Category: New Testament

A Response to Daniel Miessler

What do I think of what Daniel Miessler said about the Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Someone recently shared with me a post by Daniel Miessler to show the Bible is fiction. At the start, this is something even difficult to say. Everything in the Bible is fiction? Every single thing? Nothing in it happened at all? Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Babylon? No one in the New Testament who is a major character ever even existed? (I have taken enough looking at mythicism to show it’s a joke theory I think.)

Still, let’s see what Miessler has to say. He wants to emphasize Genesis and Jesus. Now my main specialty area will be Jesus, but I have a few things to say about Genesis.

First, let’s look at comparisons about the flood. To begin with, much of this is also found in Dawkins’s Outgrowing God which I am writing an ebook response to at the time. One of my main sources I am using for the Genesis part is this one.

My source, in this case, is a researcher at Cambridge who specializes in Assyriology. Now let’s consider that Miessler is an expert in cyber security by contrast. All things being equal, before we even investigate the claims, which person is more likely to know the most about an Ancient Near Eastern culture and their writings? Ding ding ding! That’s right! It’s the one who actually studies those cultures.

I leave it to you to read the article that I shared to see some of the major problems, but let’s look at what Miessler says.

“Keep in mind the level of detail in these similarities. It’s not a matter of just a flood, but specific details: three birds sent out, resisting the call to build the ark, and a single man being chosen by God to build the ark. Then consider that the first story (Gilgamesh) came from Babylon — hundreds of years before the Bible was even written.”

To begin with, I don’t recall Noah ever resisting the call to build the ark. Second, if an event was historical to some extent, we can expect some similarities. The differences will be in the secondary details, but there will still be similarities.

Nothing is said about the differences. Nothing is said about a polytheistic culture living in the great symbiosis system versus a monotheistic covenant theology system. Nothing is said about the size and shape of the boats. Nothing is said about the purpose of the flood. Nothing is said about what happens to the hero of the story afterward. For example, in Noah’s study, he builds a vineyard, gets drunk, and is sexually shamed in some way by his grandson. (The language of the Bible is very euphemistic at this point.) Hardly a way to glorify your hero in the end!

The writing of Miessler is dated to September 18th, 2019. Why did he not avail himself of a study such as The Lost World of the Flood by Longman and Walton? I suspect that it is because this writer, like many non-Christians I meet, and sadly many Christians, has a fear of contrary thought. His source material is horrendous anyway.

Second, he says that this came from Babylon centuries before the Bible was written. Neither of these points is substantiated. Nothing is said about when the Bible was written. It looks like he’s going with a JEPD date of Genesis, but he does not argue for it. He merely assumes it. It would have been nice to see some effort here.

He also has in the footnotes that all of this is to show that God is fiction and was made up because we are scared of death and wanted to control people. If so, the plan failed miserably. In the Old Testament, you would think that if death was something that people were scared of, you’d see more explicit statements about resurrection and warnings about Hell and encouragements about the joy of Heaven. If it was to control people, it looks like that failed miserably too because in the Old Testament, the Jews are very rarely under control.

Such thinking anyway is quite fallacious. Imagine if I said, “Atheism is a system that exists because people don’t want to be under authority and they don’t want to be bound by God and live a life with the sexual freedom they want.” Could that be a motivation for some? Sure. Could some people be Christians because they fear death? Sure. Nothing in this really addresses the arguments for the beliefs.

By the way, Miessler, if you want to show that God is not real, it would serve you well to deal with some arguments for God. You do not do so in this piece. Now it could be you have elsewhere, but if you are making an argument that God is fiction, perhaps you could link to an earlier writing on your part.

It’s also worth noting that his information on Noah comes from ReligiousTolerance.org. Yep! This is first-rate research we are seeing right here!

Now let’s move to the fun part. Jesus. HIs source is Bandoli and even then, he doesn’t get the link right on his post. Fortunately, I was easily able to track it down. You can see it here.

If you go through the list, you will see that none of them have any documentation. The one exception is a book about Alexander the Great and not even a page number is cited. Everything else, the writer expects us to just take by faith, which apparently Miessler did and then the person who shared it with me. I often say that when an atheist looks at an argument, he doesn’t look to see if the argument is true. He just asks a question or two.

Does the argument argue that Christianity is false?

Does the argument make Christianity look bad?

If so, it is absolutely true and no research is needed. Now if anything is brought up contrary to atheism, that requires evidence. If anything is brought up contrary to Christianity, that requires no evidence. I, meanwhile, prefer to demolish a bad argument period regardless of if it’s against atheism or Christianity, and yes, there are plenty of bad arguments against atheism and plenty of bad arguments for Christianity.

Scholarship for the most part, even skeptical scholarship, doesn’t really take the copycat idea seriously anymore. The grand central hub of resources on the pagan copycat claim can be found here. Still, let’s go through the list and mention a few interesting ones.

Osiris is said to be the only true God, which is interesting to say since the Egyptian religions are very polytheistic. Osiris also didn’t rise from the dead. He was reconstructed by his wife, except for one particular body part she couldn’t find which she made a substitute of, and then ruled from thereon in the underworld and not the land of the living.

Horus doesn’t fare much better. Egyptologists have looked at the many claims given for him. As is said at one point in the article:

While all recognize that the image of the baby Horus and Isis has influenced the Christian iconography of Madonna and Child, this is where the similarity stops. There is no evidence for the idea that Horus was virgin born.

Of course, evidence is a small thing for internet atheists to consider. This argues against Christianity so it had to be true. Most atheists will share it without bothering to check it out.

Mithra is also amusing. We have NO writings by worshipers of Mithra. There are also three different versions. Which one is had in mind? Since we don’t have writings from his followers, our main sources are artwork and the writings of the church fathers about Mithra. So much of this is nonsense. They did not practice baptism (Not babtism) but rather the followers were put under a bull and had its blood poured out on them. That is obviously a one to one parallel with going into the water and being submerged into it.

For claims about Buddha and Krishna, Mike Licona interviewed two scholars in those fields who found these kinds of arguments far less than convincing. You can read that here. Again, there’s a reason the copycat thesis is not taken seriously.

Let’s look now at Bible contradictions. The first is about the flood. This is not so much a contradiction as a supposed falsehood. Miessler is under the impression the text requires a global flood. It doesn’t. The flood I contend was local, though the scope would be considered the known world of the time. Hence, questions about foreign animals and the like will not be something that concerns me. That means there’s nothing left.

He then says in Luke, the angel spoke to Mary. In Matthew, to Joseph. Which is it? These don’t contradict. The angel tells Mary she will give birth while being a virgin (Which I do affirm) and then tells Joseph later on when he hears the news that Mary is telling the truth and don’t be afraid to marry her. That doesn’t mean the story is true, though I affirm that it is, but this is hardly a contradiction.

He says the word for virgin is Almah and means young woman of marriageable age. In Isaiah, definitely. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word is parthenos and definitely means virgin. He also says Jesus had other brothers and sisters. Most Protestants would agree and say only Jesus had a virgin birth (Which I do affirm) and the rest came the natural way. Even a Catholic or Orthodox who holds to perpetual virginity should at least have no problem seeing that this wouldn’t violate the virgin birth as held by Protestants.

As for the census, the wording in Luke 2 is quite difficult. Ben Witherington in my interview with him indicated it could mean a smaller census taking place before the great census later on. Further, if Luke was really fabricating something, I see no reason to think he would fabricate something everyone would know was false.

He says the Bible says to honor your father and mother, but Jesus says to hate your parents and call no one father. It’s incredible that people still have such a hard time reading basic instructions. No one ever took Jesus to mean that we must actually hate our parents until internet atheists came along. Jesus’s statement there is one of comparison. Your love of the Kingdom must come before even familial obligations.

He then says God says killing is wrong, yet advocates genocide. To begin with, the Hebrew word is Ratsach. There are a number of other words that refer to killing. This kind of killing is being forbidden. Killing, in general, is not. As for genocide, we are sure that Miessler will never read a work such as Did God Really Command Genocide? After all, contrary thought is way too frightening. You can listen to my interview with Matthew Flannagan, one of the authors, here.

He also goes after slavery. Nothing is said about how Israelites in the wilderness were supposed to make their living. Slavery is never defined. He also says we all know it’s wrong, which is really a recent innovation. I would like to know how on atheism Miessler would know that slavery is wrong. Again, at any rate, he could have talked to a scholar about the topic like I did here.

He also says about the genealogy of Jesus that if Joseph isn’t the father, why give a genealogy to someone who isn’t related to you? Joseph’s is given for legal reasons. Joseph would be seen as the legal parent of Jesus. Keep in mind, an adopted son became Caesar after all.

He then asks about the Passover. Wouldn’t an all-knowing God know who was faithful and who wasn’t? This is more a judicial review of sorts. Those who were faithful were to make a sacrifice to show to everyone else they were and to make a public demonstration of their trust in the promises of YHWH.

Finally, what about Abraham being asked to kill his son? To begin with, Isaac was the child of promise and had a miraculous birth in the account. Isaac was also promised to be the one through whom Abraham’s blessings would come. When Isaac and Abraham go to offer the sacrifice, they are accompanied by others. Abraham stops them at one point and tells them they must wait. Abraham and Isaac will go alone and they will both return.

Isaac is also not a wimp here. He’s carrying the wood himself for the sacrifice. Keep in mind Abraham was well over 100. Does anyone really think Isaac couldn’t have outrun him or fought him off or something like that? Would Isaac be willing to be sacrificed? Apparently. Death wasn’t the big deal to people back then that it is today. People faced death everyday on a regular basis.

Abraham instead was trusting God’s promise. Either YHWH would stop him somehow, or YHWH would raise him from the dead. As it is, Abraham was stopped.

He asks how is Jesus’s sacrifice the ultimate one if He didn’t stay dead. That’s not a requirement though. The sacrifice is offered to God. God can do with it what He wants. The giving back of life to Jesus is saying that God approves of the offering and of the life His Son lived. Justice has been paid.

He then asks if Jesus removed our sins, why do we have to avoid sin and accept Him to avoid eternity in Hell? This is really such a simple question I can’t believe anyone is really asking it like a stumper. We avoid sin because sin dishonors God and because it goes against our own purpose in this world. We are to live holy lives. Why do we have to accept Jesus? Because in accepting Jesus, we agree with God’s verdict and seek His forgiveness. It is never forced.

He also says why does the Bible say so much about treating slaves, how to kill enemies, and how to avoid angering God, but never anything such as not to harm a child. Probably because the ways of YHWH on many things were counter-cultural and different. Not harming children is largely basic, though Israelites were forbidden from sacrificing their children unlike their pagan neighbors.

The next two assume a worldwide flood. I have no need to reply since I don’t hold to that.

The next is about the problem of evil and the suffering of children. To begin with, the logical problem of evil is no longer used as a disproof of God. The probabilistic problem of evil and evidential problem is. Evil cannot disprove God, but it can make His existence seem unlikely.

There is no easy solution to this and I recommend reading works, especially Clay Jones’s book Why Does God Allow Evil? which I interviewed him on here. What I want to know is why Miessler considers this an evil. If we are all just a cosmic accident, we have no meaning and purpose, so what difference does it make? A child dies or an old man dies. Their lives are meaningless and they will both go to nothing.

Finally, he says Wikipedia can be updated. Why not Scripture? For one thing, Wikipedia regularly gets things wrong, such as the Shane Fitzgerald incident. Second, imagine the chaos if all around the world people had different books all said to be the Bible and they were different for that culture or the manuscripts were radically differing. The system God has works now.

Miessler then tells us we have two options.

#1.

God created all these stories and characters thousands of years before the Bible in order to trick people, and then created new stories and characters that were almost exactly the same. But the version that went into the Bible—even with all the contradictions and immoral teachings—is the actual word of God. …OR…

#2

The Bible was created during a time where stories were orally passed down over thousands of years. Stories constantly morphed and changed over time, and the Bible is a collection of these. This is why it has the nearly identical flood story from Gilgamesh, and why Jesus has the same characteristics as Dionysus, Osiris, Horus, Mithra, and Krishna. The contradictions and immorality in the stories are not evidence that God is flawed or evil, but rather that humans invented him, just like the thousands of other gods that we used to but no longer believe in.

Let’s go with #3.

Miessler is someone who wouldn’t recognize good scholarship if it came up to him and smacked him in the face. He is highly ignorant of the evidence for Christianity and believes anything found in atheist works without reservation. The real case is the Bible needs to be studied contextually and when this is done rightly, one can see it’s true and Jesus rose from the dead.

He then concludes:

If you hadn’t been taught Christianity since you were a young child, which of these two explanations would make the most sense to you?

Well, none of the earliest Christians were taught Christianity since they were young children and yet the faith thrived at that point. What makes the most sense to me is Miessler doesn’t ever study what he seriously disagrees with and believes anything that argues against it. Christians who study these issues don’t even blink anymore. Those who believe Miessler are just as much people of faith as he is.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Resurrection of the Jewish Messiah

What do I think of Eric Chabot’s self-published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Resurrection apologetics when interacting with Jewish people is often an entirely different animal. I remember seeing a debate live that Michael Brown did against a rabbi. At the end, I went up to the rabbi, sadly with a crowd, and asked about the resurrection. I just got the reply, “Didn’t happen” and then he turned to answer others.

Okay. Thanks for that information. Glad we had the discussion.

A Jewish scholar like Pinchas Lapides actually believes Jesus rose from the dead and yet doesn’t see Him to be the Messiah. I am sure there are many who would not be convinced even if they knew the resurrection happened. Why? Because Israel has not been restored and the Messianic age has not been brought about.

Christians need to take these concerns seriously.

After all, Messiah means something. Christ is not the last name of Jesus and He is not the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. Messiah means that Jesus is the King and the King of Israel specifically. Many of us today have lost that kind of thinking.

Eric Chabot does specialize in answering Jewish objections to Jesus, a needed ministry today. While debating with Jews isn’t as prominent normally as it is with Muslims or atheists or other groups, let’s remember that these were the chosen people of God. They are the ones who gave us our Old Testament and who gave us our Messiah, King Jesus.

Chabot’s book deals with many areas that will be common to us today. What about oral tradition? Why did Paul change his mind and see Jesus as Messiah? Did Jesus really exist? Was He just a copy of pagan gods. (Although it would have been nice to have seen a bit more about the virgin birth, which I do affirm.)

He also gets into why this matters for Judaism. Why would it be that the Messiah would need to be resurrected? How does this fit within the promises of Israel? What about the question of where the Messianic age is?

If you’re looking for general information on the resurrection to help with dealing with atheist friends, there is a lot of good material in here that you can use. The book is short and can be read in a day or two. There is plenty of scholarly interaction as well.

However, it also has the bonus of being a book with information on Jewish apologetics specifically. Christians need to recognize this as we too often treat the Old Testament as an add-on to this real book called the New Testament and gloss over the story of Israel entirely. Paul told us Israel’s story is our story and they are our people as well. We need to learn from them and learn how to reach the Jewish people God loves.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Gospel Allegiance

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s book published by Brazos Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What is the gospel? Many pastors today write books on the topic and talk about how central it is and how important it is to be proclaiming the good news. Sadly, many of them don’t have the good news right, and these are not the liberals. These are conservative God-honoring pastors who truly want to build up the church. The gospel becomes all about what happens individually in a person’s life. Justification by faith is said to be the gospel or in some cases I’ve seen such as saying Calvinism is the gospel.

My wife and I once attended a church where the pastor at the end of every sermon gave a call to accept Jesus as savior. Unfortunately, it seemed like the whole goal every time was to get someone to go to heaven. It’s as if it’s decided that the whole point of Jesus coming and dying and rising again is all about the next life and not here.

Matthew Bates says this must change. Now while it sounds like he’s wanting to change the gospel, what he’s wanting to change is our perception. He wants the gospel to go beyond forgiveness of sins. He’s not opposed to that as it’s certainly included in the message and he’s not opposed to justification by faith, but what is the gospel?

The gospel is about Jesus coming and living and dying and rising again and thus, being the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and everyone else for that matter. We treat Messiah like it’s a name. I have even had atheists ask me why a Jewish guy would have a Greek last name, as if Jesus was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. The religion of Islam stresses that Jesus is the Christ, but it gives no content to this whatsoever.

When we say Jesus is the Messiah, we mean He is the king and He came to institute the Kingdom of God on Earth. Our response to this is not intellectual assent which is normally meant by faith. Instead, what is required is a life of allegiance. This does not mean that we earn our salvation, but that our lives model what we say we believe.

The kingship of Jesus means that we are not just agreeing with a proposition, but living lives of loyalty to the king. When we get the gospel wrong, we make the gospel be all about what happens to us. The gospel is all about what Jesus did and who He is. You could give a gospel presentation today to people that would not require Jesus being the Messiah or being the king. We are doing something wrong at that point.

Bates’s message then is that this a more biblical way of viewing salvation. Salvation is something that God does in us, but we willingly submit to him with a life of faith lived outward in allegiance to him. Bates does take on some of our modern pastors who emphasize too much justification by faith. He doesn’t disagree with them, but he does say that we need to move beyond that. He does have some problems with Catholicism, though he does not say Catholics are not Christians and is concerned when any Christian is restricted from partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

This is stuff I have already believed, but once you see it spelled out, it’s hard to not see it in other places. When I hear someone give a gospel presentation or read it now, it seems so lacking. While this is something I have even done a sermon on, it is something that needs to be stressed. We have made Christianity be about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which is reducing Jesus down to the buddy Jesus idea, and not about Jesus being king. When I introduce myself at a Celebrate Recovery meeting, I do not describe myself as a faithful believer in Jesus, but rather as a faithful servant of king Jesus.

I hope more pastors and more Christians read Bates’s book. Bates is doing the church a great service. He is taking the material of scholars and giving it to the public on these issues in a way that is easy to understand. This book is highly readable for the layman and I recommend it greatly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Pulling Back The Green Curtain Part 7

What more is there in Jim Hall’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the first new facts of Hall’s is about the incident in 1 Samuel with 50,070 people dying for looking in the Ark. He pictures people lining up and all dying when they look or an event like a football stadium and everyone dying at once. Funny. I picture someone who doesn’t bother reading scholarship and now agrees that the text should more accurately read 70. Of course, Hall has never been one for reading contrary thought. He has to avoid that cognitive dissonance after all.

There is something in there about an iron axe head floating. Again, this is called a miracle. I really don’t understand this technique of atheists. “Look! Your account contains miracles!” Yeah. It does. That’s only ipso facto stupid if it is shown there is no God, which is really what is the question under dispute. This makes as much sense as me going to atheists and saying “Look! Your account requires naturalistic evolution!”

He then goes to Jesus’s command that if you look at a woman with lust, you’ve already done it in your heart and since adultery is punishable by death, everyone should die multiple times over. First off, yes. Everyone deserves judgment for their sins. Second, Jesus is telling to stop the problem in the heart, but there is definitely a difference between real adultery and desire to commit adultery. One cannot be punished for a thought like that in the court of man at least.

He then looks at the Exodus. First off, he says the population would be about 2,000,000 Hebrews not counting women and children. On this, he’s unaware that even that is disputed in evangelical scholarship where it’s asked if it means that many people or a large number of chiefs. He says there is nothing recording the death of the firstborn in Egypt, but why would there be? Most cultures didn’t record what could be perceived as failures of their gods.

As for lack of evidence of slaves wandering the area in the wilderness, the Scythians were a large group and wandered much longer. What did we find of them? The tombs of their kings. In other words, we only found the stuff that they built to last. The Hebrews didn’t build any such things to last in the wilderness.

He then goes to a list of ways to identify a false religion.

● Its deity never appears in person ● Its claims are unverifiable ● No documented physical evidence ● Praying to its deity has no measurable real-world effect ● Rewards are promised for belief; punishments are threatened for unbelief ● Regular group-think meetings are held to reinforce the belief ● Believers never ask critical questions

Let’s go through this list.

Yes. Our deity did appear in person. He was crucified.

Our claims can be verified using philosophical methodology for the question of God and as verifiable as you can get using historical methodology.

We have plenty of archaeological and documentary evidence for Biblical events.

Hall will not interacted with the research of Craig Keener on mracles of Candy Gunther Brown on prayer studies.

People are not punished for unbelief. People are punished for their sins. Trust in Jesus is not just mere intellectual assent. It’s a lifetime of treating Jesus as Lord.

Church is not meant to be a group-think situation but a time to worship. All people to some extent tend to like to hang out with like-minded people. I have no problem with atheists coming together to meet.

And Hall, I have no problem with critical questions. If you don’t, then by all means maybe you should respond to my review of your past book or this current review. Could it be you don’t like being challenged?

He wonders why Mary was confused by Jesus being in the temple when He was 12 years old. Mary likely still had in mind the traditional views in Judaism of the Messiah. The plan was not spelled out for her.

He says the Israelites used to be polytheists. Wow. Really? I mean, don’t we know in the Old Testament that they were perfect holders of monotheism who never ever once deviated in worship from YHWH?

Hey everyone! Cool scientific fact! This morning, the sun rose in the East.

He has also the usual God doesn’t heal amputees and says this never happens. How does he know? There was controversy on the Unbelievable? page a few years ago when someone contacted the radio show about praying for someone and they had an eye regrow back. Now Hall can say that this never happens, but it will become circular.

“Prayer never causes an eye to grow back.”

“But this person says it happened.”

“It didn’t happen.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that never happens!”

He then says it was common knowledge to the early Christians that Jesus was a copy and paste job from other deities. After all, Justin Martyr said to the emperor that the Christians didn’t believe anything different from their pagan neighbors. Here’s the problem. Justin is trying to show that Christianity is not shameful and if Christianity is persecuted, then other beliefs should be persecuted. It is not saying the Christians copied. This is an idea that has been dropped by scholarship for about a century.

He points to Romulus as a copy. He says he was a son of God, preached to followers on a hill, corpse went missing, returned from the dead in an immortal body, witnesses were frightened, appeared to one follower in a spiritual form in a bright light on a road into the city.

Not a single source is given for any of this. I challenge Hall to find the source and demonstrate his claims. I also want to know how close the claims are to the original events. I think Hall will be disappointed, but he won’t look. Hall can’t take the cognitive dissonance.

He also says if you have enough faith, you can literally move a mountain. Hall doesn’t realize ancient Israelites spoke in topographical language about political events. Of course, God could move a mountain, but rearranging topography is not in mind. More likely, Herod is in mind.

He also says,

“Philosophical arguments don’t win debates; evidence wins debates. Moreover, gods who exist don’t leave their existence open to debate.”

Unfortunately, there is nothing in here that is evidential and it is really philosophical. He also says gods who exist don’t leave their existence open to debate. Does he have any evidence for this? It will have to be philosophical argumentation, but for him, that doesn’t count as evidence, so he has a belief without evidence.

Lesson for you Hall. Any time you disparage philosophy, you will wind up hoisting yourself on your own petard.

He also has something about Attis who was supposedly around in 1250 BC. He was born on December 25th (Which by the way, is nowhere in the New Testament about Jesus), had names like the only begotten son, savior of mankind, most high god, and the logos. He was the son and the father, crucified on a Friday and rose from the dead three days later, and eaten as bread by his followers.

Again, I defy Hall to come here and source any of these claims from primary sources.

He tells about the story of the woman caught in adultery and says this isn’t found in the original manuscripts. The same with the ending of Mark. Well, yes. This has been known even in the times of the Church Fathers. Hall then wants to know what more could be suspect. How about we see what Bart Ehrman says?

If the primary purpose of this discipline is to get back to the original text, we may as well admit either defeat or victory, depending on how one chooses to look at it, because we’re not going to get much closer to the original text than we already are.… At this stage, our work on the original amounts to little more than tinkering. There’s something about historical scholarship that refuses to concede that a major task has been accomplished, but there it is. Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior: An Evaluation: TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1998, a revision of a paper presented at the Textual Criticism section of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco. http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol03/Ehrman1998.html

In spite of these remarkable [textual] differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy. Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 481.

“The manuscripts of the New Testament do indeed have large numbers of variations in them: alternative ways of reading a verse in a passage; omissions of words or sentences; additional insertions of words and sentences here and there. But the problem is not of such a scope as to make it impossible to have any idea what these ancient Christian authors wrote. If we had no clue what was originally in the writings of Paul or in the Gospels, this objection might carry more weight. But there is not a textual critic on the planet who thinks this, since not a shred of evidence leads in this direction. And I don’t know even of any mythicist who is willing to make this claim. As a result, in the vast majority of cases, the wording of these authors is not in dispute. And where it is, it rarely has anything at all to do with the question of whether Jesus existed.” -Did Jesus Exist, p. 181

Again, I’m not covering everything, but there is more than enough evidence thus far even that Hall doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We’ll continue perhaps more next week.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Pulling Back The Green Curtain Part 6

What more is in Hall’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Hall has Jesus appearing to the twelve disciples, but thankfully, Hall is there to point out an error no one noticed. There weren’t twelve! Judas had already killed himself! We should all appreciate Hall is here to give us his brilliant wisdom and point out something no one has ever noticed or written about.

The restaurant Five Guys was originally based on a husband and his four sons (His wife was there, but the guys were given prominence). A couple of years after that, a fifth son was born. Did anyone note the name being changed to Six Guys? Nope. If two of them died, would it be Four Guys? The name is still the same, just like the Big Ten Conference no longer has ten. The name, the Twelve, just came to refer to the circle of Jesus’s own direct apostles.

Hall also tells us that civilizations have been around for 14,000 years. Granting that, how is it that they thrived without Moses telling them murder was wrong? If that wasn’t the point, why the Ten Commandments?

Yes. This is apparently where popular atheistic thinking is today.

The Ten Commandments did not reveal new moral principles. They were already known. They were just founding wisdom for guiding a people, not necessarily on moral issues, though that would be included. These were a sort of agreement the people would live by. It wasn’t that the morality was new and even in the New Testament, such as in Romans 2, it’s known that you don’t need the Law to know right from wrong.

He uses Zechariah 14:12 to say any nation that attacks Jerusalem will face drought and its people will become zombies. It’s certainly a bizarre interpretation, but it doesn’t fit. It’s an apocalyptic message using rich symbolic imagery and it refers to a specific people at a specific time in a specific situation and not for all time.

He then has something to say about substitutionary atonement. This is the most immoral and wicked doctrine to think that someone else can pay for the sins of another. It’s more than just paying sins, but taking on the shame and facing the shame. It strikes me that if God did nothing, He would be condemned for not dealing with the problem. Now He deals with the problem, but it’s just not liked how He did it. How horrible that someone takes on a punishment for us so we don’t have to! Wicked!

Also, it’s said that God shouldn’t have waited 200,000 years. Apparently, Hall has this idea that the atonement only applies to people afterward. Again, this is how little Hall has really studied Christianity.

Hall also looks at the story in Ezekiel 23 of the two sisters. He knows it’s an allegory, but he thinks it’s a pretty disgusting story. Okay. And? Is the Bible supposed to meet Hall’s personal sensitivities? Saying you’re offended by a passage says nothing about if that passage should be there or not.

He says Lot’s daughters got him drunk so they could rape him and have sons. Yes. They did. And? The Bible records how depraved they were and how two of Israel’s future opponents came about. The point?

Hall says that miracles also ceased once the camera came around and yet they became more common when photoshop came about. No data is given to support this. No interaction is given with Keener’s work, especially since his miracles take place in areas where cameras and photoshop aren’t as common.

He asks if you could stop someone from raping someone, would you? If so, you are more moral than God. This is just the problem of evil. Does Hall want Jesus to be Johnny on the Spot stopping every single instance of evil whatsoever? Don’t expect Hall to again heed any philosophy on the problem of evil.

He says Rome did not allow the bodies of the crucified to be removed. This is true, except in Palestine. Why? Romans were sensitive to Jewish purity laws and that would include the treatment of the dead, even the crucified dead. He says only one crucified corpse has been found. Granted that, lo and behold, it was in the Palestine area. When peacetime was going on between Rome and Jerusalem, Jerusalem was allowed to observe its laws.

Hall tells us that Mark was the first one written and the others copied Mark after that and the resurrection was hearsay and the last twelve verses were added a century later. Again, Hall does not read scholarship. He only needed to consult the agnostic Bart Ehrman on this one. This is from Jesus Before The Gospels. Ehrman says this in the endnotes on 280, but the link is to p. 226.

It is sometimes said that Mark does not have a resurrection narrative since the final twelve verses (16:9–20) are lacking in our best and earliest manuscripts. It is true that Mark appears to have ended his Gospel with what is now 16:8, but that does not mean that he lacks an account of Jesus’s resurrection. Jesus is indeed raised from the dead in Mark’s Gospel, as the women visiting the tomb learn. What Mark lacks is any account of Jesus appearing to his disciples afterward; in this, it is quite different from the other three canonical Gospels.

He also says Jesus said He came to bring fire to the Earth in Luke 12 and how He wishes it was kindle. No doubt, Hall reads this as a literalist thinking Jesus wanted to have an actual flamethrower or nuke the planet. This is more likely speaking in terms of revolution and bringing about the Kingdom of God. There’s no reason to really think it’s about torching the planet.

He has a question about how many of the Biblical writers met Jesus face to face. The options are zero, 4, at least 12, or at least 40. His answer is in the notes to that question.

(A) Zero. Remember that cognitive dissonance I was talking about? Yeah, you’re probably feeling it right now. Time to fact-check me.

Yeah. It is, because Hall provides no source whatsoever for that one. How about talking to Richard Bauckham of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses? I personally went to Emory University once looking through commentaries on Mark. Most scholars agree that Mark is the testimony of Peter who, check me if I’m wrong, but I think Peter knew Jesus face to face. The author of John also likely was an eyewitness or used an eyewitness. Perhaps we could also ask how many people Plutarch wrote about did he meet face to face?

It’s interesting that the next item he gives is about how the writers were anonymous. So were the writings of Plutarch. The point? As E.P. Sanders says about it,

The authors probably wanted to eliminate interest in who wrote the story and to focus the reader on the subject. More important, the claim of an anonymous history was higher than that of a named work. In the ancient world an anonymous book, rather like an encyclopedia article today, implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability. It would have reduced the impact of the Gospel of Matthew had the author written ‘this is my version’ instead of ‘this is what Jesus said and did.’  – The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders page 66.

Don’t expect Hall to acknowledge this. It would have required he actually research something. He says the vast majority of scholars say Mark did not write Mark. My personal research disagreed. I would like very much to see what scholars he consulted since so far, his work indicates the number is likely zero.

He also gives a personal favorite of mine saying Jesus would return within a lifetime and He didn’t. The citation is in Matthew 24 with the this generation passage. Sorry Hall, but Jesus said nothing about a return. He was talking about His coming and He referenced Daniel. Daniel has the Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days. He’s going up, not down. This is about Jesus’s coming meaning His coming to take His throne. The disciples would not have asked about His return since they had no concept of that. They didn’t think He was going to die in Jerusalem let alone rise again, leave, and then return. Jesus’s prophecy, which included the destruction of the temple, happened exactly as He said it would.

His next objection is

Religion is based on supernatural phenomena, beings, forces and miracles. The supernatural cannot be scientifically scrutinized because if science could detect it, it would cease to be supernatural and instead become natural. Unfortunately for science, religion can never be verified. Fortunately for theists, religion can never be falsified.

This is really an odd paragraph. For one thing, supernatural is never defined, which is another reason it’s a term I don’t use. He also has an implicit scientism here that unless something is scientific, it cannot be shown to be verifiable. This isn’t the case at all. Scientific truth is reached inductively. It goes by probabilities and the science we have today could be junk tomorrow. Some things are much more likely than others. One could say science can’t be falsified because for many claims, there are variables one could cite that explain why this just isn’t so.

Next he quotes Bart Ehrman to say Jesus is not mentioned in any Roman or Greek Non-Biblical source (I wasn’t aware there were Greek and Roman Biblical sources) until 80 years after His death.

“In the entire first Christian century, Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription. It is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero, Zip references.”

You really wish these guys would go to the original source. Prior to that, he tells us that there’s no doubt the historical Jesus is the most important person in the history of western civilization. There is no doubt of that at all in his opinion. Why does Hall leave this out?

He gives us Justin Martyr’s idea of diabolical mimicry wanting the reader to ask if the devil reading the prophecies about Jesus and attempting to fulfill them in false religions is a reliable argument. No. It’s not. The irony though is that Justin is not trying to explain away similarities. He’s doing the opposite! He’s trying to point them out and say to his audience, “We don’t believe shameful things because you believe similar.” Why are they similar? Because of the attempt by the devil to mimic. Again, not persuasive, but it’s not said for the reasons Hall thinks.

He then tells us about how vast the universe is and asks “Do you really think it was done with your insignificant self in mind?” Well, no. I think it was done with the glory of God in mind. We still needed a place to live in it. Whether it’s necessary or not scientifically, I leave that to the scientists. Again though, I suspect we have a case where Hall would claim victory in anything. If we had a universe teeming with life, the argument would be “See? There’s life everywhere. We’re not special.” Since we have the opposite as far as we know it is “See? We’re it. That argues against theism.” It’s a bad argument when you could make a case either way for you to win.

He brings up Jesus saying His disciples didn’t wash their hands. Couldn’t Jesus have mentioned basic sanitation? Um, Hall, The water likely back then wasn’t really pure and pristine. They didn’t have our soap and dishwashing detergent like we do today. Why should Jesus bring up something like this that would only apply thousands of years in the future?

He cites 2 John 9-11 to say you are not allowed to invite atheists into your house. Again, Hall does no study. The passage then is about a house church and how you shouldn’t allow a non-believer to be given a teaching position in your house church. It says nothing about having friends come over who are non-believers.

He cites Leviticus 21 saying handicapped people aren’t allowed in the assembly of the Lord. This is about the temple. Also, no non-Levites were allowed to enter and only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies and only once a year. Why? Because this was supposed to image Jesus, the perfect lamb of God. Those with disabilities could freely eat of the offerings given though. This means they, like all others, can partake of the blessings of God.

He goes to Deuteronomy 22:23-29 about a woman marrying her rapist. Even another atheist has taken this one to task. Again, don’t expect Hall to have studied the text. That requires too much work. Outrage works so much better.

We’ll continue another time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Pulling Back The Green Curtain Part 5

What else can we find in Jim Hall’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We return again to Hall’s treasury of comedy, for lack of a better word, to see what arguments he has. Getting back into the matters, one of the first is the problem of evil. This is about how 25,000 children are dying everyday in fear, pain, and hunger. We are to remember this when we win some money in a scratch-off lottery ticket and give thanks or on Thanksgiving dinner.

We could just as easily ask Hall what great atheist organizations are doing to help combat the evil. Christians are normally right there on the front lines whenever disaster strikes and we are the ones that run the organizations helping children in need. Not all of it is Christian, but a large portion of it is.

Hall has nothing here on interacting with any scholarship on the problem of evil. Nothing about Clay Jones or Peter Kreeft or Alvin Plantinga or anyone like that. It’s simply the emotional appeal. While one would hope there is genuine concern for children, it looks more often like these children are trotted out to score personal points against theism.

He also says God violently drowned the world because they were too violent. This is supposed to be irony. What’s ironic is I went to Biblehub to do a search of the main passage, Genesis 6:5, and not one of them mentioned violence. Instead, it referred to man having a continual inclination towards evil. That could include violence, but it would not be limited to it.

Furthermore, God is the judge and ower of life and has the right to end the life He created. We do not have such a right. Hall just has a bad case of theistic personalism going on here. He views God as a big man just like the rest of us and under the same moral rules. God is good, but He is not a moral agent since there is nothing that He ought to do.

While I’m not Catholic, I find it amazing to hear him say Catholics practice cannibalism with transubstantiation. Hall is going back to older claims about eating the body and blood of Christ that Christianity’s first opponents used. Some arguments just never die.

He asks about how many pairs of animals Noah brought onto the ark. Was it two or seven? It’s amazing such a weak challenge is taken seriously. The clean animals would be extra for sacrifice and the number refers to how they were to enter the ark.

He quotes Matthew 6 to say Jesus was against public prayer. No. Jesus was against prayer to be seen. Pharisees would let it be known to everyone that they were praying so they could get the honor for it. Jesus Himself prayed in public, such as at the tomb of Lazarus.

He has that a 90 year-old woman gave birth. News flash to Hall, but everyone at the time also knew that this was generally impossible even without knowing why. That’s why it was called a miracle. I still do not understand how it is supposed to disprove a claim to someone that believes miracles are possible to show that a miracle occurred.

He also says one man circumcised 300 of his slaves in a day. As if to say that because the text says Abraham did this, he had to do it all directly. You might as well say that when John 19:1 says Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged, that Pilate did it directly. What is it with fundamentalist atheists and literalism?

He tells us the oldest bit of text we have from the New Testament is P52 and it is about the size of a credit card and dated to about 225 CE. Not sure where he’s getting the date at. Most sources I read say mid-second century. Furthermore, there is really no reason to call the text of the NT into question. We don’t have any original manuscripts of any ancient work and the NT is far and above better with dating and manuscript number than any other ancient work. Hall cites no scholars for his claim. For my position on the NT text, I will.

If the primary purpose of this discipline is to get back to the original text, we may as well admit either defeat or victory, depending on how one chooses to look at it, because we’re not going to get much closer to the original text than we already are.… At this stage, our work on the original amounts to little more than tinkering. There’s something about historical scholarship that refuses to concede that a major task has been accomplished, but there it is. Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior: An Evaluation: TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 1998, a revision of a paper presented at the Textual Criticism section of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco. http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol03/Ehrman1998.html

In spite of these remarkable [textual] differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy. Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 481.

“The manuscripts of the New Testament do indeed have large numbers of variations in them: alternative ways of reading a verse in a passage; omissions of words or sentences; additional insertions of words and sentences here and there. But the problem is not of such a scope as to make it impossible to have any idea what these ancient Christian authors wrote. If we had no clue what was originally in the writings of Paul or in the Gospels, this objection might carry more weight. But there is not a textual critic on the planet who thinks this, since not a shred of evidence leads in this direction. And I don’t know even of any mythicist who is willing to make this claim. As a result, in the vast majority of cases, the wording of these authors is not in dispute. And where it is, it rarely has anything at all to do with the question of whether Jesus existed.” -Did Jesus Exist, p. 181

He also says that insects have four legs according to Leviticus. Keep in mind these were people who regularly hate these insects and knew how to count. What’s going on? Simple. The back legs are not counted as regular legs like the others.

He says that God cursed humanity with multiple languages for trying to build a tower to Heaven. Why isn’t NASA judged yet? Because the tower was built after the flood when mankind was supposed to disperse throughout the Earth and instead they were acting in pride to build a tower to keep themselves safe in defiance of the flood in their recent history.

“The gospels were not written by simple, illiterate, Aramaic-speaking fishermen and peasants who knew Jesus, but were written decades later by literate, educated writers who wrote in Greek and were, incidentally, rather hazy about the Jewish landscape” – Kenneth Humphreys

Yep. Ken Humphreys, owner of Jesus Never Existed. We are getting into some first-rate scholarship here, folks. First off, in the ancient world, most works of history were written decades later. Actually, that’s not really accurate. Many times it was at least a century later. Hall and Humphreys obviously hope their audience is as ignorant as they are.

Second, most everyone who could write back then even used a secretary when writing. That the apostles might have still been illiterate is irrelevant. Literate people used secretaries.

As for errors in the Jewish landscape, none are given. I guess Hall just wants us to take it on faith.

Hall lists a variety of seafood that you are forbidden to eat citing Leviticus 11. Well, maybe if you’re observant of Jewish law and kosher practice, but not necessarily if you’re a New Testament Christian who is not under the Law. Again, Hall takes a simplistic approach to a complex topic. It’s alright. We wouldn’t want him to actually work and study a topic.

He shares the story of Jacob working seven years to get Rachel and not noticing that he got Leah instead and how he worked another seven years. What’s the problem here? For one thing, how could he not notice? A number of reasons. One is he could have been likely drunk which would happen at weddings. Another is the woman wore a veil often and he might not have even seen her face until the next day and keep in mind, no lighting really at night unless you used a candle or something of that sort.

There are some accounts in the New Testament that Hall questions how the writer could have known about them. The first is the voice of Heaven at Jesus’s baptism. Yes. It’s a wonder how the author could have access to a public declaration done at the baptism of Jesus. Some such events are conversations with the priests and what they were thinking. Considering Acts 6 says some priests became followers of Jesus, it’s not too hard to figure out how that could have come about. What about Jesus praying alone? The word indicates that Jesus was a short distance away. This could have been easily heard. Pilate and Jesus’s private conversation. Doubtful that when it says they talked together, they were alone. A governor would not be without his aides especially when interviewing someone thought to be a criminal. Another humorous one is Joseph of Arimathea asking for Jesus’s corpse. Well, since Joseph was a follower of Jesus, maybe, and I realize this is stretching, but maybe he told other followers of Jesus what happened.

Could be.

He says that denying a gay customer a wedding cake because of your religious beliefs is the same as a Catholic refusing to sell condoms, a Muslim refusing to sell bacon, someone refusing to sell you cookies because you’re on a diet, someone refusing you a fishing license because they became vegan, and a Jew refusing to sell Christmas cookies.

Again, a simplistic approach to matters. To begin with, I think anyone who has a good or service has a right to refuse that since you do not have a right to anyone else’s goods or services. Second, to supply actual artwork for an event as is often asked is to be forcing someone to endorse that event since their artistic labors are part of their free speech. Would Hall be fine with forcing Jewish bakers to paint a pro-Nazi cake?

He says bats are birds and not mammals. This is going by modern taxonomy. In the Biblical case, the word for bird referred not to a taxonomy class, but a winged creature. Last I checked, bats have wings.

He says Judas refers to a Jew and thus the betrayal of Jesus is obvious fiction since Judah in the Old Testament sold his brother for 20 pieces of silver and Judas in the New Testament sells Jesus for 30. Never mind that Richard Bauckham points out that Judas was the fourth most popular name for Jewish boys in Palestine. Could it be that maybe Judas was the name because that was a common name and not because of some conspiracy theory? We’ll wait to see if Hall takes off his tin foil hat for this one.

We’ll continue another time. Only so much nonsense in a day after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Pulling Back The Green Curtain Part 3

What more shall we find in Jim Hall’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As we return, it’s not a shock that one of the passages I come across is Judges 1:19 and how God can’t drive out the people because they have iron chariots. Naturally, a God who conquered Egypt and parted the Red Sea would obviously have a problem with iron chariots? Right? The reference to he is not to YHWH. It is to Judah. Judah was not being fully faithful and chose to not take on iron chariots. After all, later in chapter 4, there is an army with 900 iron chariots that is defeated.

Hall also has a list of words known to Bible scholars but not to men in the pews. This is a shame. The people in the pews do need to be better educated. These terms include gloss, mimesis, and pseudepigrapha. There are some assertions here such as Moses is deutero which Hall says is another writing of a book but not by the same author. Deuteronomy really means Second Law and is a summation of all that happens before the Promised Land.

He also says Nazareth does not show up anywhere in the ancient world. Why should it? It was a small little podunk hardly worth mentioning. Rene Salm popularized the whole idea of the myth of Nazareth. It has never caught on among archaeologists. Bart Ehrman has even written on this arguing that Nazareth was a real place.

He has the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman as well. This is one I have already written about. Again, Hall is banking on his readers being just as ignorant as he is and getting an emotional reaction out of them. It would be awful for him to consult any commentaries and actually encounter contrary thought.

He has the story about Lot and the two angels. Yeah. Not Lot’s finest moment. What is this supposed to show? YHWH never approved of Lot’s behavior. He still spared him not because of his sinfulness but in spite of it.

He says that Peter and Paul supposedly died around 65, but if that’s the case, then Peter would not refer to Paul’s writings as Scripture because, well, reasons. None are given. He also says Paul’s letters weren’t discovered and circulated until 150 A.D. I would love to know where he got this little piece of fiction from since Polycarp and Clement both wrote of Paul. Third, he says Peter was illiterate so he couldn’t write so obviously, this letter is a forgery. The problem here is Peter would have used a secretary, just like people who could write used.

He has God making light on day 1 but nothing that produces light until day 4. It is a shame he has never availed himself of the cosmic temple view of creation that John Walton has. In this, it’s not that the matter is being created, but that the function of it is being named.

He says the RCC has finally accepted evolution, but they still accept Adam and Eve which is the epitome of cognitive dissonance. I am not aware if they have made a formal statement on Adam and Eve or not, but how is it cognitive dissonance? One can have evolution and still have two distinct human beings. Furthermore, I don’t think the RCC was really that opposed to evolution from the beginning.

He says wearing a polyester-cotton blend T-shirt is a sin based on Leviticus. The first problem is missing the role of the law and the relation of it to the Christian. The second is that this is about ritual purity and it is not about sin.

He says Jesus was illegitimate since Mary and Joseph had not yet married when he was born. The whole point of the story is that Jesus was not conceived through illegitimacy but had a virgin birth, which I do affirm. Exactly how little does Hall think his audience knows about the Bible?

Hall says there’s only one reason to believe something and that’s you know it to be true. That’s not accurate. One could just have good reason to believe it to be true. Proof isn’t always easy. Some reasons he says to not believe something are that it gives you comfort or hope, everyone around you believes it, or social reasons like losing job or reputation, or because you fear death. Sure. I agree with those. And?

He also says it took the Israelites 40 years to walk 250 miles. Indeed. Purposefully too, because they disobeyed and they had to wander in the wilderness until the wicked generation died. This is basic knowledge every Christian should know about the Old Testament.

He also has a list of later beliefs Christians had that aren’t in the Bible. One is the Trinity since 1 John 5:7-8 is a forgery. What of it? To say that is the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity is to be entirely ignorant of New Testament studies.

He finally says that if the only reason you don’t do wicked evils is because of religious morality, you are a dangerous psychopath. Japan has one of the lowest rape rates in the world but is one of the most atheistic country in the world. Where does he get this from? He says the Pew Research Center, but color me skeptical since Japan is highly religious with Shintoism and Buddhism both playing major roles. Also, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates as well.

Furthermore, what reason does Hall have to not be that psychopath? Who makes these moral rules? What is their foundation? Why should I care?

We shall continue another time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Pulling Back The Green Curtain Part 1

What do I think of Jim Hall’s new self-published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While the book says it’s by Stephany Chase, an interview has been done and Jim Hall is apparently the real author. We’ve dealt with Jim Hall a few times on this blog. We are quite confident he won’t engage back since any time I have challenged him on any point, he has refused to address it.

At any rate, this book is supposed to be 666 things your priest, rabbi, imam, etc. didn’t tell you. Nice to know Hall is expanding his repertoire. In all of this, I will not be able to fully comment on matters relating to Islam, though I might on some with some positions like Mormonism if I think I know enough about the subject matter. I also think it’s important to do that since I don’t want Hall misrepresenting anyone else’s religion any more than I want him misrepresenting mine.

Rather than go through the list of teachers each time, I will simply say a holy man. Hall says there are specific parts they avoid in teaching. First, I don’t doubt this on many points since many of our ministers are really quite shallow and have no wish to educate themselves. Second and more relevant here, there is nothing in the book of mine he can show me to surprise me since I’ve read the whole thing many times.

Hall also says there is no such thing as too much information. True enough, but there is the problem of false information. Hall does not have good information in this. He takes run of the mill atheist tropes and runs with them. Hall’s problem is too little information and too little if any interaction with scholarly sources.

He also says something about cognitive dissonance. This is a favorite atheist trope. It’s like it’s the only psychological condition they know. Of course, Hall has likely never read When Prophecy Fails on the matter, but hey, who needs to? I wonder if it’s cognitive dissonance that keeps him from responding to my reviews.

Hall also says to not take his word for anything. Look it up. I would believe that except as I have said, Hall has refused to respond to my review of his first book and still keeps going. Odd for someone who wants to be checked on and says there’s no such thing as too much information.

Hall also says many Christians try to wiggle out of the Old Testament saying the laws are no longer in effect. He is convinced they are. Is there any wrestling with Pauline teaching on the matter whatsoever? Nope. He has several verses for us, so let’s see.

“Keep his commandments for a thousand generations.”[ 1] – “Keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always.”[ 2] – “Remember and obey the laws of Moses.”[ 3] – “Every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever.”[ 4] – “It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”[ 5] – “One came and said unto him, Jesus, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”[ 6]

Chase, Stephany. Pulling Back The Green Curtain: 666 Things Your Religious Leaders Never Taught You (pp. 4-5). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

The first one is from Deuteronomy 7. This is a hyperbolic statement about the keeping of the commandments. It is also given to the people who had that covenant made with them. Gentiles are not those people. The second is in Deuteronomy 11 and is much the same. Malachi 4 is the third saying to remember the Law of Moses. Yep. That settles it I guess.

The fourth is from Psalm 119 and says God’s commands are true and endure forever. Note the Hebrew word for forever can refer to forever. It can refer to things lasting forever or a long time or even to something such as great men of old.

The fifth is from Luke 16 saying not one jot or tittle of the law will disappear. Correct. We also say that Jesus fulfilled the law for us. Again, Hall does not interact with any Christian interpretation of the passage.

The sixth Hall says is Luke 19:16, but it isn’t. It isn’t 20:16 or 21:16 or 18:16 either. It is the story of the rich young ruler being told to keep the commandments. Of course, he is! He’s still under the old covenant.

So again, Hall comes up amazingly short because he does not have enough information. Strange that a man who says too much information so much ignores information. Why is this?

Finally, at the end of the introduction, he has the logical problem of evil from Epictetus. Apparently, he’s unaware that Plantinga and others have solved the logical problem of evil. Atheistic philosophers don’t use it. That does not mean that the problem of evil itself has been abandoned, but some forms of it have been. Again, Hall just does not have enough information.

So next time we look at this book, we will start looking at the 666 claims. It will take awhile to go through, but what I have read so far is entirely disappointing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus The Priest

What do I think of Nicholas Perrin’s book published by Baker Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Go to several people and ask who Jesus was, Christian and non-Christian. You’ll get several different answers. On the far left fringe side, you’ll get that He’s a mythological figure drawn together from various pagan religions. On the more conservative side, you’ll hear that He’s the Son of God, Son of Man, God incarnate, and the Messiah. A Jewish Christian might more emphasize Him being the Messiah. A skeptical person might say He was a great teacher and some would say He was a Marxist, a Socialist, a feminist, a homosexual, or any number of positions.

Yet you will be hard-pressed to find someone who will say “Jesus was the high priest of Israel.”

This is the position that Nicholas Perrin holds in his work. He does not deny the other more conservative aspects, but thinks we need to realize that Jesus was establishing Himself as the true priest of Israel and thus challenging the reigning priesthood at the time. He was also raising up His disciples to be priests after Him and continue the priesthood ministry of bringing God to men.

This starts with the Lord’s prayer and goes on from there. This is really a very priestly prayer with significant eschatological overtones. There is nothing wrong with praying it as a way of dealing with daily temptation and seeking to find God in our daily lives, but let’s not make refuse to make it even more than that. Jesus in this prayer sets apart a community that is awaiting the Kingdom of God and seeking to bring it about at the same time.

From there, Perrin goes to other places like the baptism of Jesus by John and how there were overtones that were present at this event that would have been seen by both John and Jesus. The arguments are very complex as page upon page is presented to deal with each one. Thus, I will not be fully summarizing them in a brief review.

Some might ask how Jesus could be a priest in His time in the eyes of His contemporaries if it was known priests came from the tribe of Levi and Jesus from Judah. Perrin answers that David and Solomon both took on priestly duties in their work as king and both in their own way were considered prophets. Jesus is acting in the same way. Josiah and Hezekiah could be different cases since neither of those kings ruled over a unified kingdom.

Perrin’s work is a fascinating look at a topic that doesn’t get much discussion. In our day and age, when we think of a priest, we normally think of someone in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. Perhaps those of us who are Protestant need to reclaim the title. It is hard for us to be a kingdom of priests when none of us are called priests.

I understand there is another book in the works on this topic which I hope to see because there was one glaring omission in this work that kept coming to my mind. There was very little interaction with Hebrews. This is the book of the Bible that I contend has the most direct teaching about Jesus being a priest and yet the relevant chapters were not really touched. I am left wondering if this was deliberate on Perrin’s part to be saved for the future book that could look at how this is expressed in the epistles. I certainly hope so.

Those who do want to think about Jesus in a new role but consistent with traditional Christian teaching should give this work a shot. It is very thorough and very well-argued and quite enjoyable. It is a bit deep for the layman, but those wanting to get the jewels will get them if they dig deep enough.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

A Response To Twelve Painful Facts

Should Christians be in pain because of these “facts”? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So there has been a post I’ve seen recently about twelve painful facts for Christians. As near as I can tell, the author is an atheist named Michael Sherlock. He is apparently pursuing a Master’s in Arts at the University of England majoring in studies of religion. Let’s see how good his studies are doing. Fortunately, he does give sources for his claims.

Fact 1: The earliest official gospel (Mark) was written over a generation (40 years) after the alleged death of Jesus and subsequently, it fails the historical test of contemporaneity.

Source: Paul. J. Achtemeier. Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary Revised Edition. Harper Collins (1989), p. 653; John Barton and John Muddiman. The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press (2001), p. 886.

Reply: I would actually place Mark earlier and interestingly, so would skeptics like James Crossley who even places it in the 40’s. I did a research project on Mark once and most scholars do date it to before 70 A.D. This is secondary stuff. There’s two things I want to say about this.

First, there is no alleged death of Jesus. Jesus died.

“The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable, despite hypotheses of a pseudo-death or a deception which are sometimes put forward. It need not be discussed further here.” (Gerd Ludemann. .”What Really Happened To Jesus?” Page 17.)

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

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

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

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

Second, there is no historical case I know of for contemporaneity in the sense that a document must be contemporary in order to be trustworthy. Most of what we have isn’t. This rule about being contemporary is a made-up rule by Jesus mythicists to argue their case. Also, if early dating of the New Testament is accurate, we do have contemporary witness. We definitely do in Paul.

Fact 2: 612 of the 662 verses in the Gospel of Mark can all be found in Matthew, and in largely the same order, thereby demonstrating that the anonymous author of “Matthew” copied heavily from the Gospel of Mark.

Source: Graham N. Stanton. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press (1989), pp. 63-64.

Reply: Let’s assume this is accurate.

So what? Why would Matthew need to reinvent the wheel if Mark had already spoken? Furthermore, if Mark is the testimony of Peter as an eyewitness, as a member of the three of Jesus’s inner circle, he saw things that Matthew would not have.

Let’s not forget the whole thing about the Gospels being anonymous.

The authors probably wanted to eliminate interest in who wrote the story and to focus the reader on the subject. More important, the claim of an anonymous history was higher than that of a named work. In the ancient world an anonymous book, rather like an encyclopedia article today, implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability. It would have reduced the impact of the Gospel of Matthew had the author written ‘this is my version’ instead of ‘this is what Jesus said and did.’  – The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders page 66.

Fact 4: The gospels contain numerous forgeries, contradictions and errors.

Source: Re: Story of woman taken in adultery in “John’s” Gospel; Paul. J. Achtemeier. Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary Revised Edition. Harper Collins (1989), p. 535; Re: Final 12 verses of “Mark”; Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. Stuttgart (1971), pp. 122-126. There are other examples.

Reply: I am not sure how these count in the category, but looking at this, this isn’t news. We’ve known about these verses not being original since the time of the early church. It’s because we have a strong textual tradition that we can recognize where the text has been altered. It’s amusing also that he claims numerous but only gives two.

Fact 5: The four gospels were not selected as orthodox Scripture until 180 CE

Bart D. Ehrman. Jesus Interrupted. Harper Collins Publishers (2005), p. 111.

Reply: I got this book at the library so I don’t have it now, but I wish he would have consulted a work like Who Chose The Gospels? by Charles Hill. There also weren’t really debates about canonicity. From the beginning, the four Gospels we have were recognized as Scripture by the church fathers. Irenaeus made the first formal statement about them, but that was nothing new.

Fact 6: There are no first century witnesses outside of the corrupt and biased gospels that attest to the earthly existence of Jesus Christ, but for a forged passage in the work of the Jewish Historian, Josephus (Testimonium Flavianum), and a second reference in that same compromised work, which is also suspect and in no way represents a specific reference to the Jesus of the gospels. (6)

Source: Re: No first century witnesses to earthly Jesus; Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted. HarperCollins (2009), p. 158; Re: Josephus forgeries; John E. Remsburg. The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence. The Truth Seeker Company (1909), pp. 32-35.

Reply: Bart Ehrman would not agree with this entirely as he does not hold that the statements in Josephus are entire forgeries. Most everyone admits there is some editing, but the majority of scholars believe there is a historical core there to the historical Jesus. This best explains the second reference to James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ. Readers would remember Josephus’s early reference.

There is also no contemporary record of a number of other great figures in history like Hannibal, Queen Boudica, and the German general Arminius. I recommend Sherlock check History for Atheists for more.

Fact 7: Almost all of the myths and moral philosophies attributed to Jesus can be found in earlier mythologies and philosophies, held by people that were proximate to the lands in which the gospels first arose.

Source: Joseph McCabe. Sources of Morality in the Gospels. Watts & Co. (1914). McCabe compiled many of the primary source pre-Christian references to the sources of Jesus’ alleged revelations, so you can go to those works and read them for yourself.

Reply: I’m going to assume this is true for the sake of argument.

So what?

My belief in Jesus does not depend on Him giving some unique mind-blowing teaching. It depends on His resurrection from the dead.

Fact 8: Most of the earliest Christians believed that Jesus was either a phantom (non-human apparition), or a completely human Jewish rabbi.

Source: Bart Ehrman. Lost Christianities. Oxford University Press (2003); Earl Doherty. The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications (2005).

Reply: We have to laugh at Earl Doherty being a serious source here. There is no interaction with the Early High Christology Club such as Bauckham, Bird, Hurtado, Tilling, etc. We don’t have any of the church fathers espousing the position listed here. That would have to mean that the apostles died off and then immediately, everyone got everything wrong about Christianity right from the start. Color me skeptical.

Fact 9: Christianity only rose to power due to its blatant disregard for its own Scripture – meaning, it aligned itself with a psychotic “pagan” emperor, Constantine, who boiled his wife in a hot tub, murdered his own son and executed his co-emperor, and he merely used Christianity to solidify his political ambitions (sole emperorship), evidenced by the fact that he continued to practice his pagan faith and mint his coins with Mithras (pagan sun-god), long after his alleged conversion. 

Source: Helen Ellebre, The Dark Side of Christian History. Morningstar Books (1995); Phillip Schaff. History of the Christian Church, Volume 5: The Middle Ages. A.D. 1049-1294. Christian Classics Ethereal Library (1882), p. 322; J.N. Hillgarth, The Conversion of Western Europe. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (1969), p. 46; Frank Viola & George Barna. Pagan Christianity. Tyndale House Publishers (2008).

Ellebre is not a scholar in the field and Viola and Barna are really not sources I take seriously on this. Having interviewed Peter Leithart on Constantine, I am skeptical of these claims. Something I still want to know though is how Christianity even got to Constantine. It went through numerous persecutions and should have died out in the first century and definitely the second. Never happened.

Fact 10: The sect of Christians that aligned themselves with Constantine became known as the Catholic (Universal) Church and their chief historian, Eusebius, re-wrote Christian history to present a false picture that favored his sect and made it look as if his group’s theology, found in the four official gospels, was always the dominant and original form, when such was not the case.

Source: Bart Ehrman. Lost Christianities. Oxford University Press (2003); Joseph Wheless. Forgery in Christianity. Psychiana (1930); Bart D. Ehrman. Jesus, Interrupted. New York: HarperCollins (2009), p. 214.

Reply: These people must believe Eusebius was a remarkable man. He had the power to traverse the whole Roman Empire and eliminate documents that disagreed with him and change histories everywhere. Simply incredible.

Since I am skeptical of fact 9, this one follows from that.

Fact 11: For the majority of its history (4th Century – 19th Century), Christianity has been a violent religion, which, like a deadly virus, has taken over its hosts and killed in order to spread.

Source: Helen Ellebre, The Dark Side of Christian History. Morningstar Books (1995); Rev. J.E. Riddle. The History of the Papacy, to the Reformation (Multiple volume series); Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (multiple volume series).

Reply: There is no in-depth analysis here. You will not find him interacting with a scholar like Thomas Madden on the Crusades or Henry Kamen on the Inquisition. Without specific claims, I really can’t say much here. Sherlock just seems to want to go for emotional points.

Fact 12: When Christianity had temporal authority, it was just as brutal as Islam.  The only reason we see more psychotic behavior from religious nuts in Islamic countries today, versus Western countries, is because the West has become increasingly secularized.

Source: Joseph McCabe. A History of the Popes. Watts and Co. (1939); Rev. Horace K. Mann. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 4. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co. Ltd. (1910); Rev. J.E. Riddle. The History of the Papacy, to the Reformation. Vol. 2. Richard Bentley (1854); Helen Ellebre, The Dark Side of Christian History. Morningstar Books (1995); John N.D. Kelly. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford University Press (2005); Archibald Bower. The History of the Popes. Griffith and Simon (1845); Johannes Janssen. The History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages. Vol. 10. Trans. A.M Christie; Kegan Paul. Trench. Trubner & Co. Ltd. (1906); Preserved Smith, PHD. History of Christian Theophagy. The Open Court Publishing Co. (1922); Jeremy Collier, M.A. An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain. Vol. 6. William Straker (1811); Carl Theophilus Odhner. Michael Servetus: His Life and Teachings. J.B. Lippincott Company (1910); R. Willis, M.D. Servetus and Calvin: A Study of an Important Epoch in the History of the Reformation. Henry S. King and Co. (1877); Sam Harris. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. W.W. Norton, New York (2005).

Reply: Again, no specific examples are given, but let’s look at the last part. It’s a shame we can’t be like more secular countries, like Russia and, oh….what’s that? Stalin murdered how many of his people? Oh. Or we could look at Mao….what? He did too? Or Pol-Pot….what? Again? Let’s not forget the Khmer Rouge or the church being persecuted in China today.

I challenge Sherlock to find one nation untouched by the Bible where he’d prefer to live instead.

So we supposedly have twelve painful facts, and yet I felt no pain whatsoever. If anything, I felt some laughter in it.

If this is what is counting for atheistic argumentation today, Christianity is in good hands.

I’d also like to note that there’s hardly any interaction with modern evangelical scholarship on the topic. I have no problem with citing skeptics as I do the same, but by all means study the other side seriously. Otherwise, you just stay in an echochamber.

In Christ,
Nick Peters