Category: Book Plunge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 5/2/2020

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

What does it take to get you to change your mind? What if you were raised in a religion and everyone around you was in that and your whole life and culture were dominated by that? What would it take to get you to change your mind? What would it take to get you to at least wonder?

For my guest this Saturday, it all started with a simple question.

“How do you know Mormonism is true?”

My guest grew up in Mormonism and all her life she was sure it was true. Then one day a guy she was dating just asked her how she knew it was true. That got her started on a search and she came to the conclusion that it wasn’t true.

Her story then became one of learning from past mistakes and finding out what it meant to live a holy life. It became about how to deal with her parents who were still Mormons and would see her as apostasizing and going into outer darkness because of it. It became not making herself dependent on any man in her life and still getting married and finding true love as a result.

It was a story of how she came Out of Zion.

Which is the title of her book.

And she is Lisa Brockman, my guest this Saturday.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

Lisa Brockman is married to Dennis and is a mother of five passionate kids. She is a twenty-seven year missionary with Cru, a spiritual director, and a graduate of Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation. She was raised in a devout Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Utah and adores them. She attended East High, the film site of High School Musical—a small claim to fame. 

Lisa loves journeying with people through their spiritual highs, lows and wanderings, and is passionate about people encountering the biblical God, who offers a love and freedom that has revolutionized her life. She loves to create tantalizing culinary creations for her family and friends, where they spend endless hours at the table sharing life and stories. The beach is her oasis.

While attending the University of Utah, Lisa began dating Gary, a baseball player who called himself a Christian. This relationship catapulted her into a search she had never envisioned for her life. In her determination to prove the truth of Mormonism, she was introduced to the love and grace of the biblical God, who radically changed the trajectory of her life.

——————————–

Graduate Coursework through Cru’s Institute of Biblical Studies and Reformed Theological Seminary

Obtained my Spiritual Direction Certificate through New Way Ministries

Graduate of Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation

I hope you’ll be looking forward to this episode. I hope we have others up before too long as well. This May is all lined up with guests ready to get you equipped.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Bedrock of Christianity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Worldviews and the Problem of Evil

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

If there is any objection normally raised up against theism, it is the problem of evil. How can a good God allow so much evil in the world or any evil even? The argument from my perspective is not the most rational or logical, but it does have a strong emotional appeal. As I write this, our society is on lockdown from fear of a virus and even before this point, atheists were already making memes about God allowing or not doing anything concerning this virus.

In this book, Campbell looks at how different worldviews answer the problem of evil. He deals with naturalism, pantheism, panentheism, and theism itself. Each topic is dealt with the same way. In the end, there is more examination of theism since this is where Campbell lies and he spends more time on defenses of it. In each chapter, he also looks at the best defenders of each position.

Each worldview has to deal with the following questions: Life, human consciousness, the metaphysics of good and evil, and human responsibility. At this, I would have preferred the first two be left out. Let’s suppose we grant the positions of life and consciousness as questions to be set aside for the moment. If we look at just evil itself, how well does each worldview explain it?

Campbell does treat each view fairly and then looks at theism. Here, I would have also liked to have seen more distinction. He focuses naturally on Christian theism, but I was hoping in the book to see a comparison between Islam and Judaism and perhaps even deism as well. Campbell makes the Trinity a necessary part of his defense, so Islam would definitely have some problems, but couldn’t Judaism possibly work still since it would be open to incarnation, resurrection, and Trinity? After all, the first Christians were open to all of these and were Jews.

I was pleased to see the engagement with New Testament scholarship when talking about the Trinity. Campbell looked at some of the best research on this and if you’re not familiar with it, you will gain enough to be basically cognizant of the issues. This is explained in a way that is easy to understand as well.

Campbell also has some questions about classical theism. I really did not find them convincing as a classical theist myself. Still, it is not necessary to Campbell’s book that you embrace his view. I did appreciate his critique of open theism, however.

The final chapter also deals with the defeat of evil and looks at questions such as the nature of Heaven and Hell. While I am not a proponent of conditional immortality, I don’t think many of them would find his arguments in this case tenable. There was some said on Heaven, but I think more needed to be said.

If there was something else I would add, it would be a brief chapter on those who are dealing with suffering right now. What advice does Campbell have for us when we are in the midst of the pain? At that time, the intellectual arguments don’t really help out that much. I realize this book is not meant to be a pastoral book, but that would be something good still to have.

Overall still, this is a very thorough work on the problem of evil and atheists who want to use it as an argument need to deal with it. It’s also a rare book that deals with pantheism and panentheism on the problem of evil as well. Now maybe someone who studies this more will go forward and look at Judaism, deism, and Islam more on evil.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Lifechange

What do I think of Brad Wright’s soon to be published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Everyone talks about the weather and no one does anything about it. Everyone talks about change they want to make and they don’t do it. I am someone who has written at least one published ebook with another one coming soon, but I have started a number that never saw the light of day.

Your work might not be a book, but you have something. Maybe you want to lose those last ten pounds, or the last hundred pounds. Maybe you want to run a marathon. Maybe you want to learn a language or a musical instrument. Maybe you want to learn to spend less time on your phone and….excuse me. I have to check this app before I get back to this review…

Anyway, we all know about the changes we need to make. The thing is, you can go and read a book on dieting and know you need to do it and gain ten pounds going through the book. You can get some exercise videos and sit on the couch eating oreos while you watch them. You can buy that saxophone so you can learn to play and before too long it’s just gathering dust.

So how do you do it? How do you change your motivation so you can do things? For Brad Wright, the main step to take is self-control. You have to build up your self-control so you can want to follow through.

Per that, Wright gives great advice. Unfortunately, with a draft copy, I’m not at liberty to share things, but I will say I learned a lot about self-control and how important it is. I have seen myself start projects only to have them not finished. I have seen my wife lose passion for dieting super quickly. I have had numerous times where I sat down just to browse Facebook for a few minutes which quickly turns into an hour.

So when are we going to stop talking about change and start doing change?

This book is not about just behaviors to do. It is about how to change your motivation and will and self-control so you can do the behaviors. There are no grandiose promises. There is nothing in here about if you just do what’s in this book you are guaranteed everything, but it will certainly help.

Most of the chapters are short too, so that means you can sit down and read a chapter a day for the most part and get done. About the longest chapter I think was the chapter on the biggest distractions that we have everyday. I will tell you that #2 will make sense to you, but #1 will be a big surprise to many.

Wright is also clear that he is a Christian in the book, but the book can be read easily by a secularist. His Christianity is not “in-your-face” in that style. You could compare it in that sense to the work of Stephen Covey who is a Mormon I understand and would prefer you to be a Mormon, but that doesn’t change his ideas of habits for highly effective people.

So maybe it’s time to get out those walking shoes. Maybe it’s time to dust off the saxophone. Maybe it’s time to turn on those exercise videos. Maybe it’s time to….ooooh….a new notification. Hold on.

So if you want to make lifechange, regardless of your worldview, then I recommend you get this book. There has been enough talk about the weather. Let’s do something about it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God? Four Views.

What do I think of Ronnie Campbell and Christopher Gnanakan’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When a Wheaton professor wore a hijab, it led to a major evangelical controversy. Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews worship the same God? In this volume, four different views are shared on the topic. If you think the answers are simply yes or no, you’re mistaken. So what are these views?

Wm. Andrew Schwartz and John B. Cobb Jr. both take the view of yes, we all worship the same God. Francis Beckwith takes the idea that in a way, we all do worship the same as a referent. Gerald McDermott holds a shared revelation view where Jews and Christians worship the same God, but not Muslims. Jerry Walls takes the position that none worship the same God.

Now going in, my position was very much that of Jerry Walls. I do think there are generic theistic arguments that can be used for all three of the Abrahamic faiths and you can only know which one is true by special revelation, but when we look at the deities described in the revelation, they’re very different. Namely, it comes down to the view of Jesus. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, Christians necessarily worship a Trinity.

I found the first view of all worship the same God being the most unconvincing. For instance, it was said that there are many Christianities. At this point, I have to wonder if the authors have any idea what it means to be a Christian because if Christianity can be anything, then it means nothing.

It’s hard to disagree with Francis Beckwith, and as Jerry Walls said in the book, especially when he begins with an analogy involving Superman. (We’ll try to forgive him for never mentioning the Smallville series.) Still, at the end of the day, I just can’t sign easily on the dotted line. It’s hard to think that the Father of Jesus is the God of Muhammad.

Gerald McDermott would agree as he thinks there’s a radical division between Islam and Christianity. However, there was not any dispute among the Jews and Christians at the start about which God was worshipped. Therefore, Jews and Christians worship the same God. Muslims do not. This can make sense, but I agree with Walls that McDermott does seem to move too quickly through the doctrines of the Trinity, the resurrection, and the incarnation.

Finally, we get to Walls’s view. This is the view I did find the most convincing. Now you could say it’s because I approached the book with this view so yeah, bias is always a part, but also when one studies for years, they don’t form positions lightly. In all fairness, the positions of Beckwith and McDermott I did think made some good points.

Walls also did bring up something else that needed to be discussed. Even if we think they all worship the same God, does that count towards salvation for them? I wish the other authors had said more about that question. I don’t think Beckwith and McDermott would hold to a pluralistic view, but I wonder if the first authors might.

There are also two essays afterwards, mainly on evangelizing Muslims. These are good to have, but shouldn’t we include something on evangelizing Jews as well? Judaism is much smaller in number to be sure, but why not have one chapter on Muslims and one on Jews? Jews need their Messiah too, after all.

If this question interests you, then you should get this book. The extra benefit besides just the replies to the authors on their essay is the author of each essay gives one quick counter-reply to all the others. I like this touch and wish it would be used more often.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: In Pursuit of Love

What do I think of Rebecca Bender’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Years ago a group called AM Radio had a song called “I Just Wanna Be Loved.” The only reason I know this is because it was on the Talon Mix, the first CD put out from the series Smallville. AM Radio definitely hit on something. Everyone has a longing in their life to be loved.

Rebecca Bender is included in that. She was a successful student in school and everything seemed to be going well, until she got pregnant by her boyfriend and for some reason he wound up in jail so she’s a single mother looking to find a means to provide for herself. As it turns out, she meets a guy she thinks is awesome and they start living together and then he talks about getting a job in Vegas. She has to come along and turns out, he gets her to sign up for an escort service. Gotta pay the bills somehow. Right?

And thus begins her life as a prostitute.

I really don’t want to go much beyond that in terms of story, but it is a story of redemption. Bender describes the role Christianity played in all of this because there’s never any moment in the book where she comes to Jesus. It’s as if she’s someone who already came to Jesus and knows she’s being a prodigal, but she has no idea how to escape.

Reading books like this are always gripping. You really do see the mind control that goes on in this situation. The pimps these women get caught up with control them with abuse and then promises of love and marriage and children. Aside from the abuse, it’s fake and self-serving. These pimps also abuse over the tiniest things. If there’s a little dust on a windowsill, then it’s time for abuse.

And no one deserves that.

You wonder why they stay? Often, they don’t have any idea where to go. Their lives are that controlled and all of their hope comes from the pimp that they are with. They all want desperately to earn his approval, and yet the pimp looks at them and just sees money and victims.

Bender also describes the outright dangers that exist in the profession, such as meeting a dentist in a room once who turned incredibly violent on her. One story is amazingly touching. She was called to the room of an old man once who was holding his wedding ring and saying how his wife of fifty years passed away and it was their anniversary and he just wanted to dance with a girl. Not a striptease or anything. It was just a dance. One can question that the old man handled the situation the right way, but it was hard to read that and not feel grief for the man who lost the love of his life.

In the end through it all, Bender does escape and she winds up marrying a man who really does treat her right, having a family, and speaking out against sex trafficking. The thing is that this happens right here in America. I live in the Atlanta area and I have no doubt that sex trafficking is going on right here. Some girls at your local high school could be involved in sex trafficking.

If you watch porn also, you could be supporting sex trafficking unknowingly. You can claim all you want that these girls do this willingly and would even defend it, but for all you know, they’re thoroughly brainwashed, a term I don’t use lightly, by a pimp.

Here’s a good way to avoid contributing. Never watch porn. Try treating a woman right and winning her heart instead.

This is the kind of book that we need to be made more aware of. Our loose sexual morality in our society has led to the enabling of something like this. Sex trafficking is a great evil that has to be stopped now and I am thankful that Rebecca Bender found hope in Christ and are now out there raising awareness for others who are caught in the trap.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 3/21/2020

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

Can we trust the Gospels? So many times one of the questions I hear from a skeptic is that if this information was so important, why wasn’t it written down sooner? Of course, there’s a hidden assumption there that in the ancient world, writing something down was the best way to communicate, as if most people could read.

Eventually, the Gospels were written, but they were written according to most scholars at least 30 years later. Isn’t that a long time? How many of us can remember events from 30 years ago that well? Now I’m 39, and I can remember quite a few things. I remember that on Christmas of 1988 I got Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Brothers 2 for the NES and my parents were surprised I played Zelda first. I just thought Zelda would be more shaping of my identity and I was right.

Some of you who are older might remember other things. You might better remember Challenger exploding or the JFK assassination. Still, we all know memory is not always reliable. People do misremember things. There are several minor details that are different in the Gospels. Could this be an indication that the accounts have things wrong because people didn’t remember?

And what about the telephone game? Don’t we know that if you use oral tradition that things will get messed up? Can we really trust it? Kids don’t get the facts right when they play the game. How can we trust important information to a similar situation?

To discuss these, I’m bringing on a scholar who has studied oral tradition very well. He has written on Jesus and memory and the Synoptic Gospels. He will be with us this Saturday to talk about if we can trust oral tradition with the Gospels or not. His name is Robert McIver.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Professor Robert K. McIver, PhD has taught biblical studies Avondale University College, Cooranbong, NSW, Australia, since 1988.  Before coming to Avondale, Robert had taught mathematics at secondary and tertiary levels, before changing his career to work as a church pastor.  He holds a doctorate in biblical studies and archaeology from Andrews University, and has published ten books, including Memory, Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels, and Jesus in Four Dimensions, as well as articles in academic and popular journals.  He is married to Susan, and has two daughters and two grandsons.

We are also working on getting shows up for you. I just uploaded a bunch of them this week as the time with the virus is giving me that time I can do that. I hope to be all caught up before too long. Please be watching for this episode.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Historical Jesus and the Historical Joseph Smith

What do I think of Tom Hobson’s book published by Elm Hill? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Two men have made extremely radical claims in their own time and those claims are still with us today. One claimed to be the very coming of God and the bringer of the Kingdom of God and the Messiah and His followers say all of this was demonstrated by His rising from the dead. The other claimed that the church the former established had been lost and he alone had restored it and gave new Scriptures and revelation that he said pointed to the former. The first is Jesus and the second is Joseph Smith.

What can we know about each of them? Tom Hobson uses historical methodology to study both figures to see what can be said to be true about both. He does his best to come at this without having a strong bias and trying to be as fair to both figures as possible. Mormons concerned about an evangelical writing this do not need to fear anti-Mormon screeching as it were. Hobson’s work is highly even-handed.

He starts with Jesus looking at how history is done and what we can know about Jesus and looking at His controversial claims. Did He claim and was He God in the flesh? Did He rise from the dead? Reaching a positive conclusion on this, he then looks at Joseph Smith.

In looking at Smith, he looks at a number of areas of his teaching. Surprisingly for me, some of these were more favorable towards Smith than I would have thought. For instance, in talking about race, Smith does make statements at times about wanting to have the slaves be freed. Of course, there is still that problematic section of the Book of Mormon with the Lamanites being cursed and being told they could have their skin made white again. (Edited in later versions)

There were also sections on the Word of Wisdom and on polygamy. Both of these are problematic as Smith did seem to violate the Word of Wisdom a few times. Polygamy is, of course, coming out more and more and the Mormon Church is even admitting this about Smith. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Mormon Church now since they will likely be pushing for polygamy again after the redefinition of marriage. (No slippery slope though after all. Remember?)

There’s a section as well on if Joseph Smith died a martyr or not. The consensus is that he did not. Joseph Smith had a six-shooter and went down shooting. He was likely in jail anyway for vandalism. It’s a shame that he did die that way as who knows how much different history might have been if he had been tried. Maybe the Mormon Church would have died there. I don’t know, but we can’t turn back the clock.

In a final section, Hobson holds out some hope that there could be some genuine Christians in the Mormon Church who I would say if this is true are Christians not so much because of the Mormon Church but in spite of the Mormon Church. I suspect there could be some there even in the positions of leadership who know it’s not true, but they don’t see anywhere else to go. Mormonism really is a culture. One leaves everything behind in leaving it.

I hope Hobson is right on the point of real Christians being in there. All of us who are Christians should hope more people will be saved than we expect. I am skeptical, but I will have no complaints if he is right. Hobson would still say we need to share the Gospel with them to make sure that we are giving them as much light and hope as we can.

I was surprised with the skepticism in this day and age that there wasn’t a brief look at Jesus Mythicism. It would be interesting to see if Joseph Smith could have the same problem if the Mormon Church survives into the future. Will there ever be a group known as the Smithicists who deny that Joseph Smith ever existed?

This is a really good book to read and people will learn a lot about both figures. I have studied Mormonism quite a bit, but I was surprised to see stuff that I had not seen before. Christians and Mormons would both be benefitted by this book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 3/14/2020

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

One of the questions a parent often dreads hearing from their child is “Where did I come from?” or just the general “Where do babies come from?” It’s a good question, but the really hard question is how do you answer it on a more universal scale. Where does humanity come from? Many people turn to Genesis.

And then the debate begins.

How old is the Earth? Were Adam and Eve real people? Was there death before the Fall? What was the serpent in the garden? Where did Cain get his wife? How did the first humans live hundreds of years as said in Genesis 5? Who were the sons of God? What about the flood? What about the Tower of Babel?

And you thought the first questions kids ask were awkward.

Fortunately, there are those who have addressed these concepts that sadly divide Christians today. While we can be sure the debate will by no means be settled, we can learn what we can and be informed in our own opinions and in what others think. There is a pair that have written the book Origins to discuss this passage, and one of them is on my show Saturday. His name is Douglas Jacoby.

So who is he?

Douglas Jacoby is an international Bible teacher. After serving as a minister on church staff for 20 years, in London, Birmingham, Sydney, Stockholm, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and Washington DC, Douglas has worked as a freelance teacher and consultant. He has engaged in a number of debates with well-known atheists, imams, and rabbis. Douglas is also an adjunct professor of theology at Lincoln Christian University. Since the late ’90s, Douglas has led annual tours to the biblical world.

With degrees from Drew, Harvard, and Duke, Douglas has written over 30 books, recorded nearly 800 podcasts, and spoken in over 100 universities, and in over 500 cities, in 126 nations around the world. The Jacobys have three adult children. Douglas and his wife, Vicki, reside in the Atlanta area.

We’re almost caught up on back episodes. I hope before too long we’ll have all of those up. I’m also actively working on getting the show to be able to be done live. I hope that will make it even better as people can submit their questions during an interview. Please be watching your podcast feed!

In Christ,
Nick Peters