F.F. Bruce

The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament than have many theologians. - F. F. Bruce


With special thanks to The Poached Egg for sharing.

Legislating Morality?

William Wilberforce is considered to have been the greatest social reformer who ever lived. If there is any reason to doubt the connection between legislation and morality, his illustrative life should once and for all reveal the relationship as inseparable. I'm currently reading Eric Metaxas' biographical account, “Amazing Grace,” named after the hymn written by the former slave ship captain, John Newton, who was Wilberforce's spiritual mentor. Wilberforce has permanently affixed upon the Christian conscience the moral obligation for political action. The idea that one cannot legislate morality should be forever banned as meaningless drivel.

“Is it not the great end of religion, and, in particular, the glory of Christianity, to extinguish the malignant passions; to curb the violence, to control the appetites, and to smooth the asperities of man; to make us compassionate and kind, and forgiving one to another; to make us good husbands, good fathers, good friends; and to render us active and useful in the discharge of the relative social and civil duties? ” 

― William Wilberforce

You can watch the trailer of the movie adaptation of Amazing Grace:

William Wilberforce's book, Real Christianity online or download.

William Wilberforce (Eric Metaxas mp3 download)

William Wilberforce, Wikipedia article

http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wilberforce.htm

William Wilberforce, Christianity Today article

Eric Metaxas' Blog

Former Atheist, Craig Keener, Defends Miracles

I've been long anticipating the release of Craig Keener's new ground breaking book on Miracles. I just found out that it is now available and as a two volume set at that. Any work Keener does is scholarly and extremely well documented (his commentary on John includes tens of thousands of footnotes), Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts is no exception. The book reviews read as a whose who among Christian scholars. Professor Richard Bauckham notes,

"Craig Keener's discussion of New Testament miracles adduces a uniquely--indeed staggeringly--extensive collection of comparative material. That eyewitnesses frequently testify to miraculous healings and other 'extranormal' events is demonstrated beyond doubt. Keener mounts a very strong challenge to the methodological skepticism about the miraculous..."

Keener has written a blog, Are Miracles Real?, a very short summary of his book at the Huffington Post (reminiscent of Daniel in the Lion's Den). I have also found a number of interviews with him, all available as mp3 downloads or streaming audio. Dr. Mike Licona has conducted several over the years on 4TRUTH.NET, his most recent one can be found here. Brian Auten, founder of Apologetics 315, has recently interviewed him. He was also on the Line of Fire, hosted by Dr. Michael Brown. Ratio Christi-Ohio State University also has some interesting commentary. J.P. Holding of Tektonics has offered some of his own thoughts here as well as a guest blog. You can check out the contents at Baker Academics.


Winner of The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship's 2012 Award of Excellence

2011 Book of the Year, Christianbook.com

Agnostics and Skeptics Refute Zeitgeist

John Dominic Crossan is not exactly the person who comes to mind when most of us think of what it means to be a Christian believer. I'm being generous here, in brief, he is really a skeptical postmodern "believer" of sorts. As one of the founding members of the Jesus Seminar, Crossan not only denies the miraculous, but he doesn't even consider the existence of God to be of any relevance. After dismissing any possibility for miracles, he suggests that the only thing that is important is that you just have faith. With this in mind, lets look at this interesting quotation that I found on Apologetics 315's blog:

"Jesus' death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixition, we would still know about him from two authors not among his supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus." - John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 145

With those who have been drawn into the elitest mentality of the Zeitgeist movie and the atheist conspiracists of late, this quote speaks volumes. They enjoy casting doubts on the credibility of Josephus and Tacitus' witness to Jesus as though they are not only unreliable, but even if they were accepted, they like to think that they really weren't talking about Jesus the Christ. If there were any validity to their criticism, one would think that room would be made in their circles for such a critical scholar as Crossan. Unfortunately for them, he doesn't exactly fit the bill. While he refuses to assert the existence of God and rejects the validity of miracles, he does understand something about history. With this in mind, he cannot bring himself to deny the historical person of Jesus. He also affirms the crucifixion as historical fact, which is the single most important detail in considering his messages and proclamations, as well as establishing the resurrection as an historical event. 

Mark Goodacre, a scholar who takes a distinctly historical approach in regard to the life of Christ, has a podcast where he briefly comments on the historical Jesus deniers. You can find it here. Once again, this is someone who leans toward more of a liberal slant who criticizes those who want to build an unfounded controversy. Goodacre appeals to a decisively historical methodology rather than assuming the reliability of the Biblical texts and yet he considers the Gospels to be enough historical evidence to establish Jesus in history, and that even as stand alone texts.

Scholar, F.F. Bruce relates, "Some writers may toy with the fancy of a 'Christ-myth,' but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the 'Christ-myth' theories." (The New Testament Documents, p. 123)


In the following video, another skeptic, this time agnostic Bart Ehrman, quite clearly rejects the historical revision of new atheists. Listen as he silences another popular Jesus denier:





Additional Resources on Zeitgeist and the myth parallels argument:

Tectonics

Christian Think Tank

King David 8

Evidence For Christianity

Say Hello To My Little Friend

Cross-Examined

New York Times on Zeitgeist's director, Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco

More on Jarod Loughner's Obsession

Here's a fun video by Tectonics:

Carl Henry: Empiricism and God

"Because theological and ethical statements cannot be verified by empirical methods does not mean, as the positivists erroneously and arbitrarily conclude, that they are beyond verification. Such a judgment stems purely from the metaphysical theory that only empirical experience supplies evidence about reality."

-Carl Henry

God, Revelation and Authority, Volume 1, p. 247

Philip the Apostle

Tomb Discovery

Hurriyet Daily News reported that Professor Francesco D’Andria, is thought to have found the tomb of Philip the Apostle, one of Jesus' original twelve disciples. BAR Magazine (Biblical Archaeology Review) has the full story here.

According to D’Andria, “Until recently, we thought the grave of St. Philip was on Martyrs’ Hill, but we discovered no traces of him in the geophysical research conducted in that area. A month ago, we discovered the remnants of an unknown church, 40 meters away from the St. Philip Church on Martyrs’ Hill. And in that church we discovered the grave of St. Philip,” The excavation of the tomb is expected to begin sometime in the near future. 

An Eye Witness Testimony

Not to be confused with Philip the Evangelist, Philip the apostle was preaching the Gospel in northern Asia which culminated in him being scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified, on a tree upside down with irons in his heels and ankles in Hierapolis in Asia Minor, in A.D. 54. Once again, the importance of such a faithful witness to the resurrected historical Jesus breaks forth on my mind. The old question, could the disciples have been willing to die for a lie, is just as applicable today as ever. One might suggest that numerous people would be willing to die for their beliefs, take Islamic Jihadists for example. There is an important difference, however, the disciples were contemporaries of Jesus and actual eye witnesses of his resurrection. As such, Philip's martyrdom becomes more than just a human interest story, it is a powerful testimony to the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  

The Gnostic Gospel of Philip

Before I go on, I thought it important to mention that neither Philip the Apostle nor Philip the Evangelist authored the Gospel of Philip, which is a Gnostic book of the Nag Hammadi Library. These texts are not based on the life of Jesus, rather they are collections of sayings which were put together long after the New Testament Gospels were written. They are not only unreliable, they are also in complete opposition to the doctrines of the Apostles and were rejected by the early Christian church. Because these Gnostic writings use the Apostle's names it can be very misleading to the unaware.

Philip and Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences

Now then, there is something that has recently captured my attention in regard to the textual reliability of the Gospels and it pertains to our Apostle. Professor Timothy McGrew has recaptured what is called, undesigned scriptural coincidences, as he explains, "it is a cumulative case argument that the Gospels reflect, to an important extent, independent knowledge of actual events." In other words, as the Bible continues to be the target of liberals' attacks, questioning its reliability and historicity, this becomes powerful evidence of the trustworthiness of the Gospels.

In this instance, the setting is the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus and his disciples were going away for a rest and in John 6:5, it reads, 'Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?"' So the question is, why would Jesus ask Philip of all people? Why not Peter or John? There is nothing that stands out in the context that would offer an explanation. Furthermore, if we cross examine the parallel passages, we still would find no hint to help us and they omit this little detail altogether. 

Just imagine for a moment, if we were to write our own gospel account, we might find all sorts of reasons to use another disciple's name, especially if it were just a made up story. We could say that James and John the sons of Zebedee were fishermen and might be familiar with some of the trading posts, not to mention that this Gospel does bare John's name. Of course, Matthew was a tax collector and may also have something to say. Then there was also Judas, the treasurer. Peter is always the most outspoken of the disciples, why not him? Whoever we may choose, as one who is almost completely ignored in the Gospels, Philip would be a most unlikely candidate.

As it turns out, if we turn to the parallel passage in Luke's Gospel we find a new tid bit of information, it says that "he [Jesus] withdrew... to a city called Bethsaida" (Luke 9:10). Now this is where it gets interesting. If we turn back over to John 1:44, when Jesus is selecting his disciples, we discover that "Philip was from Bethsaida." The reason why Jesus asked Philip where to buy food was because he was from Bathsaida. There is no way that this could have been intentionally crafted by the authors considering the way it is laid out. This speaks to the credibility of the Gospel reports as first hand eye witnesses.

To dig deeper into these undesigned scriptural coincidences, Tim McGrew has some interesting material available here and here.




 
http://www.about-jesus.org/martyrs.htm
http://www.exclassics.com/foxe/foxecont.htm
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/DeathoftheApostles.pdf
http://nobtsapologetics.com/magazine/speakers/dr-timothy-j-mcgrew/
http://historicalapologetics.org/blunt-john-james/

Science as Religion

Science as the sole bedrock of truth, carries with it certain presumptions. Scientism is the view that science is the single source of knowledge and understanding of reality. Empiricism, verification and falsification have their benefits, as does the other trademarks of science, but they are in no way capable, either individually or together, of offering an exhaustive comprehension of reality. Modern science is made to work under the constraints of methodological naturalism and thereby confined to a particular metaphysical point of view; when viewed as the single arbiter of truth, it can no longer be taken as a scientific discipline, it becomes religion.