Some recent apologetics resources

Sorry I've been away! I've just been so busy with "normal" life. I'm still busy and "away", but I do like to pop in for a couple of quick posts when I can.

This is just a brief post about several apologetics resources I've recently benefited from that I thought others might benefit from as well:

Bible Trek. A picture is worth a thousand words. And Andrew Ollerton treks across Israel and other biblical lands and shows us these places in person. He offers brief informative talks as he does so too. Ollerton has a PhD in historical theology from the University of Leceister in the UK.

Esther O'Reilly. Esther O'Reilly is a pseudonymn for an incisively intelligent and witty woman with an illustrious pedigree. She discusses all sorts of things, but I believe first made her name with essays on public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson and Doug Murray. O'Reilly has a PhD in mathematics from a school that shall remain nameless.

James Bejon. Not entirely sure how to describe what Bejon does. He offers fascinating insights into the Bible in the vein of guys like James B. Jordan, Peter Leithart, and Alastair Roberts. Bejon is a researcher at Tyndale House in Cambridge, UK. He has a background in math and music, but he's working on his PhD in OT.

Mark Ward. Ward primarily discusses Bible translation and Bible design. Ward has a PhD in NT from Bob Jones University. He works for Faithlife, which produces the Logos Bible.

Parker's Pensées. Long form interviews and deep dives into the philosophical and theological with Parker Settecase. Parker asks perceptive questions to various intellectuals. He is working on a masters degree in theological studies at TEDS, though maybe he has finished now.

Sean McDowell. Lots of great interviews with notable Christian scholars. Sean is the son of Josh McDowell. Sean has a PhD in apologetics and worldview studies from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's an associate professor at Biola/Talbot.

Truth Unites. Gavin Ortlund's YouTube channel. He's brother to Dane Ortlund (who recently published a fine Puritan-esque devotional Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers) and Eric Ortlund (an OT prof at Oak Hill College in the UK). Interesting that Gavin is a Baptist, Dane is a Presbyterian, and Eric is an Anglican (I think). Gavin did his PhD in historical theology at Fuller. He has great admiration for Anselm. His channel most reflects his interests in historical theology. Gavin serves as a pastor in California.

What Would You Say. I believe WWYS is affiliated with the late Chuck Colson's ministry. As such, it is about Christian apologetics, but it has a noticeable political bent as well. The videos are relatively concise (~5 minutes or so).

Jesus seminar renders Lewis' trilemma obsolete! And other tall tales

Esther O'Reilly:

Reminded today of just how awful this William Lane Craig quote from Reasonable Faith is [near the end of chapter 7]:

Often one hears people say, 'I don’t understand all those philosophical arguments for God’s existence and so forth. I prefer historical apologetics.' I suspect that those who say this think that historical apologetics is easy and will enable them to avoid the hard thinking involved in the philosophical arguments. But this section ought to teach us clearly that this is not so. It is naïve and outdated simply to trot out the dilemma 'Liar, Lunatic, or Lord' and adduce several proof texts where Jesus claims to be the Son of God, the Messiah, and so forth. The publicity generated by the Jesus Seminar and The DaVinci Code has rendered that approach forever obsolete. Rather, if an apologetic based on the claims of Christ is to work, we must do the requisite spadework of sorting out those claims of Jesus that can be established as authentic, and then drawing out their implications. This will involve not only mastering Greek but also the methods of modern criticism and the criteria of authenticity. Far from being easy, historical apologetics, if done right, is every bit as difficult as philosophical apologetics. The only reason most people think historical apologetics to be easier is because they do it superficially.

How awful is this passage? Let me count the ways:

1. The Jesus Seminar renders Lewis obsolete? I'll let the self-defeating irony of this particular bit speak for itself.
2. Are we doing sociology or epistemology here? Genuinely can't tell.
3. Is there reasonable doubt that Jesus *did* make such explicit claims to deity as those we find in, say, John? If not, why not use them? Yet, significantly, Craig never does.
4. Why the need for all this "spadework" if we can establish whole-gospel reliability?
5. Yet further irony: In the intro to RF, Craig downplays "saddling" oneself with establishing whole-gospel reliability, then here proceeds to "saddle" his readers with all this "spadework" as...an improvement?
6. "This requires mastering Greek." So much for the "one-dollar apologist," eh?

I'm sorry to say it, but this really is the sort of rhetoric that gives big apologetics a bad name. Massively unhelpful, confusing, and does not reflect the actual state of the argument.

Yes, we really need to get out of this rigid rut where first you need to establish X, Y and Z arguments for general theism, and only then can you "move on" to the historical arguments. Says who? Written where?

Grasping for the divine

"Grasping for the divine" (Esther O'Reilly)