Including The Resurrection Claim In A Prophecy Argument With Hostile Corroboration

We've argued that Isaiah 53:10-11 likely refers to the resurrection of the Servant of the Lord figure in Isaiah's Servant Songs. Though there's good evidence for Jesus' resurrection from Christian sources, there's some evidence from non-Christian sources as well. So, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is another example of a prophecy whose fulfillment is evidenced by hostile corroboration. There was early non-Christian corroboration of the empty tomb, and some of the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead were non-Christians who apparently converted to Christianity as a result of an experience they thought was an encounter with the risen Jesus. See here on James, here on Paul, and here on the likelihood that other non-Christians had such experiences. It's not an adequate response to object that people like James and Paul were Christians. The point is that they were hostile to Christianity originally and converted under circumstances relevant to what I'm arguing for in this post.

Another way of putting it is that the plausibility of the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is significantly increased when multiple non-Christian sources support the resurrection of Jesus in multiple ways (corroborating the empty tomb, corroborating Jesus' appearing to people alive after his death). One way to appreciate the significance of this kind of evidence is to think of the alternatives. Think of how easily the situation could have been otherwise and how the case for Jesus' resurrection would be weakened if there hadn't been such hostile corroboration.

These things have a cumulative effect. Is it all just happenstance that Jesus' life lined up so well with the chronology of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, the Romans chose penal practices that align so well with relevant Old Testament passages, the figure whose life just happened to line up so well in these contexts had so many hostile sources corroborating his resurrection in various ways, etc.?

The Argument From Prophecy Should Be Brought Up In The Easter Context

I've discussed the neglect of the argument from prophecy. That's especially relevant to the Easter season, since so many of the best arguments from prophecy are closely associated with Easter. Go here for a collection of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy. See here for a collection of resources on prophecy more broadly.

One way to summarize some of the issues involved is to mention that the penal practices of the Roman empire, which were chosen by non-Christians rather than Christians, line up well with what's anticipated in passages like Psalm 22 and the third Servant Song in Isaiah 50.

Another good way of summarizing some of the issues is to mention how well the chronological factors in passages like Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy align with Jesus' life, in ways that the early Christians didn't control (Jesus' execution within the relevant timeframe, the destruction of both Jerusalem and the temple afterward, etc.).

I'm just providing some examples. Whether you use these or others, it's important to make use of the argument from prophecy, since it's so valuable and has been so neglected.

Some Resurrection Arguments To Use

There are many that are good, but I'll highlight a few that get less attention than they should. Each one will include a link to a post that discusses the argument further:

- The acknowledgement of the empty tomb by both early Jewish and early pagan sources.

- Internal and external evidence for the resurrection appearance to Paul in Acts.

- The cumulative case for the appearance to the women in Matthew 28:9-10.

- The number and variety of Peter's resurrection experiences.

How much resurrection evidence should we expect to be mentioned?

When critics of Jesus' resurrection object to something like the lack of mention of the appearance to more than five hundred (1 Corinthians 15:6) in sources other than Paul or the lack of mention of the guards at the tomb in sources other than Matthew, we should ask what we ought to be expecting from these sources. The critics' assumptions about what we should expect may be wrong, and we ought to be careful to not accept false assumptions.

Josephus' Report About How First-Century Christians Defined Jesus' Resurrection

I've said a lot about Tom Schmidt's book on Josephus and Jesus that came out last year. You can read it for free by accessing it at the page just linked.

See the range of possible translations of Josephus' passage about Jesus on pages 138 and 204, for example. In all of the translations, Jesus is referred to as being thought to be "alive again" just after his crucifixion is referred to. The crucifixion context suggests a physical resurrection of the same body that died, and the term "again" does as well.

Similarly, see the apparently first-century Jewish material Justin Martyr cites in section 108 of his Dialogue With Trypho. I discussed it in a post several years ago. That first-century Jewish material likewise assumes a Christian view of the resurrection that involves the return to life of the body that died.

So, we have multiple first-century Jewish sources telling us how the early Christians viewed the resurrection. They didn't think it was spiritual rather than physical. They didn't think it involved a new body instead of the one that died. Rather, they thought it was a resurrection of the dead body.

These Jewish sources were in a good position to know what the earliest Christians said about the subject, and it was in their interest to notice and make an issue of a change in the Christian view over time, if there was a change. Read Schmidt's material on Josephus' sources, for example.

Easter Resources 2026

Here's an overview of which evidence for Jesus' resurrection to focus on most. Steve Hays wrote a lengthier post on how to make a case for the resurrection.

Here are some of our posts on Easter topics, with many more available in our archives:

How Lovable God Is

"For anyone who does not love [God] shows clearly that he does not know how lovable he is, that he has not learned to taste and see how gentle and sweet the Lord is, when he does not strive to be pleasing in his sight by continual exertion." (Bede, David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 168-69; comments on 1 John 2:5-6)

Evidence Against Alternatives To Sola Scriptura

A neglected line of evidence in controversies over sola scriptura is the absence of alternatives in contexts in which we'd expect them to be discussed if the sources involved believed in those alternatives. The New Testament says nothing of the bishop of Rome, much less does it tell Christians to look to him as the infallible standard of orthodoxy in the future. When Paul, Peter, and John are approaching death or are operating in some other relevant context, they turn their audience's attention to remembering what Jesus taught in the past, remembering what the apostles taught in the past, and scripture, but say nothing of anything like an infallible Pope, magisterium, or ecumenical councils. The earliest opponents of Christianity say a lot about things like Jesus' teachings and scripture, but show no knowledge of a papacy, an allegedly infallible church, etc. I've discussed issues like these many times in the past. See here and here, for example.

There's also the fact that Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and other early sources defined the church and tradition much differently than modern opponents of sola scriptura do. So, citing them against sola scriptura doesn't lead us to the alternatives most modern critics of sola scriptura are advocating. In fact, the beliefs of the early extrabiblical sources are largely inconsistent with the beliefs of groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. See the many examples discussed here. Or see here regarding Irenaeus and here regarding Tertullian, for instance.

You can click on the sola scriptura label at the bottom of this post for an archive of many of our posts on the subject. For example, shortly before his death, Steve Hays wrote a post on sola scriptura that makes some good points that are often neglected.

Evidence For The Jesus Of The Book Of Revelation

I could easily be ignorant of some work that's been done on this subject, but, at least in my experience, the evidence for the Jesus of Revelation has been neglected. We hear a lot about the Jesus of the Synoptics, the Jesus of the fourth gospel, or the Jesus of Paul's letters, for example, but seemingly far less about the Jesus of Revelation. Given how much Revelation has been criticized over the years, even by professing Christians at times, and given the importance of what Jesus says and does in other contexts in the book, the evidence for the Jesus of Revelation ought to get more attention.

Love Has Its Wounds

"Perhaps my preaching last Sunday was somewhat unpleasant because I visited many of you harshly with the severity of the teaching authority and took up not what would flatter a number of you but what would make you sad. Truly, this is of no concern to me, for I rejoice in the knowledge that the disciple's sadness is the master's joy. For the hearer profits when the preacher proclaims what is harsh, and salvation is begotten for a person when the sadness of correction is pressed upon him. As the blessed Apostle says: 'What is sadness according to God brings about a lasting salvation.' [2 Corinthians 7:10] Justifiably, therefore, do I rejoice, since I bring about salvation when I reprove. Although my son is grieved on account of the roughness of my speech, nonetheless I am made happy because I know that he profits by the grief. The holy Apostle says: 'But who is the son whom his father does not beat?' [Hebrews 12:7] For a father does not always kiss his son but also sometimes chastises him. When one who is loved is chastised, therefore, a pious act is exercised in his regard, for love has its wounds as well, which are all the sweeter for the harshness of their infliction. For a religious chastisement is sweeter than easy forgiveness, which is why the prophet says: 'Sweeter are the wounds of a friend than the freely offered kisses of an enemy.' [Proverbs 27:6]" (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 80:1, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 192)

Problems With Attributing Too Much To Demons

Since Christians so often suggest that something or other is demonic, and much of the time they seem to do it with a lot of carelessness, it's worth considering the problems with falsely attributing things to demons. My focus here will be on attributing paranormal activity to demons, but the principles I'll be discussing also have a broader application. I'm not trying to be exhaustive. I'm just providing some examples:

Is baptismal regeneration a significant problem only if baptism is a work?

Baptism is a work, for reasons I've discussed elsewhere, like here. But even if it weren't a work, there would still be many reasons to consider baptismal regeneration problematic and in more than a minor way. See here for an overview of a double-digit number of problems with viewing baptism as a means of justification. Here and here are a couple of posts in which I discuss some of the bad fruit of baptismal regeneration, bad fruit that I think is significant and doesn't require viewing baptism as a work.

People often frame things in terms of whether including baptism with faith as a means of justification constitutes a false gospel. (It does, but that's not what I'm addressing here.) They'll often cite Galatians 1:8-9 in particular. But this isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Baptismal regeneration wouldn't have to be maximally bad in order to be bad or to be bad to more than a small extent. We recognize that in other contexts. If a church leader has some moral problems in his life, we don't dismiss those problems as insignificant just because they aren't maximally bad. It's remarkable how many people will acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, yet will act as though it should be of little concern if it doesn't rise to the level of Galatians 1. There's a large gray area between something being of little concern and something rising to the level of the anathema of Galatians.

How unusual is Galatians' approach toward the gospel?

Critics of how Evangelicals use Galatians could raise objections to the effect that Galatians is just one document, it's such a short letter, the approach Paul takes there isn't found much or at all elsewhere, etc. On the more liberal side, Galatians could be dismissed as an occasion when Paul lost his temper, a reflection of a bad aspect of Paul's character that we shouldn't emulate, or whatever. From a more conservative or traditional Christian perspective, it could be argued that we should be agnostic about or not base much on certain aspects of Galatians, since it's such a short letter, we don't know much about the context, the themes in question there aren't found much or at all elsewhere, etc.

But even if something Paul said in Galatians were only found there, it ought to be accepted as part of apostolic teaching, what's taught by scripture, and so on. That point could be conceded, yet the alleged rarity of what Galatians says could be appealed to in order to argue that the themes shouldn't be as prominent in our thinking as they are among many Evangelicals. Though I think Galatians expresses views like the foundational nature of sola fide more forcefully than any other source, that sort of material in Galatians is corroborated elsewhere more than people typically suggest.

My 5 favorite Christian books in 2025

I wrote most of the following at the end of last year, Dec 2025. Still, I thought it might be useful to post now in case anyone is looking for a good book to read. These would be my recommendations, for whatever that's worth.

The premise is someone asked for a list of the 5 favorite Christian books people read last year. Here are mine, just in alphabetical order by title. To be clear, only a few of these were published in 2025, I think. Most were published years before. I only read or reread them in 2025.

Note: Due to personal/family reasons, I haven't had as much time nor spiritual or emotional bandwidth to read over the last few years (and still don't really). As such, I tended to prioritize books which fed my soul as it were. If I felt a book didn't, then I was less likely to read it or finish it (e.g. the first volume of William Lane Craig's systematic philosophical theology is very intellectually stimulating but it was also a more dry read for me so I've set it aside for now). This list reflects all this.

If Bible translations were Star Wars characters

Just some humor:

If English Bible translations were Star Wars characters... 😊

* ESV = Yoda. Knowledgeable and wise, comes from a long and venerable heritage (Tyndale-KJV), but often talks backwards and uses archaisms.

* NASB = C3PO. Technically precise, popular with fellow robotic eggheads, but too literal-minded and woodenly awkward. NASB 2020 is C3PO with a smooth talking chip installed.

* LSB = K3PO. A different shade or color of C3PO in a land far, far away, i.e. Southern California, but throws in exotic sounding words (e.g. Yahweh) and obsessively repeats certain words as if it's glitching (e.g. slave).

* NET = R2D2. Said to be the robot's robot (the translator's translation), plugs in and interfaces with the latest tech, but most people don't really use it, per se, they only use it for its technical tools (NET notes).

* CSB/HCSB = Mace Windu. Boldly willing to take risks, even if it breaks with tradition (e.g. John 3:16, Rom 3:25), has a strong fan base within certain factions (SBC), but otherwise less popular than one might think, though it's increasing.

* NIV = Han Solo. Broadly popular, plain spoken and easy to follow, effectively gets the job done without any fancy acrobatics, but sometimes seems to be shady and may be smuggling illicit pronouns.

* NLT = Ewoks. Communicates with simple expressions, not the most technically proficient, but heart is in the right place and once in a while pleasantly surprises everyone.

* KJV = Darth Vader. Once thought to be the chosen one, speaks in an authoritative voice, but took a turn to the dark side when it began lording it over anyone who doesn't fall in line with the one true imperial text, the KJV Only.

* NKJV = Dark Helmet. On the one hand, it's a new and improved Vader. On the other hand, it looks like Vader lite.

* NRSV/NRSVue = Kylo Ren. Let the past die, forward thinking and progressive, but lack of faith is disturbing.

* Biblical Hebrew and Greek = Chewbacca. The most powerful warrior in terms of brute strength, but a bit woolly sounding to most people and as such needs a translator to understand.

A few thoughts on the NASB 2020

I have heard some people deride the NASB 2020, but I think the NASB 2020 is very good:

1. It seems to me the NASB 2020 unfairly received a bad reputation among conservative evangelicals before the completed translation had a chance to hit the market. That's primarily due to rumors about how it would translate adelphoi (as brothers and sisters, not brothers or brethren) and anthropoi (as persons or people, not man). I suppose conservative evangelicals feared it had gone progressive on gender. However, I find the translation of these terms in the NASB 2020 is relatively restrained. More so than the NIV 2011 and much more so than the NRSV let alone the NRSVue. It seems more or less on par with the CSB, which many if not most conservative evangelicals seem to have no problem with and in fact many have embraced it as their primary Bible translation, at least in the SBC (which of course is where the CSB's roots are). The NASB 2020 is still very much the work of conservative evangelicals.
2. In addition, the NASB95 could fairly be said to read woodenly or stilted, but I don't think it would be fair to characterize the NASB 2020 as wooden or stilted anymore. I find the NASB 2020 very readable - clear and natural. Not as readable as the NLT, the NIV, or the CSB, but the NASB 2020 is significantly more readable than previous NASB incarnations as well as more readable than the LSB to my ears. It is also more readable than the ESV, I think, or at worst it's roughly equal to the ESV, inasmuch as it uses more modern and less archaic language than the ESV (e.g. "storm" instead of "tempest"; "plagues" instead of "pestilences"; "warrior" instead of "man of war") and it uses more modern English syntax and less backwards Yoda-speak than the ESV, though there is still some. In general, the NASB 2020 flows quite smoothly for a "literal" (formally equivalent) translation, and it is often a delight to read as well, whereas the NASB95 was a fine literal translation but it did read somewhat more clunky to me. Although in fairness I never thought the NASB95 readability was as bad as many critics have said it was.
3. Others have pointed out that the NASB 2020 is overall more "literal" (formally equivalent) than even the NASB95. Apparently the NASB 2020 is not as literal as the NASB77, or the LSB, but it moves much closer in that direction than the NASB95. Personally, I haven't done an assessment about which NASB/LSB is the most "literal" so I can't say with any degree of confidence (though my guess would be the LSB), but I generally trust competent reviewers and scholars when they evaluate Bible translations.
4. The main thing I don't like about the NASB 2020 is its variety in translating the Hebrew word hesed. The NASB95 and the LSB primarily translate hesed as lovingkindness, the ESV as steadfast love, the CSB as faithful love, the NIV as unfailing love or simply flattened it as love, the NLT as unfailing love, and so on. However, the NASB 2020 translates hesed with a lot more variety - lovingkindness, love, mercy, compassion, faithfulness, etc. Personally I wish the NASB 2020 had primarily stuck with lovingkindness or another term like loyal love. It's not a dealbreaker, I still really like the NASB 2020, but I do wish it had been a bit more consistent in how it translated hesed. Of course, I realize a term like hesed has a wide semantic range, and hence why it shouldn't necessarily always have the same English term. But still my impression is the NASB 2020 errs a little too much on the side of variety than consistency with regard to hesed.
5. I think it would be in Lockman's interests to change the name of the NASB to something else because I think many non-American English speakers kind of balk at the name (e.g. Brits, Aussies, Kiwis). It'd be like if we had a Bible translation called the New Australian Standard Bible or the British Commonwealth Bible. This would make it seem like it's not a Bible translation primarily meant for Americans or only secondarily at best. So even though they might say the NASB is a very good translation, just the name alone might be a bit off-putting to them. Again, I suspect it'd be better if Lockman changed the name to something else like the LSB has done. I think that might help them better appeal to a wider audience.
6. Overall I probably prefer the LSB over the NASB 2020 if push came to shove - and this is considering that I tend to lean toward thinking the translation philosophy of lexical and syntactical correspondence or concordance is a bit misguided in the LSB - but nevertheless they're both very good translations. Indeed we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Bible translations in English.

Traduttore, traditore

Someone said:

If you don't know what the original language of a text was written in, then you are 100% dependent on someone telling you what the source language says. Every translation is going to be wrong somewhere. I know this becawh use I used to be an interpreter for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing. It's is not possible to fully convey every word and concept from one language to another.

For what it's worth, if anything, here's my amateurish attempt at an answer:

Is the gospel larger than sola fide?

Many Evangelicals have cited Galatians and other parts of scripture against Roman Catholicism and other groups they think hold a false gospel. A common response has been to cite passages in the Bible that refer to the gospel without defining it the way those Evangelicals are defining it (Mark 1:1, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, etc.).

The Diversity Of Baptismal Beliefs And Practices In The Medieval Era

It's often claimed that every Christian before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that only heretics opposed it, that only an extremely small number of Christians did, or some such thing. That kind of claim simultaneously makes the concept of justification apart from baptism look weaker and baptismal regeneration look stronger.

But many people believed in justification apart from baptism prior to the Reformation, as I've documented elsewhere. And among those who assigned some type of soteriological efficacy to baptism, there was widespread disagreement about the sort of efficacy involved, and soteriological efficacy was also attributed to other rituals (or sacraments, ceremonies, or whatever you want to call them): the laying on of hands, foot washing, etc. See here for a discussion of many examples from the patristic era. So, justification apart from baptism was more widely held before the Reformation than is typically suggested, and there wasn't the sort of unified alternative to it that we're told there was. Rather, there was a wide diversity of alternatives.

The Sin Of Simplicity

Proverbs warns about being simple-minded. "How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?" (1:22) The simple should become wise rather than remaining simple (Psalm 19:7).

Despite all of the advantages people in modern cultures have in intellectual contexts - higher literacy rates, more widespread formal education, better technology that includes more access to information, more political freedoms, etc. - it's common for people to not only be too simple in their thinking, but to even treat it as something virtuous and respectable. Supposedly, it's good that they're such simple people who don't learn much about a subject or mature in other ways.

Jesus told us that having more makes you responsible for more (Luke 12:48). Given the intellectual advantages we have in contexts like the United States, we should have much more to show for those advantages than we do.

Be careful not to encourage simplicity where you shouldn't. The immaturity of your children, people in your church, or people in YouTube threads, for example, should be discouraged rather than encouraged. They should be held to a higher rather than lower standard and should be expected to mature over time. That includes maturing intellectually and becoming more active in disseminating information rather than perpetually looking for other people to provide the information.

The Recent Resurrection Discussion Between Mike Licona And Dale Allison

Mike posted it on his YouTube channel here. The recording is incomplete. It stops partway through the question-and-answer segment. I don't know if there's a longer recording available anywhere. For now, I'll respond to the incomplete one linked above.

More Evidence That Irenaeus Attributed The Fourth Gospel To John The Son Of Zebedee

It's sometimes claimed that Irenaeus thought the fourth gospel was written by some other John, often referred to as John the Elder. I recently saw Tom Schmidt link a good article on the subject from Charles Hill. Here are some portions of Hill's argument, though the article includes a lot more:

Four of the five unequivocal references to the son of Zebedee [in Irenaeus] are found in a single chapter [of Against Heresies]: book three, chapter twelve. The last of these comes in 3.12.15, where Irenaeus says, “Thus did the apostles, whom the Lord made witnesses of every action and of every doctrine – for upon all occasions do we find Peter, and James, and John present with Him – scrupulously act according to the dispensation of the Mosaic law ...” The natural question arising from this statement would be, why would “all occasions” not include events recorded in the Gospel according to John? Irenaeus did not isolate John’s Gospel from the others as a maverick, renegade, or borderline-orthodox Gospel, but interpreted all four in the light of each other. So, when Peter and the rest reclined at supper with Jesus on the night he was betrayed, and Peter motioned to the disciple next to Jesus, the disciple whom Jesus loved – whom Irenaeus knows as a man named John –, why wouldn’t this John be the same John who is “upon all occasions” present with Peter and James as witness of every action and doctrine of Jesus (Jn 13:23–25)? Or, when Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved – whom Irenaeus knows as John – ran together to the tomb upon receiving Mary’s report (Jn 20:2–10). Or, when Jesus after his resurrection met seven of his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias and “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved [the disciple Irenaeus knows as John], following them” and asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” (Jn 21:21). How is anyone supposed to think that this John is another John, and not the one that is found with Peter and James on all occasions?...

I mentioned earlier that the only way one could argue that John the Evangelist, if he was not one of the twelve, could in some sense be called an apostle “sent” by Jesus [as Irenaeus believed to be true of the author of the fourth gospel], would be by arguing that he was present among Jesus’ disciples when Jesus gave his sending commission in Jn 20:21: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” – although here the word πέμπω and not ἀποστέλλω is used for Jesus’ sending of the disciples. But if John was present that evening, and only members of the twelve were present, then John was one of the twelve – that is, one of the ten remaining. Again, this is how both Irenaeus and the Marcosians read the Johannine Great Commission. It is also how Cyprian, in the middle of the third century read it: “And again, in the Gospel, when Christ breathed on the apostles alone, saying, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost ...’”

(n. 75 on 53, 60-61)

The Cumulative Case For A Christian Understanding Of Psalm 22

I want to put links to some of the relevant posts in our archives in one place:

Is Psalm 22 Messianic?
The Jewishness Of The Individual In Psalm 22
How Well The Psalm Aligns With Roman Crucifixion
How Verse 16 Should Be Rendered
The Individual In Psalm 22 Is Delivered From Death
The Events Of Psalm 22 Are Highly Influential Geographically And Chronologically
Is Psalm 22 too vague to have evidential value for Christianity?
How Well Psalm 22 Aligns With Other Old Testament Passages That Have Evidential Value For Christianity

Is Psalm 22 too vague?

One of the popular objections to Christian arguments for prophecy fulfillment is that the prophetic passages are too vague. Can Psalm 22 be dismissed that way?

Is Psalm 22 Messianic?

A common objection to Christian arguments for prophecy fulfillment is that the Old Testament passages don't identify themselves as Messianic. But they wouldn't have to in order to have evidential significance.

Prophecy fulfillment can have evidential value without the prophecy being Messianic, explicitly identifying itself as Messianic, or anything like that. The Messianic nature of a passage can be implicit rather than explicit. And a passage doesn't have to be Messianic to provide evidence for Christianity. Christians consider Jesus the Messiah, but there are many subcategories to the category of Messiah. A prophecy could refer to one of those subcategories without addressing the larger category. And, from a Christian perspective, Jesus is more than the Messiah. So, Messianic prophecy isn't all that's relevant.

With Psalm 22, what we have is a psalm that's attributed to David, but we don't know of anything in David's life that even comes close to fulfilling the passage, and the contents of the psalm are of such a nature that they're highly unlikely to have happened in David's life in some context that's not part of any of our extant records of his life. Then we have the fact that David is often assigned a lot of Messianic significance elsewhere in the Old Testament, such as being an ancestor of the Messiah. And the geographical and chronological influence of the figure in the psalm (verses 27-31) suggests a highly significant and influential individual. That doesn't require a Messianic understanding of the psalm, but a Messianic fulfillment helps make sense of those closing verses. It adds coherence to the psalm. Furthermore, we know that a later figure widely considered the Messiah, Jesus, died in a manner that aligns well with the psalm and was thought to have experienced a deliverance from that death (his resurrection). The themes of death and deliverance from it are prominent elsewhere in material Christians (and others) have argued is Messianic elsewhere in the Old Testament, and the psalm fits well with those passages (as discussed here, for example). For reasons like these, it makes sense to consider the passage Messianic, though implicitly rather than explicitly.

That's a secondary issue, though. The psalm doesn't have to be considered Messianic in order for Jesus' fulfillment of it to be evidentially valuable. Even if you identify the figure in the passage as a highly influential Jewish individual or whatever else other than calling him the Messiah, Jesus' alignment with the passage makes more sense as something supernatural than something natural. That's the primary issue, not whether the psalm should be categorized as Messianic.

The Closing Verses Of Psalm 22 Favor A Christian Interpretation Of The Psalm

One of the aspects of Psalm 22 that doesn't get enough attention is how the psalm ends. The individual in the passage is approaching death (verses 15 and 20-21), apparently at the hands of the enemies mentioned in the psalm, who are likened to animals. He asks for deliverance from those enemies, but says nothing of deliverance from some other manner of death, like an illness. And he is delivered. We're not told how he's delivered, but we're told that he is (verses 22-24). Verses 27-31 refer 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. Those verses refer to widespread influence both geographically and chronologically.

That's happened on a large scale with Jesus. There have been widespread discussions of his execution in Christian and non-Christian sources from the first century onward.

By contrast, none of the many records we have of David's life describe anything even close to what Psalm 22 depicts. It seems unlikely, given what we know of David's life, that events such as those described in Psalm 22 happened to him. So, a fulfillment in David's life seems unlikely upfront, and it isn't referred to elsewhere in the oldest records we have of his life. An advocate of David's fulfillment of the passage could appeal to the psalm itself as evidence, but the widespread influence described in the closing verses of the psalm make more sense if they refer to something that would be discussed elsewhere as well.

The Christian understanding of the passage not only has the psalm itself recording the events, but also has the events being widely discussed from early on after the events, both geographically and chronologically, in contexts independent of Psalm 22. The closing verses of the psalm make more sense under the traditional Christian understanding.

Missing The Prophetic Forest For The Trees

Discussions of prophecy fulfillment often get overly focused on a certain aspect of a passage to the neglect of others. A lot of attention will be given to how to render verse 16 in Psalm 22, but other parts of the psalm that are significant will be ignored. Or whether verse 6 in Isaiah 9 is identifying the figure in the passage as God will be debated while other parts of the passage that are important don't get discussed.

One Way To Judge Skeptical Claims About Prophecy

Skeptics often object to Christian prophecy fulfillment on the basis that the prophecies supposedly are too vague, that many people could be said to have fulfilled the passages, that it's easy to fabricate alleged fulfillments by reading a later figure into the Old Testament, etc. One way, among others, of responding to such objections is to ask the skeptic to illustrate his claim with other historical figures. What sort of prophetic argument can be made for Buddha or Muhammad, for example? I've written about this subject before with regard to Muhammad, here and here. Another example of this kind of thing is the dismissive comments skeptics often make about Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy. See how much worse their explanations of the passage are. See my post here responding to Carol Newsom's commentary on Daniel, for example.

Advocates Of Baptismal Regeneration Rely On Implicit Arguments

In a post last year, I discussed several implicit lines of evidence for belief in justification apart from baptism among the early extrabiblical sources. As I mentioned there, all of us rely on implicit reasoning across many contexts in life, including when making judgments about Biblical and patristic issues. You wouldn't be able to function for a single day in your life without relying on implicit reasoning at some point. I gave some examples of how advocates of baptismal regeneration use some implicit arguments to support their own position. Yet, people often reject implicit arguments because of their implicit rather than explicit nature, or they assign implicit arguments less significance than those arguments actually have. Even many opponents of baptismal regeneration seem to get taken in by that sort of bad reasoning, to the point that they won't cite any extrabiblical sources who seem to support their view in an implicit way, since the evidence isn't explicit. Whether that's due to peer pressure, confusing a preference for explicit evidence with a need for it, or whatever else, it's a mistake.

Does walking without sight mean walking without evidence?

John 20:29, 2 Corinthians 5:7, and Hebrews 11:1 are often abused for anti-apologetic purposes. It happened again during a recent discussion between Alex O'Connor and Rhett McLaughlin. There are a lot of other problems with their discussion, but I want to focus on the misuse of the three Biblical passages I just mentioned. I want to address that misuse among skeptics in general, not just Alex and Rhett.

More Pre-Reformation Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Lollards

I've discussed their support for Reformation views in other posts, like here and here. And here's one about a book on Lollard heresy trials in the first half of the fifteenth century.

Updated Recommendations For Bible Study Resources

The 2026 update for Denver Seminary's Old Testament bibliography is now available here. For their 2026 New Testament bibliography, go here. And here's a link to the Best Commentaries site, which has a lot of useful information. For Steve Hays' bibliography, updated shortly before his death in 2020, go here.

The Death Of Stephen Braude

He died last Saturday. He was a major figure in paranormal research. I learned a lot from him. He had a rare combination of breadth and depth of knowledge of the field, carefulness, and communication skills. He worked at an unusually high level in a context that's unusually difficult, one that's been neglected and is often despised, despite being so important. One of the ways you can measure somebody's significance is how often you wanted to hear from him in important contexts. There were many times over the years when a paranormal issue came up, and I wanted to hear from Stephen Braude.

You can find him referred to in a lot of places in our archives, by me and by others who have posted here. Here's a Psi Encyclopedia article that provides an overview of his life and paranormal work. I've often recommended his book The Gold Leaf Lady (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2007) as an introduction to the paranormal. I'd still recommend it as a good place to start, both in terms of an introduction to the paranormal and as an introduction to Braude. Here's a video he participated in around the time the book came out. It's about fifteen minutes long and will provide you with an overview of Braude's background and the book. I've also linked this video in the past, in which Braude discusses some of the paranormal cases he studied the most, like the Ted Serios case. During the last several years of his life, Braude did some interviews about various paranormal topics with Jeffrey Mishlove. You can find them by running a search with Braude's name at Mishlove's YouTube channel.

The Cumulative Effect Of The Pre-Irenaean Sources On Gospel Authorship

I've sometimes linked a collection of resources I put together on the best and earliest evidence for the authorship of the gospels. A mistake that can be made when evaluating that kind of evidence is to view the information in too isolated a manner. There's a cumulative effect to the evidence, and sometimes two or more things take on an added significance when considered together, a significance they wouldn't have if considered individually.

The Maturing Of Matthew And John

I want to expand on some things I said in my last post. When somebody like Bart Ehrman refers to the unlikelihood that the average first-century Jew without much of an education, an ancient fisherman like John, etc. would compose a document like the gospel of Matthew or the gospel of John, there are other factors involved that are being neglected.

The Ehrman/Licona Debate On Gospel Authorship

Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona recently debated the subject. I listened to the debate while doing something else and didn't take notes, so I'll just be summarizing some points that have come to mind after listening to the debate. Mike had some good things to say, but I want to supplement what he offered.

An Interview With Stephen Carlson On Christmas Issues

I recently saw a Facebook post from Chris Powell that linked an interview with Stephen Carlson about some Christmas issues. Carlson makes a lot of good points about the meaning and historicity of the infancy narratives, especially Luke 2. The interview is about an hour long and is well worth listening to. You should also read his article on Luke 2, which is one of the best resources available on Luke's census account and some other issues.

I disagree with some of what he says during the interview. I would date Luke's gospel earlier, for reasons I've explained here, among other places.

Know Why You're Here

“I have food to eat that you do not know about. . . . My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” John 4:32–34

Jesus ate obedience.

Few things are more energizing than to know why we are here and do it.

— John Piper (@JohnPiper) October 5, 2024

The Time More Hoped For Than All The Centuries

"The inhabiter and founder of the heavens lived on earth so that the human person, the earth-dweller, might travel to heaven. O day more lightsome than all the sun! O time more hoped for than all the centuries! What the angels were waiting for, what the seraphim and cherubim and the mysteries of heaven did not know - this has been revealed in our time. What they saw through a glass and in mere semblance we perceive in reality." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 45:1, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 249)

Does the behavior of the figures involved in Matthew 2 make sense?

I've seen some recent skeptical videos that repeat the common objection that the behavior of the people involved in Matthew 2 doesn't make sense (God's behavior, the behavior of Herod, the behavior of the magi, etc.). We've addressed those issues many times over the years, and I want to gather some of those responses in one place. Here are five posts I've written that address the topic to one extent or another: one, two, three, four, and five. And here's one Steve Hays wrote.

The Discussion Of Jesus' Birthplace Between Jimmy Akin And Bart Ehrman

I just listened to it live. There's supposed to be a recording available within a few days, but I'll just go by my memory and notes for now.

A Summary Of The Evidence Against A Pagan Holiday As The Basis Of Christmas

Tom Schmidt is in the midst of posting a Twitter thread on the subject, which he started earlier this month. He also linked a recent Twitter thread by Tim O'Neill about English Heritage retracting its claim that the December 25 date was taken from paganism.

Did Paul believe in the virgin birth?

C.J. Cornthwaite recently produced a video that's partly about the subject. I want to make several points in response:

Luke 3:38 And The Virgin Birth

The reference to Adam as "the son of God" in Luke 3:38 is unusual. And Jesus had just been referred to as the Son of God in Luke 3:22, right before the genealogy. The concept of Jesus' being the Son of God is a prominent theme in early Christianity, in Luke's writings and elsewhere. The similar terminology involved in the references to Jesus and Adam, the proximity between the references to Jesus' Sonship and Adam's, and the unusualness of referring to Adam as a son of God make more sense if Luke is paralleling the two.

They can be paralleled in multiple ways. Adam's initial sinlessness is reminiscent of Jesus' sinlessness, Adam's initial good relationship with God is reminiscent of Jesus' good relationship with the Father, etc. But the reference to Adam's sonship is in a genealogy, so it makes the most sense to focus on a parallel in terms of origins or begetting.

That doesn't single out a virgin birth. Jesus, in his humanity, could have been created without a father or mother, as Adam was. But the parallel could also be partial, so that Jesus' humanity comes from God's intervention, without sexual intercourse, even though he has one or more human parents. Isaac is referred to in the genealogy as the son of Abraham (verse 34), without being referred to in any unusual way, unlike Adam, which provides some evidence that Luke has something more in mind than just the sort of Divine intervention involved in Isaac's conception. The wording of verse 38 doesn't single out the virgin birth, but it leads us in the direction of some sort of Divine intervention in Jesus' origins beyond what we see with Isaac. The larger context, in Luke's gospel and in early Christianity more broadly, provides us with further information, including the fact that Jesus was born of a virgin. Most likely, both Luke 3:23 and 3:38 are alluding to the virgin birth.

That provides us with another example of how the material in Luke 1-2 is reflected in later chapters of the gospel, despite what critics often allege to the contrary. For other examples, see here.

Early Extrabiblical Sources On Jesus' Childhood

It's sometimes argued that the infancy narratives were added to Matthew and/or Luke sometime after the documents were originally published, perhaps even as late as around the time of Marcion. Or an infancy narrative will be considered part of the original document, but the document will be dated late, such as in the 90s or even sometime in the second century.

If Jesus was born outside Bethlehem, would the ancient sources be so unsupportive of that conclusion?

Critics of the Bethlehem birthplace often act as if they're confident that Jesus wasn't born there or that he was born in Nazareth instead. I've addressed their arguments many times, such as in the posts collected here. The article here argues for the likelihood that the early Christians and their opponents had access to reliable information on Jesus' birthplace and the likelihood that they obtained that information. For a brief overview of the evidence for the Bethlehem birthplace, do a Ctrl F search on "shows" here and go to the last hyphenated section here for information on ancient non-Christian sources. What I want to focus on in this post is something I wrote in a Facebook thread a few years ago. This is about whether evidence was lost or suppressed for a false date Jesus and the early Christians had set for the second coming. The same principles can be applied to the notion that Jesus was born outside Bethlehem, but that the evidence for that birthplace was lost or suppressed:

The Value Of Geographical Issues In The Christmas Context

I wrote a post a few years ago about a geographical argument for prophecy fulfillment related to Christmas. It's based on Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 9:1. I want to discuss a few of the reasons why such geographical factors are evidentially significant, both in the context of prophecy and in other contexts:

Two Important Verses For Framing The Chronology Of Jesus' Childhood

The first is more commonly discussed, but is sometimes neglected. Matthew 2:16 suggests that Jesus was somewhat close to two years old when the events in the surrounding context occurred. See here, including the comments section, and here for discussions of the passage. The timing of the Matthew 2 events goes a long way in explaining why Matthew's material is so different than Luke's (the two authors are covering different timeframes) and addresses other objections.

The other verse to keep in mind, which is seldom understood or discussed as it should be, is Luke 1:56. See my post on the passage here and my explanation of some of its implications here, for example, among other posts in our archives that discuss it. Joseph and Mary probably went to Bethlehem during the first half of her pregnancy, not at the end of it. Luke 2:4 picks up where 1:56 left off. If you understand Luke 1:56 and its implications rightly, other issues in Luke and elsewhere will fall into their proper place, and some objections that are often brought up will be weakened or eliminated.

Points To Make In Support Of A Traditional Christian View Of Jesus' Childhood

A lot depends on the audience you're addressing. Talking to a doubting Christian is different than talking to a Jesus mythicist who's highly antagonistic to Christianity. But here are a few good points to make, with links to posts that discuss the issues further:

Abraham In Matthew 1 And The Virgin Birth

One of the problems with the popular claim that the concept of a virgin birth was borrowed from paganism is that it would be so easy for anybody to come up with the idea without doing any borrowing. And pushing the earlier virgin birth claim into paganism just pushes the question back a step. Where did the initial pagan source get the idea? If pagans could come up with it without borrowing, so could Jews, including the early Christians.

The first two verses of Matthew mention Abraham. And verse 2 mentions his begetting of Isaac. That was a miraculous conception, though not a virginal one. Matthew may have begun his genealogy with Abraham because Abraham is the father of the Jewish people. Or he may have started the genealogy with Abraham because of the similarity between the miraculous conception of Isaac and the miraculous conception of Jesus. Or starting with Abraham may have been chosen for both reasons. Whatever the case, the opening two verses of Matthew's gospel illustrate how easily a virgin birth claim could originate without any significant influence from paganism. It's not much of a step from Isaac's miraculous conception to the miraculous conception of Jesus. And the remainder of Matthew's gospel is highly Jewish and anti-pagan.

Why are the women in Matthew's genealogy included?

There are ongoing disagreements about why Matthew refers to Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in Matthew 1:3-6. It's sometimes suggested that they're included because of the theme of God's acceptance of Gentiles. That theme is prominent in early Christianity, including in the gospel of Matthew, as the magi in chapter 2 illustrate. But Bathsheba apparently was Jewish. She lived in Isarael. In 2 Samuel 11:3, her father is referred to as Eliam, with no further qualifier, whereas the same verse qualifies Uriah as "the Hittite". See, also, 2 Samuel 23:34. If Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba, which would be further evidence of her Jewishness, that would help explain why Ahithophel betrayed David (because of what David did to Bathsheba). Matthew 1:16 includes Mary, who was Jewish, in a way similar to how the other women are included earlier. Furthermore, when Bathsheba is referred to in verse 6, she's identified as the wife of Uriah, not "the wife of a Hittite", "the wife of Uriah the Hittite", or some other such thing. And she's referred to as Uriah's wife in a context about giving birth to Solomon after marrying David. She wasn't Uriah's wife at the time, yet Matthew chose to mention that she had been Uriah's wife. The focus seems to be on the adulterous origins of her relationship with David, not any connection to Gentiles. Matthew probably didn't think Ruth was guilty of sexual sin, and he didn't think Mary was, so he didn't think the women had sexual sin in common. Even the women who were sexually immoral were so in significantly different ways. For example, Rahab's background as a prostitute is substantially different than conceiving the child mentioned in the genealogy by means of sexual immorality. It also seems unlikely that the women were all thought to have had a low social status independent of issues like sexual immorality (being born into a disreputable family, being of low economic status, etc.). As explained above, Matthew highlight's Bathsheba's involvement in adultery, which is distinct from the sort of social status issues I just referred to. What's the common thread with these women, then?

Christmas Resources 2025

Since Jesus' childhood spanned so many years and so many issues are involved, there's no quick and easy way to address everything. But I've put together a collection of approaches that can be taken to begin an argument for a traditional Christian view of his childhood. See here.

It's important to be knowledgeable about how much Matthew and Luke agree concerning the childhood of Jesus. They agree more than is usually suggested. See the post here for forty examples of the agreements between Matthew and Luke. For a discussion of the agreements among other early sources, go here. The post here discusses some neglected evidence related to the church of Ephesus. For some recommendations about how to argue that the early sources agree more than people often suggest, see this post.

Isaiah 9:1-7 is significant in the context of Christmas (e.g., what it tells us about Jesus' self-perception, demonstrating continuity between the accounts of his childhood and the accounts of his adulthood). Here's a collection of posts about the passage.

Here are some examples of our posts on Christmas issues, with many others available in our archives:

They Would Have Died To Pray As We Do

In addition to being grateful for prayer, we should be grateful for the types of prayer we can offer:

And when we look back, we have so much more to say than they [the pre-Christian Israelites] did, don’t we? Our past is even better than their past, because we know Jesus. They could remember what God did in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in Canaan, but we have Bethlehem and Calvary. We can pray,

Jesus, you came into our world, born in a manger.
For our sake, you were obedient to the point of death/on a cross.
You were pierced for our transgressions.
You were crushed for our iniquities.
You were wounded so that we might be healed.
You were poor so that we could become rich.
You suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
And three days later, you rose to conquer death and give us life.

The Sons of Korah couldn’t say that yet, so they said, “You restored. You forgave. You covered.” They would have died to pray the kinds of prayers we get to pray, the prayers we pray every day — in Jesus’s name.

(Marshall Segal)

How Often The Church Fathers "Demeaned" Mary

Boniface Ramsey, in his translation of the sermons of Maximus of Turin, refers to passages in which Maximus "demeans" Mary (The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], n. 1 on p. 365). Given Roman Catholicism's history of claiming that Mary is God's greatest creation, that she was sinless throughout her life, that she cooperated with Jesus' work in the world at every moment of her life, and so on, it doesn't take much to say something that demeans Mary from a Catholic perspective. For example:

Implicit Exclusions Of Baptismal Regeneration In Early Christian Literature

As I discussed in another post, we find baptismal regeneration contradicted in a large number and variety of ways in the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation. Sometimes an exclusion of baptism as a means of justification is implicit rather than explicit.

And people will often object to the use of implicit evidence. But we all rely on it. For example, we depend on implicit evidence when deciding how to translate a word in a document, basing our conclusion on what the surrounding context seems to imply. Christians have often said, rightly, that it's unreasonable for a Muslim to ask us for a passage in the gospels in which Jesus says "I am God. Worship me." or some equivalent. A term like "Trinity" doesn't have to appear in the Bible for Trinitarianism to be Biblical. Roman Catholics often use arguments from typology that aren't explicit. And so on. Advocates of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in the context of supporting that doctrine. The appeal to alleged references to baptism in terms like "water" in John 3:5 and "washing" in Titus 3:5 relies on implicit argumentation, so does their reasoning that baptismal regeneration has been in effect during certain circumstances and not in others (e.g., not being applicable during the Old Testament era and some portion or all of Jesus' public ministry), etc. Since proponents of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in their reasoning about the subject, they're not in a position to object to their opponents' use of implicit argumentation. The fact that we prefer explicit evidence doesn't mean that implicit evidence has no value. Something can be less valuable, yet still have value to some extent. The nature of life is such that evidence comes in both implicit and explicit forms, with people sometimes disagreeing about whether something is implicit or explicit, and we have to take all of the evidence into account.

How Later Church Fathers Disagree With Earlier Ones

Sometimes a disagreement is more obvious, such as the comments of a later church father who explicitly refers to his disagreement with the premillennialism of Papias or Irenaeus. Other times, the disagreement is more subtle.

For example, I've written before about how Irenaeus compares Mary's virginity to the virginity of soil that was "as yet" virgin, but would later lose its virginity. Contrast his comments with those of Maximus of Turin, who wrote more than two centuries later, after the perpetual virginity of Mary had become more popular. I'll quote Irenaeus, then quote Maximus with emphasis added to highlight a difference:

"And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil ('for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground'), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for 'all things were made by Him,' and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:21:10)

"For Adam was born of the virgin earth and Christ was begotten of the virgin Mary; the maternal soil of the one had not yet been broken by hoes, while the hidden place of the other's maternity was never violated by desire." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 50A:2, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 122)

Where Irenaeus sees a parallel, Maximus goes out of his way to describe a contrast. (And you can read my post on Irenaeus linked above for further evidence that he didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin. For more about the larger historical context surrounding Irenaeus, in which we see other opponents of the perpetual virginity of Mary in many places for hundreds of years, see here, here, and here, for example.)

How strong is the Christian argument against polygamy?

Polygamy has been getting some attention lately in response to a pastor's announcement that he's married a second wife. Ben Shapiro recently addressed the subject on one of his programs and had Matt Fradd on to discuss it with him. Both men made a Biblical case against polygamy, but far less of a case than they should have made. Their comments about the extrabiblical evidence likewise fell well short of what could have been offered. Matt was focused on church authority and didn't say much about the church fathers and other early extrabiblical sources, where there's early and widespread evidence against polygamy. The use of Roman Catholicism's authority claims is problematic, since those claims are false and end up leading Catholicism's defenders to making unverifiable appeals to doctrinal development, what ecclesiology they think would be fitting, and so forth.

Support for polygamy has been increasing substantially in recent years. More than one out of five Americans consider it morally acceptable now, which is about a tripling of its support over the past couple of decades. See Gallup's polling results on moral issues here. And here's an article on the subject published by Gallup in 2017. Support for polygamy has gone up a few more percentage points since then.

About twenty years ago, I wrote a post discussing the evidence against polygamy in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the early extrabiblical sources. I added some other posts over the years in the comments section of that thread, including some interactions with defenders of polygamy. Matthew Schultz posted an article here in 2011 that discusses how negatively polygamy is portrayed in the Bible. My initial thread on polygamy, linked above, discussed a lot of extrabiblical sources, but didn't include Minucius Felix. Here's a later post in which I cited his comments about the Christian rejection of polygamy.

More About Maximus Of Turin And Eternal Security

I've written some posts over the years about belief in eternal security before the Reformation. Contrary to what's often asserted by critics of eternal security, the concept was held in various forms by some extrabiblical sources before the Reformation, as my series linked above argues.

In one of those posts, I cited some comments the Roman Catholic scholar Brian Daley made about Maximus of Turin. Since then, I've read a collection of Maximus' sermons, and I think Daley's comments should be supplemented. While there is some material in Maximus that seems to support eternal security, there's also some that seems to go against it if taken in isolation. I think more should be said than what Daley provides, so you can scroll to the bottom of that post just linked for an update I just added.

Encouragement To Keep Writing

We should be involved in both oral and written discussions with people, and both have advantages and disadvantages. I've written before about my philosophy regarding activities like evangelism and apologetics, based partly on what Paul articulates in Colossians 4:5. Christians should be making the most of whatever opportunities they have, which obviously can't be limited to contexts involving writing. But, as I mentioned in another post, it's become common for people to make derogatory, dismissive comments about the internet (as they often have about other forms of new technology and new platforms on existing technology), and a majority of the opportunities most people have on the internet involve writing.

What originally attracted people to platforms like YouTube and Twitter?

They've changed since they originated, and we need to distinguish between what these platforms are offering today and what they offered in the past. The fact that Twitter now allows people to post larger amounts of material doesn't change the fact that you could only post smaller amounts when the platform originated. And now that people can post more, how many users make use of that feature? The large majority of users don't post anything. And among those who do post, probably the large majority of those individuals still just post brief comments, often one sentence or a fragment of a sentence, typically without any supporting arguments, documentation, etc. And when a user posts something lengthier, there will often be complaints that it's too long, even if it's only a few sentences or some other small amount. Similarly, the fact that you can get somewhat good transcripts of YouTube videos today doesn't mean that you could do so when YouTube originated or that more than a small percentage of users access that feature now that it's available.

The Popularity Of Being Overly Negative About The Internet

Since it's so popular to be highly negative about the internet, often to the point of saying nothing or far too little about the many positive aspects of it, I want to discuss the positives. I'm grateful to live at the time in history in which God has placed me, and that's partly because I consider the internet so beneficial.

What should Christians do with things like the internet and social media platforms?

More than 1500 years ago, Augustine expressed some of his reasons for preferring a written debate over an oral one:

Why is there so much neglect of the argument from prophecy?

It's widely neglected both in terms of quantity and quality. There are some pastors, apologists, and other individuals who are otherwise highly involved in relevant contexts, yet I don't recall ever seeing them argue for Christianity from the evidence for prophecy fulfillment. Or somebody will only use the argument to a ridiculously small extent. I occasionally hear people go as far as to say that they don't think there's any value to the argument from prophecy or that they think there's only some extremely small number of prophecy arguments they consider worth using. Contrast that to how prominent prophecy is in the Old Testament and how prominent appeals to fulfillment are in the New Testament and the early extrabiblical literature.

Steve Hays ebooks 6

Led by the Shepherd has led the way to a triumphant end! This is the last of Steve Hays' ebooks, and (as Steve intimated shortly before crossing the river Jordan) one of his most personally beloved. Many thanks again to Led by the Shepherd for his fine work. I trust the Lord will reward him for faithfully shepherding Steve's work to completion. And may the Lord gather and guide on the pilgrim path each who reads this ebook so we walk it to meet in the Promised Land. SDG. (Previous batch here.)

• Pilgrim through This Barren Land (epub)
• Pilgrim through This Barren Land (pdf)

By the way, the great John Hendryx over at Monergism has done beautiful editions of each of Steve's eBooks as well. Please consider supporting him if able. Monergism has done a tremendous service for the Lord and his people over many years which continues unabated today, and the newly revamped Puritan and other eBooks look better than ever. Here is the Monergism edition of Steve's latest eBook, Pilgrim through This Barren Land.

Interpretations Of Interpretations

We're often told that disagreements over how to interpret scripture suggest that we should look to extrabiblical sources to interpret scripture for us. There's some validity to that notion, as long as due weight is being assigned to the evidence scripture itself provides and the extrabiblical sources are being handled appropriately. But when you get to the extrabiblical sources, such as the church fathers, you find that they sometimes seem unclear, inconsistent, or problematic in some other way. Even where there isn't a problem, or much of a problem, with those extrabiblical sources, different people interpret them differently. It's similar to the situation with scripture. And if you look to other sources, such as scholarship, to clarify the extrabiblical sources in question, you find that there sometimes are ambiguities, disagreements, etc. among those sources as well.

Circumstances like these range across a spectrum. There's less disagreement on some issues than others. But the need for going to extrabiblical sources and how much help they provide are often overestimated.

Elsewhere, I've cited G.W.H. Lampe's comments on the many ambiguities, inconsistencies, and other problems among the patristic sources concerning baptism, the laying on of hands, and other rites. Here are some of Lampe's comments on problems in later sources commenting on the fathers:

"Many modern writers have adopted the unhappy course of trying to pick out from the vast mass of patristic literature on Baptism such texts as favour their own theories. Such methods ignore the confusion to which we have just referred. The Fathers did not try to resolve this confusion as long as the rite of initiation remained one whole, comprising both Baptism and Confirmation, for so long as that state of affairs was maintained the theological difficulties remained latent. It is not therefore surprising to find that, for example, Mason and Umberg were able to discover plenty of authority for the view that the gift of the indwelling Spirit is bestowed by means of the laying on of hands, and not by water-baptism, Wirgman was no less easily able to show that the Fathers taught that the indwelling presence of the Spirit was conferred by water-baptism and that an increase of grace was given for spiritual progress by the laying on of hands, while Thornton finds it equally possible to demonstrate that in the teaching of the Fathers the indwelling of the Spirit is regarded as being withheld until Confirmation, which he associates particularly with anointing. It is also unfortunate that some important books were written on this subject before the date and authorship of some of the relevant documents had been fairly established, and that, as a result, the picture which they present of the historical development of the doctrine of Baptism and Confirmation is distorted." (The Seal Of The Spirit [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004], 194-95)

Chromatius On Opponents Of Mary's Perpetual Virginity

Chromatius of Aquileia, who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries, wrote:

"But concerning what the evangelist said, 'And he did not know her till she brought forth a son' [Matt 1:25], several foolish people are accustomed to stir up a question, thinking that after the Lord's birth saint Mary was united with Joseph." (Thomas Scheck, trans., Chromatius Of Aquileia: Sermons And Tractates On Matthew [Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 2018], approximate Kindle location 3051)

Though Chromatius could be discussing opponents of Mary's perpetual virginity in general, he seems to be limiting his comments to the interpretation of Matthew 1:25 instead. Either way, his use of the term "several" is significant. There surely were some people who held the view in question with whom Chromatius wasn't familiar. So, the total number has to be higher than the several Chromatius refers to. And if he's only commenting on a particular interpretation of Matthew 1:25, then the total number who rejected the perpetual virginity of Mary, whether on the basis of Matthew 1:25 or on other grounds, must have been higher still. Advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary often say or suggest that only one or two individuals or some other extremely small number denied her perpetual virginity before the Reformation (only Helvidius, only Tertullian and Helvidius, etc.). Chromatius' comment suggests the number was higher.

And we have far more than Chromatius' comment to go by. See here and here, for example for discussions of the evidence that many individuals rejected Mary's perpetual virginity for hundreds of years before the Reformation, beginning in the first century and continuing into the medieval era. Rejection of her perpetual virginity seems to have been the more popular view during the earliest generations of church history.

The Wolves Complaining Of The Lambs

"But how deservedly soever we complain that the doctrine of truth was corrupted, and the whole body of Christianity sullied by numerous blemishes, still our censurers deny that this was cause sufficient for so disturbing the Church, and, in a manner, convulsing the whole world. We, indeed, are not so stupid as not to perceive how desirable it is to avoid public tumults, nor so savage as not to be touched, and even to shudder in our inmost soul, on beholding the troubled condition in which the Church now is. But with what fairness is the blame of existing commotions imputed to us, when they have not been, in the least degree, excited by us? Nay, with what face is the crime of disturbing the Church laid to our charge by the very persons who obviously are the authors of all these disturbances? This is just the case of the wolves complaining of the lambs….Nor is this calumny against us without precedent. With the very same charge which we are now forced to hear, wicked Ahab once upbraided Elijah, viz., that he was the disturber of Israel. But the holy Prophet by his reply acquitted us; 'I,' says he, 'have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed Baalim,' (I Kings 18:17, 18.) It is unfair, therefore, to load us with odium, on account of the fierce contest concerning religion which this day rages in Christendom, unless, indeed, it be thought proper first to condemn Elijah, with whom we have a common defense. His sole excuse is, that he had fought only to vindicate the glory and restore the pure worship of God, and he retorts the charge of exciting contention and disturbances upon those who stirred up tumults as a means of resisting the truth." (John Calvin)

A Response To Tony Cornell And Ben Machell Regarding The Enfield Poltergeist

Ben Machell recently published a book about the paranormal that's focused on the late paranormal researcher Tony Cornell, titled Chasing the Dark (New York, New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2025). I found Ben's book to be good for the most part and would recommend it as a resource on the paranormal and on Cornell in particular. But its material on Enfield is bad enough to warrant a response.

One Way Protestants Can Further Their Cause

When you can cite an extrabiblical pre-Reformation source or a source from the Reformation era or later in a given context, make more of an effort to cite the pre-Reformation source. If a church father or a modern theologian could be quoted on a topic, for example, quote the church father. That helps address various problems with ignorance of church history among Protestants, neglect of pre-Reformation sources, mischaracterizations of the historical credibility of Protestantism, etc. I'm not saying you should always cite the pre-Reformation source. That would be simplistic. But it can and should be done more often than it is.

The Widespread Absence Of An Early Papacy

Gavin Ortlund just put out a video that provides a good overview of a lot of the evidence against the papacy. He makes some points I didn't make in my last post, and my post covers some things not included in his video. When you think of the evidence as a whole, notice that there's such a large number and variety of contexts in which the papacy is absent among the early sources. In addition to being absent, the concept of a papacy is sometimes contradicted. I mentioned some examples in my last post. And keep in mind how important Catholics tell us the papacy is, how it's allegedly the foundation of the church, the source of Christian unity, and so on. The First Vatican Council claimed that the papacy is a clear doctrine of scripture that's always been understood by the church. In reality, the papacy isn't in scripture or the earliest extrabiblical sources, and it's sometimes contradicted by those sources.

Some Ways To Argue Against A Papacy

It's useful to think of ways to concisely address a subject. That helps when we don't have much time in a particular context or we're looking for brief way to start a conversation on the topic, for example. In a post a few years ago, I summarized nine lines of evidence to consider when evaluating the papacy:

Regarding the evidence against the papacy outside of Matthew 16, think of the many contexts in which a papacy could have been mentioned early on, but wasn't: there's no reference to a title for a papal office (in contrast to "apostle", "deacon", etc.); the qualifications for holding other offices, like apostle and elder, are mentioned in places like Acts 1 and 1 Timothy 3, whereas there's no such discussion of the qualifications for being a Pope; passages discussing the structure of the church, like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, say nothing of a papacy; the imagery used for the church in Ephesians 2 and elsewhere doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; the imagery used for the apostles in Matthew 19 and elsewhere (e.g., twelve thrones, twelve foundation stones) doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; in passages in which the apostles are anticipating their departure in some sense (Paul departing from the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, Paul and Peter anticipating their deaths in 2 Timothy and 2 Peter), there's no reference to a papal office, looking to the bishop of Rome as the foundation of the church, looking to the bishop of Rome as the center of Christian unity, or anything like that; the earliest sources to comment on the Roman church and its importance (Paul in Romans, Luke at the end of Acts, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, etc.) give a variety of non-papal reasons for the Roman church's significance; the early opponents of Christianity, including ones who addressed the religion at as much length as Trypho and Celsus did, showed no awareness of a papacy. Furthermore, passages like 1 Corinthians 12:28 (mentioning "apostles" as the first order in the church) and Galatians 2:9 (grouping Peter with other apostles and naming him second) make more sense if there was no early belief in a papacy than if there was a belief in it.

Some of the arguments don't have enough significance to use in isolation. They should be part of a cumulative case instead. But some of them could be used in isolation. You could choose one or more to start with, then move on to others if warranted.

Agnosticism On Controversial Issues Before The Reformation

Just as people are often undecided about religious issues in our day, the same was true in past generations. That category of agnosticism is often, I'd say typically, ignored in discussions of historical theology, especially pre-Reformation church history.

We'll be told that everybody before the Reformation held such-and-such a view, but the fact that some individuals were agnostic on the subject won't be mentioned. (Probably often because the person making the claim about what everybody believed isn't aware of that agnosticism.)

For example, as I've mentioned before, some individuals were agnostic about whether Mary was assumed to heaven. That agnosticism persisted even into the second millennium of church history. See, for example, the entries on Aelred of Rievaulx, Isaac of Stella, and Peter of Celle in Michael O'Carroll's Theotokos (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988).

Another example of this kind of thing is discussed in Craig Atwood's book on the Hussites, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). On page 180, he refers to some pre-Reformation Hussites who "wanted to leave up to God the question of whether the [eucharistic] bread changed or remained bread".

We see this sort of thing frequently in our day, with predestination, eschatology, church government, and whatever else. We need to keep in mind that people were sometimes agnostic on religious issues prior to the Reformation as well. People tend to focus on opposition to a belief when thinking about an alternative to the claim that everybody held that belief before the Reformation. But we need to remember that agnosticism is another category that's relevant. The people who were agnostic about the subject shouldn't be grouped with the people who affirmed the belief in question.

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 3)

Murray Wagner refers to how Petr Chelcicky "denounced the doctrine of purgatory...Chelcicky's rejection of purgatory has its precedent among the Waldenses and Lollards and is paralleled in the Taborite demand that chantries for the dead and intercessory prayers to the saints also be abolished." (Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 121-23) Wagner refers to how Chelcicky ridiculed "the veneration of saints" (127) and was "critical of prayers of intercession to the saints" (143). Craig Atwood refers to Taborite opposition to images (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 118). Katerina Hornickova writes:

In reality, the view of saints’ merits and intervention in Hussite and Utraquist teaching varied among different fractions of the religious movement, from refusal by the radicals to acceptance by conservatives....

With the influence of Matthew of Janov, and wyclifite ideas on the Hussite theologians Jacobellus of Stříbro and Nicolas of Dresden, the radical Hussite party’s view of the contemporary Catholic cultic practices of veneration of saints’ relics and images was largely negative....

[quoting Nicolas Biskupec of Pelhřimov] "from the authority of the doctors it is clear that invocations and prayers are (forms of) cult that are appropriate only for God…Therefore we do not pray and invoke the saints, nor do we seek help from them and thus impede the cult that only God deserves"...

Nicolas’ ideas were developed in the writings of Petr Chelčický (c. 1390–1460), an original thinker, close to the radicals, in his writings of 1430s-1440s. The founding ideology of what came to be the Unity of Brethren takes on a similar critical view on the cult of saints, refusing the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

Some of the more radical Hussites were premillennialists for a while (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 33).

Atwood writes that "The churches that developed out of the Hussite reforms made congregational singing a central part of worship decades before Martin Luther set Protestant doctrine to tavern tunes." (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 52)

Regarding literacy, education, and the reading of scripture: "The Czech Reformation had made lay reading of the vernacular Bible a key component of reform, but in Prague it was primarily the aristocracy and wealthy burghers who had this privilege. The Taborites extended biblical literacy to the common people. This ideal of an educated, active laity would bear rich fruit in the Unity, especially in Comenius's advocacy of universal education." (111)

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 2)

Some of the Hussites held to "an outright denial of any notion of Christ's presence in the eucharist...In time, Tabor arrived at a eucharistic position very comparable to the symbolic teaching." (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 59-60) Craig Atwood compares the Taborite view to Ulrich Zwingli's (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 252). Wagner summarizes:

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 1)

In other posts, I've discussed other groups who were forerunners of the Reformation to some extent, the Waldensians and the Lollards. I've occasionally discussed the Hussites as well, but not as much. What I want to do in this series of posts is provide more examples from the Hussite movement. Though that movement continued into the Reformation era and beyond, my focus here will be on the pre-Reformation Hussites.

Reformation Resources

Reformation Day will be celebrated at the end of the month. I've been maintaining a collection of resources on Reformation-related topics, which you can access here. I've updated that post since linking it last year. The baptismal regeneration page has been updated in multiple places. I added an entry addressing the subject of apostolic churches and the alleged problem of Protestants disagreeing with what all apostolic churches believe. I also added a link to a post on Marian apparitions. The link on the perpetual virginity of Mary and children of Joseph from a former marriage has been updated.

"Firstborn" In Luke 2:7 And The Alleged Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

From Gregory Lanier's new commentary on Luke:

"Also, because prōtotokos here [in Luke 2:7] is modified by 'her,' it registers at the human level and does not convey the transcendence of Rom 8: 29; Col 1: 15; and Heb 1: 6." (Christian Standard Commentary: Luke [B&H Publishing Group, 2025], approximate Kindle location 4693)

Luke uses "only begotten" elsewhere (7:12, 9:38). He could have used it in 2:7, which would have implied the prerogatives, honors, and such of the "firstborn" terminology without casting doubt on Mary's perpetual virginity. In a culture in which women normally have multiple children, like ancient Israel, a woman whose child is called "firstborn" is normally expected to go on to have others or thought to have had others already, and Luke's gospel refers to others if the gospel is interpreted in its most natural sense (8:19). To refer to a woman's child as "firstborn" when she may not have any other children, but is expected to have more, is different than referring to the child as "firstborn" when writing after you know there were no other children. You could do the latter, but it would be less natural. Even if a term takes on additional uses over time, you should ask what the best explanation is of how the term originated. That has implications for later usage. "Firstborn" makes the most sense as a term originating in a context involving multiple children. That likely was the original meaning and the usual meaning afterward, even though exceptions developed under some circumstances. The issue here is how we best explain the terminology, not how it might be interpreted.

Some Significant Biblical Commentaries Due Out Soon

It looks like Craig Blomberg's new commentary on Matthew should be coming out in early November. Here's the Amazon page for it. And Craig Keener's multi-volume commentary on Mark is scheduled to begin coming out in January. It looks like the first three volumes will be out that month (here, here, and here on Amazon), and the fourth and fifth are scheduled for September of next year (here and here). You can find the first three volumes offered in an electronic format and at a lower price at the publisher's web site.

New Projects From A Group That Funded Tom Schmidt's Book On Josephus And Jesus

I've written some posts that cite Tom Schmidt's recent book on Josephus and Jesus. He recently mentioned that an organization that funded his book is in the process of making a documentary about it, and they've referred to other projects they're working on. Here's something from a page at their web site about their projects:

"Other projects of ours span biblical times to well into the Christian era. They include new evidence regarding the extraordinary spread of ancient Christianity in East Asia, a new discovery of perhaps the earliest Christian artifact, new testimony concerning the famous darkness of the crucifixion, among others."

A Good Discussion Of Psalm 22 And Isaiah 53

Michael Flowers recently recorded a video with Joshua Pearsall about the two passages. They make some good points about the passages and respond to some objections raised by critics (Dan McClellan, Kipp Davis, Tovia Singer, Bart Ehrman).

Michael has also written a good article about Psalm 22:16, which I discussed in an earlier post.

You can find a listing of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy fulfillment, in canonical order, here. And here's a collection of posts on prophecy issues more broadly.

How Baptism Of Blood And Baptism Of Desire Work Against Baptismal Regeneration

Advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently allow for many exceptions to the rule of baptismal regeneration: people were justified differently during the Old Testament era, people were justified differently during part or all of Jesus' time on earth, Cornelius and those with him who were justified before baptism were exceptions to the rule, and so on. Two of the exceptions they make involve supposed other forms of baptism, such as being baptized by blood if you die as a martyr before being water baptized or being baptized by desire if you intended to get water baptized, but died before the water baptism was carried out. Much can be said about the problems with such views. John 3:5, probably the passage most prominently cited in arguments for baptismal regeneration, appeals to Nicodemus' knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures, which makes less sense if Jesus was referring to a means of justification different than that of the Old Testament era, and the passage says nothing about blood or desire. And see my post here about how unknown and contradicted baptism of blood and baptism of desire were among pre-Reformation sources. Baptism of blood was popular, but not universally accepted. Baptism of desire seems to have been initially absent, then became a minority view, then reached majority status hundreds of years into church history. That doesn't sit well with what many advocates of baptismal regeneration say about how their church is the church of the earliest centuries of Christianity, how they passed down all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, how the alleged early unpopularity of justification apart from baptism supposedly is such strong evidence against that view of justification (compare that to the early unpopularity of baptism of desire), etc.

How do we best explain what happens with the unbaptized martyr or the catechumen who dies before being baptized, for example? Instead of proposing a baptism of blood or a baptism of desire, it makes more sense to conclude that they were justified through faith without baptism. The martyr gave his life for Christ because he was already regenerated. He had no need for being regenerated in a future baptism of water or blood. Similarly, the catechumen was going through the catechetical process because he was already regenerate. Both the martyr's behavior and the catechumen's make more sense if regeneration had already occurred. As I've said before, people like Abraham, the tax collector in Luke 18, and Cornelius aren't exceptions to the rule. They are the rule. That's why Paul cites Abraham as if he's normative, Jesus speaks in Luke 18 as if what he's describing is normative, Acts 11 and 15 refer back to the events of chapter 10 as if they involve the normal means of justification, etc. Similarly, the martyrs and catechumens under consideration aren't exceptions as far as their regeneration and justification are concerned. They're further evidence for the rule. The rule is justification apart from baptism. It's the regeneration, faith, and justification the person already has that motivate the person to get baptized.

Part of what's involved here is the principle of simplicity. We prefer the simplest explanation, all other things being equal. Dividing up history as advocates of baptismal regeneration do, with different means of justification during different periods, and proposing other forms of baptism (blood, desire) not suggested by Jesus and the apostles, among other complications introduced by advocates of baptismal regeneration, doesn't provide the simplest explanation of the evidence.