What if men like Papias and Polycarp weren't eyewitnesses of the apostles?

I've argued, in other posts here and elsewhere, that they were. But if they weren't, what would follow?

There still would have been other individuals in early church history who had been an eyewitness of one or more of the apostles. There would have been many eyewitnesses, and some of them would have lived well into the second century. That's the nature of life. Skeptical challenges to the eyewitness status of individuals like Papias and Polycarp don't change that. It's not as though the presence of eyewitnesses depends on the status of particular individuals who have traditionally been thought to have been eyewitnesses of the apostles. The fact that eyewitnesses would have existed and have lived until well into the second century can't reasonably be denied. Keep that in mind when you see people questioning the eyewitness status of certain people.

And even those who weren't eyewitnesses could have been in a good position to have had significant information. They were contemporaries of the apostles, lived in an area where one or more apostles had been, etc. Think of the evidence for the apostle John's long lifespan and his interactions with Christians and churches in Asia Minor, for example. On his long lifespan, see here. For a discussion of the evidence for his influence on the Asia Minor region, go here. That post is focused on Ephesus, but much of what's said there is also applicable to Smyrna and other locations in the area. It's not as though Polycarp had to be a disciple of John in order to have had significant information about John and other eyewitnesses of Jesus. Polycarp was in the right place, at the right time, in the right sort of leadership position to have had a lot of reliable information about Jesus and the apostles, even if he wasn't a disciple of John (though the evidence suggests he was).

Anytime skeptics raise doubts about an issue like whether a certain person was an eyewitness of the apostles or whether a New Testament author was an eyewitness of whatever type, it's helpful to begin by asking what's at stake. Even if the skeptic's position were granted for the sake of argument, what would follow from it? Often, even if we granted the skeptic's position, the source in question still offers a large amount of evidence against the skeptic's view of Christianity.

Why was there so much diversity in ancient baptismal beliefs and practices?

Gavin Ortlund just posted a video about how the historical evidence favors credobaptism over paedobaptism. I agree with him, and I've written about the subject in other posts, like here.

What I want to focus on in this post is why we see so many differences, and often contradictions, among the ancient sources on baptismal issues if what critics of Protestantism tell us about the nature of the church and other relevant issues is true. If there was one church that all or a large percentage of these sources belonged to, with the sort of unity people like Romans Catholics and Eastern Orthodox often claim they had in the past, with their infallible church maintaining all apostolic teaching in every generation, providing guidance, scripture interpretation, the settling of controversies, and such in the way modern Catholics and modern Orthodox often claim their church provides, why do we see such diversity in the historical record on baptismal issues? Some of the differences went on for centuries, sometimes a millennium or more.

Hermas (who lived in Rome, a significant context in relation to Roman Catholicism) advocated postmortem baptism (The Shepherd Of Hermas, Book 3, Similitudes, 9:16; see, for further discussion, Anthony Lusvardi, Baptism Of Desire And Christian Salvation [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024], 15-18). As I discussed in a recent post, people like Cyprian thought John 3:5 refers to two sacraments, not just baptism. Cyprian, along with others, also disagreed with Roman Catholicism about the validity of heretical baptism. As I discussed in another recent post, the concept of baptism of desire was widely absent or contradicted early on and didn't become a majority view until well into church history. And there are many other baptismal views the early sources held that are wrong by the standards of modern Roman Catholicism and modern Eastern Orthodoxy. For a discussion of a lot of other examples, see here. The views we find in the early sources include credobaptism and justification apart from baptism.

Doing Something Imperfectly

"[My book] has weaknesses, but there are times when it is better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly. Mistakes can be corrected, but it is hard to overcome trivialization." (Craig Atwood, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], xix)

Skeptical Myths About The Enfield Poltergeist

There's a constant stream of new videos, podcasts, articles, and other material coming out about the Enfield case. There are certain skeptical misrepresentations that are recurring themes. I've addressed many objections to the case here and elsewhere over the years, but my material has been scattered across a lot of locations. I want to gather in one place some concise responses to particular objections, including some of the most common ones, with links to lengthier responses for those who are interested.

The objections vary a lot in their quality, but they're ones I think are worth responding to because of their popularity or for whatever other reason. Sometimes an objection is inaccurate because it's assigned too much significance to one degree or another, even though it would be accurate if kept in proportion. Since some otherwise valid objections seem to often be taken out of proportion, that's one of the problems I want to address here.

This post is meant to give people a better understanding of the case, whether as a cure for the myths after encountering them or as an inoculation before encountering them in the future. I'm not trying to resolve every issue here. You can read my other posts on Enfield, like the ones linked above, for more.

Each myth will be summarized in bold print, followed by a response. I'll probably add responses to more myths as time goes on. Below is a list of each one, with a link that will take you to the relevant section of the post.

That God Is So Belittled

"Why is it that people can become emotionally and morally indignant over poverty and exploitation and prejudice and the injustice of man against man and yet feel little or no remorse or indignation that God is so belittled? It's because of sin. That is what sin is. Sin is esteeming and valuing and honoring and enjoying man and his creations above God. So even our man-centered anger at the hurt of sin is part of sin. God is marginal in human life." (John Piper)

The Conspicuous Absence Of Prayer To Saints And Angels

Prayer is a large part of the Christian life, and it's discussed explicitly and often in the Biblical record from Genesis onward. The best explanation for the lack of prayer to sources other than God, such as saints and angels, is that prayer was thought to be something offered only to God. There are other lines of evidence against praying to saints and angels, which I've discussed elsewhere. But the evidence I'm focused on here has a lot of significance. To get a better idea of its significance among the extrabiblical sources, look at how often "pray" and other relevant terms are used in the Didache, the Shepherd Of Hermas, Justin Martyr, etc. That isn't the only evidence we should consider, but it is one important line of evidence among others. Prayer to God is mentioned explicitly and often. Prayer to saints and angels isn't advocated in the Biblical sources or the earliest extrabiblical ones and is sometimes contradicted in one way or another.

A Patristic Belief Isn't A Patristic Priority

I've often discussed examples of how critics of Protestantism, such as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, disagree with the church fathers and other pre-Reformation sources on various issues. See here for a collection of many examples. Something else to keep in mind is how often critics of Protestantism agree with certain pre-Reformation sources about a particular issue, yet disagree with their assessment of the issue's significance. The fact that a church father believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, for example, doesn't mean he thought the issue has the significance assigned to it by modern proponents of the doctrine. See the examples discussed here and here.

The fact that a source held a belief doesn't tell you how he prioritized it. We need to keep that distinction in mind. And since Catholics and Orthodox often disagree with patristic priorities (and medieval priorities), they should allow some Protestant disagreement with those sources as well. Given that Protestants make lower claims about the sources in question, we should go further by adding that Protestant disagreements with the priorities of such sources is generally less problematic.

Hallowed Be Your Name

"Only the first petition of the Lord's Prayer is a prayer for an explicit act of the human heart in response to the infinite Treasure of God's holiness: Hallow it. Hallow the holiness of this name. Revere the holiness of this name. Honor, esteem, admire, value, treasure supremely the infinite worth of this name….May the grand, overarching, all-embracing, all-pervasive theme of your life be the magnificence of God — his holiness, his beauty, his worth, his greatness. Pray that God would do this. That's what Jesus is telling us to do. Pray that he would do it. First in you, and then through you, in the lives of others, and among the nations — that his name be hallowed….In eternity, we will hallow the name of God not as a means to anything. Hallowing the name of God is not a means to any greater end. The hallowing of God's name is the end, the final goal, of all things." (John Piper)

Robbing Prebaptismal Faith To Enrich Baptism

There's a lot of talk in some circles about the alleged importance of having a more efficacious view of baptism. Supposedly, it's a problem (often treated as if it's a big problem) that some people aren't assigning more significance to baptism. Typically, that concern is out of proportion to other concerns we ought to have.

Jesus' Nonverbal Apologetic Work

There have been a couple of occasions lately when I've heard people make comments to the effect that Jesus didn't do much apologetic work in his public ministry. I suspect a common problem with how people evaluate that issue is that they're ignoring or underestimating how much Jesus did that was of an apologetic nature in contexts that were partly or entirely nonverbal. He was frequently fulfilling prophecy, healing people, reading people's minds, casting out demons, etc., activities that have apologetic implications. Not only did Jesus often call people's attention to the apologetic significance of such activities, but so did the prophets who predicted his coming and the apostles who followed him. When you take both Jesus' verbal and nonverbal apologetic work into account, apologetics was a major part of his public ministry, far more a part of it than what modern Christians typically do and typically are called upon to do. If we're going to follow Jesus' example, we need to do much more apologetic work, not less.

A Spiritual Old Age

Martin Hengel noted that "In this connection we should not forget that simply of the second-century Christian writings known to us by title, around 85% have been lost. The real loss must be substantially higher." (The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000], 55) As time goes on, we're gradually recovering more of the documents of previous centuries. It's a slow drip, but it's better than nothing.

Jerome wrote about some good advice given in a second-century letter that's no longer extant. This is good counsel to modern churches and those doing work as Christians in general:

"Pinytus of Crete, bishop of the city of Gnosus, wrote to Dionysius bishop of the Corinthians, an exceedingly elegant letter in which he teaches that the people are not to be forever fed on milk, lest by chance they be overtaken by the last day while yet infants, but that they ought to be fed also on solid food, that they may go on to a spiritual old age." (Lives Of Illustrious Men 28)

Christians Need To Get Better At Addressing Near-Death Experiences

Here's something I recently posted in a YouTube thread on the subject:

Instead Of Dreaming For The Glory Of Christ

"More and more and more, America is a nation given over to play. The industries of play are huge! Houses are built today with entertainment centers. Computers and videos and television and stereo all coordinate to give us ever more stimulating and captivating distractions from the realities of the world. When we need to be dreaming for the glory of Christ about how to spend our lives alleviating ignorance and sickness and misery and lostness, we are becoming more and more addicted to amusement." (John Piper)

Non-Christian Corroboration Of Early Christian Miracles

"In fact, Jewish sources otherwise critical of Jesus repeatedly admit that he did work what we would call ‘miracles’. We see this most strikingly in the ‘Jew of Celsus’ (c.150 ce) who says that Jesus did perform παράδοξα, using the precise word deployed by the TF [Josephus' primary passage about Jesus]. Justin the Martyr further says that Jews believed Jesus worked miracles by magic, and a similar claim is time and again lodged against Jesus by Jewish authorities in the Gospels themselves. The Babylonian Talmud also criticizes Jesus ‘because he practiced sorcery’ (שכישף). And the Jerusalem Talmud states that Jesus’ followers could heal in his name, yet it still cautions faithful Jews not to be persuaded by them. The versions of the Jewish Toledot Yeshu (second–fifth centuries), an early account of Jesus, are highly critical of him, yet records all sorts of miracles that Jesus worked including even raising the dead. Likewise, a second- or third-century Jewish-Christian document, perhaps called the Ascents of James, reports that Jews would accuse Jesus of performing miracles like a sorcerer might do. Pagan sources also spoke similarly, as with the Milesian Apollo, who acknowledged that Jesus did ‘miraculous deeds’ (τερατώδεσιν ἔργοις) and the anti-Christian writer, Porphyry, effectively agrees....Porphyry admits that the apostles did miracles (Jerome, Tractatus de Psalmo 81; found in Morin vol. 3.2 p. 80 lines 21–2). Similarly, Arnobius engages with an opponent who alleges that Jesus worked miracles through the knowledge of secret, magical arts or because he was a kind of demigod of old; see respectively Arnobius, Against the Nations 1.43, 53, and 1.48–9." (T.C. Schmidt, Josephus And Jesus [New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2025], 74 and n. 85 on 74)

There are other examples that could be cited. Schmidt's book is about Josephus, and he argues that Josephus corroborates Jesus' miracles. I've discussed other examples not mentioned by Schmidt elsewhere, like here and here. Notice the diversity of sources: mainstream Christian, schismatic, heretical, Jewish, and pagan.

Another category that should be taken into account is prophecy fulfillment. It's distinct from what Schmidt is addressing, but is relevant to non-Christian corroboration of early Christian miracles. Many ancient non-Christian sources corroborated facts of history related to Christianity that line up well with Old Testament prophecy: the timing of Jesus' life (in connection with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy), the Bethlehem birthplace (in connection with Micah 4-5), the penal practices of the Roman empire (crucifixion and various practices associated with it in connection with passages like Psalm 22 and the third Servant Song in Isaiah 50), the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (in connection with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy), etc. We've discussed such prophecies, their fulfillment, and non-Christian corroboration of the fulfillment, like in the posts gathered here. As with the sort of miracles Schmidt is focused on, the corroboration here comes from a large number and variety of sources, from the first century onward.