Abortion advocates don’t want you to see this one minute video. They would rather suppress the truth than conform to it.

Had or encouraged abortion? There is healing. Please visit the CaseforLife.com 

On this tragic anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, I would like to clear up a massive misunderstanding: overturning Roe vs. Wade will NOT make abortion illegal. The most likely result in a case overturning Roe would be that abortion would again become a state issue, the way it was prior to 1973. In other words, some states would vote to restrict or outlaw it, while others would vote to continue to keep it legal. Imagine actually being able to vote on an issue, rather that having unelected justices deciding the issue for you! That’s the way our representative republic is supposed to work! The current situation is undemocratic.

To those who say, “we don’t vote on rights!” Actually, we do. We voted on the Constitution and abortion is clearly not in the Constitution. However, there is a right to life in the Constitution, so why aren’t you advocating that? If you’d like abortion to be a Constitutionally protected right, then convince your fellow citizens to pass a Constitutional amendment. But don’t ask an unelected group of elites to impose it on everyone else. Such an unrepresentative process is precisely what let to our Founders to pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to rectify.

The “god-of-the-gaps” objection to intelligent design is one that we have addressed numerous times at ENV and elsewhere (most recently, here). Yet even though the argument has been convincingly refuted time and again, it lives on in the popular literature.

My friend Jamie Franklin recently published a post on his website explaining why he has come to reject the claims of ID. His main concern is that ID presents a god-of-the-gaps argument, one that is based on what we don’t know, rather than what we do know, about life. Because Jamie’s thoughts are echoed in many other sources, they deserve a reply.

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In a previous article, I gave a brief overview of the complex molecular mechanisms governing DNA replication. Now, I will focus specifically on the replication enzyme DNA polymerase.

DNA polymerase is the enzyme responsible for synthesizing new strands of DNA, complementary to the sequence of the template strand. The unidirectional DNA polymerase progresses along the template strand in a 3′-5′ direction, since it requires a pre-existing 3′-OH group for the adding of nucleotides. The daughter strand is, consequently, synthesized in a 5′-3′ direction (opposite to the direction of movement of the polymerase since the two strands have an anti-parallel orientation).

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Just recently a friend of mine notified me (Ted W.) of a blog written by biblical scholar, Dr. Peter Enns concerning archaeology and the Bible. The title of the blog post is “3 Things I Would Like to see Evangelical Leaders Stop Saying About Biblical Scholarship

Here are the three things Enns would like to see Evangelical leaders stop saying: That

1.    Historical Criticism is either dying or at least losing momentum in academia

2.    Source Criticism of the Pentateuch is in a state of chaos.

3.    Biblical archaeology basically supports the historical veracity of the Bible.

Obviously for those of us who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture all three of these is problematic. But point 3 was of particular interest to me, so this is what I responded to.

You can read Dr. Enns original post and my responses to him below here:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/01/3-things-i-would-like-to-see-evangelical-leaders-stop-saying-about-biblical-scholarship/

Enns doesn’t even follow his own advice:Here is my partial response to Enns main point in number 3:

But, to your original post (point 3) in your Blog – Here you make a sweeping generalization (which I noticed you accused someone else in the post of committing) about archaeology and the Bible.

In the three things you would like to see Evangelical leaders Stop Saying about Biblical Scholarship – number 3 – is that “Biblical Archaeology Basically Supports the Historical Veracity of the Bible”

But the very first thing you say is – (and I quote) “Biblical archaeology has helped us understand a lot about the world of the Bible and clarified a considerable amount of what we find in the Bible” But this is the very thing you said that you would like to see evangelical leaders stop saying!

But then you say – (and again I quote) – “But the archaeological record has not been friendly for one vital issue, Israel’s origins: the period of slavery in Egypt, the mass departure of Israelite slaves from Egypt, and the violent conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelites.”

Perhaps what you should have said in your original blog is that you would like to see Evangelical leaders stop claiming that “Archaeology supports the historicity of early Israel, The Exodus and Conquest.”

On that point I gave Enns several examples (in the response) from archaeology and history, but he dismissed the evidence citing that the “consensus of scholars and archaeologists” is that Israel’s early history is highly questionable.

We’ve heard this idea of “consensus ” before – especially when it comes to the anthropogenic global warming debate and the ID (Intelligent Design) debate. I think for a future blog, I am going to do a little background research on “consensus” in scholarship and what this means. One thing is fore sure, and it is that science, history and ethics is not voted on by “consensus.” The eugenics movement in late 19th century – early 20th century America is proof of this (although Eugenics is now making a comeback).

The writer of Ecclesiastes instructs his students “…of making many books there is no end.” (Eccl. 12:2) and this is certainly true. A similar thing could certainly be said in responding to the continual flow of misinformation and outright falsehoods about Christianity from popular books, media and television documentaries. This is the second blog-article I am writing in response to the History Channel’s recent documentary “Mankind: The Story of All of Us” which I had the opportunity to appear as a guest speaker. In Episode 3 titled “Empires” the producers present the advent of Christianity as essentially the invention of the Apostle Paul and the result of an historical stroke of luck in which early Christians used Roman infrastructure (cities, roads, etc..) to spread the Christian message.

To be fair, not everything in the episode was wrong or misleading. There were, however, several statements made by the commentators which need to be answered. First, were statements by Muslim writer Reza Aslan (prominently featured in the episode about the early Church) about Paul and early Christianity. Reza made statements that are flatly incorrect. The first statement he makes is that the Apostle Paul is “…the man who fundamentally defines, invents even, what we now call Christianity” (emphasis mine). Aslan further states “For Christianity in the Jerusalem church, Christianity is Judaism. For them, to become a follower of Jesus, you must be a Jew. Paul has a completely different view. He argues that Jesus obliterates the Law of Moses” (emphasis mine). Secondly, were statements made by historian Henry Lewis Gates Jr. that are somewhat misleading. He stated that Christianity was, “…a religion for the dispossessed, for the extremely poor, for the slaves, and for many women. Basically anyone who didn’t have a voice in Roman society could find a voice in the Christian movement.”

Paul of Tarsus and the Early Christian Message

            To say that Paul of Tarsus is an important figure in the Early Church is no understatement. Without him two-thirds of the New Testament would not be there. Perhaps it is for this reason that so many people believe that the Christian message is essentially his invention.  But, was the Christian message Paul’s invention or was he merely proclaiming the same message Jesus’ disciples first preached? Furthermore, did Paul preach and exhort the obliteration of the Law of Moses rather than its fulfillment and completion in the person of Christ? To answer these questions we must first note Paul’s background and conversion experience.

Before he was Paul, his name was Saul whose Jewish family settled in Tarsus the principle city of Cilicia in Asia Minor (a Roman provence). When he was of the proper age, his parents sent him to Jerusalem to learn the Torah under the famous tutelage of Gamaliel, who according to New Testament historian, F.F. Bruce, “…was the most distinguished disciple of Hillel, and succeeded him as head of the school which bore his name.”[1] In his Epistle to the Philippians (3:5) Paul described himself as “…a Hebrew among Hebrews.” As he advanced he eventually became a Pharisee. Reflecting back on that time, he writes of himself, “I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers (Gal. 1:14).” No one could doubt Paul’s Jewish credentials or training. But as Henry Chadwick points out, “Judaism was not monolithic. There were differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees that could become sharp.”[2] Which raises the question as to which version of Judaism was Paul repudiating when he preached the Gospel of Jesus?

When Paul went through his conversion experience (recorded in Acts 9), he certainly understood the implications for his Jewish tradition and specifically for Judaism as it had been interpreted (or rather misinterpreted) by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. From the very beginning of his ministry Paul proclaimed the message that Jesus was the Son of God; that He was risen from the dead and that He was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, fulfilling the Law of Moses rather than contradicting it, to the Jews specifically in synagogues (Acts 9:19-22). Bruce believes that after the risen Christ had appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, the man who went from persecuting Christians to becoming a Christian convert himself, probably reasoned this way:

The disciples had been right after all: the ‘hanged man’ had indeed risen from the dead, and must consequently be acknowledged as Lord and Messiah. The pronouncement of the divine curse on the hanged man still stood in the Law; it must therefore be accepted that the Messiah incurred this curse, but now this paradox had to be considered and explained. Sooner rather than later, Paul saw the solution to the problem in the argument which he expounds in Gal. 3:10-14, where he says that Christ, in accepting death by crucifixion, voluntarily submitted to the divine curse which the law pronounces on all who break it (Deut. 27:26) by ‘becoming a curse’ on their behalf.[3]

So Paul’s message – the Christian message – did not originate with Paul, it originated first in the Old Testament and then with the first disciples of Jesus who themselves, experienced their Master who had risen from the dead. In his first letter to the Christians in Corinth Paul reminds them, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are alive, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:3-6) (emphasis mine). If Paul received the message, then it wasn’t original to him. It came from those who were eyewitnesses and could approve or disapprove what he was teaching. As New Testament scholar Gary Habermas observes:

The fact that Paul’s message was checked and approved by the original Apostles (Gal. 2:1-10) reveals that he was not teaching a message contrary to Jesus’. Such official apostolic recognition was not only given to Paul’s original message but also to his epistles, which were written later and immediately recognized as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16; See Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp in A,10 above).[4]

Paul never taught or preached the obliteration of the Law of Moses, but rather against its misuse and abuse. Later in his ministry, Paul addressed a sect that arose in the early church called the Judaizers. The Judaizers taught that in order to be a follower of Christ, one had to keep the Old Testament laws (which included circumcision) – even Gentile converts! Ouch! Imagine that gentlemen! On second thought – don’t imagine that! So, in Galatians Paul once again, clarifies the relationship of the Christian Gospel message to the Law of Moses. (Incidentally, to this day, there are still Christians who insist and burden other Christians with keeping Old Testament dietary and ceremonial laws!). But, in Galatians 2 Paul writes:

When Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party… But when I saw their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas [Peter] before them all, “If you though a Jew, live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified – (Galatians 2:11-16) ESV.

In summary, Paul did not invent Christianity, but he certainly influenced it perhaps like no other early follower of Christ. Paul’s relationship between early Christianity perhaps might be analogous to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of America. Jefferson was certainly a very well-read intellectual who, in essence wrote down and articulated what America was all about in the Declaration of Independence. But no historian would say that “America” was Jefferson’s invention. In the same way, Paul was the early church’s intellectual. Paul was the early church’s Jefferson. Paul’s epistles (Scripture) would be like what the Federalists Papers were to the U.S. Constitution. They provide clarification and elaboration on what the Gospel of Christ is and how Christians should live and conduct themselves because of it. When understood in its proper context, Paul’s theology is in perfect accord with the Law of Moses and the Old Testament, and not an obliteration of it.

The Social Strata of Early Christians

            Finally, in response to Henry Lewis Gate’s Jr.’s statement that early Christianity was [quote], “…a religion for the dispossessed, for the extremely poor, for the slaves, and for many women” misses the mark and is quite misleading. Certainly Jesus did come to preach the good news to the poor, not just the financially poor, but also the poor in spirit whatever their social status. In Luke 4:18 Jesus quotes the Old Testament prophet Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” One of the best works on the social makeup of Paul’s day is Yale professor Wayne A. Meek’s book, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (Yale, 1983). As to the social strata of early Christians, Meeks writes:

The evidence we have surveyed is fragmentary, random, and often unclear. We cannot draw up a statistical profile of the constituency of the Pauline communities nor fully describe the social level of a single Pauline Christian. We have found a number of converging clues, however, that permit an impressionistic sketch of these groups. It is a picture in which people of several social levels are brought together. The extreme top and bottom of the Greco-Roman social scale are missing from the picture. It is hardly surprising that we meet no landed aristocrats, no senators, equites, nor (unless Erastus might qualify) decurions. But there is also no specific evidence of people who are destitute – such as hired menials and dependent handworkers; the poorest of the poor, peasants, agriculture slaves, and hired agriculture day laborers, are absent because of the urban setting of the Pauline groups. There may well have been members of the Pauline communities who lived at the subsistence level, but we hear nothing of them.[5]

What is not in dispute, is that the early Christian message did not resonate and find an audience with the meek and lowly of Greco-Roman society.  It certainly did. But that is not the complete picture. Paul and the other apostles often traveled on Roman roads; worked at odd jobs in Roman society (in carpentry and tent-making, etc…) and before Facebook or Twitter, they used the natural networks of Roman cities, friendships and families (the Roman Pater Familias) to spread the Christian message. Oftentimes there were wealthy patrons who helped Paul and his missionary endeavors. It was a message that resonated across all social levels.

But no matter how much we analyze the reasons, the how’s and the why’s of Christianity’s success in the Roman world and in Roman society, we must acknowledge the supernatural element in it. Without God’s supernatural help through the coming of the Holy Spirit (at Pentecost, Acts 1:8 & 2:1-13), the nascent Church would have died out long ago under the persecution of the Roman Caesars. The first two hundred years of the Church were some of the most violent and dangerous in her history, yet the church thrived and grew eventually becoming the official religion of Rome under Theodosius I (A.D. 379-395). As sociologists, historians and scholars continue to muse  and debate over Christianity’s rise, it will remain a fact of history that without God’s supernatural help, the Church would have never been established.


[1] F.F. Bruce, New Testament History (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 236.[2] Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, Revised Ed. (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 13.[3] Bruce, Ibid., p. 241.[4] Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), see p.283 Appendix 2, An Apologetic Outline.[5] Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1983), 72-3.

Have you ever wanted to see the Bible come alive by visiting actual biblical sites?  When I co-led a Footsteps of Paul cruise last year with my friend Bob Cornuke (the REAL Indiana Jones), the experience was even more enriching than I had anticipated.  So this year we are going to do it again.  Except in addition to following in the footsteps of Paul, we’re going to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as well!

We’ll start in Israel on May 27 and visit the major sites in the Holy Land for four days.  Then we’ll fly to Istanbul to board a beautiful 600 passenger ship– which just the right size for a comfortable trip– and see the places where Paul actually ministered:  places such as Ephesus, Troas, Athens, Corinth and Malta.  We’ll also stop at the breathtaking Island of Santorini as well.

Our group will be around 50.  Check the one minute video above and this site (LivingPassages.com) for all the details. I hope you can join us for this once in a lifetime trip!

Recently I have been reviewing some literature on the elegant molecular mechanisms by which DNA is replicated. As an undergraduate biology student, I recall being struck by their sheer complexity, sophistication, and intrinsic beauty. As I read about such a carefully orchestrated process, involving so many specific enzymes and protein complexes, and its extraordinary accuracy, it was almost as though the word “design” jumped off the pages of my textbook and slapped me in the face. The rate of DNA replication has been measured as a whopping 749 nucleotides per second (McCarthy et al., 1976) and the error rate for accurate polymerases is believed to be in the range of 10^-7 and 10^-8, based on studies of E. coli and bacteriophage DNA replication (Schaaper, 1993).

I want to provide here a brief overview of the central processes involved in DNA replication. In subsequent articles, I will examine the individual components in more detail.

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Just recently the History Channel aired the six-part docu-drama, “Mankind: The Story of Us.” Perhaps you might have watched it. Last year I was contacted by the producers and asked if I would like to participate as one of the “experts.” While I certainly don’t consider myself an expert, I thought it would be a great opportunity to give some reasonable and more conservative responses to what are typically liberal slanting programs. So last April I flew to New York where I was interviewed for approximately 2 hours with about thirty questions which would be posed on the “Mankind” series. Here is the second question sent to me by the producers.

Describe how the Hebrew Bible originates during the exile in Babylon. How significant a moment do you think this is?

I have often wondered how most Christians would answer this. I did have an answer ready but when I began to give it the interviewer stopped me and said that he was “looking for a different answer” and that the series “wasn’t going to be focusing on controversies and debates” and such. So, I had to politely refuse to answer the question – which of course, “begs the question” on the origins of the Bible as well as Hebrew monotheism.

So I would like to set the record straight and publicly but briefly respond to what the “Mankind” series program promoted as well as what many other popular documentaries teach and promote on Israel’s early history. There are actually two major views among archaeologists and Bible scholars on Israel’s early history. One view is called biblical maximalism which holds that the Biblical text, archaeological and historical data are in general agreement. The other view is called biblical minimalism and holds that there is virtually no correlation between the Bible and history at all. Biblical minimalists are historical revisionists and believe that much of what we think we understand about the Old Testament needs to be completely rewritten. The Old Testament is epic poetry, and nothing more.

In the documentary (see above clip) Dr. Reza Aslan, an Iranian born, Shia Muslim writer, states in essence, that the Jews didn’t actually believe that the God they worshipped (Yahweh) was the “one true God for all of mankind” until after their experience in Babylonian captivity in 604-586 B.C.. Another point made in the episode dealt with the origins of the Hebrew Bible itself. The selected experts in no uncertain terms, either stated or implied that Hebrew monotheism, the Bible, and the stories contained therein such as Abraham, Noah, David & Solomon, etc… “emerged” from the experiences of the Jews during the Babylonian exile.

Unfortunately and not surprisingly, this view is not new. It’s been around for quite some time, at least since the late 19th Century when the German Old Testament scholar Julius Welhausen was making some inroads into biblical studies with his new “Documentary Hypothesis” on the authorship and dating of the Pentateuch. More recently it has emerged again in a more radicalized form under scholars such as John Van Seeters, Thomas Thompson and N. Peter Lemche under the unofficially titled “Copenhagen school.” The Copenhagen school is essentially the application of postmodern philosophy & hermeneutics applied to the study of the Old Testament.

So what’s the answer? How do we answer this charge against the Old Testament? Well, first we have to keep in mind that there are no simple answers, or short answers, but there is an answer. In this blog post I can only offer the beginning of an answer, as it would be impossible to bring to bear all of current conservative Old Testament scholarship to bear on these questions. For a more in-depth treatment on this subject and on the general trustworthiness of the Old Testament, I would recommend these two excellent books. On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), by Egyptologist, Professor Kenneth A. Kitchen and the insightful volume, Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? (2008), Edited by Daniel I. Block.

To begin with, the claim that the Hebrew Bible, and monotheism began during the exile ignores or overlooks literally tons of epigraphic and archaeological evidence to the contrary which reveals that Hebrew Bible and the nation Israel have roots deeply embedded in real history. The first artifact discovered which referred to Israel as a people was in 1896 by the British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie. The find by Petrie was called the “Merneptah Stele”[1] and is also known as the “Israel Stele.” It got its name from the fact that the main text on the stele commemorates the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah’s victory over the Libyans and their allies. In line 27  “Israel” is mentioned by name as one of the people groups who were conquered. What is significant is that in Egyptian hieroglyphics the determinative for “people” is used which indicates that there was a group of people who identified themselves by the name “Israel” in the 13th Century B.C..

In recent years there have been an increasing number of artifacts and inscriptions which have come to light that indicate that there was indeed a Hebrew people along with their most well known kings such as David & Solomon. During the 1993-1994 excavation season at Tel Dan in Northern Israel, archaeologist Avraham Biran discovered fragment of a stele (fragment A) which clearly mentions the ‘house of David’ in ancient Aramaic providing the very first solid extra-biblical authentication of the existence of King David.

Most recently – Israeli archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, who is now excavating a site known as Hirbet Qeiyafa, located in the Judean hills not far from the modern-day city of Beit Shemesh.— has uncovered two model shrines, one of clay and one of stone. This discovery echoes elements of Temple architecture as described in the Bible and strengthens his claim that the city that stood at the site 3,000 years ago was inhabited by Israelites and was part of the kingdom ruled from Jerusalem by the biblical King David. In addition to this, according to the excavation project website, “The city has the most impressive First Temple period fortifications, including casemate city wall and two gates, one in the west and the other in the south. The gates are of identical size, and consist of four chambers. This is the only known city from the First Temple period with two gates.”[2] This evidence certainly doesn’t sound like an “invented” history.

Secondly, upon closer examination the Babylonian exile is not where Israel invented her past or started preaching and promoting monotheism. What and where exactly were the Israelites exiled from? They were exiled from Jerusalem and the Temple where they had practiced worshiping God as the sole God since the time of Abraham. As British scholar, Simon J. Sherwin correctly observes, “…it is unlikely that the crisis of the exile in itself could have turned polytheistic Israelites into monotheists. This is as true for those who were nationalists and those who where not. In order to maintain a distinct national religious identity it only necessitates the worship of Yahweh, not the denial of all others.”[1]

Finally, I readily admit that Israel’s early history is not easy to reconstruct from archaeological and extra-biblical epigraphic sources alone, but it is there. But there’s something else to keep in mind and it is that a meticulous reconstruction of the ancient past is not just a problem with Israel’s early history, but all of ancient history. The further back in time we go, the more unclear things become. It takes hard work, but we can get at the past. Israel was a small nation, so we wouldn’t expect to find huge urban centers such as we find in Mesopotamia or monumental architecture such as the great pyramids of Egypt. Yet, as the archaeologist’s spade & trowel continues sifting through the sands of history, a picture of early Israel is emerging from the artifacts that very closely resembles what we read about on the pages of the Old Testament.

Lastly, we must keep in mind that there is still much that we do not know. As one scholar once observed, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” As the much respected archaeologist Dr. Edwin Yamauchi reminds us:

1. Only a fraction of the evidence survives in the ground.

2. Only a fraction of possible sites have been detected.

3. Only a fraction of detected sites have been excavated.

4. Only a fraction of what has been excavated has been thoroughly examined and published.

5. Only a fraction of what has been examined and published makes a contribution to biblical studies.[3]

What we have discovered about the Bible both epigraphically and archaeologically is impressive indeed. And who knows what future excavations will reveal?


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele (accessed, January 5, 2013)[2] http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/ (accessed, January 5, 2013)[3] Edwin M. Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1972), 146-62