Rabyd Apologetics – God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens (Part Nine) – Revelation: The ‘New” Testament Exceeds the Evil of the ‘Old’ One

 

If only Christopher Hitchens listened to himself on the above quote because in this chapter he asserts many things that have no evidence and are merely theories so I reject them without evidence as well.  Want some examples?  Ok.

1. The Gospels were written after the apostles were dead – there is no textual evidence for this, no historical evidence for this and in fact it is pure theory, no more than an assertion.  It is also a theory that has come under fire since the discovery of texts that date at the gospel of John as much earlier than believed before.  Note the word ‘believed’ because that is exactly what it is based on.  Because the gospel of John is definitely early second century or sooner it pretty much means the rest of them were written before that.  It is very conceivable that the apostles were alive when the gospels were written and ether did or helped with the writing of the gospels.  One of the seeming blind spots Hitchens has is that textual criticism may give him some criticism of the gospels it also buries a lot of that criticism too.

2. Christian scholars have never been able to reconcile the contradictions in the texts of the gospels – wow, what a lie.  I am going to straight up tell you that this was a statement made by Hitchens when there are thousands of Christian scholars who have done just this. I myself have done this with my own harmony and commentary on the Life of Christ right here in this blog.  I am not alone.  In short even though many have actually done this, Hitchens really has chosen to ignore what they have said and still makes this blanket statement simply because they have not done so to his personal satisfaction or he blatantly does not want to even bother to look at what they have done.

3. He calls into question the census that caused Jesus to be born in Bethlehem – Now I have already gone over the fact that the Syrian governor by secular accounts is unknown at the time of Herod’s death and that Quirinius was governor of Syria at another time before but this does not rule out the possibility that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice. The point is that Josephus mentions the census which is a Jewish historical source.  What Josephus does not mention is anything about people having to go back to their town of origin.  Hitchens takes this that it didn’t happen but that is an argument from silence.  In short Hitchens postulates that the census did not have as the requirement that Joseph and Mary go back to Bethlehem, but this theory Hitchens presents has no evidence and is based on an argument from silence based on Josephus silence on the matter.  He presents no evidence so I am allowed to reject his theory without evidence based on his own axiom.

I could on and on about the contents of this chapter and stick to the same criticism that Hitchens assumes the poor character of all religious people so he make many ad hominem errors in logic and his arguments. He assumes a certain theology is true and he assumes a certain view on the text of the Bible which he does not even both to really offer up any counter that Christians actually use.  His hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) is at a fifth grade level and he never really bothers to ask if his interpretation might be wrong.  Even though he thinks his use of CS Lewis in this chapter clears him from ‘straw man’, CS Lewis is not the only apologist out there and many apologists have problems with Lewis.  For a book written in 2011, Hitchens seems to want to be attacking a New Testament based on 1960s scholarship.

The one thing I will no longer tolerate myself is the notion that some New Atheists level at me that I am doing a straw man argument myself because some of the things I have been yelled at for are clearly stated in this book.  “How am I engaged in straw man if I am quoting Hitchens?” will now be my response more and more.  If there is one thing I am now certain of it is this book was designed as a ‘Rah, Rah” for atheists not an apologetic that proves the faith claims of religion are false.  It also does not prove “All religion poisons everything”  That statement is an emotional conviction of atheists and Hitchens is just preaching to that choir by appealing to it emotionally.  The title of this chapter is somewhat misleading as well.  Hitchens never even gets past the gospels and as such never engages Paul’s argument for the resurrection in 1st Corinthians 15 or any other writer.  He still has yet to PROVE his thesis and the title of the book.

Next: The Koran is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths.

Cold Reading – Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind (part ten) – From the Ivory Tower to the People in the Pew (Part II)

This next chapter of part four is called What Happens in Seminary: A Student’s Perspective.  Right out the gate there is the charge that before the advent of the internet the only objective source of religious information was higher education.  This is why seminarians have always had a problem with maintaining faith once they get into getting their master’s degree while other have not because outside the seminary or graduate school you never see this before because churches were basically engaged in indoctrination.  I have some doubts about this claim because I know many atheists who have come out of church before the advent of the internet.  I also don’t think all churches engaged in indoctrination at the time.  But I do think they hit the stages of a typical seminarians life as they engage the issues.  Well you could look at it as stages for some but responses that different people take depending on the person. 1) Fascination and Enthusiasm 2) Being troubled by ambiguity in what they are learning. 3) Having seeds of doubt planted that will haunt them later in their careers 4) Focusing on diligence rather that critical thinking to shield them from doubt. The rest of the chapter was giving examples of each of these types or stages by different people. The effects were varied: some left their faith, other’s changed their faith and others just focused on the ministry they could do. I can relate to this chapter not because I went through it but because I saw it while in seminary.  I saw it in my fellow students.  What was weird was that those of us who had come out a Bible college background seemed to be the least affected.  There were a small minority of us because of this background that asked skeptical questions of what we were being taught as to whether it was not incomplete or biased itself.  The problem was the rest of our fellow students seemed more annoyed with us than hopeful.  I mean how are we to challenge people with Ph. D level education?  Who was I?  Someone who had already searched both sides of the issue and found that the higher critical point of view had as many problems and to be honest more problems than the more conservative viewpoint.  I had learned the conservative viewpoint was not based purely on indoctrination but actual rational reasons with good scholarship itself.  A Ph. D does not make you infallible.  Where did I learn to be this way?  In the hallway of Trinity Bible College as we would debate these issues.  Some would take the devils’ advocate position and it was up to the rest of us would have to bring them down.  We learned that every idea has its weaknesses and because of that we learned to challenge everything.  Scholarship is done by human beings and human being make mistakes, have errors in judgment and are biased and that includes the higher critics and liberal theologians. It is this problem that never seemed to be addressed in seminary and if there is a weakness to the seminary system is that there is a blind faith in liberal scholarship.  No one looks at the nature of those theories and the evidence in seminary and it is a shame.  As much as the public university has become a one-sided debate, seminaries have also become a one-sided deal where people are not told the whole truth about both sides of any biblical issue.  Indoctrination is prevalent in seminaries and it is toward the higher critical and liberal point of view about the Bible.  The thing is the New Transparency is also being used to counter this.  For every liberal theological and biblical idea there is a response in print or on the internet out there and despite claims to the contrary not all are irrational faith-based responses.  For every Misquoting Jesus there is a Misquoting Truth and this has now stretched to the internet as well. I think this is the one mistake the writers have made.  They have assumed the New Transparency only causes people’s faith to go one direction – from having faith to not having faith.  I beg to differ that there would also be a crowd of ministers who have found a new reason to believe from  the New Transparency as well and that is not being addressed because of the assumption that it is not happening.  The authors have only studied one phenomena and not the whole gambit of shifting faith.  I am enjoying the read but I also am now become very painfully aware of this bias. Next: From the Ivory Tower to the People in the Pew (Part III)

The Book of Acts – Part 1 – Before Pentecost(1) – Luke’s Introduciton

Acts 1:1-5:

The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Much like his gospel, Luke addresses the book to Theophilus “Lover of God” and there is much debate as to whether this was a genuine person’s name or a simple reference to anyone who loved God and was looking to know him better.  The one thing that is not debated is that the person who wrote Luke is definitely the same person who wrote Acts.  The style of writing is identical as well as much of the terminology.  The length’s of both books is roughly the same as well indicating that this was probably written originally on two separate scrolls of the same length. They are volume one and two of the same work for all practical purposes with the same purpose of setting forth an ordered account of the events surrounding Jesus Christ in the gospel and the early church I the book of Acts.

It is this change from Jesus to the early church that is the real dividing line historically from one book to the other.  Jesus steps aside to let his church shine in his place.  Luke summarizes his gospel in this paragraph and in more detail summarizes the events of the passion leading up to this moment.  There is a cross over between the two accounts.  In the gospel, the ascension is summarized but here all the events leading up to it is summarized.  The idea is to overlap slightly so the reader will be sure of what they have already read and reminded to get them to the proper place in the timeline.

Luke himself I already talked about in my Life of Christ series so here once again is the summary of who he was:

1) Luke, based on other statements in the Bible, was a physician.  He also was not a Jew, but a Gentile.  He was beloved by the church and was at times a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul.

2) Luke is approaching this task as a historian in much the same way as a lot of classical Greek historians.  To use a movie analogy – Luke’s is producing a well researched documentary on the history of the early church.

3) Of the gospel writers, Luke’s use of Greek is some of the most elegant, but also the most difficult to translate.  It indicates a man of intelligence and education.  Luke was no dummy, and he definitely had the qualifications to do this job and the connections with people to do his research.  This remains true for the book of Acts as well.

In the case of Acts specifically, it appears that unlike his knowledge of the life of Christ which was based on pure historical research, Luke may have been an eyewitness himself to many of the book’s events.  In this case he is not only doing good research from his perspective but also he is showing some of the things he has seen himself.

This passage is about summarizing what has gone on before in the life of Jesus but also to give a rational about why they were back in Jerusalem.  They were there to receive something that Jesus had promised them – The Holy Spirit.

Next: The Ascension of Christ

The Book of Acts – Introduction

Probably no book of the Bible is more beloved, challenging and controversial than the book of Acts.  I have really not looked at this book in-depth until very recently both as something I am currently preaching through on Sunday and now in even more depth as I look at it closely here on ‘All Things Rabyd’.  Before this, I had not looked at the book very much other than as part of my reading through the Bible and when a passage for a sermon came up in my more topical series of messages.  My reluctance stems from the fact that I was raised in a Pentecostal church and ordained n a Pentecostal denomination.  I really only heard one viewpoint on this book for most of my theological life.  There were two exceptions to this.  First for my time in Seminary which came at the book from a more Arminian and Wesleyan point of view and a time when I was searching in Bible college for a different answer.

For the longest time my Pentecostal heritage was challenged by one simple fact, I think too much and that lead to me and the answers to problems with Pentecostal theology and the Book of Acts’ contents never really reconciling themselves or came into harmony.  I found myself maintaining doctrine I didn’t believe in on many occasions.  When I put all that behind me, I promised myself I would not return this book until I felt I could give it a fair treatment with as little assumptions as possible.

I think enough time has passed where I might be able to pull this off.  I know that does not sound absolutely certain but then again do any of us look at anything without some assumptions?  The point for the Biblical theologian is to try to  minimize this as much as possible. It really is hard to try to eliminate all assumptions when looking at a Biblical text.  We all had those teachers in Sunday School that passed them on to us.

This study will basically be very similar to the life of Christ.  Taking one text at a time trying to observe its contents, offer up some interpretation and then offer up some potential applications.  It will be divided into periods covered by the book itself and will be something that starts to take more concrete form as we progress. Also, like the Life of Christ, any cultural issues, authorship issues and time and place issues will be dealt with as we go instead of laying this out at the front.  My hope is to make this a journey of understanding what was intended by this book to the Christian believer.

Next: Luke’s Introduction

Rabyd Apologetics – Paul’s Defense of the Resurrection – Introduction

If there is a more pivotal doctrine of Christianity than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I do not know what it is.  Without the resurrection Christianity is reduced from a powerful life transforming force to just followers of a Rabbi who taught some nice things roughly 2000 years ago.  It is THE doctrine of Christianity that gives all the others force and power.  The historical fact of Jesus resurrection is always at the center of everything Christians do and why it is the focus of the most holy day of the year for Christendom – Easter.

I am not the first to recognize this fact and importance.  Long before me the Apostle Paul understood this importance and tried to stress that importance to the Corinthian church in his first letter to them.  The problem was that some members of that church were saying the idea of the resurrection of the dead was a false idea.  Dominated by Greek philosophy, Corinth and its citizens had long dismissed the idea of a resurrection of the dead or an afterlife as myth.  The problem for the faith was of course obvious to Paul and I think that is why he saved it to near last in his first letter and devotes a large chunk of that letter to this issue.  1st Corinthians 15 is devoted, all 58 verses of it, to a defense of the resurrection and the idea of the resurrection of the dead.

As I was originally going to post on this I was thinking one post as a kind of backdrop to the Easter season but the more I meditated and thought about the chapter I realized that Paul’s argument is very deep, comprehensive and multifaceted and deserves a closer look than a single post. Therefore, I have decided to give the whole chapter a closer look and ask a simple question – Does Paul’s argument for the resurrection of the dead and Jesus’ resurrection in particular still hold water and stand the test of time for today? I am not sure how long this series will last but I want to hit all the angles of Paul’s defense of the resurrection.

For this post a little background to get us going.  Modern scholarship in large part does not dispute that the book of First Corinthians was written in the first century or that the apostle Paul wrote it.  Even critics are slow to make the assertion otherwise because the author clearly identifies himself and makes reference to himself throughout the book.  As much as the critics might want to they are hard pressed to make the assertion that Paul didn’t write the book as they have no textual examples at all of a different writers name.  Compounding this is the fact the introduction to the book lists Sosthenes as a kind of co author as well.  The content of the book fits the times involved so there is little doubt to most that the book is what it says it is.

Before discussing the resurrection Paul has delved into a number of problems from the unity of the church in Corinth, to marriage, offering food to idols, the lord’s supper and spiritual gifts.  Paul has devoted this book to correcting problems in the Corinthian church.  The final major problem is dealt with in chapter fifteen which is some of the members of the church were saying that there was no resurrection of the dead.  It by its very nature is not something that Paul could ignore.

Paul’s defense of the resurrection will start with the witnesses.

Next: The Witnesses of the Resurrected Jesus.

Rabyd Apologetics – The Gospels – History or Not? (Part Two – The Authorship Question)

The criticism is leveled that none of the gospel authors identify themselves and there for it calls into question whether or not we can trust the historical reliability of the gospels without knowing who the gospel writers are.  The criticism is leveled that the only thing that maintains the authors of scripture as they are is church tradition.  This tradition is suspect according to critics so we cannot trust it as reliable.

First, it is not just church tradition that supports this but textual evidence.  The early church kept their scriptures in boxes behind the lecterns and here is the real a verifiable problem for the critics when it comes to the four gospels.  Church textual tradition began to identify the authors of books fairly early putting the name of the author on the top or maintaining a tradition of who authored the gospel.  This tradition and textual notation starts in the second century.  There is an interesting thing about this is whether you are in Spain or Rome or Palestine, the Gospel of Mark is always the gospel Mark; the Gospel of Luke is always the Gospel of Luke; etc.  In fact the council of church that finalized the canon used this fact to finalize their decision to accept Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and reject most of the rest of the so called gospels of Jesus’ life.  It is because many of those other gospels had divergent names on them in different geographic areas that they were in part rejected.  The four gospels that were ultimately canonized did not have this problem at all.  For this criticism to stick the critics need to produce a text of one of these gospels that has a different authorship than previously stated and they can’t do this.

Secondly, on what basis do you criticism church tradition?  In many ways, this is logical fallacy that is an attack on the character of all the people involved preserving the gospels through the centuries.  It is a particular attack on the church.  However, such an attack is usually never considered in normal debate to be logical.  I don’t see this being leveled on those that preserved say Homer’s Odyssey or the other Greek, Roman and Jewish historians of the time.  If you are going to challenge the gospels this way, where is your criticism of other traditions outside the church that preserve other textual documents in the same way they did? Seems that this part of it is simply a prejudicial treatment of a certain tradition and quite frankly is a logical fallacy unless you can prove that every single person who preserved and ancient text of the four gospels is guilty of falsifying their record.  Something you can’t do because you have no evidence for it.

Finally, there are many works of antiquity that don’t include authors.  It does not necessarily follow that because an author’s name is not included that what is recorded is inaccurate.  Just because you do not know who the author of any text is does not mean that text is false in its presentation of historical reality if that text also names and shows witness that could have been consulted at the time of the events.  Sorry, the two issues are not necessarily compatible so this criticism is weak if you ask me.  So we move on to the next criticism which is that the authors wrote too far after the events of Jesus’ Life.

Next: Too Much Time Has Passed for Accuracy

Theology for Dummies – Biblical Inspiration – Plenary Verbal View

Honestly, I think this view is an attempt to maintain the strengths of both the Dictation View and the Limited View.  The idea is preserve the idea that God directly influenced the words of Scripture but also at the same time preserved the writers personality.  The idea is basically that God moved on the writers in such a way that he got exactly the words he wanted in the Scripture.  The authors keep heir literary style, backgrounds and personal traits but God prepared every part of the author’s life to get what he wanted written in the Bible.

Plenary – unqualified; absolute.

Verbal – relating to words

Thus God gets the words absolutely as he wants but does not violate who the authors were.

The strength of this view is it is a legitimate attempt to protect the Scripture as directly inspired and preserved by God and at the same time the authors’ nature still comes through.

Here is the real problem for anyone who has studied the Bible or even textual criticism is that the if God went through such a process to inspire the Word why didn’t he continue to do so to preserve it as there are clearly times where people made errors in copying and thus mishandled the texts.  Even without this there are clearly times when Biblical writers have a difference of opinion or even of the accounts of the same event have variations.  It seems if this view is correct such things would not be.  Fact is this view creates great problems for defending the faith as it opens the door for critics who can easily point out its flaws.

Philosophically I have a problem with this view because it involves minute control of a person’s life to the point that God get exactly what he wants when he writes something for the Bible.  Is this truly necessary for God to inspire the Bible?  There is also the fact that this view of inspiration Is of all of them the newest as it can be traced back only as far as the 19th century with roots in Renaissance humanism oddly enough.

Next: Dynamic View

Engaging ‘God’s Problem’ – Three Objections Part 2 – Bart’s Bible is Not Mine

Originally posted in Rabyd Theologian 2.0 on July 30th, 2009

The Full Title of the book by Bart Ehrman’s is God’s Problem: Why the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer. The problem is that the Bible Bart is using is not mine or for that matter the Bible most Christians use. It is Bible that is edited to fit what the liberal scholars have decided it is.

Every Theory Believed but not the Text Itself

Bart’s Bible is one in which the Bible is not what it says it is:

1. JEPD Theory is considered fact — Moses did not write the Pentateuch

2. Two people Wrote Job

3. Two or Three People wrote Isaiah

4. The apostles did not write the documents of the New testament

5. Etc., etc., etc.

In short, the “Bible” is not as the Bible presents itself but a concoction of theories and speculation that is not supported by textual fact. This makes it difficult to say ‘the Bible does not answer the question of evil’. This is not accurate in this book by Bart – He is not using the Bible but a theoretical Bible. I find Bart’s position, and those who believe like him, ironic; they reject the Bible on the one hand because of textual error (most of which are not significant), but will present as facts theories that have not textual facts or evidence whatsoever.

A Bible Removed of History

Because of this the Bible’s history including Gods acts in history are non-issues for Bart except when they make his case for him. Bart has an interesting argument here – he rejects any Biblical argument that contradicts what he says because we can’t trust the Bible in being historically accurate but then he will turn around and takes as fact any biblical event that fits his belief that God is responsible for evil.

Because of these two factors I would say the full title of Bart’s book is not true — it is not how the Bible fails to answer the problem of suffering, but it is rather how the liberal edited Bible fails to answer the problem of suffering and to that I would agree. An edited Bible does not answer the problem of suffering but the real deal does.

Next – Objection 3 – No Answer Will Do

Engaging ‘God’s Problem’ – Disagreements with Chapter Seven

Originally posted in Rabyd Theologian 2.0 on July 17th, 2009

Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem considers the ‘end of the world’ answer to the problem of evil. I have a few disagreements with Bart about this although the chapter does have some problems:

1. He plugs some social issues again — malaria and water issues around the world. Both could be dealt with by humans but were going to blame God.

2. I disagree with Bart’s assessment of origin of the apocalyptic view in Scripture. The fact is that it occurs in the writings of Solomon in Ecclesiastes as well as David’s psalms and the idea of judgment occurs in Job as well.

3. When people assess that the Jewish people failed to keep the covenant and thus received punishment for not keeping the covenant it is not anti-Semitic. Did not the prophets and Jesus (all Jews) say the same. If Christians simple say the same things Jews say about themselves how are they anti-Semitic. Jesus pointed this out further in his own when he called the religious leaders self-righteous -Is Jesus anti-Semitic being Jewish himself?

4. He has some interesting theories about the date of Daniel – that Daniel is written in Aramaic is proof of a later date for Daniel after the fact of all the predictions of course. The fact is if Daniel is educated by the Babylonians his language would a have been changed into Aramaic along with the rest of the Jews seeing Aramaic is the result of Babylonian influence.

5. Because he does all this his version of apocalyptic views is assume that God has relinquished control for now and will bring things back to right in the end – The apocalyptic view does not have God out of control at anytime.

Next: Agreements with Chapter Eight

Theology for Dummies – Biblical Inspiration – Dictation Theory

The dictation theory of biblical inspiration goes something like this.  The Holy Spirit took over the minds and bodies of the writers and their part in the inspiration process was purely mechanical.  All they were was God’s scribes writing word for word exactly what God wanted in the Bible.  No part of the personalities  of the writers or human error has crept into the Bible.

This theory was very popular in Protestant circles in the 16th and 17th centuries and it is still held by a few groups to this day.  It began to fall out of popularity the more people had access to the Greek text and began to understand that some of the personalities of the writers are indeed there in the text as well.

The biggest weakness however was what this ultimately did to the idea of the inspiration of Scripture given that the ancient manuscripts do indeed have discrepancies between them.  At this point you would have to say either God is fickle or this idea of inspiration is bonkers.  God dictates but then the scribes make errors does not bode well for the theory.  Also, If God dictates the original then why does he not guard the process of coping in the same manner so there are no textual variants in the first place?  If God is dictating he is apparently an incompetent dictator and preserver of hid Word if this theory is to be believed.

This view for me fails because it wants biblical inspiration to be a purely divine thing and it is clear that the human element is involved in the Bible.  While it upholds the highest divine involvement it eliminates the human one and that cannot be maintained given the text of Scripture itself and the scholarly discipline of textual criticism.

Next: Limited Theory