Protestants Aren't The Only Ones With Complicated Canonical Issues

Cameron Bertuzzi recently retweeted some comments from Josh Rasmussen on canonical issues and referred to how "this is a good [argument] for Catholicism". Keep in mind:

- The alleged ability of Catholicism to settle canonical issues in this context only addresses a portion of Catholicism's canon. That canon involves more than scripture. And Catholics continue to disagree with one another (and with non-Catholics) about what qualifies as tradition and what doesn't, which papal teachings are infallible, and so on. There's more agreement among Protestants about the canon of scripture than there is among Catholics about the canon of their rule of faith.

- Canons are complicated by their nature. That's not just true of scripture canons, but also of canons more broadly. People can dispute what documents were and weren't written by an ancient philosopher or a more recent individual, like Thomas Jefferson. If you broaden the canon to include all of the writings of a particular ancient school of philosophy or America's founding fathers in general, then the canonical issues will get even more complicated. How should the school of philosophy be defined? Who belongs to it and who doesn't? Who qualifies as one of America's founding fathers and who doesn't? Which documents attributed to George Washington were actually written by him? And so on. Since a canon of scripture in the Christian context involves multiple figures over a lengthy period of time (especially if you're including the Old Testament canon rather than limiting yourself to the New Testament), it involves the complexities that inherently go with a multi-author canon covering a longer rather than shorter timeframe. And there are other such factors that can make any given canon more or less complicated.

- Here's a series of posts I wrote about an Evangelical justification for the canon of scripture. We've written a lot more about the topic since then. You can find some archives of many of our relevant posts (not all of them) here and here. To summarize, the best explanation for what the relevant sources tell us about the apostles (e.g., Old Testament precedent, what Jesus said about the apostles, what the apostles said about themselves, what the other early Christian sources said about the apostles) is that they were communicating Divine revelation, including scripture. We have to make a probability judgment about whether a given document was part of that revelation, but the same is true of the alternatives (how probable it is that all of the sources supporting Jude's canonicity, for example, were wrong; the likelihood of Catholic arguments about the alleged authority of their denomination; whether it's probable that something that's claimed to be part of Catholic tradition actually is part of that tradition; etc.). It's not as though Protestants are the only ones who have a position to defend or the only ones relying on probability judgments about history. We have more evidence for the canonicity of 1 Corinthians than we have for the canonicity of Hebrews. But the evidence doesn't have to be equally good for every book, and a rejection of Hebrews has to be defended, just as an acceptance of it has to be. We've said a lot more about these and other canonical issues in the threads linked above. See my recent post here for a brief overview of how all of us (including atheists, for example) have to justify our own canons in many contexts in life and how those canonical issues are often complicated.

Piling A Double Load On Other Men's Shoulders

This is a major problem in apologetics, as in other contexts:

"This is the age of proxy. People are not charitable, but they beg a guinea from somebody else to be charitable with. It is said that charity nowadays means that A finds B to be in distress, and therefore asks C to help him. Let us not in this fashion shirk our work. Go and do your own work, each man bearing his own burden, and not trying to pile a double load on other men's shoulders. Brethren, from morn till night sow beside all waters with unstinting hand." (Charles Spurgeon)

The Accuracy And Significance Of Acts 5:36-37

Lydia McGrew just produced a good video on the subject. I agree with her view of the Theudas issue, which is what the video is focused on, but she only briefly discusses the importance of Luke's comments on a census in verse 37. I've written some posts on the significance of that verse for how we interpret the census account in Luke 2. Here's a collection of links to some of my Facebook posts on the Luke 2 census, one of which addresses Acts 5:37. Those posts provide brief overviews of the issues involved. For a lengthier discussion of the relationship between Acts 5:37 and Luke 2, see here.

Does Galatians 1:16 suggest that Paul's experience with the risen Jesus only occurred inwardly?

Critics of Christianity sometimes bring up the reference to how Jesus was "revealed in me" in Galatians 1:16 as evidence that Paul's experience with the risen Christ was of a more subjective nature than Christians have traditionally believed. Supposedly, Paul was only claiming to have experienced a vision or something similar within his mind, which the critic dismisses as a hallucination or something like that. I want to discuss some problems with that sort of view.

How The Early Christians Viewed Theophanies

This is from a note on section 2:27 of Ernest Evans' edition of Tertullian's Against Marcion, found here. I haven't studied this subject much, but I think Evans' point would have some significance even if he overestimates the popularity of the view in question to some extent:

"It was almost universally held, until the end of the fourth century, that the subject of the theophanies, the speaker of divine words throughout the Old Testament, was God the Son acting as the agent or messenger of the Father: Justin, dial. 56 sqq.; Tertullian, adv. Prax. 14-16; Eusebius, H.E. i. 2; Prudentius, Apotheosis (passim)."

The Intellectual Components Of The Great Commission

"The hardest thing to raise funds for, that I know of, in Christendom is for Christian education. You want to raise money for evangelism, it's easy. You want to raise money for helping starving children, it's easy. You want to raise money for mercy ministries, it's easy. And it's good that it is. But the hardest thing is for Christian education, because people don't really think it's all that important. 'Let's get them converted. And if we can get them converted, we'll change the world.' Well, when a person is converted, they may be fifty-five years old biologically, but spiritually, they're one day old. They're babes, and babies don't change the world. It's adults that make a difference. Fifty years ago, I read the first biography ever written on Billy Graham, and Billy Graham said the thing that kept him up at night were all the people who made decisions for Christ at his rallies, he said, and he wondered, 'Who's following up? Are they being taught? Are they being grounded in the things of God?' In the first century church, the strategy of the church was, first of all, proclamation, the kerygma. The apostles went out and preached. People were converted. They brought them into the church and immediately put them into didache, teaching them, grounding them, so that they would not just be converts, but that they would be disciples. And a disciple is a student. A disciple is a learner who is enrolled in the school of Rabbi Jesus….We don't really apply ourselves to being disciples. And the Great Commission says, 'Don't just convert them. Ground them. Teach them. Bring them to maturity in their conformity to the image of Christ.'" (R.C. Sproul, 25:07 here)

In what ways can we interact with the dead?

Here are some comments I posted in a YouTube discussion about prayers to the dead. This was written in response to somebody's citation of the Mount of Transfiguration as alleged support for the practice of praying to the deceased:

Moses and Elijah had returned to life on earth. No prayer is involved. And the only one who spoke with them was Jesus. Peter, James, and John didn't speak to them. Even if we were to conclude, without good reason, that Jesus had been praying to Moses and Elijah, Jesus isn't merely human. He's also God. To cite his conversation with Moses and Elijah as justification for Christians to pray to the dead is to assume that anything Jesus did must be acceptable for Christians to do. But it's possible that praying to the deceased, if Jesus had ever done such a thing, was done through his unique attributes as God or other attributes we don't have. We'd have to take other evidence into account to make a judgment about the best explanation. Given the large amount of evidence against praying to the dead, which I've outlined above, any prayers to the dead on Jesus' part (if he did such a thing) would be best explained as exceptional rather than normative. The more significant point here, though, is that interacting with people who have returned to life on earth, as Moses and Elijah did, isn't equivalent to praying to the deceased who aren't known to have returned to life on earth. It was wrong for Saul to try to contact Samuel in 1 Samuel 28, but once Samuel had returned to the earthly realm, it became acceptable for Saul to interact with him (as reflected in Samuel asking Saul questions, which implies that it would be acceptable for Saul to answer those questions, as well as Samuel's assumption that Saul would listen to what Samuel was saying). So, your citation of the Mount of Transfiguration is faulty on multiple levels, and it leaves the other points I made untouched.

For a collection of posts arguing against the practice of praying to the deceased, see here. You can find other relevant posts in our archives. The collection I just linked isn't exhaustive.

An Assumption Of Habakkuk, But No Assumption Of Mary

I've often made the point that many sources in the early centuries of Christianity discuss bodily assumptions, people who never died, people who were resurrected, and other topics relevant to an assumption of Mary without mentioning her. See here for a list of examples. That list is far from exhaustive. Later in this post, I'll be discussing some of the many other examples that could be mentioned. The cumulative effect of these examples has to be kept in mind, since Catholics (and others who agree with them or sympathize with them on this issue) can keep objecting to individual passages that are cited or a subset of the overall evidence. There's some evidential significance to the larger pattern of the absence of an assumption of Mary and related concepts while so much other material of the same or a similar nature keeps getting mentioned.

More Than The Church Fathers

When Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are discussing early church history, it's common for them to make misleading claims about the scope of the relevant evidence. For example, they'll say that all of the church fathers agreed about a particular issue, even though the fathers aren't the only relevant sources, or that nobody denied a certain belief, even though what they mean is that no church father denied it. What they allege about the fathers is often wrong, but what I want to focus on here is the neglect of other sources.

Documented Healings Of Amputees And Comparable Miracles

Than Christopoulos and Caleb Jackson recently produced a video that makes a lot of good points in response to the common objection that God doesn't heal amputees.

Incidents Involving Music In The Enfield Poltergeist

Music didn't have much of a role in the Enfield case, but it was involved to some extent. And it's an aspect of the case that's been neglected.

As I discuss the subject, I'll be citing the tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I'll use "MG" to refer to one of Grosse's tapes and "GP" to refer to one of Playfair's. Therefore, MG1B is Grosse's tape 1B, GP70B is Playfair's tape 70B, etc.

Epiphanius Did Not Affirm The Assumption Of Mary

It's become popular in some Roman Catholic circles to cite Epiphanius out of context in order to make it look as though he affirmed the Assumption of Mary. Somebody in the comments thread following Gavin Ortlund's recent video on the Assumption cited Epiphanius that way. You can click the link just provided to read his comments. Here's the response I posted there:

If you read the larger context, Epiphanius isn't claiming that Mary was assumed to heaven. He goes on, just after what you quoted, to compare Mary to the apostle John, even though she wasn't the same as John in every characteristic of John he mentions (Frank Williams, trans., The Panarion Of Epiphanius Of Salamis, Books II And III; De Fide [Leiden, The Netherlands: SBL Press, 2013], 641). He goes on to say "Elijah is not to be worshiped, even though he is alive. And John is not to be worshiped, even though by his own prayer - or rather, by receiving the grace from God - he made an awesome thing of his falling asleep." (ibid.) Epiphanius also mentions Thecla, a martyr, in this context. It seems that he's comparing Mary to three different figures - Elijah, John, and Thecla - whose lives ended in three different ways, the same three ways he mentions elsewhere when he says that nobody knows how Mary's life ended (ibid., 635). He's not claiming, in the passage you've cited, to know that Mary remained alive and was taken up as Elijah was, which would contradict what he said earlier about how nobody knows what happened at the end of her life. Rather, he's repeating what he said earlier about our ignorance of the end of her life. That's why he goes on to compare Mary to John and Thecla, just after what you misleadingly quoted. Just as his comparing Mary to John and Thecla doesn't require that Epiphanius believed that Mary died, his comparing Mary to Elijah doesn't require that Epiphanius believed she didn't die. Rather, he's repeating his earlier point that Mary's end could have been like the end of any of those three individuals.

Furthermore, his earlier statement about how nobody knows what happened at the end of Mary's life goes beyond merely whether she died. He also discusses other matters related to the end of her life, like whether she died as a martyr and whether she was buried. In an earlier passage, he writes of how in scripture we "neither find Mary's death, nor whether or not she died, nor whether or not she was buried", and he goes on to refer to how scripture is silent about the details of her living with John (ibid., 624). So, Epiphanius seems to be addressing the end of her life in general, not just whether she died. Thus, Epiphanius' statement that nobody knows what happened at the end of Mary's life seems to be a contradiction of Roman Catholicism's claim that Mary's assumption at the end of her life is an apostolic tradition always held by the church.

Historical Problems With The Assumption Of Mary

Gavin Ortlund just put out a video on the subject that makes a lot of good points. One of the things he brings up is that ancient sources often discussed assumptions and similar events among other figures (e.g., Enoch) without mentioning Mary in the process. He cites some material from Tertullian as an illustration. I've gathered many such examples over the years, and you can find discussions of them in the posts linked here, for example. The nature of the argument is such that it gains significantly more force when more sources are cited, so it's important to address a larger number of sources. We've also discussed some other evidence Gavin doesn't address much or at all in his video, like in the post here on Marian relics. You can find an archive of our posts on the Assumption of Mary here.

Is God more honored or dishonored in the world?

The question is a variation of the issue of whether there's more good than evil in life, and it's a good variation that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. John Piper addressed it and made some good points in the process on a recent edition of "Ask Pastor John".

Does Mark 9:1 set a false date for the second coming?

Here are some comments I posted in the YouTube thread on early Christian eschatology that I linked earlier:

Some Problems With Singling Out Mark 13:30

Critics of early Christian eschatology often allege that Mark 13:30 makes a false prediction that Jesus' second coming will occur before the end of his generation. There are multiple contextual problems with that interpretation, as I've discussed on other occasions (verse 29 excludes the second coming from the "all these things" of verse 30, and verses 32-33 deny that a date can be set for the second coming). But what if a critic would suggest that we remove verse 30 from its surrounding context and take it as a genuine record of what the historical Jesus taught, whereas the surrounding context I've referred to is inauthentic?

Was Jesus a false prophet?

Here's a really good video by Than Christopoulos and Bram Rawlings on the claim that Jesus and the early Christians falsely predicted the timing of the second coming. This is a topic that critics of Christianity often bring up, but Christians typically don't respond nearly as well as they could. Bram makes many significant points, and I recommend keeping a record of the URL for future reference. (He also writes for Think Christian Theism, and you can find some posts there on these eschatological issues.)

If You Love People, Lead Them To God

"For our good, about which philosophers have so keenly contended, is nothing else than to be united to God. It is, if I may say so, by spiritually embracing Him that the intellectual soul is filled and impregnated with true virtues. We are enjoined to love this good with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength. To this good we ought to be led by those who love us, and to lead those we love. Thus are fulfilled those two commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul;' and 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' For, that man might be intelligent in his self-love, there was appointed for him an end to which he might refer all his actions, that he might be blessed. For he who loves himself wishes nothing else than this. And the end set before him is 'to draw near to God.' And so, when one who has this intelligent self-love is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, what else is enjoined than that he shall do all in his power to commend to him the love of God?" (Augustine, The City Of God, 10:3)

Gaining Interest For My Master

"When I ever hear a young person say 'I'm bored', my response to them was always 'I haven't been bored since 1978.' There is no reason to be bored in this world as a Christian. You have so much that you can and should be doing." (James White)

"We should all have work to do for our divine Master. True, our everyday labor ought to be so done as to render honor to his name, but in addition to that, every Christian should be laboring in the Lord in some sphere of holy service. I shall not enlarge, but I shall pass the question round to each one. 'What are you doing for Jesus Christ?' I pray each one here who makes a profession of faith in Jesus to answer the question, 'What am I doing in the work and service of the Lord?' If you are doing nothing, I pray you bewail your slothfulness and escape from it, for talents wrapped in napkins will be terrible witnesses against you….I do not think a man is doing all he can do if he is not attempting more than he will complete. Our vessels are never full till they run over. The little over proves our zeal, tries our faith, casts us upon God and wins his help. That which we cannot do of ourselves, leads us to call in divine strength, and then wonders are wrought….What is there worth living for, I say, beneath yon stars? But there is a something that makes it worth while existing and makes life grand and noble. It is this: if I may crown with praise that head which for my sake was crowned with thorns, if I may honor him who was dishonored for my sake, if to the manifestation of the glories of Jehovah I may have contributed a share, if at the reading of the records of all time it may be found that I put out my talent as a faithful servant, and gained interest for my Master, it shall be well." (Charles Spurgeon)

Evidence For The Early Dominance Of The Canonical Gospels

The canon of gospels in the New Testament is often questioned or doubted. Why include those four gospels and not others? It's sometimes even suggested that there was no majority support for elevating the canonical gospels above others until around the time when Irenaeus wrote in the late second century or the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, for example.

Objections To "Thoughts And Prayers" Comments

Mike Winger recently made some good points about objections that are often raised when people make comments about thoughts and prayers.

How Ephesus Causes Problems For Skepticism

In an earlier post, I discussed some evidence for Paul's authorship of Ephesians. It was largely about the history of the Ephesian church and those who interacted with that church in the earliest decades of Christianity. I was focused on the Pauline authorship of Ephesians in that post, but some of the issues discussed there have bigger implications as well. I want to discuss those implications here and expand upon some of my points in that earlier post.

Did the resurrection accounts develop in a suspicious way?

In the debate I discussed in my last post, Alex O'Connor raised a common objection to the resurrection accounts in the gospels. Supposedly, the earliest gospel, Mark, has the simplest material on Jesus' resurrection, and each gospel after that gets increasingly advanced in the claims it makes on the subject. See Alex's comments here. He especially discusses an increase in the number of resurrection appearances in each gospel - in the order of Mark, Matthew, Luke, John - though he doesn't limit his development argument to that issue.

There are a lot of problems with that sort of objection. As Jonathan McLatchie mentioned in the debate, the material on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 predates all of the gospels, yet is more advanced in some ways. I want to add some other points.

Did Paul experience a guilt hallucination on the road to Damascus?

Jonathan McLatchie and Alex O'Connor (CosmicSkeptic) recently debated the topic "Theism or Naturalism, which provides a better account of reality?". I want to comment on a couple of issues related to Jesus' resurrection that came up in the debate. I'll address one of those issues here and the other in a later post.

Enfield Miscellany (Part 8)

(See part 1 here for an explanation of what this series is about. Here are the other parts in the series: two, three, four, five, six, and seven. I'll make use of the tapes produced by Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. I'm using "MG" to reference a tape from Grosse's collection and "GP" to cite one from Playfair's: MG82B refers to tape 82B in Grosse's collection, GP96A refers to 96A in Playfair's, etc.)

Where The Poltergeist Operated

The large majority of events in the Enfield case occurred inside the Hodgsons' house. But the scope of events outside the house is often underestimated. There were frequent reports of phenomena at neighbors' houses, especially the Nottinghams' and Burcombes', but also on the property of other neighbors. See my earlier post here for some examples. That post mentions some paranormal events that occurred in Grosse's neighborhood in the relevant timeframe, events apparently connected to the Enfield case. Or think of the phenomena produced in a 1982 experiment involving Janet Hodgson at Birkbeck College. It seems that the poltergeist was able to operate at locations as geographically distant from the Hodgsons' house as Grosse's neighborhood and Birkbeck College. And while Janet was present in the latter context, none of the Hodgsons were present in the former. An especially striking example of phenomena occurring with all of the Hodgsons geographically distant was an apparition seen by John Burcombe. Go here for a portion of a documentary discussing the incident. Playfair mentions in his book on Enfield that the Hodgsons were about 50 miles away, on vacation, at the time (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 237). Presumably, none of the Hodgsons were nearby when the events of 2004 reported by Clare Bennett and her family occurred at the house. Even when one or more of the Hodgsons were home, the events that happened in or near the house were frequently far outside their reach, such as events on another floor of the house or the apports that fell from the sky above the house on May 30 of 1978. The geographical parameters of the poltergeist's activities went far beyond the Hodgsons and their house. Keep in mind that there was an estimated quadruple-digit number of events in the case, so that the phenomena that were more geographically distant could be a small minority, yet still involve a relatively large number. Events that were geographically distant from the house and/or the Hodgsons were reported from the earliest months of the case onward and continued for years.

Agreement Among The Gospels About How Jesus Raised The Dead

One of the reasons why people often underestimate the amount of agreement among the gospels is that they overlook or underestimate the lesser details, because they're so focused on larger issues. An example is a common thread we see in accounts of the resurrections performed by Jesus. We can be so focused on the resurrections that we miss the significance of some of the other details involved in the accounts. When Jesus raised people from the dead, he would tell the person to move in some manner, probably at least in part to demonstrate that a resurrection had occurred. A description of the person's movement follows, which suggests that Jesus' references to "rising" and such were about moving the body after a resurrection rather than the resurrection itself (Mark 5:41-42, Luke 7:14-15, 8:54-55, John 11:43-44; Matthew 9:25 is in agreement as far as it goes, even mentioning that Jesus took the girl's hand, but doesn't say whether Jesus made any comments telling her to move). We see something similar with Peter's raising of the woman in Acts 9:40-41, perhaps in imitation of what Jesus did, but the other resurrections referred to in the Old and New Testaments don't involve any such scenario (1 Kings 17:21-23, 2 Kings 4:34-37, 2 Kings 13:21, Matthew 27:52-53, Acts 20:10, Revelation 11:11).

For other examples of agreements among the gospels, including many that are often overlooked or underestimated, see here.

The Apostolic Documents In The Apostolic Churches

My last post cited some comments from Tertullian in the process of discussing the evidence for Paul's authorship of Ephesians. I want to expand that quote, to include more of what surrounds it, since what Tertullian says has significant implications for the authorship attributions of other Biblical documents as well:

"To sum up: if it is agreed that that has the greater claim to truth which has the earlier priority, and that has the priority which has been so since the beginning, and that has been since the beginning which was from the apostles, there will be no less agreement that that was handed down by the apostles which is held sacred and inviolate in the churches the apostles founded. Let us consider what milk it was that Paul gave the Corinthians to drink, by the line of what rule the Galatians were again made to walk straight, what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, and the Ephesians are given to read, what words are spoken also by our near neighbours the Romans, to whom Peter and Paul left as legacy the gospel, sealed moreover with their own blood. We have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although Marcion disallows his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in John as originator. In the same way also the legitimacy of the other churches is to be tested. So I affirm that among them— and I am not now speaking only of apostolic churches, but of all those which are in alliance with them in the fellowship of the mystery—that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retain has stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion's is to most people not even known, and by those to whom it is known is also by the same reason condemned." (Against Marcion, 4:5)

The Importance Of And Evidence For Paul's Authorship Of Ephesians

I've sometimes brought up the importance of Ephesians 6:1-3 in the context of early Christian eschatology. I've also mentioned the evidence Ephesians provides for Jesus' Bethlehem birthplace. And the letter is valuable in other apologetic and non-apologetic contexts. People typically underestimate the importance of Paul's authorship of the document. They also underestimate the evidence for his authorship.

Why wasn't early Christian eschatology criticized more?

In my last post, I argued that the earliest opponents of Christianity don't seem to have thought that Jesus and his followers falsely predicted the timing of his second coming. That raises the question of why they didn't make that accusation. Modern critics of Christianity frequently make the accusation that Jesus, Paul, and the early Christians in general set a false date for Jesus' return. Why would there be such a difference between Christianity's earliest opponents and its modern critics?

Nobody Knows The Day Or Hour

A couple of years ago, I had a discussion on Facebook with a non-Christian who was raising the popular objection that early Christianity had falsely predicted the timing of Jesus' second coming. You can click on the link just provided to read the discussion in its entirety while it's available. But I want to post my end of the discussion here for those who don't have access to Facebook and in case it wouldn't be available on Facebook in the future for whatever reason.

How Much The Conclusion Of Luke 2 Contradicts Roman Catholic Mariology

Protestants typically overlook or underestimate the closing verses of Luke 2 when addressing Catholic Mariology. There are several problems for the Catholic view of Mary in those verses, and the cumulative effect is highly significant.

I've discussed these issues in Luke 2 many times, but my comments are scattered across various posts over the years. I want to gather some of those comments in one place and supplement them with some other points:

Did Jesus ride two donkeys?

Caleb Jore recently wrote a good post addressing a common objection to Matthew 21:7. He discusses some problems with a popular Christian alternative to the skeptical interpretation and offers another reading that avoids the problems with that Christian alternative and the skeptical view.

Another recent post on the same blog, by Lucas, discusses some recent trends in scholarship that are favorable to Christianity.

The whole blog is worth following. There's a lot of good material there.

Only Talk About Heavenly Things

"Remember how Mr. Bunyan pictures it. When Talkative came up to gossip with Christian and Hopeful, he chattered away upon all sorts of topics, and they were wearied with him. To get rid of him, Christian said to Hopeful, 'Now we will talk a little about experimental godliness' and when they began to speak about what they had tasted and handled of divine truth, Mr. Chatterbox dropped behind. He did not like spiritual conversation, neither do any of the breed. The holy pilgrims were not so rude as to tell him to go; they only talked about heavenly things, which he did not understand, and he went of his own accord. I believe that result is sure to follow holy conversation and sound preaching." (Charles Spurgeon)

The Thief On The Cross On The Day Of Judgment

Here are some good comments on the subject from John Piper. They're also applicable to deathbed conversions more broadly.

Dreams Of The Afterlife

Over the past several months, I've come across some resources I want to recommend on paranormal issues. These are subjects often discussed among nurses, hospice workers, and other people working in relevant fields, covered on television, and brought up in books, YouTube videos, conversations about family experiences, and elsewhere. But the large majority of Christians are very poorly prepared to address these topics.

Water Without Baptism In Many Contexts

My last post discussed some problems with a baptismal justification view of John 3:5. A related point worth noting is that there are many other significant references to water that don't seem to be about baptism in the gospels and earlier sources. Not only is it unlikely that John 3:5 is referring to baptism, but it's also unlikely that the references to drinking the water of life in 4:14, having water within you in 7:38, and being spiritually washed in 13:10 are about baptism. And notice how that series of non-baptismal references to water and spiritual life in John's gospel adds weight to a non-baptismal reading of chapter 3. To cite another example from the gospels, it's doubtful that the comment about waterless places in Matthew 12:43 is meant to be taken as a reference to places without baptism. Rather, the water is referring to something other than baptism. Similarly, Jesus' references to how the religious leaders of his day needed to wash and cleanse themselves (Matthew 23:25-28, Luke 11:39-41) weren't solely or primarily about getting baptized (Luke 11:41), much less about being justified through baptism. There are many examples of references to water, washing, dryness, thirst, and such in the Old Testament, such as in the Psalms, that likewise aren't about baptism. This kind of material, which is found frequently in periods of time predating when baptismal justification supposedly went into effect (after Jesus' resurrection), illustrates how much potential there is for later references to water, washing, and such to have something other than baptism in mind. We need to be careful, accordingly, about taking passages like Titus 3:5 as references to baptism. The pre-baptismal justification of somebody like Cornelius can be referred to with a term like "cleansing" (Acts 15:9).

How did Nicodemus interpret John 3:5?

As I mentioned in a recent post, one of the problems with baptismal justification, such as the view of it advocated by Tertullian, is that it involves so much discontinuity. It's common to allege that baptismal justification didn't go into effect until after Jesus' resurrection, for example. So, even though Abraham is repeatedly cited as the primary example of how people are justified after the time of Jesus' resurrection (much like Jesus' appeal to Abraham prior to the resurrection), we're supposed to believe that we're now justified in a way that has less continuity with Abraham's justification, since baptism is now the normative context in which justification occurs. And even though John's gospel is structured in such a way as to highlight Jesus' pre-resurrection soteriology and associate it with how people who read John's gospel can be justified, we're supposed to think baptism has been added as a requirement since the time Jesus made those statements John highlights. (For a discussion of the relevant material in John, see the section of the post here on John's gospel, for example. And there are other relevant posts in our archives.) If baptism didn't become justificatory until after Jesus' resurrection, then there's a higher degree of discontinuity with multiple types of baptism practiced in the Christian movement prior to that time, namely the baptisms of John and Jesus discussed in John 3:22-4:2. We're told that Cornelius' justification prior to baptism in Acts 10 is an exception to the rule. But it's continuous with how people were justified prior to that time. And what occurred in Acts 10 is referred to as if it's normative in 11:17-18 and 15:7-11 (in the context of how people are justified, not some other context, like whether speaking in tongues is normative). Furthermore, other passages, like Acts 19:2 and Galatians 3:2, seem to likewise treat a scenario like that of Cornelius as normative. The "hearing with faith" of Galatians 3:2 sounds strikingly similar to Cornelius' justification as he heard the gospel proclaimed and believed what he was hearing. What's described in Galatians 3:2 sounds more like Cornelius' situation than a baptismal context. (For a response to the common suggestion that Galatians 3:27 warrants including baptism earlier in the passage, see here.) And if the Galatians were justified as Cornelius was, then Paul's appeal to Abraham and Genesis 15:6 just afterward makes more sense accordingly. And so on. I'm just citing several examples here among others that could be discussed. Justification through faith alone, apart from baptism, involves more continuity and makes more sense of the evidence as a whole.

What I want to focus on in this post, though, is a particular aspect of that evidence. John 3:5 is often cited in support of baptismal justification. And it's often noted, in response, that Jesus speaks of how people are (not will be) born again and criticizes Nicodemus for not understanding what he (Jesus) was referring to in the passage, which makes more sense if the reference to water was about an Old Testament theme rather than about baptism and an aspect of baptism that wouldn't go into effect until after the resurrection of Jesus. But notice, also, that the timing of John 3:5 provides a lot of opportunity for interpretation of Jesus' comments there, regardless of whether the interpretations were correct. (Nicodemus would have interpreted what Jesus said, and other people may have been interpreting it as well, depending on whether others were told about the conversation and/or that portion of it prior to Jesus' resurrection.) We're often told that nobody interpreted John 3:5 as anything other than a reference to baptismal justification prior to the Reformation. I've demonstrated elsewhere, such as here and here, that that claim is false as it pertains to the post-apostolic era. But notice how problematic the claim is even by the standards of the people making the claim.

If baptismal justification didn't go into effect until after Jesus' resurrection, and John 3:5 is immediately followed by references to multiple types of baptism that weren't justificatory (John 3:22-4:2), why think Nicodemus and anybody else who was interpreting John 3:5 at the time would have been interpreting it as a reference to baptismal justification? In other words, it seems that the earliest interpretation of John 3:5 was likely one that didn't involve baptismal justification, even by the standards of the people advocating the baptismal justification view of the passage.

You could get around part of the force of this argument I'm making by proposing that Nicodemus was agnostic about the meaning of the passage, that he interpreted John 3:5 as a reference to baptismal justification, but didn't expect it to go into effect until sometime in the future, or something like that. But that wouldn't change the fact that the evidence as a whole, as outlined above, suggests that it's more likely that Jesus' comments wouldn't have been taken as a reference to baptismal justification at the time. Even under a scenario in which Nicodemus (and whoever else) was agnostic about the meaning of the passage, agnosticism is significantly different than the sort of clarity advocates of baptismal justification often suggest. So, all of this is further evidence against the notion that there was universal agreement about interpreting John 3:5 as a reference to baptismal justification prior to the Reformation.

The Best Arguments For The Enfield Poltergeist

In a post last year, I made some recommendations about how to begin studying the Enfield case. What I want to do in this post is make some suggestions about how to argue for the case's authenticity.

Because the evidence for it is so multifaceted and so strong in so many contexts, and because there's some variability in which arguments will persuade which people, there are many approaches you can take that would have some merit. I'm not suggesting that the approach I'll outline below is the only one that should be taken. You can make whatever adjustments you think are appropriate to my recommendations, but I'll discuss a few of the arguments I would include. I'll start with a couple that I think would be the easiest to use, then mention some that are harder to articulate, but have a lot of value.

The Plausibility Of Alleged Doublets And Other Parallels In The Bible And Elsewhere

Critics often object that the similarities among two or more events reported in the Bible make it unlikely that all of the reports are historical. Sometimes it's even alleged that the similarities suggest it's unlikely that any of the reports are historically accurate. Supposedly, there must have been some single underlying tradition that was developed in different ways by different sources and eventually took the form of reporting multiple events, even though there actually was only one event or no event at all. Jesus' feeding of the five thousand and his feeding of the four thousand surely didn't both happen, especially the lack of anticipation on the part of his disciples in the context of the second miracle. Similar reasoning is applied to the accounts about Abraham and Isaac and their wives in Genesis 20 and Genesis 26, the multiple accounts of the healing of the blind in Matthew (in contrast to only one similar account in the other Synoptics), etc.

A variation of this kind of objection is to allege that a Biblical source is too similar to an extrabiblical one. Old Testament passages must have been derived from similar ancient accounts in other cultures. Claims made about Jesus in the New Testament are too similar to ancient pagan mythology. And so on.

Are Gnostic and pagan documents part of Roman Catholic tradition?

In the mid 1990s, I met a man online named John Wallace who impressed upon me the value of hostile corroboration. He made good use of the corroboration of Christianity that we have from ancient non-Christian sources. I also read some material in Philip Schaff's church history that left an impression on me in that context. A series I wrote on the canon of scripture several years ago has a segment about hostile corroboration of the New Testament canon, and it concludes with a quote from the material in Schaff's church history I just referred to. Ever since I came across Wallace and Schaff's work, I've given a lot of attention to hostile corroboration as a line of evidence. You can find many traces of it in my work over the years.

I often think of that line of evidence when I see Catholics and Orthodox claim that Protestants are relying on Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox tradition when we accept our canon of scripture, interpret it in light of ancient sources, or some such thing. They act as though anything outside of scripture should be equated with Catholic or Orthodox tradition. I know that hostile corroboration has long been a large part of what shapes my views on matters like the canon of scripture and scripture interpretation. When Bible translators make judgments about how to render the Biblical text, Biblical commentators decide how to best interpret certain Biblical passages, and so forth, they rely partly on information they're getting from Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Trypho, Celsus, Porphyry, archeological artifacts, and other ancient non-Christian sources. And something like a New Testament manuscript or a catacomb inscription isn't always accompanied by an extensive statement of faith on the part of the individual(s) who produced the manuscript or inscription. Think of the absurdity of suggesting that everything from Josephus to Celsus to an ancient New Testament manuscript from a largely unknown source is equivalent to Roman Catholic Sacred Tradition.

But many Protestants are taken in by that sort of argumentation. And many Catholics and Orthodox think they're arguing well when they utilize such poor arguments. That's largely because we're such a secular, trivial culture that doesn't think and talk about issues like these nearly enough.

If a Catholic or Orthodox just wants to argue that part of what Protestants are relying on is Catholic or Orthodox tradition, then that qualifier should be added upfront rather than later in the discussion. And they should justify their claim about partial dependence on their tradition and explain why that partial dependence allegedly is problematic. A Protestant doesn't have to accept, and shouldn't accept, the assumption that all or even most of the church fathers or other early Christians were Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. And even if they had been Catholic or Orthodox, Catholics and Orthodox often depend on information they get from Protestant or other non-Catholic or non-Orthodox archeologists, historians, Bible translators, patristic scholars, etc. So what? All of us make our historical judgments, including judgments about matters like religion and morals, on the basis of testimony or other evidence from sources outside our church, denomination, or ecclesiastical movement. Again, so what?

Protestants Aren't The Only Ones With Solas

To add to what I said in my last post, it's important that Protestants keep in mind that we aren't the only ones with solas. We use the sola terminology more explicitly and more often than others, but we aren't the only ones who accept such concepts. Every rule of faith has parameters. It includes some things while excluding others. It doesn't have to be sola scriptura in order to be sola something. So, if a Catholic, Orthodox, or somebody else wants to complain that he doesn't understand how sola scriptura works in some context, you can ask him if he understands how his own sola works in that context. If he claims that Protestants are being inconsistent by doing X while affirming sola scriptura, ask him if he's being inconsistent by doing X while affirming his own sola. It's often adequate to say, "Scripture is to me what your rule of faith is to you."

It's remarkable how large of a percentage of objections to Protestantism consist of the sort of inconsistencies on the part of the objector that I've been addressing in these last two posts. Take away those inconsistencies, and you take away a large percentage of what many critics of Protestantism consider their best objections.

How To Handle Canonical Issues

An important step in addressing objections you get from a critic is to ask how much the objection could be applied to his belief system. That can help you communicate better with that critic, help you better explain to him why his objection is problematic, or get him to abandon the objection or adjust it or his handling of it in some way, for example. The value of taking that approach is especially significant in the context of interacting with Roman Catholics, since Protestants so often interact with Catholics and since they so often raise objections to Protestantism that they should be holding against their own belief system if they were to be consistent. But you sometimes come across that sort of inconsistency with Eastern Orthodox, atheists, and other groups as well.

One of the most popular objections raised against Protestantism is its supposed inability to justify its acceptance of a canon for its rule of faith, scripture. There is no table of contents in scripture, we rely on means outside of scripture to arrive at our canon, we supposedly accept our canon because a Roman Catholic authority of some sort gave us that canon, and so on. But it's not as though Protestants are the only ones who have a canon for their rule of faith. Every rule has a canon. So, ask yourself whether the group the person you're interacting with belongs to (e.g., Catholicism) handles its own canonical issues in a way comparable to how you handle yours. Is there a table of contents within the Catholic rule of faith? No. Do Catholics arrive at their canon by means outside that canon? Yes. And so forth. In fact, since the Catholic rule is so much larger and more complicated, the process of sorting through canonical issues is more difficult for a Catholic than it is for a Protestant. There are ongoing disputes among Catholics about what qualifies as tradition and what doesn't, which papal teachings are infallible and which aren't, who's been a true Pope and who hasn't been, etc.

Similarly, when atheists and other critics of Christianity claim that the canon of scripture was decided by Constantine or the Council of Nicaea, claim that Irenaeus gave us our canon of the gospels, or some such thing, we shouldn't just respond by explaining how erroneous their historical claims are. We should also notice that they make a lot of canonical judgments themselves and often approach those canonical issues in much the same way Christians do. In discussions about politics and matters like separation of church and state, they'll accept a canon of Thomas Jefferson's writings or some portion of that canon based on whatever they've been told by whatever scholar or other source they've consulted. They'll accept what a high school teacher, college professor, television documentary, book, web site, or some other source told them about the canon of Supreme Court rulings on a particular topic, what the Court said about the issue in question, and so on. We all do this type of thing many times and in many contexts in our everyday lives. So, when a Christian accepts a Biblical canon based on trusting various authority figures (parents, pastors, denominations, a historical consensus of professing Christians, a consensus of Bible publishers, etc.), that isn't much different than what atheists and other non-Christians do in other contexts. Whether an atheist or some other critic is being inconsistent in the objection he's raising will have to be judged case by case, but the possibility that he's being inconsistent should be considered and should be considered earlier rather than later in the discussion.

A lot more can be said about these issues, and we've said a lot more elsewhere (e.g., in my series of posts arguing for the New Testament canon and summarizing the case for the Old Testament canon here). But I want to reinforce the point that it's important to take a critic's objections and apply them to his belief system early in a discussion. That can go a long way in helping the discussion develop well. Protestants need to get better at doing that, especially with Catholics, but also with other groups.

Was there a papacy in the early church?

There's been a lot of discussion of the papacy lately on some popular YouTube channels. For example, Cameron Bertuzzi recently had Joe Heschmeyer and Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers on his channel, along with some Protestants arguing for the other side. Here's a good one-hour summary, from Gavin Ortlund, of the problems with arguments for the papacy. The Other Paul has been producing a lot of good material on the subject as well, often with Geoff Robinson. Steven Nemes has been making a lot of significant points, such as in this recent video on Matthew 16 and Isaiah 22. You can find collections of our posts on these issues here and by clicking on the relevant post labels, like Papacy.

Jesus Saw Light

One of Steve Hays' last posts before his death in 2020 was about the original text of Isaiah 53:11, particularly its reference to how the Suffering Servant will see light. He had written on the subject in a post the previous year as well. He had a lot of interest in the theme of light in scripture in general, and he thought (probably rightly) that the inclusion of a reference to seeing light in Isaiah 53:11 implies the Servant's resurrection. Since this resurrection is tied to the Servant's unique status, such as his unique work of atonement, the resurrection seems to be something better than the general resurrection that everybody will experience. In the context of Isaiah, an unusual resurrection like the one attributed to Jesus makes more sense.

And that brings up another issue that doesn't get as much attention as it should. It's good to argue in the traditional, more direct ways for Jesus' resurrection, by appealing to the general trustworthiness and historicity of the relevant sources, by appealing to aspects of the documents that are unlikely to have been fabricated, by appealing to hostile corroboration, and so on. But we can also argue for the resurrection more indirectly by appealing to prophecy fulfillment. Given the evidence we have for Biblical prophecy in general and Isaiah's prophecies and the Servant Songs and related passages in particular, we have reason to expect the figure who fulfilled those passages in Isaiah to have risen from the dead accordingly. It would be surprising if Jesus' life lined up so well with so much of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, but not the references to rising from the dead in verses 10-11.

Something worth noting about this line of argument is that much of what Jesus has fulfilled in the Servant Songs and elsewhere is widely acknowledged by non-Christian sources, and some of the fulfillments were brought about by non-Christians to one extent or another. That undermines the argument that Christians arranged the fulfillments by natural means. See here, for example. You can argue that Jesus rose from the dead on the basis of the resurrection's connections to prophecy fulfillments that are largely corroborated by non-Christian sources. It's similar to Peter's appeal to prophecy fulfillment and other miracles in Acts 2.

Was ever grief like mine?

If you haven't read George Herbert's poem The Sacrifice, I recommend reading it. There are more than 60 verses addressing different aspects of Jesus' suffering. Here are several of the verses, but I recommend reading the whole poem:

An Overview And Critique Of Ed And Lorraine Warren

I recently saw the Twitter account of the Society for Psychical Research link a webinar by Randy Liebeck on Ed and Lorraine Warren, titled "Begone Satan! The Lives and Legacy of Ed and Lorraine Warren". It's the best treatment of the Warrens I've come across. He covers a lot of ground and includes many examples of the problems with the Warrens' credibility. He spoke with people affiliated with the Warrens in various contexts and had some interaction with Ed Warren prior to his death. The video addresses some of the Warrens' most significant cases, including Amityville. Liebeck also discusses a meeting he had with Warren, in which he asked to see the evidence Warren supposedly had for the paranormality of the cases he worked. There's some significant material on Enfield that Liebeck doesn't address, which you can find in my collection of posts on the Warrens here. That collection includes an article on a case I don't recall Liebeck mentioning in his presentation, the Arne Johnson case, the one The Conjuring 3 was based on.

Belief In Justification Apart From Baptism In Tertullian's Day

Gavin Ortlund recently said that he'll be having a discussion with Trent Horn about baptism during the last week of this month. I don't know which particular baptismal issues they'll be discussing, but I want to address a topic related to baptism and justification that probably will be relevant.

I've recommended Gavin's material on baptism in the past, such as here and here. He makes a lot of good points. For example, he's mentioned that in his work as a pastor, he's encountered many people who seem to have been regenerated prior to their baptism. However, as my two posts just linked explain, there are some significant arguments that I haven't yet seen Gavin bring up in these discussions. I want to expand on one of those here. This is just one line of evidence among many others for justification apart from baptism. But it's one that's been neglected. I've discussed other extrabiblical evidence against baptismal justification, such as in Josephus and Clement of Rome, but what I want to do here is address some material in Tertullian. I've brought it up before, briefly, but I want to address it in more depth than I have in the past.

The Resurrected Jesus Appeared To At Least Five Non-Christians, Probably More

For the evidence that he appeared to Saul of Tarsus, see the many relevant posts in our archives, such as the posts in the thread here. And see the posts in the comments section of that thread, starting here, for a discussion of some of the evidence that at least two non-Christians traveling with Paul witnessed the resurrected Jesus in the manner I discuss there. For the evidence that at least two of Jesus' brothers claimed to have seen the risen Jesus at a time when they were unbelievers, see here.

And he could easily have appeared to more than the five non-Christians mentioned above. He probably did. There could easily have been more than two non-Christians traveling with Paul in Acts 9. And the appearance in Matthew 28:16 was announced ahead of time, which provided a lot of potential for non-Christians to be present. That Matthew 28 appearance seems to be the best candidate among the ones narrated in the gospels and Acts for the appearance to more than five hundred mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6. (See here for some evidence that the appearance at the end of Matthew 28 is the one Paul refers to.) Since that appearance in Matthew 28 was anticipated, it could easily be the case that one or more non-Christians were brought there (e.g., family members going with each other) or went on their own initiative. Given the nature of ancient Jewish culture and particular types of relationships (e.g., family members often traveling with each other), it's more likely than not that some non-Christians were present during the appearance to more than five hundred mentioned by Paul. And not every resurrection appearance is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 (e.g., the appearances to women), nor should we assume that every appearance is mentioned somewhere in our extant documents. So, there's a lot of potential for Jesus to have appeared to more than the five non-Christians discussed above.

We should be careful to think beyond Paul and James when the issue of non-Christian witnesses comes up. And we need to be careful about objections based on the premise that Jesus didn't appear to more non-Christians. He didn't need to appear to any, and people typically underestimate how many he did appear to and how many he could easily have appeared to without our knowing it.

I expect some people to acknowledge that it seems that Jesus was reported to have appeared to more non-Christians than Paul and James, but to object that he didn't appear to an even higher number and that he didn't appear to more prominent non-Christians. But asking for more evidence isn't an adequate response to the evidence you have. And see here regarding the number of resurrection witnesses and here regarding their nature (e.g., why Jesus didn't appear to somebody like the Roman emperor rather than or in addition to Paul). The latter post just linked discusses an illustration I've found useful, a contrast between Paul and Constantine. Critics often act as though it obviously would have been better for Jesus to have appeared to somebody like a Roman emperor than to have appeared to somebody like Paul. But the choice of appearing to individuals like Paul has been vindicated over time. Paul has had a deeper impact, one with some characteristics that wouldn't be present with somebody like Constantine (or Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, etc.).

It's probably best not to base your argument on logical fallacies...

 Yesterday, Timothy Keller tweeted out the following:

“Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing religious people of His day. However-our churches do not have this same effect which can only mean one thing. Our preaching and practices are not declaring the same message that Jesus did.”

Sadly, this statement contains several logical fallacies. We can start with the most obvious one being the false dilemma. When Keller says “this...can only mean one thing” he is clearly wrong. There are many things that it could mean, and it doesn't even take much imagination to think about what these other options could be. But Keller insists that no other options could possibly be relevant than that our churches today are not preaching the actual message of Christ.

Hey, isn't Keller a pastor preaching at a church? This can only mean one thing! Keller is admitting he doesn't preach the same message that Jesus did. See, I just used the same logical principal Keller did.

But, as I said, this false dilemma has many other alternatives. Some of the other things that he could have considered are overlooked by him because of other fallacies contained in the statement, so demonstrating these fallacies and why they are fallacies will help show why the false dilemma is, indeed, false.

Keller says that Jesus offended “the Bible-believing religious people of His day.” This, however, is anachronistic insofar as in Jesus's day, there was no complete Bible. The only Scripture that had been revealed at that point was the Old Testament, so there wasn't a single “Bible-believing” person of Jesus's day who actually believed the entirety of Scripture that we have today. Clearly, those who believe the New Testament along with the Old Testament are going to be in a different camp than those who believe solely in the Old Testament.

If you don't believe me, just ask a religious Jew. You'll find that they are still pretty well offended by the message Jesus taught, insofar as a religious Jew considers Jesus to be a false Messiah. Given this fact, one can immediately ask is Keller's follow up that “our churches do not have this same effect” even right in the first place? If our churches are offending the religious sensibilities of religious Jews, then clearly they are having the same effect that Keller points to.

A second matter to address is Keller's claim that Jesus's teaching “attracted the irreligious.” He clarified in a subsequent tweet that “Luke 15:1-3 shows Jesus attracting the 'sinners' and offending the religious” but there are some important distinctions to make with this. First, Luke 15:1-3 is the introduction to the parable of the Lost Sheep, and in it the people who are drawing near to Jesus are referred to as “the tax collectors and sinners.” Where does it say that these people are “irreligious”?

Is Keller claiming that tax collectors and sinners weren't religious? If so, that claim is belied by Luke 18:13, where a tax collector is unable to even lift his eyes to heaven but just cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” That seems a rather odd statement for someone who is irreligious to say. On the other hand, if Keller is equating “religious” with “the actions of the Pharisees” then all the “irreligious” are simply non-Pharisees and not necessarily pagans or secular people, which seems to be a pretty non-standard definition of “irreligious” to say the least.

But adding in those qualifiers, if they are indeed what Keller means, reduces his statement to: “Jesus's teaching consistently attracted those who were not Pharisees while offending those who only believed in the Old Testament. However-our churches do not have this same effect....” And I just don't see how our churches do not have the same effect. As already mentioned, Christian churches do offend Jews who believe the Old Testament only, so that half already fails. And even if we grant that many churches draw people in the same mindset as the Pharisees (i.e., those who believe they are justified by outward actions that obscure their inner spiritual death), that does not imply that those same churches do not also draw those who are not Pharisees at the same time. It is actually possible to draw both sets of individuals at the same time. And as far as the actual irreligious, not just non-Pharisee, is concerned, I learned music theory in college from an atheist who attended services nearly every week because he enjoyed the music. Granted, he was going to a traditional church with old timey liturgy (I believe it was an Anglican church, but as this was more than 20 years ago I don't recall for sure).

And this brings me to the next part of the statement that isn't justified. Keller said, “Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious.” But is it Jesus's teaching that attracted people to Him? The Gospels themselves show that Jesus attracted many people who wanted to see signs and miracles, not because of what He was teaching. For example, John 6:2 states that the large crowd followed Jesus “because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.” And later, after the crowd followed Him across the sea, Jesus Himself said, “You are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (John 6:26).

Thus, even if we granted everything else Keller says, one cannot conclude from the difference in crowd attraction that it is because the teaching is different, when it is just as easy to say it is because Jesus performed miracles and the church does not have the ability to do so.

Ultimately, Keller's conclusion isn't completely wrong. When he says, “Our preaching and practices are not declaring the same message that Jesus did”, that is true of many churches in America, although it is also false of many churches in America. But setting aside the existence of the genuine churches, we do not determine whether a church is teaching the message Christ taught by asking if the same people are drawn to the church as Christ drew to Himself—that is not the standard by which fidelity to His message is found. You find out whether or not a church is teaching the message of Christ by reading the message of Christ and seeing if it's the same as what the church is teaching. It really is that simple. Does the teaching of a church line up with the words Jesus said which are recorded in Scripture?

Because Keller is focused on the wrong thing to try to prove his point, his point is full of logical fallacies that are easily dismantled. That, perhaps, is the greatest problem with his tweet. Whatever valid points he could have made are undermined by the poor way in which he chose to “prove” it.

Resurrection Implied By The Trajectory Of Scripture

"it is much more likely (particularly in a time of nationalistic fervour and a desire for independence [as in the late B.C. era]) that the seedbed for personal resurrection is to be found in Israel's traditional faith rather than in ideas and concepts imported from surrounding cultures. For instance, if the first major problem that unfolds in the Torah is death (as implied in Gen. 2, 3 and 5), one might reasonably infer that the solution will be its ultimate reversal. Even though not firmly grasped by many ancient Israelites, this is certainly implied by the trajectory of Scripture as a whole." (Paul Williamson, Death And The Afterlife [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2017], n. 68 on 82)

Difficult Details In The Resurrection Accounts

I've mentioned aspects of the New Testament resurrection accounts that were difficult for the early Christians in some way and, therefore, less likely to be fabricated accordingly. Augustine, writing a few hundred years later, provides us with some examples of how Christians were still struggling with those issues:

"And as for the pleasant color, how conspicuous shall it be where 'the just shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father!' [Matthew 13:43] This brightness we must rather believe to have been concealed from the eyes of the disciples when Christ rose, than to have been awanting. For weak human eyesight could not bear it, and it was necessary that they should so look upon Him as to be able to recognize Him. For this purpose also He allowed them to touch the marks of His wounds, and also ate and drank,—not because He needed nourishment, but because He could take it if He wished." (The City Of God, 22:19)

ILIAD Forum

The Ivy League Informational Apologetics Database:

Who are we?

The Iliad Forum was founded in 2021 by undergraduate students from all across the Ivy League, who wanted to provide an online, accessible, and rigorous database of answers to common questions about the nature and commitments of orthodox Christianity. The Iliad Forum site is intended to be a resource for both Christians and non-Christians, where answers to deep and complex questions and objections can be found almost immediately. Many of the questions that we deal with are tailored to the specific interests of undergraduate students at Ivy League universities. However, we also deal with broader topics, such as Christianity in the job market, philosophical apologetics, and Biblical history.

Got questions about Christianity?

The Iliad Forum is dedicated to the furtherance of the intellectual side of Christianity by answering common questions that Ivy League students have about the faith. Whether philosophical, scientific, Scriptural, pre-professional, or otherwise, we are committed to giving accessible answers in accordance with scholarly endorsement.

Both Christians and non-Christians submit questions to The ILIAD Forum, and we hope that it would be a resource for both. As an organization, we are committed to Biblical orthodoxy, and our answers will reflect as such.

The ILIAD Forum website is broken up into two main parts. Firstly, we answer anonymous questions that can be submitted by any student in the Ivy League. These questions can be submitted at the bottom of the home page. Secondly, Christians who are current or former students in the Ivy League are eligible to join our private forum, where they can freely and privately ask their Christian peers more personalized questions.

Paranormal Temperature Changes In The Enfield Case

The Enfield witnesses often reported unusual temperature changes. It's often difficult or impossible to tell if something paranormal was involved, though, and the significance of the incidents varies widely. Some of the people involved in the dragging episodes on December 3, 1977, for example, reported a lot of coldness on that floor of the house around the time when the dragging occurred, but there's a reasonable chance that the coldness was due to the weather at that time of year. Other temperature changes are harder to dismiss.

Part of what makes these temperature changes significant is how difficult it would be to attribute them to fraud on the part of the Hodgson children. It would also be hard to maintain that all of the witnesses were lying or honestly mistaken, given the nature of some of the circumstances and the number and variety of witnesses involved.

The Apostleship Of Jude The Brother Of Jesus

In a post last year, I argued that Jude the brother of Jesus was an apostle in the highest sense of the term, meaning that he had seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. My focus there was on some New Testament evidence. I should add that there's some patristic evidence as well.

Tertullian refers to Jude as "the apostle" in section 1:3 of his treatise On The Apparel Of Women. Origen refers to "the apostle Jude" (in Thomas Scheck, trans., Origen: Commentary On The Epistle To The Romans, Books 1-5 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2001], p. 320, 5:1:29). They could be referring to him as an apostle in a lesser sense, but the higher sense is more likely in the contexts in which Tertullian and Origen were writing. They're appealing to authority and scriptural authority in particular, and apostleship in the highest sense fits best in that context.

A Pattern Across All Of The Gospel Resurrection Narratives

Another line of evidence for the resurrection appearance discussed in my last post is the ordinariness of Jesus' resurrection body. Contrast that with what was said shortly beforehand:

"an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow." (Matthew 28:2-3)

The other resurrection appearance of Jesus, narrated later in Matthew 28, likewise has no reference to a glorious body. Notice the contrast to the descriptions of not only the angel early in Matthew 28, but also the righteous in 13:43, Jesus in the context of the Mount of Transfiguration in 17:2, and Jesus again in the context of the second coming in 24:30.

See my post here for a discussion of the same characteristics in Luke's writings. John's gospel doesn't offer any contrasting descriptions of beings with glorious bodies, as far as I recall, but there are references to beings with a glorious appearance, including Jesus, in another Johannine document, Revelation. The gospel of John agrees with Matthew and Luke in describing Jesus' resurrection body in ordinary terms. In fact, John's gospel has Jesus being mistaken for a gardener (20:15) and not being recognized in 21:4-6.

Threefold Evidence For The Resurrection Appearance In Matthew 28:9-10

It's often mentioned that the appearance is to women (something unlikely to be made up because of the gender of the individuals involved) and is prior to any appearance to men (something unlikely to be made up because its chronology gives a significant form of priority to the female disciples over the males). A point not made as often is that the location of the women is similarly unlikely to have been made up (Jerusalem rather than Galilee). Given all of the emphasis on Jesus appearing to his disciples in Galilee (26:32, 28:7, 28:10, 28:16), an appearance in Jerusalem first is disruptive and unnecessarily raises a problem (why an appearance in Galilee would be mentioned and emphasized so much if he was to appear in Jerusalem first).

There are other reasons to believe that this resurrection appearance is historical. These are just a few points among others that could be made. But these three are easy to remember together, since this appearance to the women involves a difficult gender (women rather than men), difficult timing (before any appearance to men), and a difficult location (Jerusalem amid so much emphasis on Galilee).

The Reasoning Behind Jesus' Focus On Galilee In The Context Of Easter

I've written about how Isaiah 9:1 seems to be behind Jesus' focus on Galilee in the context of his resurrection appearances. Notice a few aspects of the references to Galilee:

Easter Resources 2022

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short post about which evidence for Jesus' resurrection we should focus on the most. Steve Hays wrote a lengthier article about making a case for the resurrection. Those are some potential starting points for studying Easter issues.

Here are some examples of other Easter issues we've addressed:

How The Historicity Of The Bible Gets Obscured

R. Alan Culpepper just published a commentary on the gospel of Matthew (Matthew: A Commentary [Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021]). (It was due out last year, but got delayed, so it has a publication date of 2021. It didn't come out until earlier this month.) I've read about 50 pages of it so far, including the introduction and his comments on Matthew's first two chapters. I was struck by some remarks Culpepper makes that are wrong and should easily be recognized as wrong. I'll discuss a few examples.

The Practical Flowing From The Doctrinal

"The apostle [Paul] had been putting forth all his strength to prove the doctrine of the resurrection, yet he was not diverted from his habitual custom of making practical use of the doctrine which he established. He proves his point, and then he goes on to his 'therefore,' which is always an inference of godliness. He is the great master of doctrine: if you want the Christian creed elaborated, and its details laid out in order, you must turn to the epistles of Paul; but at the same time he is always a practical teacher. Paul was not like those who hew down trees and square them by rule and system, but forget to build the house therewith. True, he lifteth up a goodly axe upon the thick trees, but he always makes use of that which he hews down, he lays the beams of his chambers, and forgets not the carved work thereof. He brings to light the great stones of truth, and cuts them out of the live rock of mystery; but he is not content with being a mere quarryman, he labors to be a wise master builder, and with the stones of truth to erect the temple of Christian holiness. If I shift the figure I may say that our apostle does not grope among the lower strata of truth, hunting out the deep things and spending all his force upon them, but he ploughs the rich upper soil, he sows, he reaps, he gathers in a harvest, and feeds many. Thus should the practical ever flow from the doctrinal like wine from the clusters of the grape. The Puritans were wont to call the end of the sermon, in which they enforced the practical lessons, the 'improvement' of the subject; and, truly, the apostle Paul was a master in the way of 'improvement.'…My brethren, this is a lesson for us; let us never reckon that we have learned a doctrine till we have seen its bearing upon our lives. Whatever we discover in God's word, let us pray the Holy Spirit to make us feel the sanctifying influence of it….There are some brethren who are so enamored of doctrine that no preacher will content them unless he gives them over and over again clear statements of certain favourite truths: but the moment you come to speak of practice they fight shy of it at once, and either denounce the preacher as being legal, or they grow weary of that which they dare not contradict. Let it never be so with us. Let us follow up truth to its practical 'therefore.'" (Charles Spurgeon)

Enoch In Heaven In Genesis 5:24

Since it's common to question or deny belief in an afterlife in early Judaism, we should keep in mind that an afterlife and significantly related concepts, such as the existence of heaven, are often implied where they're not spelled out (e.g., passages forbidding attempts to contact the dead). An example too seldom discussed is Enoch in Genesis 5:24.

For confirmation that something other than death is being referred to, see the many references to other individuals dying in Genesis 5, in contrast to what's said about Enoch. And notice the emphasis on how Enoch "walked with God", which implies that he would therefore receive favorable treatment. The language of being "taken" is more naturally interpreted as referring to ongoing existence elsewhere rather than ceasing to exist, and ceasing to exist after a shorter lifespan than so many other figures of that era doesn't make sense as a form of favorable treatment. The later taking of Elijah to heaven without dying shows that such a concept was known in ancient Jewish thought. And as far as I know, later accounts of what happened to Enoch suggest that his going to heaven was the most widespread interpretation of the Genesis passage. The text isn't as explicit as we'd like it to be, but an interpretation involving Enoch's going to heaven makes the most sense.

Who has the bigger prophecy problem?

James Tabor recently posted a video in which he discusses some aspects of ancient Jewish messianic movements. He portrays Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet whose movement had to adjust their eschatology over time, since Jesus' prediction about his second coming wasn't fulfilled. That's a common objection to Christianity. I've written a lot about it over the years, and some of what I've written hasn't been posted on Triablogue, so I want to use this post to gather some links to my material. I won't be linking everything I've written. Anybody who's interested can search our archives for more material like what I'll be citing below. These are just some highlights.

Tabor refers to how he's become increasingly open to a later dating of the gospel of Luke, even to placing it in the second century. He contrasts the eschatology of Luke/Acts to the eschatology found in the gospel of Mark. But the internal and external evidence strongly support a date for Luke/Acts no later than the mid 60s. See here for a brief overview of that internal and external evidence and links to other posts that go into more depth. It's also worth noting that placing Mark and Luke so far apart in time, especially under a scenario in which Luke isn't written until the second century, offers a weaker explanation of the similarities between Mark and Luke. They are, after all, commonly grouped together, with Matthew, as the Synoptics. The similarities among those three gospels don't require that the documents were written closer together, but their being written closer in time makes more sense of their similarities. So, Tabor's dating of Mark and Luke is problematic in all of these contexts.

But whatever dates you assign to Mark and Luke/Acts, the contrast Tabor draws between Acts 1:7 and the eschatology of Mark is wrong. As far as I recall, Tabor's video doesn't discuss Mark 13:32-33, which demonstrates that "day and hour" are interchangeable with "time", so that Mark 13 is in agreement with Acts 1.

For a summary of some of the most significant points that can be made against the claim that Jesus and the earliest Christians falsely predicted the timing of his second coming, go here. That post includes a link to another one that discusses the issues in a lot more detail.

Several years later, I had a discussion on Facebook with a non-Christian about the alleged false eschatology of the early Christians. It was largely about whether the early opponents of Christianity reacted to the alleged false prophecy as we'd expect them to have reacted if there was such a false prediction. I make some points there that I've seldom or never seen other people bring up (e.g., the discussion of Lucian's comments on Christianity). After following the link above, you'll have to click on Comments in the lower right to see the comments section, then keep clicking on the relevant areas to see the entirety of the comments that follow.

A bigger issue than the alleged false prediction of the timing of Jesus' second coming is the fulfillment of other prophecies. The latter is much more difficult for the non-Christian to explain than it is for the Christian to explain the former. We have Jewish (and, in that sense, non-Christian) documents like Ezra and Nehemiah that place Jesus' life in significant alignment with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy. Non-Christians acknowledge that the Romans later destroyed both Jerusalem and the temple. Jesus' Galilean connections, his initial rejection by the Jewish people, his widespread influence on the Gentile world, and other facts about him that are widely admitted by non-Christians put him in significant alignment with Isaiah's Servant Songs and other passages connected to them in Isaiah. Psalm 22 is strikingly reminiscent of a crucifixion scene, and the psalm concludes by referring to the major significance of what's happened, how people across the world will hear about it and turn to God as a result of what's been accomplished (verses 27-31). See here for a collection of Christian prophecies fulfilled by non-Christians or whose fulfillment was corroborated by non-Christians. For an explanation of why it's inadequate for critics to object that the prophecies in question allegedly aren't Messianic, along with responses to other common skeptical objections, see here and here.

Escaping Putin's War

In 1994 or 1995, the pastor of my church (who also happened to be my dad) held a missions conference where he invited several missionaries in to give presentations. The goal was to recruit missionaries to go to various places around the world and spread the Gospel. It was a resounding success because, by the end of it, two new missionaries had indeed been recruited.

They were my parents. When they joined Mission to the World, MTW asked them where they would like to serve, and without hesitation they said, “Siberia would be nice.” You see, my dad grew up in Alaska, and my mom met him there when they were both in college, so the cold temperatures weren't a deterrent to them. Rather, it was an invitation.

At the time, MTW responded, “We don't have anything in Siberia, or Russia as a whole, at the moment. But since you like cold temperatures, we have an opening in the high mountains of Ecuador. Would you be interested in that?” My parents agreed and began to train for that. If I remember correctly, it was when they were en route to language school that someone caught them and said, “I heard you wanted to go to Siberia. Would Ukraine be close enough?” and immediately my parents accepted that ministry instead.

And so it was that in April of 1996, while I was finishing up my senior year of high school, I was abandoned for several weeks, having to fend for myself against the wilds of civilization, making myself get up and attend high school even though ditching would have been more fun, while my parents took their first trip to Ukraine. And then, a couple of years later (1998—who said high school math taught me nothing?), my parents cured empty nest syndrome by boarding a plane which would take them to Europe, with their final destination being a little known city called Kherson.

The Difficulty Of Paul's Labors

One of the factors we should take into account when evaluating a figure like the apostle Paul is the difficulty involved in accomplishing what he did. That gives us some information about his sincerity, his confidence, his love, and other aspects of his character. For example, among many other things that could be said:

"Paul's unbounded confidence, irrepressible energy, directness, and personal charm were irresistible (though not to all), and soon there were tiny Christian communities scattered throughout the region. He was an indefatigable traveler. Given the difficulties and dangers of travel in those days and the extent of territory he covered, his success as a missionary is astonishing." (Robert Wilken, The First Thousand Years [New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2012], 20)

We should keep things like those in mind as we read Acts, Paul's letters, the early patristic comments on Paul, and other relevant sources. A lot of work went into what we so easily think about and read about (2 Corinthians 11:23-33). We can have some awareness of these facts without having much appreciation for the full weight of their significance.

Why doesn't Paul mention Jesus' miracles?

Skeptics occasionally object to the historicity of Jesus' miracles on the basis that they aren't mentioned in Paul's letters. I responded to the objection as formulated by John Loftus several years ago. I won't repeat everything I said there. Those who are interested can read that post. What I want to do here is expand on what I said there.

The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre As The Site Of Jesus' Burial

Here's a good article by Caleb Jackson on the subject. The blog the article appears on, Think Christian Theism, has a lot of other good posts as well. It's worth following.

Christians Need To Be Far More Active On The Internet

It's common for people to object that Christians are behaving irresponsibly on Twitter, Facebook, and other online settings, especially in political contexts, but occasionally in other contexts as well. And it's popular to make derogatory comments about the internet and how unimportant it supposedly is (e.g., the popular dismissive comments about how it's allegedly ridiculous to be concerned that "somebody is wrong on the internet"). Supposedly, there's a major problem with people being unloving, arguing too much, and so forth, and that problem needs to frequently be addressed. But far less is said about the other end of the spectrum, the people who are much less involved than they should be with controversial issues, especially in religion, where it matters most. Yet, as I've documented many times, the percentage of people who are involved in these matters too little - far too little - vastly outnumbers the percentage who are involved too much or are involved in a way that's unloving, contentious, or some such thing.

So, when something like a small fraction of one percent of the population is highly involved in apologetics, while ninety-some percent are less involved than they should be - typically much less involved than they should be - why does the former group get so much more criticism than the latter? Probably largely because of the popularity of that latter group. Peer pressure, in other words. If you're a pastor or radio host, your audience doesn't want to be criticized for their neglect of apologetics, theology, ethics, politics, or whatever else. It's much easier to flatter the large majority of your audience while criticizing a small minority. It makes you more popular, keeps your paychecks coming, and so on.

A common example of this kind of thing is the handwringing we often see over the political atmosphere on Twitter. But what percentage of the population is involved in some kind of inappropriate behavior in Twitter exchanges? A tiny percentage. How many are involved in political discussions on Twitter in general, including discussions of a better nature? Few. The same Americans who tell pollsters and other people how concerned they are about how negative the political atmosphere of the nation is, how politically divided the nation is, etc. aren't involved much in politics themselves. After they hang up the phone with the pollster, they'll go sit in front of the television to watch some trivial (or worse) program, read a trivial book, do some cooking, go to a family gathering, or whatever, with little or no concern about politics. Americans aren't too political. They're too unpolitical.

Religion is more important than politics, and the level of neglect is worse with religion than with politics. But whether it's religion, politics, ethics, philosophy, the paranormal, or whatever other area of life that tends to be neglected, it's not difficult to figure out which side of the spectrum is more in need of correction. It's not the people who are highly involved or even the subset of those people who truly are unloving, contentious, or wrong in some other way. It's the large majority of the population who are more in need of correction, the large majority who are doing little or none of the relevant work and are so apathetic and contemptuous toward the people who are doing it. The people who should be criticized more are the ones who rarely or never try to persuade others about religious issues, make little or no use of the opportunities they have online, etc. Think of how many significant books on Amazon don't have any reviews from a Christian perspective, how frequently atheists and other groups who are smaller than Christians outnumber Christians in online discussions, how often ninety-some percent of the Christians who watch a good YouTube video won't even click the like button, how many Christians spend years online doing things like emailing relatives and posting family photographs on Facebook while doing little or nothing in contexts like theology and apologetics, etc.

There are billions of people in the world. You won't be interacting with the vast majority of those people face-to-face. The internet is the best tool most people have to reach a much larger audience (and a better audience, in the sense of being more interested, more informed, and so forth). It's good for people to also use television, books, radio, the telephone, and other tools to reach a bigger audience, but the internet is what's most efficient for most individuals. We don't need Christians to be less active online. We need them to be far more active online in the contexts that matter most.