Category: Book Plunge

Book Plunge: Who Was Jesus?

Is Wright right and Spong wrong? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I am an avid fan of N.T. Wright and try to read absolutely anything that he writes. My latest read of his came from reading “Fabricating Jesus” where Evans dispenses with people like Barbara Thiering yet says N.T. Wright has written a response to her in “Who Was Jesus?”

That’s enough to get me looking for that on my next library visit!

Thiering is not Wright’s only target. Wright has other chapters on A.N. Wilson and John Shelby Spong.

It’s hard to read this book without thinking that seeing N.T. Wright go after these guys is like watching a tank be used to squish an ant.

Wright’s book starts off with a brief summary of Jesus studies to this point, largely by looking at what Schweitzer did. He goes on from there to say where the studies have led us and then brings out Thiering, Wilson, and Spong as examples of how not to do these kinds of studies, all the while still commending some good points that can be found in them.

Reading Thiering, it’s a wonder how such a work as hers got published. Thiering’s idea is that practically everything in the gospels is code and the way to understand the code is by looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls. As Wright points out, Thiering is quick to dispense with her idea of a code whenever it is convenient for her to do so. Based on her reading, Thiering has dates on when Jesus escaped death, married Mary Magdalene, later left her and married Lydia of Philippi, (Seriously. I’m not kidding), and eventually died.

Yes. Wright takes the time to dispense with such a bizarre theory as this. One cannot help but imagine the reaction these three authors might have had knowing who was critiquing their work.

A.N. Wilson comes from another angle. For Wilson, Jesus was a Galilean holy man, but Paul came along and messed everything up! Wilson does have more right than Thiering (Granted, not much of an accomplishment), but there is still too much that is wrong. Wilson does not interact with the latest of scholarship on the issue and gives the impression of being stuck in works from the 1960’s. Amazingly, some parts of his writing are quite accurate and had I not known they were from him, I would have thought they were from a conservative Christian.

One of Wilson’s great weaknesses is his idea about seeking unbiased sources. As Wright points out, they don’t exist. Everyone wrote with a motive. No one is neutral on the Jesus question and it is a mistake to think anyone is. Yet as Wright has said elsewhere, even if the sportscaster has a bias for which team he thinks is the best and wants to win, that doesn’t mean you must doubt the score he reports.

Furthermore, if we wanted an unbiased work, it would not be Wilson who makes it clear he has a hammer to use against anything that is religious. As usual, it is the ones who are claiming the most to have no bias who in fact do have the most bias.

Finally, we come to Spong, who has a hang-up over the virgin birth. Wright is just perplexed, as am I, over the idea that Spong has that we today know better. As Wright points out, they might not have known as many details about sex as we do, but they certainly knew what it took to make a baby. That’s why Joseph sought to divorce Mary at first. He knew what it took to make a baby, and he knew he hadn’t done it.

Spong also has a vendetta against literalism, which I can understand, but yet praises the Reformation and goes against the ECF. Yet it was the ECF who were more pron to going with an allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and the Reformers who wanted to return more to a literal interpretation.

Spong also includes a comment about what Midrash is, an account that Wright thinks is nonsense, and that scholars of Midrash would disagree with. Like the other writers, Spong can sound impressive on paper and the notes and bibliography of the books Wright comments on can make them seem scholarly, but it is only a veneer. The real heart of the works is anything but.

As with any Wright work, I do recommend this one. Wright gives an excellent example of how to deal with so much misinformation in the popular culture. It is a shame more people will read Thiering, Wilson, and Spong, but never get around to Wright. I am thankful for Wright and thankful indeed that Wright is right and Spong is wrong.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Atheist Delusions

What’s my review of David Bentley Hart’s “Atheist Delusions?” Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Psalm 11:3 “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Indeed. What can the righteous do? When picking up Hart’s book, one might expect a lengthy reply to various new atheist arguments and criticisms of their approach. One will certainly find that, but not where one would expect. It will be in the first section of the book and the last section. The majority of the book does not even mention them at all. Do not come here if you are expecting a critique of Dawkins’s bogus 747 argument for instance.

Yet Hart does not hide his opinion of modern writing. The first chapter, “The Gospel of Unbelief”, has a number of great statements. The Da Vinci Code on page 4 is described as the most lucrative novel ever written by a borderline illiterate. On the same page, we are told Christopher Hitchens’s “talent for intellectual caricature somewhat exceeds his mastery of consecutive logic.” There’s Richard Dawkins who “despite his embarrassing incapacity for philosophical reasoning–never fails to entrance his eager readers with his rhetorical recklessness.” Describing Sam Harris’s “The End of Faith” on page 8, Hart says “It is little more than a concatenation of shrill, petulant assertions, a few of which are true, but none of which betrays any great degree of philosophical or historical sophistication. In his remarks on Christian belief, Harris displays an abysmal ignorance of almost every topic he addresses.”

Yes. Hart does not hold back and he gives more of the same in the end, but there is no need for Hart to waste time on those of the new atheists who have just as much faith if nor more than the fundamentalist preachers and believers that they are so quick to condemn. There is a sharp dichotomy with them. No goodness can be attributed to religion and no evil can be attributed to non-religion. If something works religiously, it has a “scientific basis.” If something goes wrong with a system of non-belief, that is because the part that went wrong has a “religious basis.”

What Hart wants to deal with is the foundations. These beliefs are being removed by the new atheists from their position of faith. It is a system of materialism that cannot allow anything contrary to its unproven presuppositions. If something seems outside of the material universe, it’s either just wrong or we’ll find an explanation for it someday.

It is a position that upholds the value of science but then takes that and turns it into a deity. Science is the new priesthood with its own standards of canonicity (No religious belief allowed) and its own statement of faith (No gods allowed) and built on a number of creedal statements (Religion poisons everything. Faith is believing something without evidence) and bad evangelistic slogans. (I just believe in one less god than you do.)

Keep in mind the very term “There is no God”, while it could be true for the sake of argument, cannot be determined by science, any more than the claim “Love is the highest virtue” cannot be proven by science. This is not because science is wrong. It is because science is the wrong tool. It is no more an insult to science to say this than it is an insult to hammers to say they are not recommended for treating a toothache.

While it might be said that a Christian will hide from a scientific discovery, and no doubt many do, it is just as true that the modern atheist tends to hide from anything that indicates any truth of a religious claim. Such can be found in how many even make it a mantra that Jesus never even existed. What is accepted as thoroughly proven amongst NT scholars and ancient historians and is practically a universal consensus, is disregarded, while the new atheists mock the Christians who do not accept the scientific consensus on evolution, held even by some Christians. Once again, which conclusion should be accepted depends on the presupposition. All of science is good and all of religion is wrong and biased.

Hart goes to great lengths to show that the problem is not really with science or religion. Men have a great proclivity to do evil and will accept any reason to do so. That reason can be religious or scientific. We must simply ask which one has had a greater power to curtail that evil within human beings. His argument is that Christianity has had that power.

To show this, he deals largely with myths of history and shows how Christianity changed the world through the building up of moral character based on the example of Christ. Hart contends that today, we accept many moral truths, but would we have accepted them if Christianity never came into the world? Probably not, except for perhaps Jewish people. Just look at the Greco-Roman world. Men and women weren’t equal. Some were by nature slaves. Unwanted children were to be left in the wild to die at the hands of wild animals. People watched other real human beings fight and die in the Coliseum for entertainment purposes. Did Christianity erase all of this immediately? No. But Christianity did set the seeds in place that eventually did so.

What happens then when these ideas that are rooted in Christian beliefs lose their Christian foundations? Will the belief itself live on? It could be a nice dream to think that it would, but where is the evidence? The 20th century has been the most secular century of all, and at the same time the most bloody century of all. If we are people to go by the evidence, then the evidence is in. At this point, when Christianity is removed, people have a greater propensity to return to their base desires.

Consider for instance the idea of what to do with the least of ours. The Romans and Greeks would leave their children to die in the wild if they weren’t wanted. Are we that barbaric? It could be, we’re worse. Peter Singer and others argue today that we should have the right to kill our own disabled children up to a certain time. As someone who is an Aspie, as is my wife, I take this claim quite seriously. Christianity, on the other hand, would hold that this one that is said to be useless in the sight of the world and holding us back from genetic success, fully bears the image of God and is worth more than the entire universe. Indeed, one could argue that in their weakness, many disabled people reveal the nature of God, the God who in Christianity took on human weakness in the incarnation, than many of us “healthy” ones do.

Hart does not hold out much hope for our society as he does not see how such a revival can take place. Perhaps it is just for me that hope springs eternal, but I think it is possible. I think we are on the verge of a golden age in apologetics. If the apostles could change the Greco-Roman empire, why not think that we all today can do the same in our own world? The question is not the ability. We have the means to reach the world. The question is not the knowledge. We have the information that we need to do so. The question is the will. Are we willing?

Ultimately then, it comes down to a question of obedience. Christ has given us our marching orders in the Great Commission. There is no plan B. We have been told what to do. The question could then be said to be “How much do we believe in Christ? How much are we truly Christian?”

If we claim Christ is Lord of all and He has the power to change the culture, then let us go out there and do so. If we do not do so, it could be because parts of us don’t really believe that the Christ can do so through the proclamation of His message. This would be, as I’ve argued before, due to a lack of instilling of the importance of having a total Christian worldview to our churches rather than just teaching that we should be good people. Christians are to be good people, but we are to be not just good people. We are to be Christian people.

If I had a criticism of Hart’s work, it would be I would like to have seen more claims properly noted. There are many notes, but there are many claims I would have liked to have seen more noted. I also disagree with him that both Arians and Trinitarians could make a case from the Scriptures. They speak with one voice and they say “Trinity.”

Despite this, I do overall highly recommend the work to deal with a number of atheist statements of faith. The style is witty and engaging, yet it is certainly not simplistic, and one will learn plenty from reading a volume like this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Reinventing Jesus

What do I think of this book by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel Wallace? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I have read a number of books on the Historical Jesus that defend my own view, a conservative Christian view, but most of them are rather passe in many ways. You can hear the same old, same old, as if the writers just want to give you the mere basics of the case so you can make it. Now for some people, basics are good and necessary, but so often I really would like to read something more substantial from the conservative side and something that will give them a lot of firepower.

I picked up Reinventing Jesus not knowing what to expect, but found myself impressed thoroughly by this work. The authors lay out a powerful case and even better, they deal with the popular critics that will be mentioned in water cooler conversation. These are the ones largely quoted on the internet. Scholarship doesn’t really take their claims seriously, but such a situation has never stopped ignorant people on the internet from touting off the claims with the same degree of certainty as they condemn in a fundamentalist revival preacher.

So do you want to see Dan Brown dealt with? Got it covered! How about Acharya S.? She’s answered? Earl Doherty? Taken to task. Frank Zindler? Robert Price? Freke and Gandy? Aside from Price, who is on the fringe of scholarship, these are names not taken seriously, but that does not mean they should be ignored. It’s extremely important to show the massive ignorance that is often pontificated on the internet.

The authors start off with the case for oral tradition, which is an excellent start since the average lay reader knows little about this and can often think of modern concepts of memory which don’t really apply to an ancient society. In doing so, they show that the teachings of Christ would have lasted at least to the time of writing.

Well how about that time? Maybe the writings are wrong? That’s when we look at textual criticism and this section is an excellent tour de force. The authors have up-to-date statistics on when the NT manuscripts were written and how they were copied and deal very well with the popular criticisms that work against the idea as well as scholarly concerns. Let it never be stated they only deal with popular claims. They deal with scholarly ones as well.

What about the books that were copied? How do we know the canon was right? Again, this is an excellent topic that is not discussed often in literature. The writers put forward a presentation that demonstrates the integrity of the early church and show that they did not just blindly attribute authorship to a writer. They had the highest of standards. Much of this information I found immediately useful.

Did those books reflect the truth about Jesus? Extremely beneficial here is a look at what went on in the Council of Nicea to show that Nicea did not change everything. Also, there is abundant information to show that there was an early high Christology showing Jesus was perceived as included in the divine identity and that He Himself made such claims.

Supposing that’s the case, did the Christians not just rip off other pagan myths like Osiris and Mithra? I was extremely pleased to see a section on this! This is one of the most preposterous claims that goes around the net by people who have never read an original source on the topic. The writers have done us a service by giving a superb presentation to show that there has been no copying, unless you count copying by others of Christian claims and language.

In conclusion, I recommend this fine work without reservation. If I was to teach a class on NT apologetics, this book would no doubt be required reading.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Studying The Historical Jesus

How is a Christian to go about studying the historical Jesus? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Last night, I finished reading a book by Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary called “Studying The Historical Jesus.” In this book, Bock does not really set out to give conclusions. He is writing for an audience that I believe consists of lay people interested in this kind of study and perhaps as a textbook for people starting off their college career.

Bock also writes from a conservative perspective, which is just fine of course. It’s important to point this out since he is writing to people who I suspect might be apprehensive about doing historical Jesus study. “Study the historical Jesus? Isn’t it a matter of faith? Don’t we have the Inerrant Scripture? If that is the case, then how is it that we are to do historial study? Are we calling into question the reality of Jesus?”

Bock answers with a strong no and encourages us to enter into the field explaining to us how the work is to be done. He starts off by giving us some cultural context. What was the world like at the time of Jesus? What was it like right beforehand? How did the culture interact? I was quite pleased to see him talking about the importance of honor in the ancient world, something not at all stressed in most works that assumes the ancient person was just like us in their thinking.

Bock does give some brief apologetic, but it is not for the resurrection. It is simply for the existence of Jesus. Of course, even this historical certainty is coming into question these days largely by internet atheists who prefer reading non-scholars on the topic and wikipedia entries. Of course, events like this only encourage me seeing as this is a fine time for Christians to be learning real facts on historical Jesus study and how it should be done while our opponents intellectually bankrupt themselves.

Next, Bock gives us information about how the quests for the historical Jesus have progressed with the third quest especially going on looking into the Jewish roots of Jesus. (I have a suspicion we may even have a fourth quest going on with the look at the social-science information.) This is a highly helpful summary of the history for those who are starting out.

Finally, Bock lists the kinds of approaches to gospel study that are going on today such as form and redaction criticism. Bock urges Christians to not ignore these even if they are often done from skeptical bases. We can still use the information to our advantage and learn valuable insights on how to approach the text. After all, if the Jesus of orthodox Christianity is really the same as the historical Jesus, why should we be afraid of any historical study? True study will get us closer to that Jesus if not right there.

In conclusion, I recommend this book to help those who are wanting to learn more about Jesus study and how it should be done, as well as reminding us that being an orthodox Christian does not mean one cannot use the historical tools that have been handed to us. Why not take the weapons of our opponents and use them to our advantage?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Portraits of Paul

What was Paul really like as a person? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Portraits of Paul (POP) is a book by Bruce Malina and Jerome Neyrey, both of them NT scholars. The idea of the work is to help us get to learn what Paul was like. How can we really get to know Paul the man?

Or maybe that’s not really the idea.

People getting the book wanting to get a psychological profile on the apostle Paul will be disappointed. POP instead makes the case that a POP of the apostle makes no sense in the society he lived in. Paul lived in a collectivist society where persons were not known as individuals (It would be known that they existed of course, but you would not know one person on an intimate level) and not even to themselves! Your identity came from your group that you identified with. If anything, being an individualist standing out from the crowd would be seen as deviancy and a threat.

At this point, many readers are thinking “That makes no sense to me.” If so, that is because you are already thoroughly soaked in individualistic thinking without realizing that 70% of the world thinks differently. For those of us who live in America, we are tempted constantly to see our culture as the model and think that every culture must be like ours. (That having been said, politically, I do hold to American exceptionalism.)

Yet when we enter the world of the Bible, that world is not just like ours. Persons were not seen as individuals and when we try to look at them that way, we develop problems. We can too often throw the ideas of our own culture back onto the text. As with studying any text from another culture, we should seek to know that culture first.

At this point, the fundamental atheist reader is saying “Shouldn’t God have made it easier if He wanted us all to know His truth?” Yet the charge is just an example of what POP is writing about. It is the assumption today that study should be simple and plain and great truth and rewards should not require much effort. It doesn’t work with dieting. It doesn’t work with exercise. It doesn’t work with college. It doesn’t work with romance. It doesn’t work with a career. Yet somehow, we think it should work with religion.

The reader of POP will not learn necessarily much about Paul as an individual, but they will learn how someone like Paul would have been seen based on his group identifications. They will learn why he wrote what little he did write about himself and how he wrote appealing to his audience and how they would have seen it. They will learn about such truths as the word pistis, translated faith, really is used for a means of forensic proof (P. 87) and that saying “Let your conscience be your guide” would have mad no sense to the people back then. (P. 187)

Hopefully as well, they’ll emerge with a greater understanding of the NT.

In conclusion, this is another book I highly recommend. One of the greatest barriers to understanding the NT is the cultural one and this book will be a great addition to any library.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: God’s Problem

Is God’s Problem a problem? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

God’s Problem is the work of Bart Ehrman on the problem of evil and why he thinks the Bible does not address the problem. This is not his usual type of work. For one thing, I was surprised to read a book of Ehrman’s where he did not talk about the paper he wrote on Mark 2 in college. Yet on the other hand, Ehrman is stepping outside of his territory.

A usual criticism I have of Ehrman’s books is that you get the sound of one-hand clapping. Ehrman only presents his version of the story. He does not interact with those who disagree. Of course, I do not expect him to argue for what someone like myself would say, but I expect him to argue with it. I expect him to bring up writers like Plantinga and Ganssle and Copan and Zacharias and others and say why it is that they are wrong. He doesn’t.

What do we find? On page 18 he says “There are, of course, numerous books about suffering already. In my opinion, though, many of these books are either intellectually unsatisfying, morally bankrupt, or practically useless.”

Why are they they? Who knows? Which ones are they? We don’t know. We’re just told to simply visit any Christian bookstore. Personally, as one who goes to Christian bookstores frequently, one would be hard-pressed to find these kinds of books that Christians should be reading there. If Ehrman’s dislike is based on what is read in Christian bookstores, then I really do feel his pain.

Yet is it really a convincing way to make a case? Can he really just hope a section like that would deal with Plantinga and others? Would it be a convincing argument if I said “I choose to believe in Christianity because books like Ehrman’s are either intellectually unsatisfying, morally bankrupt, or practically useless.”? Of course not. I need to give a reason.

Now if Ehrman wants to say a lot of these books are not written to help those who are suffering. I agree. So what? A lot of philosophers are not professional counselors. Why should they be? In fact, what is Ehrman’s book doing to help people who suffer? If anything, it would hurt them because one could say he’s taking a great source of comfort that they have and calling it into question. Of course, he has all right to do that, but to do such an action and complain about what others are doing is highly problematic.

In fact, I have no doubt that if Alvin Plantinga, a leading Christian thinker on the problem of evil for those who don’t know, had a mother come to his office whose son died in a car accident, he would not give her a copy of one of his books on the problem of evil. He would listen to her. He would comfort her. He would pray with her. He would read Scripture with her. If he was not qualified in his opinion to do any of those things, he would find someone who was. In fact, aside from praying and reading Scripture, I think Ehrman would do the same thing. We all should.

Throughout the book Ehrman does present challenges to people’s faith. (Once again, how is it supposed to help those struggling with evil to go after their faith in a time of suffering, and yet Ehrman complains about others) These are the usual canards. The gospels are anonymous. Moses did not write the Pentateuch. The gospels contradict. Daniel was written late. Jesus and Paul are failed apocalyptic prophets. Anyone who’s read any of Ehrman’s other works will recognize the recycled arguments. It is not my purpose to deal with those here. It is only to point out again, is this the kind of message that Ehrman wants to give to suffering Christians? Is this the bet time to attack their faith? Of course, he could say he has not written this book to give emotional solace but to address an issue. That’s fine, but then why go after other books for the exact same reason. If anything, at least these books are trying to strengthen someone’s faith when they think they need it most.

Many of Ehrman’s objections also seem simplistic. For instance, on pages 12-13, he asks why there can be free-will in Heaven and everyone does the good, but there can’t be on Earth. My answer I’ve had for that for years is that Heaven is the end result of a lifetime of choices. Earth is the place where you choose who you will serve. When you are in the presence of God, you are locked into whatever choice you made. You can still act freely, but not against that basic lock. Now my answer for the sake of argument could be wrong, but it is an answer.

Ehrman also is not inconsistent with his approach often. For instance, he will say that the prophets knew that not all suffering was the result of sin and God judging the people, yet this is the view he still constantly repeats as theirs. The prophets are usually not speaking about evil as a whole, but about a particular evil and saying that yes, the covenant people are not being faithful to the covenant.

An interesting quote for readers is on page 127 where he says “What if I was right then but wrong now? Will I burn in hell forever? The fear of death gripped me for years, and there are still moments when I wake up at night in a cold sweat.” One can’t help but wonder why in a book on evil Ehrman would want to risk having more people do the same thing.

Ehrman does point out that we could all do more to help deal with evil, and I agree. Yet is that all he wants to say? I see nothing beyond that. He’s of the view that we should still enjoy our lives, and I agree with that. If anyone wants to know why I think evil is the way it is in the world today, look at the church. Evil will prosper where the church fails to be the body of Christ. Interestingly in all these disasters Ehrman talks about, he seems to not notice it’s Christians who are responding. When he talks about how he helped someone who had escaped Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge with his family, he mentions it the was a Lutheran ministry that got them here, but Ehrman doesn’t make the connection. Could it be the Lutherans did what they did because of Christ? Could it be God is operating through the church?

If this is the way God is dealing with the problem of evil, then by going against Christianity, could it be Ehrman is himself contributing to the problem he rails against?

I’d also like to point out that evil is not a defeater for Christian belief. It cannot be the case that the first way of Aquinas is true and that the problem of evil shows that God does not exist. The theistic arguments must still be dealt with. It cannot be that the historical case for the resurrection cannot be established because of evil. The case must be dealt with on its own.

I conclude that Ehrman has not dealt with the problem of evil, but the book I suspect is just another way of going after Christianity. Of course, Ehrman is free to do this, but I do not see why one would want to knock down a system to help deal with evil without putting up any system of one’s own in its place. Ehrman is doing what he says the Christians works he condemns are, except worse. At least those are usually trying to strengthen someone in a view for comfort. Ehrman is instead knocking them down.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The King Jesus Gospel

Are we doing something wrong in Evangelicalism? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently, I finished reading Scot McKnight’s book “The King Jesus Gospel.” (By the way, if anyone wants to know about what I’m reading, just head over to GoodReads and feel free to add me. I regularly update it.) I had heard much good about the book and with N.T. Wright pointing out what a good book it was, I knew I was in for a treat.

The book is telling us that we are doing something wrong in evangelicalism. McKnight starts by sharing how he went door to door with someone from his church shortly after his “conversion” (I say it that way because I hate the term) and they spent an hour with the guy who had visited their church and really wasn’t interested, but eventually he did accept Christ as Lord, though most likely from McKnight’s perspective, it was an outward show. They went back to church and there was much celebration. The man was never seen at the church at all.

McKnight wants us to think about what has happened.

We have got to a point in our society where we have the message of salvation, which is really part of the gospel, and made it the whole gospel. This fits in well with our individualistic culture where the question then becomes “What is God going to do to take care of my problems?”

In this kind of society, people can make decisions quickly, but McKnight wants us to konw that the apostles were not sent out to get people to make decisions, but were sent out to make disciples. If we can get someone to “convert” and then not have anything required of them or any incentive for them, then we’re pretty much getting them to just say “Yes. You’re right.” We are not instilling in them a desire for Christlikeness.

When it becomes about our problems, then McKnight takes the saying from Dallas Willard that the gospel becomes simply “sin-management.” Of course, no one would say we need to downplay the importance of dealing with our sins. We certainly must deal with them. We just must make sure they are not the only aspect of reality that we deal with.

McKnight proposes we do that by broadening our picture. The coming of Jesus is not about getting someone to come and deal with our problems. It’s about God dealing with the problem. Interestingly, I just today started reading “Bart Ehrman’s book ‘God’s Problem.’ ” It is Ehrman’s work on the problem of evil and why he thinks the Bible doesn’t address it.

Ehrman is partially right. Evil is the problem. It is what the cross and the empty tomb are there to deal with, but part of the reason that problem is not taken care of is that we’re so fixated on our problems. Now of course we all have problems to deal with, but even our own problems can be seen in a different light when we place them under the kingship of Christ.

Could it be that when we start dealing with God’s problem, that we’ll find out not only do our problems get taken care of, but so does God’s problem? Could it be that if the church were to start acting the way that Christ had meant for us to act that maybe the problem of evil would not have been as severe? There are aspects we cannot change. There would still be hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis, but there would be more Christians to help those in need and more resources to help them.

McKnight wants us to see that the gospel is about the story of Israel reaching a fruition. It is about the Messiah, the rightful king, coming and taking the throne and when He takes the throne, He begins working out the problem to the proper solution. We are so busy looking at ourselves that we are not aware that God is at work in the universe and bringing about His mission.

We send people out to make decisions, but we don’t instruct them in what it means to be a disciple of Christ. It is as if we seek to get someone to an emotional high and then assume that our work is done. You might as well say that when a woman goes through the labor of childbirth and gives birth to a child, that she can then leave and go her own way. Her work is done. That does not work in parenting. It will not work in discipling.

McKnight urges us to return to the Old Testament also and see about the life of Israel. Don’t just look to see how it relates to Israel for the time-being. Look and see about the story itself. What is Israel dealing with? Why is God using these people? What is His overall purpose? Is it just a random thing, or is there some purpose to Israel?

Lately as I go to sleep, I’ve been trying to think through the OT and get the story of Israel in my mind. My mind has to have something to think on serious usually to get any peace and this is a great aid to me. It’s fascinating to see how the story of Israel could play itself out. I’ve been doing this for a few days and I’m not even through Genesis yet!

Upon reading this book, I have realized that this is the kind of book that every pastor needs to read. We are giving our people only part of the story. We are giving them forgiveness, but giving them the impression that God is there to deal with their problems instead of this idea that God wants something from His people. He wants them to be seeking Him continually and acknowledging His Son as the king of their lives.

The only downside I can think of is that with a place like Amazon, I cannot give this book six stars. Five is just not enough.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus – Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

Did Jesus fail at prophecy? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Just yesterday, I finished reading Bart Ehrman’s “Jesus – Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.” Before I had even started the book, I made a prediction on Facebook. I predicted, as an orthodox Preterist, that not once would Ehrman mention Preterism in his book.

Turns out, I was right.

Makes me wish I’d made a bet with someone….

Honestly, I don’t even think he mentioned dispensationalism or any form of futurism by name. Christian eschatological systems were absent, which is quite odd. It’s why I found this book to be quite a mixed bag. Of course, there’s the usual material about historical methodology, which is fine, but yet while there was much talk about apocalyptic thinking, there was not much looking at apocalyptic thinking.

At the start, Ehrman wants to paint a string of predictions from our time down to Christianity. He first starts with Edgar Whisenant and then Hal Lindsey. Next we go to the Millerites. Then, it’s Joachim of Fiore around 1200. After that, Montanus at the end of the second century. From this, Ehrman concludes every generation has had its own apocalyptic visionary.

Could be, but looking at such a sparse sample in 2,000 years does not show it. It gives the impression that Ehrman has looked at a sparse sample and made a strong conclusion based on it. Of course, his case could be correct still, but the problem is that there was not sufficient evidence given.

Of course, for Ehrman, the first examples of this were Jesus and Paul. So does he make that case well?

Before making his case, Ehrman wants to tell us about the historical method and how he studies the text. It’s at this point that those who read Ehrman frequently, like I do, start to hear repetition going on. If you have read one Ehrman book, you have read all of them essentially. You’ll find the same themes and the same arguments, a number of times they’re even quoted verbatim. (I checked. pages 114-115 quote much of page 241 in the third edition of his NT introduction word for word. Of course, it could be I’m just mistaken and both times he copied from an E document….)

Of course, when reading a book like this, it’s important to note the concessions he makes that most internet atheists would run in terror from. For instance, on page 22, he says the best sources, of course, are those nearest the time of Jesus Himself.” He then says “It turns out, as I’ll show later, that the oldest narrative accounts happen to be the four Gospels of the New Testament.”

Interestingly, when talking about the authorship of the NT, he says on page 43 that the tradition from Papias needs to be considered seriously. Apparently, it wasn’t serious enough that students reading the NT introduction needed to consider it. Ehrman also makes the statement about how Eusebius thought Papias was a man of exceedingly small intelligence, not mentioning that Eusebius said this because of Papias’s views on eschatology.

Ehrman tells us the testimony is 100 years later and looks suspicious. Why? We are told that Irenaeus would want apostolic origins for the gospels. Then why have Matthew, Mark and Luke? Matthew was an apostle, but he certainly wasn’t the most famous one of all! If you’re making up an apostolic name, why not Peter or James? Why would you have Mark be the author of a text instead of just saying Peter? Why would you choose Luke?

And of course, a more fundamental question, when is the source for the claim that Plutarch wrote the works of Plutarch? For all of Ehrman’s suspicions, it is appropriate to just ask the question of other historical accounts of the time that we accept on much less evidence.

Ehrman makes the claim about bias we’ve seen often. On page 89 we read, “Whenever you isolate an author’s biases, you can take them into account when considering his report. That is to say, statements supporting his bias should then be taken with a pound of salt (not necessarily discarded, but scrutinized carefully.)”

Can I not look at this and claim “I’ve seen Ehrman’s bias. He’s a non-Christian wanting to argue for the unreliability of the biblical account. Therefore, I should take his claims with a pound of salt.” Of course, someone could take the same approach with a Christian author. My contention at this point is simply that bias is often an excuse.

Bias can make people color reports, but it can also lead to increased accuracy. Holocaust museums ran by Jews are quite accurate. Does anyone want to deny that they have a bias? Is there any doubt the NT authors had a bias? None whatsoever. Yet how does that lead to the conclusion they would make inaccurate reports? It’s just as arguable that they would realize the importance of their mission and how essential the claims were and want to make doubly sure they were accurate.

On page 195, Ehrman writes that “For events in the ancient world, even events of Earth-shattering importance, there is sometimes scant evidence to go on.” He had earlier said on page 57 that the eruption of Vesuvius was only mentioned by one author. Unsaid is that that was an off-the-cuff remark even. The purpose of the writing was not really to tell about the eruption. If this is the case, what’s the big deal with no one mentioned an empire-wide census on page 39?

When he talks about apocalypticism, he does make the case that I would make in many instances. We need to talk Jesus’s claims about a kingdom coming seriously. We need to realize what he was doing with the sermon on the mount and with miracles. We need to realize that he was showing what the kingdom of God would be like.

The problem is that Ehrman dances all around the edges without really considering what he’s arguing. For him, the end of the world did not come and the kingdom supposedly did not come and so Jesus was wrong.

If Jesus had been thinking about the end of the world, it is a wonder why he would tell people in the Olivet Discourse to flee. If the world is coming to an end, there is really not much place to flee to. Ehrman’s problem is the same one he had as a fundamentalist. Actually, he’s still a fundamentalist which is the problem. He is taking the text literally. He is assuming there must be a grand cataclysmic judgment. (Although to be fair, there was. It was the destruction of the temple, something unbelievably huge for the time.)

Could it be the Kingdom came and Ehrman didn’t realize it?

Could it be that the spreading of the Christian gospel and the name of Jesus being spread through all the Earth is the Kingdom coming? Could it be billions of people on Earth proclaiming that Jesus is Lord is showing that He is king? Could it be that the Kingdom is indeed growing as a mustard seed?

Ehrman has the same problem as he often does. He does not interact with contrary ideas. He has instead made a weak case that only depends on a literal interpretation of the text and therefore says that the case is made.

My Preterist self is not convinced.

Frankly, I’m enjoying being part of the Kingdom and especially love seeing that it demonstrates that Jesus was right.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Note: We will be discussing this book 3-5 EST on Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast. Why not join in? http://www.cyiworldwide.com/deeper-waters.html

Book Plunge: Faith on Trial

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

The following is from Hope’s Reason’s Apologetics Journal. Thanks for publishing this to Stephen Bedard. The link to the journal can be found here. I also recommend the writing of Chris Winchester in this issue, a very good friend of mine who was a groomsman at our wedding.

Books that have gained popularity in Christian circles on apologetics tend to have a theme. It is not enough to just write about the resurrection or the historical Jesus or the problem of evil. You need some context that all the information fits in to reach the culture. Lee Strobel did this excellently with his “Case for” series. When the writing is set in a dialogue, it makes it much easier to follow. J. Warner Wallace has done this with “Cold-Case Christianity” which I contend will be the “Case for Christ” of this generation, by setting everything in the setting of a homocide detective. I believe that Pamela Binnings Ewen’s book “Faith on Trial” is meant to follow that same line with the case being seen as a legal proceeding and Ewen presenting the evidence to the jury.
This book is a mixed bag. I think right at the start that the information on hearsay is enough to devastate a number of atheistic arguments that are part of the common parlance of the atheistic movement today. Ewen starts this off on page 19 saying “ To begin with, under the general rule, if such out-of-court statements are offered as truth of the facts they assert, they would ordinarily be excluded as hearsay evidence.” Note the word ordinarily. Not too much later on the same page, Ewen says “Nevertheless, an exception is permitted under the law for statements contained in an “ancient document,” and the Gospel manuscripts fall within that exception.”
It’s safe to say that she spends the rest of the chapter, around fifteen pages, defeating the hearsay objection and allowing the gospels to be examined like any other ancient documents and to be admissible in a court of law. Readers who debate atheists online will find this to be extremely helpful. Considering the work Ewen has done here it would be good to see a whole book on this just dealing with this objection.
Unfortunately, I found the rest of the book just didn’t keep up with that level of excitement. For instance, in her look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, she refers to the work of Thiede in saying a fragment of Mark is found amongst the DSS. Thiede’s hypothesis is highly challenged and not just by liberal scholars. A conservative scholar as strong as Daniel Wallace has challenged it. That can be found here.
I found myself too often in the book wishing that Ewen would interact more with those who disagree with her views. One can regularly find Christian authorities cited, but I would have liked to have seen interaction with people like Crossan or Ehrman or those who are not friendly to the idea of the NT giving an accurate reading of what happened and why they were skeptical. I also wish more had been said about the textual criticism of the text as an Ehrman would quickly delight in pointing out to Ewen information about our earliest copies.
With regards to the works she does cite, a number of them can be popular apologetics works. I would have liked to have seen more interaction with some of our latest works. For instance, Richard Bauckham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” contains invaluable information that would be useful to this book and greatly improve it. Another great help would have been Craig Keener’s “Miracles.” Of course, that would have been a lengthy read and the book could have been off to the presses by then, but it would have been helpful to see Ewen’s expertise in examining miracle claims from a legal perspective.
I also think there should have been more on the resurrection. There was little time devoted to dealing with the objections that come to belief in the resurrection. I did not see an emphasis on ideas like the minimal facts approach of Habermas and Licona. It could have been said that the testimony of the evangelists was reliable, but even if it’s generally reliable, some people will require even more for a great event like the resurrection.
The issues on science were interesting, but I thought too heavily focused on. Readers who were critical would say that Ewen did not interact with the critics of Behe, for instance. It was good to see that she brought in non-Christian testimony here, but it seemed like too much to make a point on miracles and could too easily be interpreted as a God-of-the-Gaps.
It’s my conclusion that this book will be good for the hearsay aspect and that the evidences in many cases are good enough to start making a case, but I suspect too much of it could be seen as going with what is not the most reliable and making it to be a centerpiece in a case. This is a decent read on the topic, but I cannot at this point endorse wholeheartedly. I think the author has a brilliant start, but it just needs some refining. If that is done, I do not doubt we could have an excellent work on our hands.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Ehrman’s Introduction To The New Testament

Are our students ready for Seminary? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Yesterday, I went on a search through local churches in our area to see how many of them were interested in having a speaker come talk about apologetics-related topics. I would consistently find that there were youth programs and college programs, but on only two churches can I recall finding anything remotely related to apologetics.

Oh you can find about concerts and pizza parties and “Jumping into God’s Word!” everywhere. What you cannot find is serious content. It is more important to keep our youth entertained. Still, there will be some who will want to go off for higher learning and that includes in the Christian faith and when we send them off to Seminary or Divinity School or something of that kind, we can be sure that they’ll be safe. Places that teach the NT will teach them the beliefs that they grew up with.

If you really believe that, you are part of the problem.

I have been making it an effort to study Bart Ehrman’s material more. In wanting to get the most of his thought, I ordered his “Introduction to the New Testament.” Now Ehrman does say that he’s just trying to go with what historians can say about the Bible. If you want to believe the Bible is the Word of God, he’s not going to tell you to not do that.

However, he sure won’t give you any reason to think that.

Now of course, Ehrman does have some good material in there. There are some interesting ways to look at the text and a good student of the NT should be prepared for that. Yet despite his saying that he doesn’t want to persuade you of X, the end result is that his book will persuade you of X if you are not prepared.

Sorry parents and ministers, but pizza parties are not preparing us.

“But we are teaching our youth what the Word of God says!”

Until they meet an Ehrman who tells them through his book in a Seminary that the gospels are by anonymous authors and we can’t really study miracles and the accounts are written late and that there were other holy men walking around doing miracles and that most critical scholars think that a number of books in the NT are pseudonymous and that there are numerous contradictions in the Bible.

It will be hard for the youth to think the Bible is the Word of God while accepting all of that.

And what are they to counter Ehrman with? Faith? No. Faith is not meant to be a counter. It is not meant to be a leap in the dark. It is meant to be trust on reliable evidence and unfortunately, going to that big youth concert is not giving the youth the tools they need to be able to have that reliable evidence. There is only one way for them to get it. They must be taught it. Either parents and churches will teach them what they are to believe about the reliability of Scripture, or rest assured people like Bart Ehrman will.

It is quite disappointing to find that Ehrman never really gives counters to his positions. For instance, when discussing who wrote the Gospels, he never lays out the case for why some scholars think Matthew wrote Matthew. Any mention of the church fathers saying X wrote a Gospel are seen as “hearsay” because they are too late. (Although apparently 20th century interpreters are not too late.) It doesn’t matter that the tradition is quite constant about the authorship of the gospels and these are the people who would have been in the position to know. Ehrman will give no reason why you should think Matthew wrote Matthew, but he will give you reason to think that he didn’t.

The same goes with dating. Ehrman will tell you that these accounts were written after the events and use time descriptions that sound like a long time, without bothering to mention how long after the fact it was that other ancient biographies were written and that the time is like a blip in comparison.

When discussing a passage like 1 Cor. 15, Ehrman will say some people use it to defend the resurrection, but absent is any mention of the arguments that are used by those people. In fact, Ehrman says very little about the resurrection. He certainly gives no other explanation for the data. This is increasingly a concern of mine. Ehrman will give the impression that there is no one in scholarship who disagrees with the position of critical scholars and if they are, they are certainly in the minority.

His usage of Acts is quite odd. When Acts suits his purpose, such as when saying that Peter and John were uneducated, then Acts is reliable. When Acts disagrees with what he says, as it does numerous times, then Acts needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Why should I accept Acts 4 as reliable when I should question the “We” passages? This would be particularly so since Acts 4 would be early and the writer would not likely have been an eyewitness.

To be fair, a few times Ehrman will list evangelicals in the recommended books, but the overall tone of the book is clearly one that is meant to show that we should not trust the accounts.

Interestingly, when it comes to the text of the NT, his main area, Ehrman says the following on page 481:

“In spite of these remarkable differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy.”

This isn’t the impression you’d get from books like “Misquoting Jesus” or “Jesus Interrupted.”

So now let’s return to the college youth groups in churches. Our youth are not prepared. What are we to do with this? If we don’t do anything, then when the student goes off to college and starts reading Ehrman’s book, there will be one of three possible responses.

1) The person will apostasize or at least severely water down their faith effectively nullifying any good they could do for the kingdom.

2) The person will hold on to their faith but purely as a “faith” position and will isolate themselves from the world and not bother interacting with disagreeing thought, again effectively nullifying any good they could do for the kingdom.

3) The person will actually study Ehrman’s arguments and read the other side and make a defense for the Scripture.

Sadly, #3 will be the rarity if it ever happens.

We must be doing better. There’s nothing wrong with having some pizza parties and concerts and such, but if this is all we are doing for our youth, we are sending them off to have their faith destroyed, and no amount of pizza will restore it.

The choice is ours. We can determine who will teach our youth how to think about the Bible. It will be us, or it will be our opponents.

Choose wisely. Their eternity and the eternity of people they reach could hang in the balance.

In Christ,

Nick Peters