN DICKSON, Director of the Centre for Public Christianity, www.publichristianity.org

Introduction

The last three years have witnessed a host of robust, intelligent and highly successful books critiquing religion in general and historic Christianity in particular. Collectively, the authors of these books have been dubbed ‘the Nouveau Atheists’. They are learned, rhetorically exciting and media savvy. Three of the more prominent new atheists are Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford and author of The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens, Visiting Professor of Liberal Studies at the New School University in New York and author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and, finally, Michel Onfray, a professor of philosophy at the Free University of Caen in France and author of the Atheist Manifesto. Each of these writers seek to dismantle what they all see as the superstition and anachronism of religion.

I have no intention of engaging with the broader argument of the Nouveau Atheists concerning the non-existence of God. I think most of us would agree that careful study of early Christianity should be able to proceed whether or not one is an atheist—and whether or not there is a God. What does interest me, however, is the new atheists’ foray into matters historical and, in particular, into the historical Jesus. Dawkins, Hitchens and Onfray all deemed it necessary to devote significant space to critiquing Jesus as an historical figure and the biblical text as an historical source. They are quite open about their motivation. By demonstrating the confused and feeble nature of the data we have about Jesus, they remove one of the perceived foundations of Christianity itself. Hence, Hitchens concludes his chapter on the topic:

‘The case for biblical consistency or authenticity or ‘inspiration’ has been in tatters for some time, and the rents and tears only become more obvious with better research, and thus no ‘revelation’ can be derived from that quarter’ (Hitchens, God is Not Great, 122).

None of the above authors claim to be professional historians, yet they make very confident historical claims that need to be investigated.

Minor Historical Errors

The first thing that strikes me as I delve into this literature is the abundance of minor historical errors—the sort of thing you might expect from first year History students but not from authors with research degrees and professorships. I will offer just four examples.

1.1. The Gospel of Thomas. On page 96 of The God Delusion Dawkins mistakenly attributes to the Gospel of Thomas stories actually found in another document. In his discussion of why the four New Testament Gospels made it into the canon and the Gospels of Thomas, Peter, Philip and Mary Magdalene didn’t, he suggests it is because these other Gospels contained stories that were ‘even more embarrassingly implausible’ than the canonical ones. He writes,

‘The Gospel of Thomas, for example, has numerous anecdotes about the child Jesus abusing his magical powers’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 96).

The Gospel of Thomas, of course, has no such stories—it is a sayings source only. Dawkins has confused the Gospel of Thomas with the very different, non-Gospel document known as the Infancy Story of Thomas.
1.2. Matthew’s Magi. A similar faux pas is found on page 94 where Dawkins puts the story of the magi worshipping the infant Jesus in the wrong Gospel. It seems to be more than a typographical error because his argument at this point is that Matthew invented stories that would appeal to Jews (descent from king David and birth in Bethlehem), whereas

‘Luke’s desire [was] to adapt Christianity for the Gentiles, and hence to press the familiar hot buttons of pagan Hellenistic religions (virgin birth, worship by kings, etc.)’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 94).

However, the Magi story is found in Matthew chapter 2.

1.3. The Q document. Christopher Hitchens likewise stumbles over a basic feature of Gospel studies. He gets confused about the Gospel source Q. He writes,

‘The book on which all four (Gospels) may possibly have been based, known speculatively to scholars as ‘Q’, has been lost forever’ (Hitchens, God is Not Great, 112).

He goes on to point out how careless that was of the deity who allegedly inspired the Gospels. That theological question aside, I hardly need to point out in this forum that Q cannot be a source for all four Gospels. By definition, Q refers to the material which is to Matthew and Luke but which is not found in Mark (or John, for that matter).

1.4. Barren Galilee. On par with these small errors is Michel Onfray’s argument in the Atheist Manifesto that the hope for an afterlife in the three monotheistic faiths was born of the barrenness of the desert:

‘I thought of the lands of Israel, Judaea and Samaria, of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, of Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. Places where the sun bakes men’s heads, desiccates their bodies, afflicts their souls with thirst. ….. The afterlife suddenly struck me as a counterworld invented by men exhausted and parched by their ceaseless wanderings across the dunes or up and down rocky trails baked to white heat’ (Onfray, Atheist Manifesto, xi).

I will leave it to philosophers of religion to discuss the logic of Onfray’s broader argument. What strikes me here is his obvious ecological blunder. The area around Lake Galilee, including Nazareth, is—and has been for three millennia—renowned for its rich and productive soil, not to mention its thriving fishing industry. Josephus, who spent a lot of time in Galilee in the middle of the first century, writes of the region: ‘For the land is everywhere so rich in soil and pasturage and produces such a variety of trees, that even the most indolent are tempted by these facilities to devote themselves to agriculture’ (Josephus, Jewish War 3.42-43).

The first followers of Jesus, all of them Galileans like their leader, did not need to fantasize about a place where ‘water flows cool, clear and free … where food and drink are abundant.’ They lived there already.

Significant Historical Misrepresentations

So much for the trivial. More serious are the significant misrepresentations of historical fact and of the discipline of history we find in the new atheist literature.

2.1. The existence of Jesus
Several times in The God Delusion Professor Dawkins suggests that Jesus’ very existence is still a matter of dispute among the experts. He writes:

‘It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 97).

Having sown this seed of doubt in the reader’s mind, he later remarks:

‘Indeed Jesus, if he existed (or whoever wrote his script if he didn’t) was surely one of the great ethical innovators of history’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 250).

Christopher Hitchens and Michel Onfray follow suit. Hitchens speaks of

‘the highly questionable existence of Jesus’ (Hitchens, God is Not Great, 114)

and Onfray goes a little further:

‘Jesus’s existence has not been historically established. No contemporary documentation of the event, no archaeological proof, nothing certain exists …… We must leave it to lovers of impossible debates to decide on the question of Jesus’s existence’ (Onfray, The Atheist Manifesto, 115-116).

In the final paragraph of his chapter on Jesus Onfray appears to have resolved this impossible debate for us:

‘Jesus was thus a concept. …. Certainly he existed, but not as a historical figure ..’ (Onfray, Atheist Manifesto, 129).

These statements l seem incredible . In fact, I doubt that any of us could name a professional biblical or ancient historian who thinks Jesus’ existence is still debatable. Much more representative of the state of the question is the comment of Professor Ed Sanders of Duke University, one of the leading historical Jesus scholars of the last twenty years and no friend of Christian apologetics: ‘There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life: when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity.’ I think this sentiment would be endorsed by virtually everyone writing in the field today.

But this highlights something about the strategy of the new atheists, at least in respect to historical matters (I could not judge whether they do the same thing with their science or statistics or philosophy). They employ the arguments of marginal writers on the topic and present them to readers as part of the mainstream scholarly conversation.

Richard Dawkins inadvertently proves the point. His one example of a ‘serious’ historical case that Jesus never lived is that of ‘Professor G. A. Wells of the University of London’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 97). What Dawkins does not mention—but which is well known to many of us in this room—is that George Wells is Professor of German Language at London University. Imagine the response from the new atheists if someone were to argue that a serious scientific case can be made that evolution by natural selection has never occurred and then offered as the sole authority a language professor.

2.2 Gospels as Fiction

Once Jesus’ existence is thrown into question, the new atheists are at liberty to try their hand at all sorts of confident historical commentary. Consider Dawkins’ comparison between Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and the New Testament Gospels:

‘It is indeed fabricated from start to finish: invented, made-up fiction. In that respect, it is exactly like the gospels. The only difference between The Da Vinci Code and the gospels is that the gospels are ancient fiction while The Da Vinci Code is modern fiction’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 97).

Similar statements are found in Onfray (Atheist Manifesto, 125-126) and Hitchens (God is not Great, 112-115). But I doubt there would be any scholar in the field today who believes the Gospels are works of fiction.

A consensus has emerged in the last few decades—from Graham Stanton’s work in the 1970s through to Richard Burridge’s acclaimed book in the 90s—that the Gospels are, in fact, best read as a peculiar Jewish-Christian form of the Graeco-Roman Bios or biography. But leaving that aside, even scholars like Michael Goulder with his Midrash theory of the Gospels or John Dominic Crossan who believes the Gospels contain much that is ‘prophecy historicized’, still accept the basic Gospel narrative that Jesus was a celebrated Galilean teacher and healer who heralded the ‘kingdom of God’ and died by crucifixion in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. This is the bedrock of historical discussion about Jesus today. The new atheists are either ignoring it or deliberately misrepresenting it.

2.3. Jesus’ out-group hostility

Another example of Richard Dawkins’ misrepresentation of historical discussions is his quite strange claim that Jesus advocated ‘out-group hostility’ toward non-members. In a section titled ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ Dawkins tries to show that Jesus was nowhere near as kind and loving as Christians make out. He assures us that ‘Jesus limited his in-group of the saved strictly to Jews, in which respect he was following the Old Testament tradition, which was all he knew.’ Moreover, ‘Jesus was a devotee of the same in-group morality – coupled with out-group hostility – that was taken for granted in the Old Testament’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 257).

This will come as a real surprise to those of us who have followed Jesus scholarship over the last decade or more. Not only does it seem likely that Jesus, like many Jews in his day, looked forward to the eschatological pilgrimage of the nations, one of the more secure conclusions of Jesus scholarship today, from Sanders to Borg to Theissen to Dunn, is that Jesus explicitly overturned what Dawkins calls ‘out-group hostility.’ The ‘friend of sinners’ tag recorded in Q (Luke 7:34 / Matthew 11:19) and embodied in numerous stories across the Gospel sources is regarded as rock solid by scholars today. Dawkins is led astray at this point by an eager dependence on an article in the Skeptic magazine by a certain John Hartung, whom Dawkins enthusiastically describes as an ‘American physician and evolutionary anthropologist’ (The God Delusion, 253). How an evolutionary anthropologist is qualified to comment on what the historical Jesus thought and taught is not clear to me, especially when his conclusions run counter to the sizable consensus of historians working on the topic.

We see here again the strategy of the new atheists to employ marginal writers—in this case, in a marginal magazine—and present them to the public as part of mainstream scholarship. I mean, on this particular question Dawkins could easily have consulted his Oxford colleague, Professor Geza Vermes, who has written on this theme as a Jew and concluded that Jesus’ social practice and love ethic were radical so that now love was to be shown beyond just your neighbour—to sinners, to enemies, to outcasts.

2.4 The Improbable Crucifixion

My final example of a misrepresentation of history in the new atheist literature comes from Michel Onfray’s Atheist Manifesto. He lists what he calls the ‘incalculable number of contradictions and improbabilities in the body of the text of the synoptic Gospels’ (Atheist Manifesto, 127). He arrives at this one:

The comment about the crucified never receiving a proper burial is obviously an exaggeration of a partial truth. Many crucifixion victims were, of course, thrown into shallow graves or left to the wild animals. But Philo, writing about the time of Jesus, tells us that sometimes the Romans handed the bodies of crucifixion victims over to family members for proper burial. Josephus even remarks: ‘the Jews are so careful about funeral rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset’ (Josephus, Jewish War 4.317).

But more striking than Onfray’s exaggeration is his assertion that the crucifixion of Jesus is improbable because, as he says, ‘at that time Jews were not crucified but stoned to death.’ This amounts to a clear historical blunder. Josephus alone provides plentiful evidence of Jewish crucifixions (even leaving aside his reference to Jesus’ execution). Varus, governor of Syria, crucified 2000 Jews involved in the rebellion of 4 BC (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.295). In the late 40s AD the sons of Judas the Galilean, named James and Simon, were crucified by order of Tiberius Alexander (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.102). In the final weeks of the siege of Jerusalem, according to Josephus, the Romans were crucifying 500 Jews a day, stationing the crosses in full view of the city walls: ‘The soldiers out of rage and hatred amused themselves by nailing their prisoners in different postures; and so great was their number, that space could not be found for the crosses nor crosses for the bodies’ (Josephus, The Jewish War 5.451).

We even have evidence of Jews crucifying Jews. A century and half earlier Alexander Jannaeus, the ruler and high priest in Jerusalem, crucified 800 rebel Pharisees in full view of their wives and children. As the men hung there dying their families were then slaughtered in front of them. Jannaeus’ actions are utterly condemned in Josephus Jewish War 1.97 but a text from the Dead Sea Scrolls seems to justify this harsh treatment. A passage in the Temple Scroll also justifies crucifixion on grounds very similar to the charges laid by Jannaeus against the Pharisees.

But perhaps the clearest evidence of Onfray’s mistake is the discovery in 1968 of archaeological remains of a crucifixion victim in a Jewish tomb. The tomb, just north of Jerusalem, contained numerous ossuaries (burial boxes), one of which bore the inscription ‘Jehohanan and Jehohanan ben Jehohanan,’ meaning that the box contained the bones of a father and his son of the same name, ‘John’. Analysis of the bones revealed the remains of a male heel bone which had been pierced through by an iron nail. The nail, which was 11.5cm long, was badly bent and so had never been removed from the foot. A plaque of wood from an olive tree was still attached. It was a remarkable find and has taught us quite a bit about crucifixion, not the least of which is that Jews were certainly crucified in the first century and some of them were properly buried.

Conclusion: Too Many Hostages to Fortune

There are numerous other historical exaggerations and misrepresentations in the Nouveau Atheist literature. There is Dawkins’ contention that the four New Testament Gospels ‘were chosen, more or less arbitrarily, out of a larger sample of at least a dozen’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 95); or his claim that Paul mentions ‘almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’ life’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 93) and was the perverse originator of the theme of Jesus’ death for sins (Dawkins, The God Delusion, 252); or Christopher Hitchens’ assertion that ‘many a life was horribly lost’ in the debates over which Gospels were canonical (Hitchens, God is Not Great, 113); or Michel Onfray’s statement that the charges against Jesus were improbable because ‘Rome could [not] have cared less about this business of messiahs and prophecy’ (Onfray, Atheist Manifesto, 128).

But let me conclude with a final reflection. One of the best pieces of advice I received during the writing of my doctoral thesis came from Professor Judith Lieu, my supervisor here at Macquarie at the time (now Lady Margaret Professor at Cambridge). After reading an early draft of my work Judith said: ‘Beware of taking too many hostages to fortune.’ That is, be careful you don’t diminish your main argument by trying to win a host of minor and tangential arguments that leave you open to criticism. The advice was appreciated and resulted in my pressing the Delete button on quite a number of vulnerable paragraphs and footnotes.

My main thought about the new atheists is that in their effort to debunk God and Christianity in particular, they have overreached; they have attempted to take too many hostages to fortune. And some of these ‘hostages’—whether the arguments involving minor historical errors or the ones containing significant misrepresentations—leave the Nouveau Atheist project looking strained and idiosyncratic. Perhaps there could have been a bit more pressing of the Delete button.

CSNTM: P46 the Earliest Extant Witness to the 'Corpus Paulinum'

2009-02-14T22:26:00.000-08:00

...this is the earliest Pauline manuscript and along with the prestige has come much scholarly debate concerning the date of the papyrus. F. G. Kenyon first suggested a third century CE date. Subsequently, Ulrich Wilcken dated the document to ca. 200 CE. More recently, Young Kyu Kim suggested a provocatively early date to the reign of Domitian in 81–96 CE. His argument was predicated upon six premises: (1) comparative literary papyri of such an early date, (2) comparative documentary papyri of an early date, (3) several unique features of the handwriting, (4) and (5) other morphologically early components, and (6) a corrector’s hand which was thought to be in several documents of the early period cumulatively convinced Kim.
However, most have not found Kim’s case compelling. Comfort and Barrett are more sober in their judgment, yet still rather early dating the papyrus to the middle of the second century. Bruce Griffin, in a detailed response to Kim’s dating, has offered what seems the most probable suggestion of ca. 175–225 CE. Metzger concurs offering “about 200.”

Quote of the Day - Hitchens on Pipes

2009-02-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

From the Wikipedia article on Daniel Pipes we find a very interesting quote by Christopher Hitchens:

Christopher Hitchens, a fellow supporter of the Iraq War and critic of political Islam, has also criticized Pipes, arguing that Pipes pursues an intolerant agenda, "confuses scholarship with propaganda", and "pursues petty vendettas with scant regard for objectivity."

Ironic?

Dr James R White on Christopher Hitchens:

Misquoting Muhammad

2009-02-10T21:56:00.001-08:00

*Pseudonym Pending

Canon, Textual Criticism and More with Bruce Metzger

2009-02-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

Although I have seen the film, I read Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ the first time last night. After having long discussions in regard to New Testament canon and textual critical issues where I based my opinion on the scholarly works of the late Bruce Metzger. However, repeating Metzger's work in an easy to understand format online is a difficult task - and what he has to say is something all Christians who have contact with atheists and Muslims should know.

Lee Strobel's interview with Bruce Metzger is probably the easiest way to communicate these ideas. So, at the risk of copyright infringement, I will provide an extract of the discussion.

Introduction:

I found eighty-four-year-old Bruce Metzger on a Saturday afternoon at his usual hangout, the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, where, he says with a smile, "I like to dust off the books." Actually, he has written some of the best of them, especially when the topic is the text of the New Testament. In all, he has authored or edited fifty books, including The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content; The Text of the New Testament; The Canon of the New Testament, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible; Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament;Introduction to the Apocrypha; and The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Several have been translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malagasy, and other languages. He also is coeditor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha and general editor of more than twenty-five volumes in the series New Testament Tools and Studies.

Metzger's education includes a master's degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and both a master's degree and a doctorate from Princeton University. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by five colleges and universities, including St. Andrews University in Scotland, the University of Munster in Germany, and Potchefstroom University in South Africa. In 1969 he served as resident scholar at Tyndale House, Cambridge, England. He was a visiting fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, in 1974 and at Wolfson College, Oxford, in 1979. He is currently professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary after a forty-six-year career teaching the New Testament.
Metzger is chairman of the New Revised Standard Version Bible Committee, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and serves on the Kuratorium of the Vetus Latina Institute at the Monastery of Beuron, Germany. He is past president of the Society of Biblical Literature, the International Society for New Testament Studies, and the North American Patristic Society. If you scan the footnotes of any authoritative book on the text of the New Testament, the odds are you're going to see Metzger cited time after time. His books are mandatory reading in universities and seminaries around the world. He is held in the highest regard by scholars from across a wide range of theological beliefs.
In many ways Metzger, born in 1914, is a throwback to an earlier generation. Alighting from a gray Buick he calls "my gas buggy," he is wearing a dark gray suit and blue paisley tie, which is about as casual as he gets during his visits to the library, even on a weekend. His white hair is neatly combed; his eyes, bright and alert, are framed by rimless glasses. He walks slower than he used to, but he has no difficulty methodically climbing the stairway to the second floor, where he conducts his research in an obscure and austere office.
And he hasn't lost his sense of humor. He showed me a tin canister he inherited as chairman of the Revised Standard Version Bible Committee. He opened the lid to reveal the ashes of an RSV Bible that had been torched in a 1952 bonfire during a protest by a fundamentalist preacher.
"It seems he didn't like it when the committee changed 'fellows' of the King James Version to 'comrades' in Hebrews 1:9," Metzger explained with a chuckle. "He accused them of being communists!"
Though Metzger's speech is hesitant at times and he's prone toreplying in quaint phrases like "Quite so," he continues to remain on the cutting edge of New Testament scholarship. When I asked for some statistics, he didn't rely on the numbers in his 1992 book on the New Testament; he had conducted fresh research to get up-to-date figures. His quick mind has no problem recalling details of people and places, and he's fully conversant with all the current debates among New Testament experts. In fact, they continue to look to him for insight and wisdom.

His office, about the size of a jail cell, is windowless and painted institutional gray. It has two wooden chairs; he insisted I take the more comfortable one. That was part of his charm. He was thoroughly kind, surprisingly modest and self-effacing, with a gentle spirit that made me want to someday grow old with the same mellow kind of grace. We got acquainted with each other for a while, and then I turned to the first issue I wanted to address: how can we be sure the biographies of Jesus were handed down to us in a reliable way?

Copies of Copies of Copies

"I'll be honest with you," I said to Metzger. "When I first found out that there are no surviving originals of the New Testament, I was really skeptical. I thought, If all we have are copies of copies of copies, how can I have any confidence that the New Testament we have today bears any resemblance whatsoever to what was originally written? How do you respond to that?"

"This isn't an issue that's unique to the Bible; it's a question we can ask of other documents that have come down to us from antiquity," he replied. "But what the New Testament has in its favor, especially when compared with other ancient writings, is the unprecedented multiplicity of copies that have survived."

"Why is that important?" I asked.

"Well, the more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original
document was like. The only way they'd agree would be where they went back genealogically in a family tree that represents the descent of the manuscripts."

"OK," I said, "I can see that having a lot of copies from various places can help. But what about the age of the documents? Certainly that's important as well, isn't it?"

"Quite so," he replied. "And this is something else that favors the New Testament. We have copies commencing within a couple of generations from the writing of the originals, whereas in the case of other ancient texts, maybe five, eight, or ten centuries elapsed between the original and the earliest surviving copy. In addition to Greek manuscripts, we also have translations of
the gospels into other languages at a relatively early time-into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. And beyond that, we have what may be called secondary translations made a little later, like Armenian and Gothic. And a lot of others-Georgian, Ethiopic, a great variety."

"How does that help?"

"Because even if we had no Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together the information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the contents
of the New Testament. In addition to that, even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth of the early church fathers."

While that seemed impressive, it was difficult to judge this evidence in isolation. I needed some context to better appreciate the uniqueness of the New Testament. How, I wondered, did it compare with other well-known works of antiquity?

A Mountain of Manuscripts

"When you talk about a great multiplicity of manuscripts," I said, "how does that contrast with other ancient books that are routinely accepted by scholars as being reliable? For instance,
tell me about the writing of authors from about the time of Jesus."

Having anticipated the question, Metzger referred to some handwritten notes he had brought along.

"Consider Tacitus, the Roman historian who wrote his Annals of Imperial Rome in about A.D. 116," he began. "His first six books exist today in only one manuscript, and it was copied about A.D. 850. Books eleven through sixteen are in another manuscript dating from the eleventh century. Books seven through ten are lost. So there is a long gap between the time that Tacitus sought his information and wrote it down and the only existing copies.
"With regard to the first-century historian Josephus, we have nine Greek manuscripts of his work The Jewish War, and these copies were written in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
centuries. There is a Latin translation from the fourth century and medieval Russian materials from the eleventh or twelfth century."

Those numbers were surprising. There is but the thinnest thread of manuscripts connecting these ancient works to the modern world. "By comparison," I asked, "how many New Testament Greek manuscripts are in existence today?"

Metzger's eyes got wide. "More than five thousand have been cataloged, he said with enthusiasm, his voice going up an octave.

That was a mountain of manuscripts compared to the anthills of Tacitus and Josephus! "Is that unusual in the ancient world? What would the runner-up be?" I asked.

"The quantity of New Testament material is almost embarrassing in comparison with other works of antiquity," he said. "Next to the New Testament, the greatest amount of manuscript testimony is of Homer's Iliad, which was the bible of the ancient Greeks. There are fewer than 650 Greek manuscripts of it today. Some are quite fragmentary. They come down to us from the second and third century A.D. and following. When you consider that Homer composed his
epic about 800 B.C., you can see there's a very lengthy gap."

"Very lengthy" was an understatement; it was a thousand years!
There was in fact no comparison: the manuscript evidence for the New Testament was overwhelming when juxtaposed against other revered writings of antiquity-works that modern scholars have absolutely no reluctance treating as authentic. My curiosity about the New Testament manuscripts having been piqued, I asked Metzger to describe some of them for me.

"The earliest are fragments of papyrus, which was a writingvmaterial made from the papyrus plant that grew in the marshes of the Nile Delta in Eypt," he said. "There are now ninety-nine
fragmentary pieces of papyrus that contain one or more passages or books of the New Testament. The most significant to come to light are the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, discovered about 1930. Of these, Beatty Biblical Papyrus number one contains portions of the four gospels and the book of Acts, and it dates from the third century.
Papyrus number two contains large portions of eight letters of Paul, plus portions of Hebrews, dating to about the year 200. Papyrus number three has a sizable section of the book of
Revelation, dating from the third century. "Another group of important papyrus manuscripts was purchased by a Swiss bibliophile, M. Martin Bodmer. The earliest of these, dating from about 200, contains about two-thirds of the gospel of John. Another papyrus, containing portions of the gospels of Luke and John, dates from the third century."

At this point the gap between the writing of the biographies of Jesus and the earliest manuscripts was extremely small. But what is the oldest manuscript we possess? How close in time, I wondered, can we get to the original writings, which experts call "autographs"?

The Scrap that Changed History

"Of the entire New Testament," I said, "what is the earliest portion that we possess today?"

Metzger didn't have to ponder the answer. "That would be a fragment of the gospel of John, containing material from chapter eighteen. It has five verses-three on one side, two on the
other-and it measures about two and a half by three and a half inches," he said.

"How was it discovered?"

"It was purchased in Egypt as early as 1920, but it sat unnoticed for years among similar fragments of papyri. Then in 1934 C. H. Roberts of Saint John's College, Oxford, was sorting through the papyri at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England. He immediately recognized this as preserving a portion of John's gospel. He was able to date it from the style of the script."

"And what was his conclusion?" I asked. "How far back does it go?"

"He concluded it originated between A.D. 100 to 150. Lots of other prominent paleographers, like Sir Frederic Kenyon, Sir Harold Bell, Adolf Deissmann, W, H. P. Hatch, Ulrich Wilcken, and others, have agreed with his assessment. Deissmann was convinced that it goes back at least to the reign of Emperor Hadrian, which was A.D. 117-138, or even Emperor Trajan, which was A.D. 98-117."

That was a stunning discovery. The reason: skeptical German theologians in the last century argued strenuously that the fourth gospel was not even composed until at least the year 160- too distant from the events of Jesus' life to be of much historical use. They were able to influence generations of scholars, who scoffed at this gospel's reliability.

"This certainly blows that opinion out of the water," I commented.

"Yes, it does," he said. "Here we have, at a very early date, a fragment of a copy of John all the way over in a community along the Nile River in Egypt, far from Ephesus in Asia Minor, where the gospel was probably originally composed."

This finding has literally rewritten popular views of history, pushing the composition of John's gospel much closer to the days when Jesus walked the earth. I made a mental note to check with an archaeologist about whether any other findings have bolstered the confidence we can have in the fourth gospel.

A Wealth of Evidence

While papyrus manuscripts represent the earliest copies of the New Testament, there are also ancient copies written on parchment, which was made from the skins of cattle, sheep, goats,
and antelope.

"We have what are called uncial manuscripts, which are written in all-capital Greek letters," Metzger explained. "Today we have 306 of these, several dating back as early as the third century. The most important are Codex Sinaiticus, which is the only complete New Testament in uncial letters, and Codex Vaticanus, which is not quite complete. Both date to about A.D. 350.
"A new style of writing, more cursive in nature, emerged in roughly A.D. 800. It's called minuscule, and we have 2,856 of these manuscripts. Then there are also lectionaries, which
contain New Testament Scripture in the sequence it was to be read in the early churches at appropriate times during the year. A total of 2,403 of these have been cataloged. That puts the grand total of Greek manuscripts at 5,664."

In addition to the Greek documents, he said, there are thousands of other ancient New Testament manuscripts in other languages. There are 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, plus a total of 8,000 in Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian. In all, there are
about 24,000 manuscripts in existence.

"What's your opinion, then?" I asked, wanting to confirm clearly what I thought I was hearing him say. "In terms of the multiplicity of manuscripts and the time gap between the originals and our first copies, how does the New Testament stack up against other well known works of antiquity?"

"Extremely well," he replied. "We can have great confidence in the fidelity with which this material has come down to us, especially compared with any other ancient literary work."
That conclusion is shared by distinguished scholars throughout the world. Said the late F. F. Bruce, eminent professor at the University of Manchester, England, and author of The New
Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?: "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."

Metzger had already mentioned the name of Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director of the British Museum and author of The Palaeography of Greek Papyri. Kenyon has said that "in no other
case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament."

His conclusion: "The last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed."

However, what about discrepancies among the various manuscripts?
In the days before lightning-fast photocopying machines, manuscripts were laboriously hand-copied by scribes, letter by letter, word by word, line by line, in a process that was ripe
for errors. Now I wanted to zero in on whether these copying mistakes have rendered our modern Bibles hopelessly riddled with inaccuracies.

Examining the Errors

"With the similarities in the way Greek letters are written and with the primitive conditions under which the scribes worked, it would seem inevitable that copying errors would creep into the text," I said.

"Quite so," Metzger conceded.

"And in fact, aren't there literally tens of thousands of variations among the ancient manuscripts that we have?"

"Quite so."

"Doesn't that therefore mean we can't trust them?" I asked, sounding more accusatory than inquisitive.

"No sir, it does not," Metzger replied firmly. "First let me say this: Eyeglasses weren't invented until 1373 in Venice, and I'm sure that astigmatism existed among the ancient scribes. That was
compounded by the fact that it was difficult under any circumstances to read faded manuscripts on which some of the ink had flaked away. And there were other hazards-inattentiveness on the part of scribes, for example. So yes, although for the most part scribes were scrupulously careful, errors did creep in.
"But," he was quick to add, "there are factors counteracting that. For example, sometimes the scribe's memory would play tricks on him. Between the time it took for him to look at the
text and then to write down the words, the order of words might get shifted. He may write down the right words but in the wrong sequence. This is nothing to be alarmed at, because Greek, unlike English, is an inflected language."

"Meaning . . . " I prompted him.

"Meaning it makes a whale of a difference in English if you say, 'Dog bites man' or 'Man bites dog'-sequence matters in English. But in Greek it doesn't. One word functions as the subject of the sentence regardless of where it stands in the sequence; consequently, the meaning of the sentence isn't distorted if the words are out of what we consider to be the right order. So yes,
some variations among manuscripts exist, but generally they're inconsequential variations like that. Differences in spelling would be another example."

Still, the high number of "variants," or differences among manuscripts, was troubling. I had seen estimates as high as two hundred thousand of them.' However, Metzger downplayed the
significance of that figure.

"The number sounds big, but it's a bit misleading because of the way variants are counted," he said. He explained that if a single word is misspelled in two thousand manuscripts, that's counted as two thousand variants.

I keyed in on the most important issue. "How many doctrines of the church are in jeopardy because of variants?"

"I don't know of any doctrine that is in jeopardy," he responded confidently.

"None?"

"None," he repeated. "Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses come to our door and say, 'Your Bible is wrong in the King James Version of 1 John 5:7-8, where it talks about 'the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.' They'll say, 'That's not in the earliest manuscripts.'
"And that's true enough. I think that these words are found in only about seven or eight copies, all from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. I acknowledge that is not part of what the author of I John was inspired to write.
"But that does not dislodge the firmly witnessed testimony of the Bible to the doctrine of the Trinity. At the baptism of Jesus, the Father speaks, his beloved Son is baptized, and the Holy
Spirit descends on him. At the ending of 2 Corinthians Paul says, 'May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.' There are
many places where the Trinity is represented."

"So the variations, when they occur, tend to be minor rather than substantive?"

"Yes, yes, that's correct, and scholars work very carefully to try to resolve them by getting back to the original meaning. The more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the
church. Any good Bible will have notes that will alert the reader to variant readings of any consequence. But again, these are rare."

So rare that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix conclude, "The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has
survived in a purer form than any other great book-aform that is 99.5 percent pure." However, even if it's true that the transmission of the New Testament through history has been unprecedented in its reliability, how do we know that we have the whole picture?

What about allegations that church councils squelched equally legitimate documents because they didn't like the picture of Jesus they portrayed? How do we know that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament represent the best and most reliable information? Why is it that our Bibles contain Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but many other ancient gospels-the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Nativity of Mary-were excluded? It was time to turn to the question of the "canon," a term that comes from a Greek word meaning "rule," "norm," or "standard" and that describes the books that have become accepted as official in the church and included in the New Testament.' Metzger is considered a leading authority in that field.

"A High Degree of Unanimity"

"How did the early church leaders determine which books would be considered authoritative and which would be discarded?" I asked.

"What criteria did they use in determining which documents would be included in the New Testament?"

"Basically, the early church had three criteria," he said. "First, the books must have apostolic authority-that is, they must have been written either by apostles themselves, who were
eyewitnesses to what they wrote about, or by followers of apostles. So in the case of Mark and Luke, while they weren't among the twelve disciples, early tradition has it that Mark was
a helper of Peter, and Luke was an associate of Paul."

"Second, there was the criterion of conformity to what was called the rule of faith. That is, was the document congruent with the basic Christian tradition that the church recognized as
normative? And third, there was the criterion of whether a document had had continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large."

"They merely applied those criteria and let the chips fall where they may?" I asked.

"Well, it wouldn't be accurate to say that these criteria were simply applied in a mechanical fashion," he replied. "There were certainly different opinions about which criterion should be
given the most weight. But what's remarkable is that even though the fringes of the
canon remained unsettled for a while, there was actually a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of the New Testament within the first two centuries. And this was true
among very diverse congregations scattered over a wide area."

"So," I said, "the four gospels we have in the New Testament today met those criteria, while others didn't?"

"Yes," he said. "It was, if I may put it this way, an example of survival of the fittest! In talking about the canon, Arthur Darby Nock used to tell his students at Harvard, 'The most traveled
roads in Europe are the best roads; that's why they're so heavily traveled.' That's a good analogy. British commentator William Barclay said it this way: 'It is the simple truth to say that the New Testament books became canonical because no one could stop them doing so.'
We can be confident that no other ancient books can compare with the New Testament in terms of importance for Christian history or doctrine. When one studies the early history of the canon, one walks away convinced that the New Testament contains the best sources for the history of Jesus. Those who discerned the limits of the canon had a clear and balanced perspective of the gospel of Christ. Just read these other documents for yourself. They're written later than the four gospels, in the second, third, fourth, fifth, even sixth century, long after Jesus, and they're
generally quite banal. They carry names-like the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Mary-that are unrelated to their real authorship. On the other hand, the four gospels in the New
Testament were readily accepted with remarkable unanimity as being authentic in the story they told."

Yet I knew that some liberal scholars, most notably members of the well-publicized Jesus Seminar, believe the Gospel of Thomas ought to be elevated to equal status with the four traditional gospels. Did this mysterious gospel fall victim to political wars within the church, eventually being excluded because of its unpopular doctrines? I decided I'd better probe Metzger on this point.

The "Secret Words" of Jesus

"Dr. Metzger, the Gospel of Thomas, which was among the Nag Hamrnadi documents found in Egypt in 1945, claims it contains 'the secret words which the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down., Why was it excluded by the church?"

Metzger was thoroughly acquainted with the work. 'The Gospel of Thomas came to light in a fifth-century copy in Coptic, which I've translated into English," he said. "It contains 114 sayings
attributed to Jesus but no narrative of what he did, and seems to have been written in Greek in Syria about A.D. 140. In some cases I think this gospel correctly reports what Jesus said, with
slight modifications."

This was certainly an intriguing statement. "Please elaborate," I said.

"For instance, in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, 'A city built on a high hill cannot be hidden.' Here the adjective high is added, but the rest reads like Matthew's gospel. Or Jesus says,
'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, render to God the things that are God's, render to me the things that are mine.' In this case the later phrase has been added.
"However, there are some things in Thomas that are totally alien to the canonical gospels. Jesus says, 'Split wood; I am there.
Lift up a stone, and you will find me there.'

That's pantheism, the idea that Jesus is coterminous with the substance of this world. That's contrary to anything in the canonical gospels.

"The Gospel of Thomas ends with a note saying, 'Let Mary go away from us, because women are not worthy of life.'Jesus is quoted as saying, 'Lo, I shall lead her in order to make her a male, so
that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"
Metzger's eyebrows shot up as if he were surprised at what he had just uttered. "Now, this is not the Jesus we know from the four canonical gospels!" he said emphatically.

I asked, "What about the charge that Thomas was purposefully excluded by church councils in some sort of conspiracy to silence it?"

"That's just not historically accurate," came Metzger's response. "What the synods and councils did in the fifth century and following was to ratify what already had been accepted by high and low Christians alike. It is not right to say that the Gospel of Thomas was excluded by some fiat on the part of a council; the right way to put it is, the Gospel of Thomas excluded itself! It did not harmonize with other testimony about Jesus that early Christians accepted as trustworthy."

"So you would disagree with anyone who would try to elevate Thomas to the same status as that of the four gospels?" I asked. "Yes, I would very much disagree. I think the early church exercised a judicious act in discarding it. To take it up now, it seems to me, would be to accept something that's less valid than the other gospels," he replied. "Now, don't get me wrong. I think the Gospel of Thomas is an interesting document, but it's mixed up with pantheistic and antifeminist statements that certainly deserve to be given the left foot of fellowship, if you know what I mean.

"You have to understand that the canon was not the result of a series of contests involving church politics. The canon is rather the separation that came about because of the intuitive insight of Christian believers. They could hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in the gospel of John; they could hear it only in a muffled and distorted way in the Gospel of Thomas, mixed in with a lot of other things. "When the pronouncement was made about the canon, it merely ratified what the general sensitivity of the church had already determined. You see, the canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books. These documents didn't derive their authority from being selected; each one was authoritative before anyone gathered them together. The early church merely listened and sensed that these were authoritative accounts.

"For somebody now to say that the canon emerged only after councils and synods made these pronouncements would be like saying, 'Let's get several academies of musicians to make a
pronouncement that the music of Bach and Beethoven is wonderful.' I would say, 'Thank you for nothing! We knew that before the pronouncement was made.' We know it because of
sensitivity to what is good music and what is not. The same with the canon."

Even so, I pointed out that some New Testament books, notably James, Hebrews, and Revelation, were more slowly accepted into the canon than others. "Should we therefore be suspicious of them?" I asked.

"To my mind, that just shows how careful the early church was," he replied. "They weren't 'gung ho,' sweeping in every last document that happened to have anything about Jesus in it. This
shows deliberation and careful analysis.

"Of course, even today parts of the Syrian church refuse to accept the book of Revelation, yet the people belonging to that church are Christian believers. From my point of view, I accept
the book of Revelation as a wonderful part of the Scriptures." He shook his head. "I think they impoverish themselves by not accepting it."

The "Unrivaled" New Testament

Metzger had been persuasive. No serious doubts lingered concerning whether the New Testament's text had been reliably preserved for us through the centuries. One of Metzger's distinguished predecessors at Princeton Theological Seminary, Benjamin Warfield, who held four doctorates and taught systematic theology until his death in 1921, put it this way:

"If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must ... declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied-a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for its holy words.... The New Testament [is] unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use."

In terms of which documents were accepted into the New Testament, generally there has never been any serious dispute about the authoritative nature of twenty of the New Testament's twentyseven books-from Matthew through Philemon, plus I Peter and I John. This of course includes the four gospels that represent Jesus' biographies. The remaining seven books, though questioned for a time by some early church leaders, "were finally and fully recognized by the church generally," according to Geisler and Nix. As for the "pseudepigraphia," the proliferation of gospels, epistles, and apocalypses in the first few centuries after Jesus-including the Gospels of Nicodemus, Barnabas, Bartholomew, Andrew, the Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, the Apocalypse of Stephen, and others-they are "fanciful and heretical ... neither genuine nor valuable as a whole," and "virtually no orthodox Father, canon or council" considered them to be authoritative or deserving of inclusion in the New Testament."

In fact, I accepted Metzger's challenge by reading many of them myself. Compared with the careful, sober, precise, eyewitness quality of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, these works truly deserve the description they received from Eusebius, the early church historian: "Totally absurd and impious." They were too far removed from Jesus' ministry to contribute anything meaningful to my investigation, having been written as late as the fifth and sixth centuries, and their often mythical qualities disqualify them from being historically credible. With all that established, the time had arrived for my investigation to advance to its next phase. I was curious: how much evidence is there for this miracle-working first-century carpenter outside the gospels? Do ancient historians confirm or contradict the New Testament's claims about his life, teachings, and miracles? I knew this required a trip to Ohio to visit one of the country's leading scholars in that field.

As we stood, I thanked Dr. Metzger for his time and expertise. He smiled warmly and offered to walk me downstairs. I didn't want to consume any more of his Saturday afternoon, but my curiosity wouldn't let me leave Princeton without satisfying myself about one remaining issue.

"All these decades of scholarship, of study, of writing textbooks, of delving into the minutiae of the New Testament text-what has all this done to your personal faith?" I asked.

"Oh," he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, "it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient."

"So," I started to say, "scholarship has not diluted your faith-"

He jumped in before I could finish my sentence. "On the contrary," he stressed, "it has built it. I've asked questions all my life, I've dug into the text, I've studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed."

He paused while his eyes surveyed my face. Then he added, for emphasis, "Very well placed."

I hope this exert was useful to you. If you found it interesting and plan on using it - I would exhort you to purchase a copy of the book instead of copying from here.

Answering-Christianity

2009-02-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

Answering Christianity has to be one of the lowest quality anti-Christian propaganda sites on the net. But don't take my opinion on it - what does my firewall have to say on the topic?

Variant Readings - are they all the same?

2009-02-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

I have found in my dialogue with Muslims is that they absolutely detest the idea of textual variants in Quranic manuscript. I am yet to find a Muslim who is actually prepared for this kind of discussion and I believe this is due to the openess of Muslim apologists and faux academics making the claim that all Quranic manuscripts are exactly the same. (I have previously challenged this claim here.)

When the Muslim cannot respond to such a claim they tend to employ the Red Herring Fallacy.

A red herring is an argument, given in reply, that does not address the original issue. Critically, a red herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument. [1]

Their usual Red Herring, if they choose to stick on topic of the Quran instead of digressing to an attack on the Bible, is in regard to the variant readings of the Quran. These variant occur with the addition of vowelisations etc for professionalised recitations to the original Uthmanic text. Now, these variant readings do not usually change the meaning of the Quran and the Muslim will give you the blanket statement that there are no differences in the Quran as a result of these variants. But is this statement true?

In regard to the variant recitations, Professor James A. Bellamy states:

These variants, however - I have counted more than two-hundred that make a difference in the meaning - are important in that they tell us there was no solid oral tradition stemming directly from the prophet to prove which variant was correct. [2]

So, we can see that there are many variants among the readings and Bellamy has recorded over 200 which render a different meaning withing the text. Professor Bellamy then goes on to provide an example:

in Surah 6:63, of the seven readers, the two from Kufah recite 'njyn' (anjana) "he saves us." and the other five 'njytn' (anjay- tana) "you (sg.) save us." These two words sound so dif- ferent that no one, unless he were deaf, could mistake one for the other, and the words on both sides of the word in question are unambiguous. One cannot argue that the prophet used one variant one day and the other the next. Nor can one maintain that there is a firm oral tradition that guarantees the reading of the unambiguous words but breaks down when more than one reading is possible. [3]

In short - beware of taking Muslim claims in regard to the integrity of the Quran at face value. As has been demonstrated above, there are a number of changes in meaning that result from the variant readings of the Quran. I do recommend the article for further reference purposes and it is available on the JSTOR database. If you do not have access to it leave a comment with your email address and I will send a copy your way.

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring_(logical_fallacy)#Red_herring
2. Bellamy, p. 1
3. Bellamy, p.2

Bibliography:

James A. Bellamy (2001), 'Textual Criticism of the Koran'. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 121 No. 1 (Jan-Mar. 2001), pp. 1-6.

'It’s OK to Hit and Rape your Wife’, Australian Muslim Cleric Samir Abu Hamza

2009-02-02T04:15:00.000-08:00

An Australian Muslim cleric is at the centre of controversy over a lecture where he directed his followers to hit their wives. In an earlier lecture circulated on the internet last year, Hamza was also recorded instructing his followers that under Islamic law, a man can demand sex from his wives. This runs contrary to Australian law where both partners mutual unvitiated consent is required, even within marriage.

In response Hamza claimed his words where metaphoric - but is this so?

The fact that the Quran and Sunnah allow for a man to beat his wife for disobediance including refusing sexual interourse leads me to the fact that Hamza was merely being honest in the potrayal of his beliefs. However, it is cowardly of him to step back for the sake of PR.

The contentious aya (verse) of the Quran which justifies such abhorrent actions is Surah 4 aya 34:

Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God’s guarding. And those (women) you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against
them; God is All-high, All-great.
Surah 4:34 (Arberry English Translation)

The ignorant Muslim apologist will respond in such a manner, ‘well, it says nothing about forced sex’. In this case we examine the context in which the aya was revealed. As many of you may know - the Quran contains no context and it is quite useless when removed from it so we must turn to the ahadith (traditions) and the tafsir.

This single aya sufficeintly justifies Hamza’s words in the Islamic context as explained by Ibn Kathir:

(As to those women on whose part you see ill conduct,) meaning, the woman from whom you see ill conduct with her husband, such as when she acts as if she is above her husband, disobeys him, ignores him, dislikes him, and so forth. When these signs appear in a woman, her husband should advise her and remind her of Allah’s torment if she disobeys him. Indeed, Allah ordered the wife to obey her husband and prohibited her from disobeying him, because of the enormity of his rights and all that he does for her. The Messenger of Allah said,

If I were to command anyone to prostrate before anyone, I would have commanded the wife to prostrate before her husband, because of the enormity of his right upon her.)

Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Hurayrah said that the Messenger of Allah said,

If the man asks his wife to come to his bed and she declines, the angels will keep cursing her until the morning.)

Muslim recorded it with the wording:
If the wife goes to sleep while ignoring her husband’s bed, the angels will keep cursing her until the morning.
This is why Allah said:

As to those women on whose part you see ill conduct, admonish them (first), abandon them in their beds, (then) beat them.
(This is surah 4 aya 34)

Source: Tafsir Ibn Kathir

The 'Perfect' Literary Style of the Qur'an Myth

2009-01-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

How perfect is the literary style of the Quran really?

On the whole, while many parts of the Qur'an undoubtedly have considerable rhetorical power, even over an unbelieving reader, the book, aesthetically considered, is by no means a first-rate performance. ...let us look at some of the more extended narratives. It has already been noticed how vehement and abrupt they are where they ought to be characterized by epic repose. Indispensable links, both in expression and in the sequence of events, are often omitted, so that to understand these histories is sometimes far easier for us than for those who learned them first, because we know most of them from better sources. Along with this, there is a great deal of superfluous verbiage; and nowhere do we find a steady advance in the narration. Contrast, in these respects, "the most beautiful tale," the history of Joseph (xii.), and its glaring improprieties, with the story in Genesis, so admirably executed in spite of some slight discrepancies. Similar faults are found in the non-narrative portions of the Qur'an. The connection of ideas is extremely loose, and even the syntax betrays great awkwardness. Anancloutha are of frequent occurrence, and cannot be explained as conscious literary devices. Many sentences begin with a "when" or "on the day when," which seem to hover in the air, so that the commentators are driven to supply a "think of this" or some ellipsis. Again, there is no great literary skill evinced in the frequent and needless harping on the same words and phrases; in xviii., for example, "till that" (hatta idha) occurs no fewer than eight times. Muhammad, in short, is not in any sense a master of style.

Nöldeke, Theodor. "The Qur'an," Sketches from Eastern History. Trans. J.S. Black. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892.

The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’anic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid. Since the Qur’an claims repeatedly to be clear but is not—there is an obvious and serious contradiction. Something else must be going on.

Professor Gerd R. Puin, Saarland University

"It is by no means the universal opinion of unprejudiced Arabic scholars that the literary style of the Qur'an is superior to that of all other books in the Arabic language. Some doubt whether in eloquence and poetry it surpasses the Mu'allaqat by Imraul Quais, or the Maqamat of Hariri, though in Muslim lands few people are courageous enough to express such an opinion."

C.G. Pfander, The Mizanu'l Haqq ( Balance of Truth') p.264

"When we read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, many scholars hold that the eloquence of Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and many of the Psalms, for instance, is greater than that of any part of the Qur'an. Hardly anyone but a Muslim would deny this, and probably no Muslim who knew both Arabic and Hebrew well would be able to deny it."

C.G. Pfander, The Mizanu'l Haqq ( Balance of Truth') p.266

January 15th Demonstration: Western Peace v Islamic Peace

2009-01-26T01:28:00.001-08:00

Gnostic Gospels vs Synoptic Gospels

2009-01-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

This Weeks Reading List

2009-01-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

I just picked up two excellent books that I can't wait to get into first hand:

1. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam - Patricia Crone

2. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World - by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook

I haven't begun Meccan Trade as yet but Hagarism has done a lot to confirm my own ideas regarding Islam. Anyone acquainted with the Bible, heretical scripture and the Jewish talmud would be well aware of the borrowing of stories present in the Qur'an. But Crone and Michael go beyond this to explain a possible narrative of how this came about using the best available sources to them.

I will follow up with an extended review after I complete the books.

The Myth of Perfect Preservation: Examining a Variant

2009-01-18T04:35:00.001-08:00

Muslims often claim that a sign that the Qur'an is from God is that today's copy is perfectly preserved (16:8) from the eternal tablets (85:22) and this is a sign that it is from Allah. In this brief post I will put aside the evidence from the ahadith mentioning lost and variant surahs and take one example from the physical evidence.

The Uthman Quran or Today's Quran

Brief history:

The Uthman Quran, also known as Tashkent Qur'an, Osman's Koran and Samarkand Codex, is believed by many Muslims to be one of Uthman's original editions which is testified by the blood stains found on the Quran from Uthman's assassination. Then we have today's common Qur'an - a 1924 Egyptian version mass produced early last century.

One Page Examined:

(Click to see full sized)

Take note of the textual variants marked in line 2 (37:103), line 4 (37:105), line 6, line 7 (37:106) and line 8 of the Uthman Quran.

One Variant Examined:

At the start of line two we see a variant - this variant occurs in Surah 37 aya 103.

(Uthman Quran variant from line 2, page 652)

Transliteration: wa ma ‘aslamA
Translation: And they did not submit (i.e. become Muslims)

(Current 1924 Standard Quran Edition)

Transliteration: falammA‘slamA
Translation: When they too submitted (i.e. became Muslims)

Conclusion

We see that the old Uthman Quran shows a stark contradiction to the Quran in use today in surah 37 aya 103. Similarly, in that single page of 8 lines there were 5 variants to the Quran used today.

If we hold the Muslim view that a text cannot be considered inspired in light of textual variants (as they charge against the Bible), they cannot consider their own text to be inspired as it is evidently 'corrupted' and contains numerous textual variants. However, unlike with New Testament scholarship the study of textual variants in Islam is a subject of taboo as they hold onto the claim that the Quran is unchanged through transmission.

This is a dilemma for the Muslims that must be addressed.

The Lengths Muslims Will Go

2009-01-18T02:21:00.001-08:00

There are hundreds of scientific myth floating around the internet in regard to Islam. Muslims often appeal to them after being deceived by other high profile Muslim evangelists such as Zakir Naik. Anyone quasi familiar with science and the Qur'an can see the flaws in this sort of argumentation. The Qur'anic ayat is removed from its context, manipulated and then parallelled to a poor outdated and incorrect paraphrasing of a scientific concept. At other times, the historical context of the Qur'an is thrown out altogether. We may have a scientific concept predating the Qur'an by thousands of years yet Muslims will insist that the Qur'an testified this before anyone else.

A few days ago I came across one of the worst arguments I have seen in this respect.

"But recently we have discovered, that there are pain receptor present in the skin, which is responsible, Qur’an mentions Surah Nisa, Chapter No. 4, Verse No. 54, that as to those who reject our signs, we will cast them into the hell fire and as often as the skin is roasted, we shall change it with new skin so that they shall feel the pain. Indirectly Qur’an is saying, there is something in the skin, which is responsible for the pain."
(Do note, the above aya usually appears as aya 56 not 54)

The author is claiming that the above aya demonstrates scientific foreknowledge of receptor cells in the skin. I must conceded - the author of the claim is correct in one regard. The aya does in fact indirectly claim that there is something in the skin responsible for pain. But, my challenge is - find me a book out there that does NOT make the claim that roasting your skin in fire would cause pain.

I did not need the Qur'an to tell me that if my skin gets burnt it would hurt. In fact, I learnt this lesson as a child. Is this evidence of my own divine providence? Surely, I hope an individual as errant as myself (or the Qur'an) does not deserve this title.

1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

2009-01-17T23:27:00.000-08:00

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:12-24 (ESV)

Dr James White vs Dr Bart Ehrman - Does the Bible Misquote Jesus?

2009-01-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

On January 21st there will be a debate between Dr James White and Dr Bart Ehrman, author of 'Misquoting Jesus'. The topical thesis of debate will be, "Is the New Testament inspired in light of textual variation?'

More information is available: http://sovereigncruises.org/AO2009/debate.htm

I will review the debate after the event but do keep Dr James White in your prayers that he can speak with conviction and honesty to defend the Word of God.

Hamas in Their Own Voices

2009-01-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

A brief look at the Palestinian hatred towards Israel, America, Christendom and the West in general.

The Difficulty of Obtaining Resources

2009-01-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

Here I can walk into any bookstore and I will be greeted with a plethora of anti-Christian writings and writings critical of the development of Christianity and the Bible. In your average bookstore they range from the moderately scholarly such as Bart Ehrman's pop-critical evaluations of the New Testament to the grossly biased works of Dawkins or Hitchens. Compare this to what your local bookstore holds in relation to Islam.

Not one bookstore in the country holds Christoph Luxenberg's the 'Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Qur'an'. Not one bookstore holds a title of Robert Spencer's 'The Truth about Muhammad' but some can order it in by request.

But I thought this was of no real issue to me as I have access to some of the greatest academic libraries in the country. As a patron of five university libraries - 2 of which are ranked in the top 100 World universities and 4 with a Middle Eastern and Islamic studies department - I thought it wouldn't be a problem. But to my surprise not one of the universities held a copy of Luxenberg's book.

If anyone is aware of an online published version of Christoph Luxenberg's 'The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Qur'an' or a bookstore holding it do not be afraid to leave a message!

Qur'anic Abrogation - Surah 2:106

2009-01-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

I was just observing a discussion regarding Qur'anic abrogation. Many Muslims attempt to avoid any sort of doctrine whatsoever, while others admit that verses were 'caused to be forgotten' and replaced. The first position obviously goes against the various Qur'anic verses and Islamic traditions. However, I was shocked at the way the Muslim attempted to interpret the ayat.

For example, Surah 2 aya 106 was raised:

And for whatever verse We abrogate or cast into oblivion, We bring a better or the like of it; knowest thou not that God is powerful over everything?
Surah 2:106 (Arberry)

The Muslim response to this was:

there is no verse in the Holy Qurán that's abbrogated or has been cancelled out! That verse that says that, is talking about past commandments given to past prophets, commandments contained in the Bible!

There is either no honesty or ignorance by our Muslim brother in making this claim. In appeal to the tafsir writers we see the picture.

Tafsir Ibn Abbas:

Then Allah mentions what was abrogated of the Qur'an and that which was not abrogated, as a direct reference to the claim of the Quraysh who said to the Prophet: O Muhammad! Why do you command us to do something and then forbid it, saying: (Such of Our revelations as We abrogate) We do not erase a verse that was acted upon before and which is now not acted upon (or cause to be forgotten) or leave unabrogated so that it is acted upon, (We bring one better) We send Gabriel with that which more profitable and easier to act upon (or the like) in reward, benefit and action. (Knowest thou not) O Muhammad (that Allah is Able to do all things?) of the abrogated and unabrogated.

Within the Qur'anic context it is clear that the ayat is not referring to the Bible but internal abrogation of the Qur'anic text. One thing that our Muslim brothers and sisters dislike to be reminded of is what the Qur'an actually has to asy about the Bible:

And believe in that I have sent down, confirming that which is with you, and be not the first to disbelieve in it. And sell not My signs for a little price; and fear you Me.
Surah 2:41 (Arberry)

The Name of Jesus: Yasu, Isa and Yeshua

2009-01-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

I am honestly at a loss of words on how to categorise this apologetic rebuttal. I will let you share in the perplexity (but please do mind the vulgarity.)

Claim:

The letter J was not invented until the 17th century. Before the 1611 the King James Version was known as the King Iames Version.
Christians refer to Prophet Isa as Jesus
So when all you christians are spewing 'Jesus Jesus' on the second coming, do you think the Prophet Isa will know that you are calling him????

Response:

I find this a poor attack- and this was by no means the first time the author has employed it. In his mind, this claim apparently destroys the entire integrity of Christian beliefs and the Bible.

Jesus is the latinised version of the Greek Iesous from Yeshua. But to the Christian, professing Jesus' name in our own tongue is no stumbling block - in Acts 2 the disciples ministered in all tongues.

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Phil 2:10-11 (ESV)

But all this aside, if our Muslim friend holds onto the view that Jesus will not recognise a translation of his name how would he recognise the Muslim's calling 'Isa? In Arabic, the Christian communities have always referred to Jesus as Yasu - coming from the Hebrew and Aramaic roots. However, in the 7th Century with the advent of Koranic literature Yasu was now 'Isa among the Muslims.

In the words of Professor James A. Bellamy:

“The fact that Isa has no satisfactory derivation and no pre-Koranic history should have alerted scholars to the possibility that the word is a MISTAKE”.

Professor James A. Bellamy, 'Textual Criticism of the Koran', Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 121 No 1 (Jan-Mar).

The Myth of Perfect Preservation: Examining a Variant

2009-01-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

(Click to see full sized)

(Uthman Quran variant from line 2, page 652)

Transliteration: wa ma ‘aslamA
Translation: And they did not submit (i.e. become Muslims)

(Current 1924 Standard Quran Edition)

Transliteration: falammA‘slamA
Translation: When they too submitted (i.e. became Muslims)

Conclusion

Science Myths: Muhammad or Science?

2009-01-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

The Islamic community constantly reminds the world of how their holy books and their prophet Muhammad were scientific geniuses well ahead of their time. Many people take this claim as truthful without asking for evidence – if so many people are repeating it, it must be true? Others who ask for evidence are provided with the worst works to ever be produced in the English language – poor paraphrasing of scientific concepts loosely linked to incoherent and archaic English translations of the Qur’an.

Then there are those who go straight to the sources – to see what Muhammad really knew about science. For those belonging to the last group, this is for you.

Muhammad’s Scientific Knowledge

1. The first humans were 60 cubits tall. That is roughly 90 feet tall or 27metres.

The Prophet said, "Allah created Adam, making him 60 cubits tall. When He created him, He said to him, "Go and greet that group of angels, and listen to their reply, for it will be your greeting (salutation) and the greeting (salutations of your offspring." So, Adam said (to the angels), As-Salamu Alaikum (i.e. Peace be upon you). The angels said, "As-salamu Alaika wa Rahmatu-l-lahi" (i.e. Peace and Allah's Mercy be upon you). Thus the angels added to Adam's salutation the expression, 'Wa Rahmatu-l-lahi,' Any person who will enter Paradise will resemble Adam (in appearance and figure). People have been decreasing in stature since Adam's creation."

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 543

2. House flies – 1 wing causes disease, 1 wing cures disease

The Prophet said "If a house fly falls in the drink of anyone of you, he should dip it (in the drink), for one of its wings has a disease and the other has the cure for the disease."

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number 537

3. Fevers are caused by the hellfire

I used to sit with Ibn 'Abbas in Mecca. Once I had a fever and he said (to me), "Cool your fever with Zam-zam water, for Allah's Apostle said: 'It, (the Fever) is from the heat of the (Hell) Fire; so, cool it with water (or Zam-zam water)."

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number 483

4. Eating dates renders all poisons (and magic) ineffective

Allah's Apostle said, "He who eats seven 'Ajwa dates every morning, will not be affected by poison or magic on the day he eats them."

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 65, Number 356
(Also in hadith number 663)

For a consistent argument, the Muslim must accept all their sources. These difficulties must be rationalised before they cherry pick.

Science Myths: Medicinal Properties of Honey and the Qur’an

2009-01-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

Once again, Muslims appeal to the claim of ‘science’ in the Qu’ran

Claim:

Only a couple of centuries ago man came to know that honey comes from the belly of the bee. This fact was mentioned in the Qur’aan 1,400 years ago in the following verse:

“There issues From within their bodies A drink of varying colours,
Wherein is healing for men.” [Al-Qur’aan 16:69]

We are now aware that honey has a healing property and also a mild
antiseptic property. The Russians used honey to cover their wounds in World War II.

The wound would retain moisture and would leave very little scar tissue.

Thus the knowledge contained in the Qur’aan regarding honey, its origin and properties, was far ahead of the time it was revealed.

Response:

What we see here are two main claims:

The Qur’an was revolutionary in claiming that honey comes from the belly of bees;
The Qur’an was revolutionary in suggesting a medicinal use for honey.

Thus, the Qur’an was inspired by Allah as these scientific miracles, 1400 years before their time, are testament to.

This claim would be impressive, yet still logically unsound, if it was true. But as with Islamic attempts at proselytisation – it is mere conjecture. A deception employed by Muslims in order to gain converts and raise the prominence of their religion and the Qur'an.

Firstly, I will cover point number one regarding the claim that “only a couple of centuries ago man came to know that honey comes from the belly of the bee.” Secondly, I will cover point two regarding the documented historical use of honey as a medicine prior to the advent of Islam and conception of the Qu’ran. Thirdly, I will challenge the claim that this is proof of the divine origins of the Qur’an.

I. Honey from the Belly of the Bee

The claim, as above, is that the Qur’an prior to the scientific endeavor of any man stated that honey comes from the ‘belly of the bee’. The Qur’anic verse of Surah An-Nahl (16) goes:

And suck from all fruits and flit about the unrestricted paths of their Lord. A drink of various hues comes out of their bellies which contains medicine for men. In this is a sign for those who reflect.
Surah 16:69 (Ahmed Ali)

Here we can see that the claim is found in the Qur’an. However, what are the sources of this claim. By no means was the Qur’an the first to make (or repeat) this claim. Without going into any exegesis for the original source of transmission or the introduction of this idea to the Arab peninsula I will simply quote a prominent work predating the Qur’an by almost a millenium:

“but honey is a liquid that cometh from the stomach and belly of the bee”

The Works of Aristotle by Aristotle (384-322BC)

Aristotle made mention of this fact in passing as it was a well known theory at the time that honey came from the stomach or ‘belly’ of the bee. Hence, the uniqueness of this claim being one in the Qur’an has no factual basis as it is simply in harmony with Greek science from almost a millennium earlier.

II. Medicinal Properties of Honey

The claim that the Qur’an, in harmony with science, attributes healing properties to honey is not usually in doubt:

And suck from all fruits and flit about the unrestricted paths of their Lord. A drink of various hues comes out of their bellies which contains medicine for men. In this is a sign for those who reflect

Surah 16:69 (Ahmed Ali)

Note, the general rendering of “feehi shifaon lilnnasi” in English is “having/containing healing properties for men/mankind.”

However, in the historical and geographical context of Muhammad and the Qur’an there is nothing special, unique or revolutionary about this claim. We could turn back to Aristotle of the 4th Century BC Greece and his works outlining multiple medical uses of honey and its effect on the healing process. However, we can also go further back into the past.

For 4000 years writes have described medicinal, pharmaceutical and health-giving properties attributed to honey. Traditional medicine used honey for treating many disorders… (Komolfare, 1995 cited in ‘The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting', Eva Crane)

Records of people covering wounds with honey stretch back to ancient Egypt and as Dioscorides reported in 50 AD, honey is “good for all rotten and hollow ulcers”. (‘Wound-healing Properties of Honey – more than 4,500 years of results’)

Famous ancient physicians who used honey include Aristotle (384-322 BC), who mentions pale honey "good as a salve for sore eyes and wounds", and Dioscorides (c.50 AD) who mentions it for ulcers. (‘The History of Honey as Medicine’)

As is evident, within the ancient world the use of honey for medicinal purposes was by no means a new science. For thousands of years prior to Muhammad making mention of this in the Qur’an, we have documented evidence of the medical use of honey in healing. Thus, the claim of the Qur’an revolutionizing the field of medicine in advance of scientific discovery is truly false.

III. Evidence for Divine Origin

As is evident, there was nothing unique of the claim that honey comes from the ‘belly’ of the bee or that honey can be used for heeling properties. Both of these facts were well known facts. However, if the Muslim insists in favour of their assertion, they must also accept Aristotle's work, among others, as being from Allah.

Further References:

The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World by Guide Marjno, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1975
‘The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting’ by Eva Crane, 1999
The Works of Aristotle by Aristotle, Project Guttenberg

Quick Apologetics: Muhammad in the Bible

2009-01-12T00:27:00.000-08:00

Muslims often cite what they believe to be examples of Muhammad in the Bible. However, they cannot be blamed for this as it is an act of necessity. Muhammad claimed that he was foretold in the Bible so Muslims are bound to find examples and present it as proof to the Christians and Jews that Muhammad was a statement of their own beliefs and thus a legitimate prophet.

Here I will briefly outline the absurdity of some of these claims so that you can be ready to give a defence to this deceptive handling of your text. By the end of your argument you can always question your opponent - if the Qur'an claimed Muhammad could be found in the Bible when he actually isn't, is it possible to trust the Quran?

NB: I have derived the basis for the Islamic argument which I rebut from Zakir Naik. His answers are often posed and copy/pasted.

Index:

Deuteronomy 18
Song of Solomon 5
John 14/15/16 and the Comforter

Old Testament

1. Muhammad is foretold in Deuteronomy 18:18

The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death
Deuteronomy 18:17-20

Claim:

"From among their brothers" means from among the brother tribes of Israel and they claim here refers to the Ishmaelites. Muhammad was an Ishmaelite hence verse is talking about him.
Muhammad was like Moses.

Response:

Deuteronomy 18:18 states that the prophet will come "from among their brothers". In this verse God is talking to Moses and the Jews - such phraseology can only be applied to the fact that the language is inclusive of the people they are addressing.

This is clarified within the Biblical context:
be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite.
Deuteronomy 17:15
The above verse confirms the context of the usage of brothers. From among your brothers means from among your own people - not a foreigner (or Ishmaelite) - but an Israelite.

Therefore, the verse directly excludes Muhammad as he was not from among the Israelites.
As we have seen, the verse requires the person be from among the Israelites Muhammad does not meet the criteria in this respect nor was Muhammad similar to Moses in this respect.

Moses brought in the age of the Law. Jesus fulfilled the law and brought in the Messianic age.

2. Muhammad is foretold in Song of Solomon 5:16

Claim:

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is mentioned by name in the Song of Solomon chapter 5 verse 16:

"Hikko Mamittakim we kullo Muhammadim Zehdoodeh wa Zehraee Bayna Jerusalem."

In the Hebrew language im is added for respect. Similarely im is added after the name of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to make it Muhammadim. In English translation they have even translated the name of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as "altogether lovely", but in the Old Testament in Hebrew, the name of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is yet present.

Response:

The transliteration of the Hebrew of Song of Solomon 5:16 is actually incorrect. No such Hebrew word 'Muhammadim' appears in the text. The transliteration would read "Machmadim" (pronounced Mahk-Mawd-Im). The word 'Machmadim' is the plural of 'Machmad' meaning “a desirable thing, a precious thing” from the root word “chamad” meaning desirable. Hence the reason why this word is translated as it is in the respective English translations.
If we were to use the word 'Machmadim' as it were Muhammad's name and a reference to him we would find the scriptures making no sense. Another example of Muhammad in the Bible would include"
but about this time tomorrow I will send my servants to you, and they will search your house and the houses of your servants; and whatever is MUHAMMAD, they will take in their hand and carry away.’ ”
1 Kings 20:6

As is evident, this claim of Muhammad being in Song of Solomon 5:16 results from a false transliteration of the Hebrew. If we were to accept the claim that the word was Muhammad we would find many occurrence of Muhammad where it just doesn't make sense. (E.g. 1 Kings 20:6)

New Testament

Claim:

The claim goes that the Comforter/Helper/Advocate/Counsellor (depending on its English translation) or the Parakletos as it appears in the Original Greek is Muhammad and that Jesus foretold his coming. Within John 14-16 the word is used a number of times.

Response:

John 14:26 is probably the greatest response to use to this claim

But the Helper (Parakletos), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
John 14:26 (ESV)

The Comforter is identified as the Holy Spirit. "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit..." (John 14:26)
The Comforter is sent by the Father in Jesus' name, "whom the Father will send in my name". (John 14:26) If the Comforter is Muhammad, then he was sent in Jesus' nam which would make Jesus God.
The Comforter will teach all things and help the disciples remember all that Jesus taught, "he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you."
(John 14:26). Did Muhammad help the disciples remember what Jesus taught them?

To further this - examine the nature of the Comforter

The Comforter cannot be seen by the world "The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him" John 14:17
The Comforter will abide in the disciples, "He abides with you and will be in you." John 14:17
The Comforter will convict the world for not believing in Jesus, "because they do not believe in ME" (John 16:8-9)
The Comforter will be with the people forever, "that He may be with you forever" (John 14:16).

As is evident, the Comforter cannot be Muhammad as:

It is identified as the Holy Spirit (John 14:26)
Muhammad doesn't fit any of the attributes of the Comforter (John 14:16/17/14:16/etc)

[For more on Muhammad in John see Muhammad in the New Testament Revisited]

Conclusion

As is evident, these popular myths propagated by Muslims have no credibility. They rely on deception or removing the verse (or even phrases) from the context of the verse/chapter/book/testament/Bible in order to prove a point.

After debating the topic of Muhammad in the Bible numerous times I can say with full confidence that there is no reference of Muhammad as a true prophet of God within the Bible.

Bitesized Video Responses:

Deuteronomy 18:18 & Song of Solomon Response by Jay Smith [PhD Student at the London School of Theology]

John 14/15/16 and the Parakletos/Comforter by Jay Smith [PhD Student at the London School of Theology]

John 14-16 and the Comforter by Dr James White

Further Reading:

Answering Jamal Badawi: Muhammad in the Bible By Sam Shamoun
Who is the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:18 By Silas
Two Short, Sound, Simple Proofs that Muhammad Was a False Prophet By David Wood

Quick Apologetics

2009-01-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

Within the genre of the Muslim-Christian polemic accustomed myself to composing detailed essay styled rebuttals and apologetics. Although these are effective in putting the myths against Christianity to rest, the form may be inconvenient to many for a few reasons.

Firstly, the amount of detail may be confusing and unnecessary for the general Christian audience and secondly, long detailed arguments do not necessarily translate well into short meaningful responses in general apologetics for the average Christian and Muslim.

With these limitations in mind I have began to author my apologetics in a short bitesized manner for easy use in general conversation such as in person, when witnessing or even on facebook!