ILIAD Forum

The Ivy League Informational Apologetics Database:

Who are we?

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

Got questions about Christianity?

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

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

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

Paranormal Temperature Changes In The Enfield Case

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

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

The Apostleship Of Jude The Brother Of Jesus

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

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

A Pattern Across All Of The Gospel Resurrection Narratives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easter Resources 2022

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

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

How The Historicity Of The Bible Gets Obscured

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

The Practical Flowing From The Doctrinal

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

Enoch In Heaven In Genesis 5:24

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

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

Who has the bigger prophecy problem?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Escaping Putin's War

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

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

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

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

The Difficulty Of Paul's Labors

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

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

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

Why doesn't Paul mention Jesus' miracles?

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

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

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

Christians Need To Be Far More Active On The Internet

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

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

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

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

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

Whether, When, And How The Enfield Poltergeist Concluded

The issues surrounding the conclusion of the case are larger and more complicated than is often suggested. Many of the factors involved haven't gotten much attention and remain unsettled. I can't answer every question, but I want to discuss what I know at this point.

I'll be citing the tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. Grosse's tapes will be referenced with "MG", so that MG22B is a reference to tape 22B in his collection. Playfair's tapes will be designated with "GP", so that GP12B is a reference to his tape 12B.

The Contexts In Which An Assumption Of Mary Could Have Been Mentioned

I've often mentioned that sources in the earliest centuries of Christianity who discuss assumptions to heaven and related topics keep citing examples other than Mary, but never cite Mary as an example. (See here and here, for example, and the other posts linked within those ones.) It's helpful to think of the number and variety of categories involved, so that we know how significant the lack of reference to Mary is. Since Roman Catholics have disagreed about whether Mary died prior to being assumed to heaven, the contexts in which Mary could be mentioned will vary somewhat depending on what view of whether she died is held. If we combine both views, think of the contexts in which Mary could be mentioned:

- People who didn't die.
- People who have been raised from the dead.
- People who have experienced resurrection to an immortal body rather than just being raised in the sense of resuscitation.
- People who were bodily taken up to heaven.
- People who are currently living in the afterlife in a bodily state, prior to the general resurrection in the future.

We find these topics discussed in scripture and the patristic literature, frequently in some cases. So, it's not just that Mary's alleged assumption goes unmentioned in one context or on some small handful of occasions. Rather, it's unmentioned across a large number and variety of contexts and occasions for hundreds of years while other figures keep getting mentioned over and over again (e.g., Enoch, Elijah, Paul). And we're often told by Catholics that Mary was held in such high regard by the earliest Christians, that she's the greatest being after God, etc. You'd think an assumption of Mary would have been prominent in their thinking accordingly if they'd believed in her assumption.

A Debate On Isaiah 9:6 And Jesus' Deity

Jonathan McLatchie and Samuel Green (Christians) recently debated Shabir Ally and Yusuf Ismail (Muslims) on Isaiah 9:6 and the deity of Jesus. They covered many related issues that went beyond that one verse. Here are some comments I posted about the debate on Facebook and YouTube, followed by links to other relevant articles at Triablogue:

Some Points To Remember About The Dating Of The Gospels

- The author of the third gospel and Acts tells us the scope of his two-volume work in Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1. He's addressing "the things accomplished among us" (Luke 1:1), which he recharacterizes as what Jesus did and taught in the world (Acts 1:1). So, the best explanation for the ending of the book of Acts is that the events there are the last significant events of Christian history that occurred before the author published his work. It apparently was published, then, in the early to mid 60s. It would be unreasonable to suggest that the author was writing significantly later, but didn't want to include anything after what's narrated in Acts 28, since those later events weren't important enough. Many highly significant things happened after the conclusion of Acts 28, including shortly afterward and including things the author himself had suggested would be noteworthy (Paul's martyrdom, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, etc.). The interpretation of the opening verses of Luke and Acts I've just outlined is a far better explanation of the scope of the books than the popular appeal to Acts 1:8 to explain why Acts ends where it does. See here and here for discussions of the many problems with that appeal to Acts 1:8.

- The earliest external source to comment on the dating of Luke/Acts is 1 Timothy 5:18. It refers to Luke's gospel as circulating during Paul's lifetime. See here for more about that passage. Notice that its value as the earliest external evidence doesn't depend on Pauline authorship. We should accept and defend Paul's authorship of the document, but a critic of the early dating of Luke/Acts can't just object to Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy. He has to do more than that. Whoever wrote 1 Timothy and whoever the initial audience was, the document reflects an early belief in the early dating of Luke (and, by implication, Acts). As my post linked above explains, there's a way in which denying Pauline authorship of the document even increases its evidential significance in this context, since such a denial implies a larger initial audience for the letter. (And any sort of group authorship proposal would have a potential similar implication on the authorship side.)

- The later dates typically put forward for the gospels have much less of a negative implication for Christianity than is often suggested. Mark is usually dated roughly five years after Paul's death. And it's commonly suggested that Paul is a significantly early source, that there would be substantially more evidential value in a claim about Jesus if it appeared in Paul's writings, and so on. But five years doesn't have much significance in this context. There are many ways of illustrating that. One way is to think of the timespan involved in Paul's most widely accepted letters. They're typically dated anywhere from the late 40s to the mid 60s. If somebody dated Philemon five years after Romans, would anybody think those five years make Philemon much less historically credible than Romans when addressing events that happened before both documents were written? I doubt that anybody holds such a view. I doubt that the thought ever even entered the mind of most of the people who object to the alleged lateness of Mark's gospel. Does the person who dates 1 Thessalonians fifteen years earlier than Philippians consider 1 Thessalonians a far earlier source, as if those fifteen years justify placing the two documents in highly different categories? I doubt it. Or think of the time between Jesus' death and Paul's letters. Why assign so much more significance to something Paul wrote twenty-five or thirty-five years after Jesus' death than you assign to something written around forty years after his death? It should be noted that I'm not denying that people take factors other than dating into account when judging the credibility of a source (e.g., how Paul's value as a source is increased by his interactions with individuals like James and Peter). But the dating issue is often singled out, as if Paul's dating is much better or much less problematic than the dating of Mark and other sources. My point is that the significance of differences in dating is often exaggerated, regardless of what you make of other issues involved.