A Great Resource On Jesus' Resurrection

Than Christopoulos recently had several guests on his YouTube channel to discuss the resurrection of Jesus. The video isn't exhaustive, and they weren't attempting to make it exhaustive, but they provide a great summary of much of the evidence for the historicity of the resurrection. It's about four-and-a-half hours long, but the discussion is excellent and worth watching all the way through. It's the culmination in a long series of videos, but you don't need to watch the previous ones to benefit a lot from watching this one. If you don't want to watch the entire video in one sitting, it's easy to break it into segments to watch separately. Go here for the beginning of the segment on the historical data, here for the one on objections to the appearances of Jesus, and here for the discussion of inference to the best explanation and rival hypotheses, for example. Or you can just stop wherever else you see fit and start there when you have time to watch more of it. The whole thing is worth watching, so I recommend going through all of it. I'll supplement their points with some of my own, though I'm also not trying to be exhaustive:

Onward

"What they build with one hand they pull down with the other. Sad that it should be so. I must confess I find it far easier to climb the greatest heights of grace, and especially of communion, than to maintain the elevation. For a flight now and then our wings are sufficient; we mount, we soar, we rise into the spiritual regions, and we exult as we rise; but our pinion droops, we grow weary of the heights, and we descend to earth like stones which have been thrown into the air. Alas! that it should be so. Be ye stedfast. When ye climb ask for grace to keep there; when your wing has borne you up ask that there you may be poised till the Lord shall call you to your nest in heaven. Is your faith strong? Why should it decline again? Is your hope vivid? Why should that bright eye of yours grow dim, and look no more within the golden gates? Is your love fervent? Why should it be chilled? Cannot the breath of the Eternal Spirit keep the fire at full blaze? Wherefore is it that we do run well and then are hindered? We are short-winded, we cannot watch with our Lord one hour, we grow weary and faint in our minds. Alexander could not thus have won a world if after fighting the battle of Issus he had stopped short of the Granicus: if the Macedonian hero had said, 'I have done enough, I will go back to Greece and enjoy my victories,' his empire had never become universal. Nor would Columbus have discovered a new world if he had sailed a little way into the unknown ocean and then had turned his timid prow towards port. 'Onward!' is the motto of the earnest, all the world over, and should it not be the watchword of the Christian? Shall we be content with a wretched poverty of grace? Shall we be satisfied to wear the rags of inconsistency? God forbid." (Charles Spurgeon)

Protestant Ecclesiology

The Other Paul recently discussed ecclesiology with Gavin Ortlund. They made a lot of significant points.

What are you doing with the knowledge you have?

"I hold that it is unworthy of any man who possesses knowledge to keep his knowledge to himself, and rejoice in his own enlightenment, without making any effort to bring others to share in his privileges. Justly did the four lepers at the gate of Samaria feel their conscience smite them: 'We do not well; this is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace.' [2 Kings 7:9] Had those to whom the light of Christianity was first given dealt so with our ancestors, we should still be lying in heathen darkness." (George Salmon, The Infallibility Of The Church [London, England: John Murray, 1914], 7)

Music And The Paranormal

Melvyn Willin, the archive liaison officer for the Society for Psychical Research, just published Music And The Paranormal: An Encyclopedic Dictionary (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2022). The relationship between music and the paranormal is a significant and neglected topic and one that Willin has studied in a lot of depth for a long time. I'll quote some of his comments from the preface:

Since music is arguably the most intangible of the arts and since the paranormal, in all its manifestations, continues to intrigue people, the placing of these two subjects together seems long overdue. My own career in music as both a teacher and performer was infiltrated throughout my life with anomalies that intrigued me and my fellow musicians. Nobody seemed to be able to explain why some people appeared to be able to compose music or perform beyond their normal ability which, in some cases, they attributed to the deceased. Nobody seemed to be able to explain why music was sometimes heard when there was no obvious, or even un-obvious, source of the sound. Nobody seemed to explain why a number of people heard music when they were close to death which they remembered when they were resuscitated. Nobody seemed able to explain how intrusive operations could be conducted on people without anesthetic, but by using music to eliminate the pain. Nobody seemed able to explain why autistic people often possessed phenomenal musical abilities….I decided to undertake research into these and other related musical anomalies over a period of many years which culminated in two doctorates being awarded by Sheffield University and Bristol University, both in the UK. Previous pure music degrees were awarded by London University and Surrey University and a graduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, London. For more than thirty years I have been a member and then council member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and more recently the archive liaison officer. During this time, I have been directly involved with the archiving of the Society's manuscripts collection stored at Cambridge University Library. The audio-visual archive is held at my own premises in Essex, England….

The printed sources for my extensive research are many and varied, but I have not found a single book that has brought the multiple strands together….An earlier work of my own, Music, Witchcraft and the Paranormal (see Willin, 2005), outlined my original academic study of the material. I shall also be able to present my own case histories taken from interviewing a wide range of people and visiting sites where music has allegedly been heard from unknown sources. The end result will be a reference work that can be used to explore the academic study of music and the paranormal in a comprehensive alphabetical order as well as be of interest to the general public.

Enfield Miscellany (Part 7)

(See part 1 here for an explanation of what this series is about. The other parts in the series: two, three, four, five, and six. When I make reference to the Enfield tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair, I'll use "MG" to cite a tape from Grosse's collection and "GP" to refer to one from Playfair's. So, MG38B refers to tape 38B in Grosse's collection, and GP5A refers to 5A in Playfair's.)

The Death Of Vic Nottingham

A lot of the Enfield witnesses haven't been discussing the case publicly in recent years, and it's sometimes difficult to find out whether they're still alive. I came across a 2016 article that refers to Vic Nottingham as deceased, so I want to mention it. There are some errors in the article, and it could be wrong about Nottingham's death even if there were no errors on other subjects. But there's nothing in the article that makes me doubt what it reports about his death, and it would make sense for him to be dead by now given his age.

From what I know of him, including hearing him a lot on Grosse and Playfair's tapes, I find Nottingham likeable and honest. He was a good witness who added a lot to the case. I've been recommending the twelve-minute video here, from November of 1977, as an introduction to Enfield. Nottingham has a prominent role in that video. It serves as a good tribute to him. The video refers to how Peggy Hodgson was "ill in bed" at the time of the filming. That's an understatement. See the post here to get some idea of how difficult the events of November of 1977 were and what state Peggy was in at the time. I suspect one of the reasons why the Nottinghams are so prominent in that 1977 program is that they were trying to cover for Peggy, to help her in a difficult situation. They often did that sort of thing. One of the reasons why the Enfield case is of such an unusually high quality is that the Nottinghams were such unusually good neighbors. As Grosse commented on one occasion, "I think that in some respects this case has been remarkable for the amazing way that the people involved in it - the Hodgson family, the Burcombes, and the Nottinghams - have behaved during the whole of the investigation. They have behaved with an enormous amount of common sense. The incredible lack of hysteria at any time has been quite remarkable, considering that some of the things that have happened have been very frightening indeed." (MG14A, 18:42) In his book on Enfield, Playfair wrote, "Nobody could ask for better neighbors in a crisis, or indeed at any time, than the Nottinghams." (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 3) "They've always been good neighbors….I think a lot about Peggy and Vic. They'd do anything for you." (Peggy Hodgson, MG59A, 30:31, 33:21)

Eric Svendsen's Doctoral Thesis On Mary Available Online

A correspondent on Facebook recently informed me that Eric Svendsen's doctoral thesis, about Mary in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism, can be viewed online. I've had a paper copy of an earlier version for around 20 years, and I never even thought to search for it online. But it's available here for anybody who wants it. To see the thesis itself, click on the file under "View/Open" on the left side of the screen.

Justification Through Faith Alone Before The Reformation

Gavin Ortlund recently released a video providing an overview of a Protestant perspective on justification. Much of the video involves a comparison between Protestant views on the subject and Catholic understandings of it. A large portion of the video responds to the common objection that there isn't enough historical precedent for a Protestant view of justification prior to the Reformation.

I want to expand on what he says about that issue. For my argument that justification through faith alone is found in scripture and in sources between the time of the Bible and the Reformation, see here, here, and here, among other posts on the subject that can be found in our archives. Read the comments sections of those threads as well, since I discuss other sources and other issues there and interact with critics. My posts in those threads include documentation of belief in justification prior to baptism among sources between the New Testament era and the Reformation. Gavin cites John Chrysostom as his primary example of a pre-Reformation source whose soteriology seems to agree with certain Protestant themes, but he acknowledges that Chrysostom believed in baptismal justification. I concur with Gavin that we don't have to agree with every soteriological belief of a source in order to cite that source in support of our view on a soteriological issue. Partial agreement is less significant than full agreement, but lesser significance isn't equivalent to no significance. Citing Chrysostom on some issues while disagreeing with him on others is fine. But there are sources who advocate justification apart from baptism in the patristic era and other pre-Reformation contexts, and that fact gets far less attention than it should. My posts linked above discuss the topic and give it more attention than it typically gets.

I also want to mention that I've discussed Hilary of Poitiers' soteriology in his commentary on the gospel of Matthew in a lengthy thread here. Gavin referred to Hilary's material in passing, but chose to focus on Chrysostom without elaborating on Hilary's views. For those who are interested in Hilary, see my thread just linked.

Arguing For Miracles

Than Christopoulos recently hosted a video discussing miracles, with Caleb Jackson and David Pallmann. They make many good points. Caleb has done a lot of good work on the subject and has a book about it coming out soon.

Rewriting History Is Harder And Rarer Than Often Suggested

Late last year, I discussed Stephen Carlson's recent book on Papias. Among other things, the book documents several dozen passages about Papias in various historical sources, spanning about 1500 years. You notice some recurring themes as you read through those passages. One of them is the widespread opposition to premillennialism during most of those centuries. Over and over, there are negative comments about the premillennialism of Papias and some other sources (Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.). Notice not only that so many documents and fragments of documents advocating premillennialism were preserved for so long, but also that even the opponents of premillennialism kept discussing the subject, acknowledging the belief's existence and the fact that early sources like Papias and Irenaeus advocated it, etc. We see the same kind of thing in other contexts, such as later sources acknowledging that an early form of church government was different than what developed later. That doesn't go well with the notion that the early Christians had the ability and the will to rewrite history to the extent that skeptical hypotheses often require.

Another approach to take toward this issue is to think in terms of the differing circumstances of individuals within groups. If thousands or millions of people across countries and continents were opposed to something (Papias' premillennialism, a claim about the authorship of a certain book, a passage contained in a book considered scripture, or whatever), how likely is it that all of those individuals would simultaneously have sufficient motivation and opportunity to do something like destroy copies of a document or change its text? People range across a spectrum in terms of their interests, moral standards, how much risk they're willing to take in a given situation, their health, the responsibilities they have, etc. The fact that two people oppose something like the premillennial beliefs of Papias doesn't prove that both would be willing to do something to suppress what Papias said, that they'd both have sufficient opportunity to do so if they had that interest, that they'd agree on taking one approach toward the situation rather than another (e.g., destroying copies of Papias' writings rather than changing the text of those documents), and so on. Critics of Christianity often put forward hypotheses that would require an inordinately large amount of coordination among the people involved. The fact that people are sometimes dishonest, for example, doesn't justify a hypothesis involving a far larger degree of dishonesty than we typically see. If skeptics are going to increase the number and variety of people involved in that sort of activity, they need to increase their argumentation accordingly. It's one thing to forge a document written to an individual on one occasion, such as a letter from Paul to Philemon. It's something else to forge multiple documents written to a much larger number of people on multiple occasions, such as two letters of Paul to the Corinthians. It's one thing to speculate that one or two of the individuals who allegedly saw Jesus after he rose from the dead were hallucinating. It's something else to suggest that most or all of the witnesses were hallucinating. We have to make these distinctions.

You Make Your Burden Heavy By Struggling Under It

"Your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting; you make your burden heavy by struggling under it. Did you but lie quietly under the hand of God, your condition would be much more easy than it is. 'Impatience in the sick occasions severity in the physician.' This makes God afflict the more, as a father a stubborn child that receives not correction. Beside, it unfits the soul to pray over its troubles, or receive the sense of that good which God intends by them. Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul. God throws away some comfort which he saw would hurt you, and you will throw away your peace after it; he shoots an arrow which sticks in your clothes, and was never intended to hurt, but only to drive you from sin, and you will thrust it deeper, to the piercing of your very heart, by despondency and discontent." (John Flavel, Keeping The Heart [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2019], 46-47)

Updated Recommendations For Bible Study Resources

Denver Seminary recently posted a 2022 update to their bibliographies for the Old Testament and the New Testament. See here for Steve Hays' bibliography, which he updated shortly before his death in 2020.

How Much The Author Of Luke Is Identified

Modern critics of Christianity make a big issue of the supposed anonymity of the gospels. The weakness of that objection should be evident to anybody who's looked closely at the narrow sense in which anonymity is being appealed to and how much the gospel authors were identified outside of that narrow context. The third gospel provides a good example.

The author isn't named anywhere in the main body of the text in Luke or Acts. The obvious question that follows is: So what? As I've discussed before, there are many reasons to think the author was named in other contexts early on, sometimes from the start. And we can learn a lot about the author even from the main body of the text. He isn't named there, but he is described there and acts there. We can discern a lot about his knowledge, interests, and so forth from his writings, and he refers to himself as somebody who was a travel companion of Paul and had met James, a member of Jesus' immediate family, for example. We know of particular occasions on which he was with such individuals, many details about significant events he experienced, etc. I'm just summarizing here. The amount of information we can gather from all of these contexts (mentioned here and in the post linked above) is large. The fact that the author isn't named within the main body of the text doesn't have much significance.

Making Excuses For Neglecting Activities Like Evangelism And Apologetics

We often hear comments like the following offered as an alternative to doing something like evangelism or apologetic work:

"Just let Christ's light shine through you."

"Preach the gospel. Use words if necessary."

"People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

"You can't argue people into the kingdom."

Greg Koukl and a caller on his podcast recently made some good comments in response to such sentiments. Start listening at 30:12 here.

People aren't always persuaded by means of reason and evidence, but that is one of the means by which people are persuaded, it's a major means, it's superior to other means in some significant ways, and Christians have a standing obligation to frequently make use of it. For further discussion of such issues, see my post here on the significance of apologetics, including in converting people to Christianity. The post also discusses the significance of apologetics in contexts other than conversion. For some examples of the involvement of apologetics in converting people, see here and here.

When I hear the claim that you can't argue people into the kingdom, I respond by citing the example of Paul arguing people into the kingdom in Acts 19:8. The assertion that you can't argue people into the kingdom is ambiguous enough that it can be reconciled with a passage like Acts 19:8, if you interpret the phrase that you can't argue people into the kingdom in a certain way, but how many of the individuals making such comments have that sort of interpretation in mind? In my experience, it's commonplace for individuals who say that you can't argue people into the kingdom to have little or no involvement in the sort of work Paul did in Acts 19 and to show little or no interest in seeing others do that sort of work. If you're just making the point that we're dependent on the Holy Spirit in one or more ways when we try to persuade people, then what's the significance of making that point? How many people in the relevant contexts are unaware of that point or deny it? Jesus said that we can't do anything apart from him (John 15:5), that God provides us with food and clothing (Matthew 6:25-34), etc., but I don't see the people who keep saying that we can't argue anybody into the kingdom giving comparable attention to how we can't do housework without God's empowerment, can't work our jobs without him, can't pay our bills without him, etc. And they surely aren't as negligent about things like housework and paying bills as they are about apologetics. The same people who want to do little or nothing in apologetic contexts, waiting for the Holy Spirit to change people, don't take the same approach in other contexts, like the ones I just mentioned.

Part of what's going on is that people realize how much it will cost them, in terms of time, effort, reputation, relationships, and so forth, to do work like apologetics and evangelism. They don't want to pay that cost. They want a certain social standing, certain relationships, comforts, conveniences, and such that something like apologetics or evangelism would interfere with too much, at least if they did it beyond a low level. So, they're looking for excuses for their negligence. Another factor is a fear many people have of subjecting their beliefs to scrutiny. In some cases, people are dismissive of something like apologetics because of how poorly it's gone for them in the past. Instead of blaming the inadequacy of their past efforts, they act as though the problem is with apologetics in general. There are many Christians (and other people in contexts other than the ones I'm addressing here) who put forward far too little effort to persuade people about an issue, then act as if the problem must be that persuasion is too difficult or impossible. They stop after one or two rounds of a discussion, for example, as if we should expect disputes to easily be resolved after one or two (often token) efforts to resolve the controversy.

Jesus' Use Of Object Lessons

In her book on the historicity of the gospel of John, Lydia McGrew discusses how the gospels agree about Jesus' frequent use of object lessons (The Eye Of The Beholder [Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021], 393-95). He used the presence of his relatives (Matthew 12:49-50), bread (Matthew 16:5-12), children (Mark 9:35-37, 10:13-16), fishing (Luke 5:4-10), a well (John 4:7-14), a need for feet to be washed (John 13:1-17), etc. to illustrate points he wanted to make. Lydia concludes:

"This is what Paley means by a 'visible agreement of manner' in the teaching of Jesus throughout the Gospels. He points out further, '[N]othing of this manner is perceptible in the speeches recorded in the Acts, or in any other but those that are attributed to Christ….[I]n truth, it was a very unlikely manner for a forger or fabulist to attempt; and a manner very difficult for any writer to execute, if he had to supply all the materials, both the incidents, and the observations upon them, out of his own head.'" (395)

A Happy God

"We have a happy God. And one thing that makes him happy is doing good to his people with all his heart and with all his soul. This is absolutely breathtaking. 'I will rejoice in doing them good...with all my heart and all my soul.' [Jeremiah 32:41]" (John Piper)

Skeptical Inconsistencies On The Historicity Of Christian Sources

"Harnack, Acts, 272: 'The agreement which in these numerous instances exists between the Acts (chaps. i.-xiv.) and the Pauline epistles, although the latter are only incidental writings belonging to the later years of the Apostle, is so extensive and so detailed as to exclude all wild hypotheses concerning those passages of the Acts that are without attestation in those epistles.' The logic is the same as arguments that a source unreliable where it can be checked should be assumed unreliable elsewhere (cf., e.g., Ehrman, Interrupted, 110, on Papias)." (Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume I [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012], n. 120 on 238)

Obstacle To Comfort

I recently mentioned a documentary on the history of the Bible hosted by Ken Connolly. He also hosted some other good documentaries. One of them was about George Muller, titled Obstacle To Comfort, but I don't think you can watch it online anywhere. (Please let me know if you ever find it online.) There are directions for ordering it at kenconnolly.org. I've seen used copies on Amazon.

"My chief object was the glory of God, by giving a practical demonstration as to what could be accomplished simply through the instrumentality of prayer and faith, in order thus to benefit the Church of Christ at large, and to lead a careless world to see the reality of the things of God, by showing them, in this work, that the Living God is still, as four thousand years ago, the Living God....That it may be seen how much one poor man, simply by trusting in God, can bring about by prayer; and that thus other children of God may be led to carry on the work of God in dependence upon Him, and that children of God may be led increasingly to trust in Him in their individual positions and circumstances" (George Muller, cited in Roger Steer, Delighted In God! [Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1981], 157-58)

Material On Patristics From Gavin Ortlund

Here's a discussion he recently had with an Anglican about apostolic succession. Here's a good discussion he had with Tony Costa that addresses a broad variety of patristic issues. And here and here are some Ortlund did on purgatory.

Enfield Material At A University Of Cambridge Web Site

The University of Cambridge hosts an archive for the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). There are listings of the contents of that archive available online. Go here and run a search with the term "Enfield" to find some results that are relevant to the Enfield Poltergeist. The material is old in one sense, but new in another. It's archived material that's been around for a while, some of it for close to half a century. But some of it hasn't gotten much attention yet, as far as I know. For example, on the page here, we read the following about Cambridge's archived material related to Anita Gregory's doctoral thesis that discusses Enfield: