Did God Command Genocide in the Old Testament

Did God Command Genocide in the Old Testament?

By Ryan Leasure

Richard Dawkins’ famous quote just about sums up how skeptics view the God of the Old Testament. He retorts:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.1

Whew. Other than his obvious thesaurus skills, we notice that Dawkins takes great offense at God’s behavior in the Old Testament. He scorns Scripture’s portrayal of slavery and the poor treatment of women, but it’s the Canaanite invasion that attracts most of his contempt. For example, he uses words such as bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, racist, infanticidal, and genocidal to make his point loud and clear.

But this raises an obvious question. Did God really command genocide? Did he really order Israel to wipe the Canaanites from the face of the earth? Some texts seem to suggest this:

“So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the LORD God of Israel commanded.” — Joshua 10:40

“Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.” — Joshua 6:21

It certainly looks like genocide. But as I’ll argue in a minute, I’m persuaded something other than genocide is going on here.

Joshua’s Claims vs. Reality

I’m persuaded something else is going on because several times Joshua makes claims that they “utterly destroyed” the Canaanites and “left none alive,” yet we read shortly thereafter that several survivors remain. Let me give you a few examples:

Joshua’s Claim: In Joshua 10, he says they left “no survivors” and “destroyed everything that breathed” in “the entire land” and “put all the inhabitants to the sword.”

Reality: Judges 1 states several times that Israel had failed to conquer the entire land of Canaan and couldn’t drive out all the inhabitants.

On the one hand, Joshua tells us that they left “no survivors.” On the other hand, Judges 1 tells us multiple times that Israel failed to drive out all the Canaanites.

Joshua’s Claim: Josh 10:39 says “every person” in Debir was “utterly destroyed.”

Reality: Josh 11:21 states that later, Joshua “utterly destroyed” Anakites in Debir.

Again, Joshua says they “utterly destroyed every person” in Debir. But the very next chapter, we read of survivors in Debir who Joshua “utterly destroyed” again.

Joshua’s Claims: In Joshua 11:21, he tells us the Anakites were “cut off” and “utterly destroyed” in Hebron.

Reality: A few chapters later in Joshua 15:13-14, we read that “Caleb “drove out” the Anakites from Hebron.

Once again, Joshua claims utter destruction while a few chapters later, he tells us that Caleb drove out the same people group he just “utterly destroyed.”

Just as the LORD had commanded

Certainly, Joshua’s claims and reality appear to contradict one another. Yet we read on multiple occasions that Joshua did just as God had commanded. Consider these two examples:

Joshua captured all the cities of these kings, and all their kings, and he struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them; just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded. — Joshua 11:12

They struck every man with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them. They left no one who breathed. Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant… he left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses. — Joshua 11:14-15

I’ve listed several examples where God commanded Joshua to “utterly destroy” the Canaanites. We’ve also seen that Joshua was faithful to do just as the LORD had commanded. Yet, we read several instances where survivors remain.

What is going on here?

God didn’t Mean Literal Genocide

As a quick caveat, I’m a biblical inerrantist. I’m not someone to play “fast and loose” with the text. Yet I’m persuaded that Joshua didn’t intend for us to interpret the “utterly destroy” language literally.

How could he if in Joshua 11 he tells us that they “utterly destroyed” the Anakites in Hebron, and then just a few chapters later in Joshua 15, he tells us that Caleb “drove out” those same Anakites in the same Hebron?

Would Joshua really be that irresponsible with his reporting? It’s doubtful. After all, God made it clear elsewhere that “utterly destroy” didn’t mean complete annihilation.

Consider Deuteronomy 7:2-4:

And when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction…you shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they will turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.

Now, wait a second. God ordered them to devote the Canaanites to complete destruction, but then he forbids them from intermarrying with them. How could they intermarry with people they had completely obliterated?

It seems obvious that whatever “utterly destroy” means, it doesn’t mean genocide.

“Utterly Destroy” was Common Hyperbolic Rhetoric

Just recently, the Golden State Warriors defeated the Portland Trail Blazers by 22 points. As I read various ESPN articles and listened to different radio shows, I heard commentators say things like the Warriors “annihilated” or “killed” the Trail Blazers. And shockingly, nobody called them out for lying. You see, this is how people talk nowadays with respect to athletic competitions. We speak in hyperbolic terms.

In the same way, military leaders during Joshua’s day used to speak in exaggerated terms. They would regularly make claims that they “utterly destroyed” their enemies and left “no survivors.” In reality, they defeated their enemies but didn’t commit them to genocide. Yet nobody was calling them liars because this was how military leaders communicated back then. Consider these examples:2

King Mesha of Moab (840 BC) reported that the Northern Kingdom of Israel “has utterly perished for always.” — In truth, Israel was around long enough to be taken into exile one hundred years later.

Tuthmosis III of Egypt (1500 BC) declared that “the numerous army of Mitanni was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those now not existent.” — Actually, Mitanni continued to fight for another two hundred years.

Merneptah of Egypt (1230 BC) bragged “Israel is wasted, his seed is not.” — Guess who is still around today?

When Moses or Joshua spoke in exaggerated ways, they were simply adopting the common hyperbolic rhetoric that all ancient Near Eastern military leaders used. Everyone reading the accounts would have understood it that way, just like we understand hyperbolic sports language.

Drive them Out, Not Genocide

It seems that God’s desire was for Israel to drive out — or dispossess — the Canaanites from the land, not to commit them to genocide. Truth is, “driving out” language is used far more frequently with respect to the Canaanites than “utterly destroy” language.3

We saw earlier in Deuteronomy 7:2-4 that God ordered Israel to commit the Canaanites to “complete destruction,” and then he ordered them not to intermarry with the Canaanites afterwards. These dual commands only make sense if the “complete destruction” means to drive them out, rather than annihilating them altogether.

On another occasion, God threatens to “destroy” Israel for their disobedience, but this destruction did not mean genocide. It meant driving them away from the promised land. Consider Deuteronomy 28:63-64

And the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in destroying you. You shall be plucked off the land… And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other.

Here is a clear example where “destroying” really meant driving them out of the land. With this in mind, we can be confident that this was God’s purpose in issuing the “utterly destroy” commands.

Did they Really Commit Women and Children to Genocide?

As I’ve argued above, the stock language of “kill everything that’s alive” was hyperbolic language and really meant “driving out” the Canaanites. This means, the Israelites never slaughtered women or children in their conquests. They simply defeated the various Canaanite armies as they infiltrated the promised land.

After all, God had instructed Israel to always offer peace before attacking anyone (Deut. 20:10) which would have given women and children time to flee before any battle ensued. Unfortunately, almost nobody took them up on the offer (Josh. 11:19).

Furthermore, it appears that most of their battles occurred at military strongholds — like Jericho and AI — away from the populated civilian countrysides. Archeology digs suggest that Jericho housed roughly one hundred soldiers with no civilians,4 which explains how Israel could march around it seven times in one day. Rahab and maybe another female or two worked in the tavern to take care of travelers passing through.

Rahab, who turned from paganism, also serves as a great example that ethnic cleansing is not the goal of these conquests. The goal was to rid the area of the pagan influence that could easily lead Israel astray from worshipping Yahweh.

Why Drive Out the Canaanites?

In Genesis 15:16, God told Abraham that he would give the land to the Israelites after four hundred years of slavery in Egypt because the “sins of the Amorites (Canaanites) was not yet complete. That is, God wouldn’t drive them out yet, because it wouldn’t be justified. But after hundreds of years of wickedness, the Canaanites would be ripe for judgment.

What did they do that prompted this judgment exactly? While they were notorious for temple prostitution, incest, and bestiality, perhaps their worst crime was their practice of child sacrifice. It was their ritual practice to burn their children alive on the god Molech.

Skeptics often ask why God doesn’t stop evil. Well, here is a clear example where he does, but they still find fault nonetheless.

Ultimately, God wanted to establish the nation of Israel in the land free of pagan influence to provide a context for the coming Messiah. Yes, Israel defeated these Canaanite armies, but the ultimate goal was to be a blessing to all the nations (Gen. 12:3). And that blessing would come through the person of Jesus Christ who came to fulfill the law and die as the once for all sacrifice for the sins of the world.

*For more on this topic, check out Paul Copan’s book Is God A Moral Monster?

 

Ryan Leasure holds an M.A. from Furman University and an M.Div. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2wFn2mK

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Bible study_ Esther as an example of bravery and God’s providence

Bible study: Esther as an example of bravery and God’s providence

By Wintery Knight

I’ve been listening to this FREE two-volume series on the book of Esther featuring pastor Alistair Begg. A whole bunch of interesting things stuck out to me, so I’ll write about one of them today.

First, Esther is a Jewish woman whose father or mother died when she was young. She was adopted by Mordecai, another Jew. She was very beautiful, so she was picked to be part of the Persian King’s harem. In fact, she is so beautiful that the King chooses her to be the Queen.

Now there is an enemy of the Jews in the King’s court named Haman, and he manages to get the King to create an edict that says that all the Jews will be killed. Mordecai calls Esther to tell her that she has to stop the King from ordering this edict.

But Esther is out of favor with the King and hasn’t been asked to come in to visit him for some time. To go in and see the King without being summoned is a capital offense. Unless the King gives permission, she would be killed for intruding on the King. But in the end, she agrees to speak up and say something.

It all gets resolved in Esther, chapter 4.

Esther 4:1-17:

1 When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly.

2 He went as far as the king’s gate, for no one was to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth.

3 In each and every province where the command and decree of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing; and many lay on sackcloth and ashes.

4 Then Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her, and the queen writhed in great anguish. And she sent garments to clothe Mordecai that he might remove his sackcloth from him, but he did not accept them.

5 Then Esther summoned Hathach from the king’s eunuchs, whom the king had appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what this was and why it was.

6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai to the city square in front of the king’s gate.

7 Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

8 He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict which had been issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show Esther and inform her, and to order her to go into the king to implore his favor and to plead with him for her people.

9 Hathach came back and related Mordecai’s words to Esther.

10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach and ordered him to reply to Mordecai:

11 “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death, unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to come to the king for these thirty days.”

12 They related Esther’s words to Mordecai.

13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.

14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai,

16 “Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go into the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

17 So Mordecai went away and did just as Esther had commanded him.

What Mordecai is saying here is that God is sovereign over the events that are taking place, and that even if Esther makes a free decision to not intercede to save her people, then God will do something else. Somehow, telling her that makes her agree to take the risk and go in to see the King. Even though it is illegal to go in to see the King, she is going to risk her life and do it. And the message there is that God made her beautiful, and placed her in the palace, for exactly this purpose. Her beauty has a purpose.

Before then, she may not have been the most morally pure Jew, nor the most faithful Jew, nor some great authority on theology or apologetics. She was probably keeping her faith pretty hidden. But in that one moment, she rises above being an orphan, above being a harem girl, and above being just a pretty face. God can use anyone – even a silly girl who spends all day in front of a mirror playing with cosmetics – to achieve his ends. She is not Daniel. But today she is getting the call, anyway. It’s on her.

What is the lesson here? God can use anybody. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be moral, study theology, and study apologetics, and keep your character clean so you have self-control. It means that any believer is just one step away from glory, no matter what they did in the past. That’s how God rolls.

Further study

If you are interested in the story of Esther, then you should listen to the entire series by Alistair Begg.

The point I am making in this post is in this lecture.

Esther is about two themes: 1) how should a believer in God live in a society where believers are a minority? And 2) even when things look really out of control, God is in control and is never more than one step away from saving his people.

I have a lot of Christian apologist friends who struggle to go to church and struggle to read the Bible. The links above will take you to some great preaching on one of the most interesting books of the Bible. Go there, grab the MP3s, and listen to them with no distractions.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2WV31HD

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Apologetic Methods and A Case for Classical Apologetics

Apologetic Methods and A Case for Classical Apologetics

By J. Brian Huffling

In 2004 I began to pursue an MA in Christian Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary. I didn’t really know much about the topic, I just really wanted to know how to defend the Christian faith and have a better justification for my own beliefs. I realized that Christians and non-Christians had debates about the veracity of the faith, but I had no idea Christians argued among themselves about how (and even if) apologetics should be done. There are certainly different views about whether or not, and how, apologetics should be done. This article will briefly describe various apologetic methods and will argue for the superiority of the classical method.

Various Methods

Classical Apologetics

Classical apologetics has been called a two-step method. The first step is to prove the existence of God via traditional theistic proofs (the various cosmological arguments, design arguments, ontological, etc.). This method holds to the possibility of natural theology—the ability for a reason to demonstrate God’s existence. This first step does not prove Christianity, only monotheism.  The second step is to prove the veracity of Christianity by showing, for example (but not necessarily in this exact fashion), that miracles are possible, the Bible is reliable, Jesus claimed and proved himself to be God, etc. It is called the “classical” method because it has been the classical, traditional method used throughout the ages. Some proponents include Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, William Paley, the Princetonians such as B. B. Warfield, Norman Geisler,  and R. C. Sproul (among many others). Some good classical apologetics books would be Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler, and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler.

Evidential Apologetics

Evidential apologists avoid an attempt to demonstrate that God exists. Some do this because they don’t think natural theology is possible; others think it is simply easier to start with the biblical case. They jump straight to evidences for showing that Christianity is true from fields such as history and archaeology. To them, this bypasses difficult philosophical arguments and objections. People are ordinarily more prone to understanding history and the like. The thinking here is: if we can show the Bible to be reliable and that Jesus was raised from the dead, then a reasonable person will be convinced that Christianity is true. Such would include the existence of God. Proponents of this view, among others, are Joseph Butler, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, and Michael Licona. Some evidential apologetics works are  The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona and The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.

Presuppositional Apologetics

Presuppositional apologetics is directly antithetical to classical apologetics as its adherents deny that we can reason to God’s existence. Presuppositional apologists argue that we must presuppose the truth of Christianity and show that every other worldview (and religion) is false. Presuppositionalists go so far as to say that one cannot reason at all (or given an account for their ability to reason) without Christianity being true. They claim that we should argue transcendentally, showing that rationality itself presupposes Christianity and that any worldview other than Christianity fails. Well-known presuppositionalist Greg Bahnsen said in his debate with R. C. Sproul that he couldn’t know his car was in the parking lot without presupposing the Triune God. In a debate I had with a presuppositionalist, I was challenged to give an account of how I can know the tree is outside my window without presupposing Christianity to be true. Those who hold to this method argue that we should argue for Christianity based on the impossibility of the contrary. In other words, since other worldviews and religions are shown to be false, Christianity must be true. Proponents of this method include Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen, Gordon Clark, John Frame, and K. Scott Oliphant. Presuppositional works include Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til and Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended by Greg Bahnsen.

Cumulative Case Apologetics

Some apologists say we should take the best of all of these methods and use a cumulative case approach. That is, we should take the best arguments from each method and use them in a big picture approach. Paul Feinberg takes this position in Five Views on Apologetics. This is a good place to look for more information on this view.

The Superiority of Classical Apologetics

With this brief overview, one may wonder which method is best, or if we should just go along with the cumulative case and take all the good stuff from each model. At this point, I am going to argue for the superiority of the classical method.

First, the Bible says that we can know about God through nature. Paul says this in Romans 1:19-20:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

Thus, not only can we know God exists from nature, we can have some idea of what he is like. If God can be known via nature, then it is at least possible that such knowledge can be put in the form of a logical argument. The only question that remains is, “Are the arguments sound?” Well, that is another question, but it would seem that such is at least possible from a biblical point of view. Thus, it is hard to see how one could argue that the Bible does not allow for natural theology.

Further, it does seem that many of the theistic arguments are indeed sound from a rational point of view. For example, if the universe is contingent and cannot account for its own existence, and one cause leading to an effect cannot go on to infinity, then it seems that we must at some point arrive at a cause that is not contingent, but necessary. Such would be God.

Second, classical apologetics actually starts one step before arguing for God: it starts with knowing reality and the absolute nature of truth. In an age of relativism, we must answer objections such as, “Well, that may be true for you, but it’s not for me.” Further, classical apologetics deals with basic philosophical issues of metaphysics (the nature of reality) and epistemology (how we know reality) in a more robust and intentional way than do the other methods.

Third, classical apologetics puts evidences for Christianity in a theistic context. As Norman Geisler is apt to say, “There can’t be acts of God unless there is a God who can act.” Further, as C. S. Lewis has said, if God exists, then we cannot deny the possibility of miracles. Establishing the existence of God before moving onto miracles helps make more sense of the data. Also, miracles are signs of something. They were not just wonders; they demonstrated or pointed to something. For example, the miracles that Jesus performed showed that he was who he claimed he was. As Nicodemus said, only someone with the power of God could do the works that he did. Finally, as silly is it might sound, someone could claim that events such as the resurrection could have been performed in some superhuman say, such as by aliens. I know that’s ridiculous, but it is an objection that has to be overcome if God’s existence hasn’t been established. In short, the evidences for the Bible and Christianity are there, but they make more sense and are more powerful after they are put in a theistic context.

Fourth, presuppositional apologetics has many problems. It is admitted even by presuppositionalists that their position is circular. However, they argue that all views are circular. For example, they say the notion that we cannot help but use reason is circular since any attempt to deny that position would require the use of reason. However, such is not a circular problem, it is merely undeniable that reason is unavoidable in discussions or arguments. One is not using reason to prove reason; he is simply saying that it is unavoidable and undeniable. However, assuming a position to be true and then from that position to prove it is the definition of circularity. Also, arguing that we can show Christianity to be true based on the impossibility of the contrary is simply wrong. Contrariety is a logical relationship between statements. Thus, when we talk about statements being contrary, we are talking about the nature of logic. Statements (and only statements) are contrary when they can both be false but not both be true. For example, the statements “Christianity is true” and “Atheism is true” are contrary since they can both logically be false. But since they can both be false, we could never show the truth of Christianity by showing the falsity of its contraries. Further, the alleged transcendental argument for full-blown Christianity has never been articulated, let alone defended. Believe me, if there is an argument that guarantees I win no matter what… I want it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist. No one has ever given it. Bahnsen was given several opportunities in his debate with Sproul, but could not do it.

So why not just take the best parts of all the methods and use a cumulative case approach? Because the best parts of each method are already inherent in the classical model. The classical model is more comprehensive than the others, puts miracles and evidences in a theistic context, and avoids the problems of presuppositionalism. Thus, classical apologetics is the strongest, most comprehensive model.

Works on apologetic systems include: Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith by Ken Boa and Robert Bowman (this is my favorite) and Five Views on Apologetics.

 

J. Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2JWaz6P

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Un argumento evolutivo en contra del naturalismo

Un argumento evolutivo en contra del naturalismo

By Maverick Christian

INTRODUCTION

For those of you who are philosophically unfamiliar, naturalism is the belief that only nature is real and that the supernatural does not exist. The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), put forward by Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, holds that the conjunction of naturalism and evolution is self-defeating. This is not an argument against evolution, but rather an argument against naturalism (since, if naturalism is true, then evolution is the “only game in town,” and if the conjunction of naturalism and evolution is self-defeating, so much the worse for naturalism).

To define some terms and abbreviations, a defeater is (roughly) something that eliminates or weakens rational grounds for accepting a belief; in the context of argument, the defeater is such that one is rationally compelled to abandon the defeated belief (i.e., one does not believe it, either by (1) remaining agnostic about it, or (2) believing it to be false). Suppose, for example, that I arrive in a town and see what appears to be a barn fifty yards away. I later learn that last week some crank put up fake barns all over the area, along with the real ones, and that these fake barns are indistinguishable from real barns when viewed from a distance of thirty yards or more. I now have a defeater for my belief that I had seen a barn. I realize that I might have seen a barn, but I do not have sufficient grounds to continue accepting the belief. The rational thing for me to do is to abandon my belief that I had seen a barn. Suppose I later learn that the eccentric removed all the fake granaries before my arrival. Then I would have something that nullifies the defeater’s defeating force, i.e., a defeater of defeaters. The EAAN claims that the naturalist who believes in evolution acquires a defeater for his belief in evolution + naturalism. Commonly used abbreviations for the EAAN:

                 F = our cognitive faculties are reliable.

                N = Naturalism is true.

                 E = Evolution is true.

Pr(F/N&E) = the Probability of F given N and E.

That is, Pr(F/N&E) refers to the probability that (our cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution), part of the argument is as follows:

  1. Pr(F/N&E) is low.
  2. The person who believes in N&E (naturalism and evolution) and sees that Pr(F/N&E) is low has a defeater for F.
  3. Anyone who has a defeater for F has a defeater for almost any other belief including (if he believed it) N&E.
  4. Therefore, the N&E devotee (at least the devotee who is aware of the truth of premise 1) has a self-defeating belief.

Let’s call premise (1) the Defeat Thesis and let’s call premise (2) the Probability Thesis. Denying the truth of evolution is not the best option for the naturalist, so if the above evolutionary argument against naturalism is sound, the naturalist is in serious trouble. But defeaters themselves can be defeated, as in the case of the barn scenario I described, so is it possible that a defeater of defeaters is present for the naturalist here? Couldn’t the naturalist run a series of tests to confirm his cognitive reliability? Not quite, since the naturalist relies on his cognitive faculties even to believe that there is such a thing as scientists and cognitive tests, plus the belief that he has done those tests, and if he has a defeater for F, he is pretty much screwed. So the defeater mentioned in premise (2) would be an invincible defeater.

Next, I will refer to the two fundamental premises.

THE PROBABILITY THESIS

Why do you think Pr(F/N&E) is low? Normally you might think that true beliefs help you survive. That’s certainly the case if beliefs are causally relevant to behavior (e.g., I think this plant is poisonous, so I’m not going to eat it). But if the truth of our beliefs isn’t so causally relevant, then that factor will be invisible to natural selection. The content of our beliefs could be anything, true or not, and it wouldn’t affect our behavior. Whether the belief content is 2+2=4, 2+2=67, or 2+2=4.096 would make no difference to how we behave. If that’s true, then Pr(F/N&E) is low.

The kind of naturalism being discussed here assumes that human beings are purely nonphysical creatures without minds or souls. In my Plantinga Argument Against Materialism article I described Alvin Plantinga’s argument for the idea that if materialism about human beings were true (i.e., if we were purely physical beings), then the propositional content of our beliefs (e.g., there is a cold soda in the fridge ) would not be causally relevant. So for a better understanding of how the semantic content of a belief is causally relevant to behavior go to The Epistemological Argument Against Materialism.

So why would it matter if N&E implies that the semantic content of our beliefs is causally irrelevant? To avoid bias against our own species, let’s not think about ourselves, but about alien creatures whose physiology is radically different from ours. N&E is true for these aliens, so the semantic content of their beliefs is causally irrelevant. Then the N&E of the electrochemical reactions that cause these aliens’ behavior could generate any semantic content (e.g., 2+2=1 or grass is air), without the content affecting behavior. The semantic content could even be “junk” beliefs that bear no relation to the external environment, such as in dreams, and it would still not affect behavior. It would still be possible that electrochemical reactions that produce advantageous behavior also generate mostly true beliefs, but given the causal irrelevance of semantic content, it would seem like the most serendipitous of coincidences, if that were to happen. Therefore, in the absence of further relevant data, the likelihood that his cognitive abilities are reliable (given N&E) is low.

One might object that while the probability of cognitive reliability is low given only N&E, we know more relevant data P such that Pr(F/N&E&P) is high, e.g. we know that, for physiology, the link between content and behavior is favorable for our species, such that we act as if semantic content influences our behavior in a way worthy of a rational agent. Perhaps that is true, but that is an objection to the Defeatist Thesis and not the Probability Thesis. For now we are only concerned with justifying that Pr(F/N&E) is low. In any case, let FA stand for the cognitive faculties of aliens being reliable . I have argued that Pr(FA/N&E) is true for the following argument:

  1. If Pr(FA/N&E) is low, then Pr(F/N&E) is low.
  2. Pr (FA/N&E) is low.
  3. Therefore, Pr(F/N&E) is low.

In light of the fact that in N&E, the semantic content of a belief is causally irrelevant, the probability of FA given N&E is low. Similarly, what is true for aliens is true for us (remember, we are basically taking into account the probability of F in just N&E). But suppose that, even after reading the rest of my post on Plantinga’s argument against materialism, one is still not convinced that a belief does things in virtue of its NF properties and not its semantic content. Is there another way to argue for the Probability Thesis?

The DNFA scenario

For the sake of having a label handy, let’s call semantic epiphenomenalism (SE) the view that a belief does things in virtue of its NF properties rather than its semantic content, as some philosophers call it. It seems to be the case that Pr(F/N&E&SE) is low, but what if SE were false? What if, despite Plantinga’s argument against materialism, one is still convinced that the semantic content of a belief is causally relevant? In that case there is another thought experiment that I’ll call the “DNFA scenario.”

Suppose a mad scientist creates an artificial neurophysiological device (ANPD), a multi-tentacled device implanted near Smith’s brain stem that controls both his thoughts and behavior. The mad scientist can remotely control the ANPD’s electrochemical processes to vary Smith’s beliefs and behavior in countless different ways. For example, Smith is dehydrated, and the mad scientist, wanting his victim to be healthy, uses the ANPD to force Smith to drink some water while simultaneously making him believe “I’m thirsty and water will quench my thirst.” The second time Smith is dehydrated, the mad scientist uses a different electrochemical setting to make Smith believe ” Drinking this water will grant me superpowers in the afterlife” while simultaneously producing the same drinking behavior (and suppose this belief is false). In this case, the electrochemical process that produces the mental-enhancing behavior also produces a false belief. The DNFA can even produce “junk” semantic beliefs that have little to do with the coerced behavior, such as making Bill believe that “grass is air” or that ” 1+1=3 ” while simultaneously making Smith drink the water. The third time Smith gets dehydrated the mad scientist does just that, causing Smith to drink the water while also making him believe that “1+1=3.” Indeed, the mad scientist can associate almost any belief with the same drinking behavior . Even if a person’s semantic content is only NF properties, it is how the NF properties interact with the rest of the system that determines the behavior. An artificial neurophysiological device is not only metaphysically possible, but also appears to be physically possible (given that beliefs and behavior can be produced by electrochemical means).

The DNFA scenario shows that false beliefs can be associated with mental state-enhancing behavior, to the point where false beliefs are garbage beliefs (beliefs that are extremely unrelated to the external environment, as in dreams). But if the artificial neurophysiology scenario is physically possible, then it is at least metaphysically possible for the natural neurophysiology of an evolved being to have the same “disconnect” between semantics and behavior. Even if it were possible that the semantic content of a belief is causally relevant (one might think that semantic content is just the NF properties), the DNFA scenario shows that for any given behavior B, there are innumerable semantic contents C – even of C extremely unrelated to the external environment – that could be associated with B. Like ES, this would still allow for the possibility that beliefs and behaviors are linked in a “rational” way (e.g., I think a plant is poisonous, so I won’t eat it) but like ES it would still be possible for even junk beliefs to be associated with advantageous behavior. Someone might argue that the relation between semantic content and behavior is in this sense functionally equivalent to ES, despite the falsity of ES. Call this view semantic pseudo-epiphenomenalism (SEP).

Two key claims of the PES are (1) ES is false; (2) even though ES is false, it is still possible for even rubbish beliefs to be associated with advantageous behaviour – and the DNFA scenario shows that this is in fact physically possible (since the device is physically possible). Thus the DNFA scenario shows that if ES is not true, then PES is. Both ES and PES allow for a large divorce between beliefs and behaviour (again, think of the case where grass is air is associated with Smith drinking clean water). On second thought, it is very easy to imagine a moving set of atoms creating advantageous behaviour while producing beliefs unrelated to the external world, and it is easy to take for granted our more fortunate truth-leading relation between belief and behaviour, since it is so familiar to us.

To again avoid bias towards our own species, they don’t think of us, but of alien creatures from another world on which they have N&E&PES. While it’s easy to assume that beliefs and behaviors would be linked in a “rational” way (e.g. a man believing that water will quench his thirst so he drinks it), there’s nothing in N&E&ES or N&E&PES to believe that such a link would occur in aliens (whose physiology, we can assume, differs from ours), since both ES and ESP easily allow junk beliefs to be connected with favorable behavior. Because ESP is functionally equivalent to ES, and given the enormous variety of diverse beliefs that might be associated with a given behavior (“bachelors are married”, “grass is air”, “2+2=1”, “2+2=2”, “2+2=3”, etc.) an evolving race of alien creatures suffering from ESP has a low probability of evolving reliable cognitive faculties as if they were affected by ES. In sum, naturalism implies that either ES or ESP is true, and since Pr(FA/N&E&ES) and Pr(FA/N&E&PES) are low/inscrutable, it follows that Pr(FA/N&E) is also low/inscrutable. But then if Pr(FA/N&E) is low/inscrutable, then Pr(F/N&E) is also low/inscrutable (since, as with the aliens, we are considering the possibility of F in N&E without further information).

An objection

In response, one might propose the following rebuttal. Although naturalism inevitably involves an ES-type problem—whether via semantic epiphenomenalism or semantic pseudo-epiphenomenalism—the mental-state-enhancing neurophysiological properties that are most likely to be selected for by natural selection (say, a certain neurophysiology is selectable just in case it is most likely to be selected for by natural selection) happen to be the ones that are conducive to truth. The DNFA scenario is obviously engineered and produces certain behavioral belief pairs that are not likely to obtain in human physiology in real time. The most efficient and selectable way for neurophysiology to produce advantageous behavior also produces true beliefs. Thus, although the ES-type situation exists for semantics and behavior, luckily for us the physiological relation between semantics and behavior is such that true beliefs usually obtain.

All of that may be true, but as an objection against the Probability Thesis it falls short. A major problem is that even if a favorable physiological relationship between beliefs and behaviors obtains for our species, such a favorable relationship does not seem to be knowable from N&E&ES alone. It cannot be known from N&E&ES alone, nor from N&E&SPE alone. To illustrate the problem, consider a planet with aliens whose neurophysiology differs radically from ours (though we don’t know much else about this). On N&E&ES where the semantic content of a belief is causally irrelevant, it would still be possible for mostly true beliefs to be associated with advantageous behavior, but since the semantic content of their beliefs could be anything and it wouldn’t matter, it would be the most serendipitous of coincidences, if it ever happened. Similarly in N&E&PES where even garbage beliefs can be associated with advantageous behavior, it would still be possible that alien electrochemical reactions that cause advantageous behavior also generate mostly true beliefs, but it would be a rather fortuitous coincidence if that were to happen, given the enormous variety of beliefs that can be associated with a given behavior (as the DNFA scenario suggests) and given that we have no additional relevant information about alien physiology.

One could grant that the probability of F given N&E (only) is low, but also claim that we know some proposition P (perhaps that the physiological relation between belief and behavior happens to be benevolent for our species) such that Pr(F/N&E&P) is high, and we have excellent reasons to believe that P is true. Therefore, Pr(F/N&E) being low does not defeat F for the evolutionary naturalist. However, this would be an objection against the defeater thesis rather than the probability thesis, so it will not be discussed in this section. Can the Defeatist Thesis withstand this objection? For that matter, why accept the Defeatist Thesis in the first place?

THE THESIS OF THE DEFEATER

Scenarios S1A through S5A below are features of the XX drug, a medication that renders cognitive abilities unreliable for a high percentage of people who take it, although those affected are unable to detect their cognitive unreliability. A small percentage of people who have a gene called the “blocking gene” produce a protein that blocks the reliability-destroying effects of the XX drugs, but no one else is immune to the drug. Some scenarios refer to the XX mutation, a mutation that causes the body to naturally produce and release the XX drug into the body shortly after birth.

Scenario ( S1A) : I know that my friend Sam has taken the drug XX, a medication that renders cognitive faculties unreliable for a high percentage of people who take it, although those affected are unable to detect its cognitive unreliability. I know, however, that Sam later comes to believe that extensive testing has established its cognitive reliability, although I have no independent reason to think that this occurred. And since Sam obtained his belief about cognitive testing long after he took the drug XX, I conclude that the belief was probably produced by unreliable cognitive faculties, and I have a defeater of my belief that Sam’s cognitive faculties are reliable.

Scenario (S2A) : I, as a three-year-old, ingest drug XX, being aware of its possible effects. I am not aware of any relevant differences that distinguish my case from Sam’s. Sam’s case, acquiring drug XX, and ingesting drug XX are my earliest memories. Some years after the incident I come to believe that I have undergone extensive testing establishing my cognitive reliability, but since this belief was long after I ingested drug XX, I come to the conclusion that my belief was probably the product of unreliable cognitive faculties and that I have a defeater for my belief that my cognitive faculties are reliable.

Scenario ( S3A): I have been injected with drug XX by a doctor shortly after I was born (the doctor mistakenly thought he had injected me with an important vaccine), and I come to believe the following. At first I believe that I am the product of some kind of evolution that makes the reliability of my cognitive faculties highly probable. I am a renowned scientist who has built a machine that I know is capable of reliably detecting when drug XX has entered a person’s bloodstream. I administer the test to myself, and the machine reports that drug XX entered my bloodstream at the time I was born. I later come to believe that I have gone through extensive testing establishing my cognitive reliability, but since this belief was long after drug XX entered my bloodstream, I come to the conclusion that I have a defeater of my belief that my cognitive faculties are reliable.

Scenario ( S4A): Natural evolution gave me the XX mutation and I come to believe the following. I am a renowned scientist who has built a machine that I know is capable of reliably detecting when the XX drug has entered a person’s bloodstream. For most of my life I have believed that I am the product of some sort of evolution that makes my cognitive reliability highly probable. After a few years, I administer the test and the machine reports that the XX drug entered my bloodstream at birth. I later come to believe that I have gone through extensive testing establishing my cognitive reliability, but since this belief was long after the XX drug entered my bloodstream, I come to the conclusion that I have a defeater of my belief that my cognitive abilities are reliable.

Scenario (S5A) : The only humanoid species on my planet is homo sapiens, and all of us have the XX mutation. I come to believe the following. Through an ingenious combination of scientific and philosophical argument, it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that natural evolution implies that the XX mutation is inevitably a part of any humanoid’s genetics. Although there is the small possibility of a humanoid species that also has the blocking gene as part of its normal genetics, no other humanoid species would evolve the blocking gene. I come to the conclusion that the likelihood of my humanoid cognitive faculties being reliable is low given that I am a product of natural evolution. I later come to believe that there is overwhelming evidence for my cognitive reliability (for example, I believe credible scientists have told me that we all have the blocking gene), but since this belief occurred after the XX drug entered my bloodstream, I come to the conclusion that my belief in the blocking gene, etc. It was probably produced by unreliable cognitive faculties, and I have a defeater for my belief that my cognitive faculties are reliable.

Scenario ( S6A): The Probability Thesis is true and Pr(F/N&E) is low, but I initially did not believe this and instead believe that I am the product of some kind of evolution which makes my cognitive reliability very probable. Later, however, I study philosophy and see for myself that the probability of my humanoid cognitive faculties being reliable given that I am a product of natural evolution is low. I have since come to believe that I have undergone extensive testing establishing my cognitive reliability, but since this belief was long after N&E had already affected my cognitive faculties, I come to the conclusion that I have a defeater for my belief that my cognitive faculties are reliable.

So above we have a slippery slope of scenarios. The idea is that if F is defeated in (S1A), then it is defeated in (S2A), and if F is defeated in (S3), then it is defeated in (S4A), and so on. If F is not defeated in (S6A), where does the slippery slope stop and why? When is there a relevant difference between two scenarios that save F from defeat?

It is particularly difficult to find a relevant difference between (S5) and (S6A). One might say, in (S6A) we know from overwhelming evidence that N&E makes F likely, but why exactly do we know this in (S6A) but not in (S5)? To make the problem more explicit, imagine that the two worlds in (S5) and (S6) are essentially identical apart from the differences in (S5), so that I believe that my species-specific type of natural evolution is a product of giving me genes that (along with adequate nutrition, etc.) make it likely that my cognitive faculties are reliable, that cognitive science and evolutionary biology have given us strong evidence for human cognitive reliability, that truth-leading faculties are adaptive in Earth primates, and so on. I also believe that we have the gene-blocker to override the effects of the XX mutation. On top of that, let’s say that people in scenarios (S1 A) through (S5) were lucky to the point that everyone has the blocking gene. However, the belief in cognitive reliability is still defeated when people believe that all the supposed evidence for cognitive reliability is obtained long after drug XX enters the bloodstream. So how exactly is it that the supposed evidence for F is defeated in scenario (S5), but not in scenario (S6A)? If there is an important difference between the two scenarios, what is it?

One might think that the relevant difference between scenarios (S5) and (S6A) is the N&E mechanism of likely cognitive unreliability, i.e. the mechanism that makes Pr(F/N&E) low. In (S5) the naturally-evolved mechanism of likely cognitive unreliability is drug XX, whereas in (S6A) it is (probably) some other physiological process. But this hardly seems like a relevant difference in different causes that produce essentially the same effect: making humanoid cognitive faculties unlikely to be reliable given that they are a product of natural evolution. In scenarios (S5) and (S6A), whatever the mechanism of likely cognitive unreliability is for N&E (whether drug XX or some other mechanism) does not seem to matter.

CONCLUSION

The evolutionary argument against naturalism is as follows:

  1. Pr(F/N&E) is low.
  2. The person who believes in N&E (naturalism and evolution) and sees that Pr(F/N&E) is low has a defeater for F.
  3. Anyone who has a defeater for F has a defeater for almost any other belief including (if he believed it) N&E.
  4. Therefore, the N&E devotee (at least the devotee who is aware of the truth of premise 1) has a self-defeating belief.

One of the big reasons for accepting the Likelihood Thesis (premise 1) is that if N&E were true, then the semantic content of our beliefs is causally irrelevant in the sense that a belief does things in virtue of its neurophysiological (NF) properties and not because of its semantic content. If a belief had the same NF properties but different content, it would result in the same behavior (the same neurophysiological properties means we would have the same electrical impulses traveling along the same neural pathways and emitting the same muscle contractions). Even if that were not the case, the DNFA scenario suggests that it is still possible for “junk” beliefs to be associated with electrochemical reactions that produce advantageous behavior. If semantic epiphenomenalism (SE) is not true in N&E, then semantic pseudo-epiphenomenalism (SEP) is, and both Pr(F/N&E&SE) and Pr(F/N&E&SEP) are low, so Pr(F/N&E) is low.

The argument for the Defeatist Thesis (premise 2) is that if F is defeated in (S1), then it is defeated in (S2), and if F is defeated in (S3), then it is defeated in (S4), and so on, where (S6) is the scenario of a person who accepts both N&E and the Probability Thesis. The general idea is that the effect of an evolutionary naturalist believing Pr(F/N&E) to be low is similar to believing that drug XX has entered the body (where drug XX destroys the cognitive reliability of most who take it).

The upshot of all this is that there is a serious conflict between science and naturalism, since the conjunction of naturalism and evolution is an interesting way of self-refutation.

 

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2MyZ47h
Translated and edited by Jairo Izquierdo

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Navigating a Post-Truth Culture

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We live in a post-truth culture, but how did we get here? In this episode, Dr. Ray Ciervo fills in for Frank and answer that and many other questions related to this extremely relevant topic. He shares some great insights on how to reach those who have bought into this whole idea, and how to turn a skeptic into a seeker.

If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at  Hello@CrossExamined.org.

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Three Signs of the Church’s Spiritual Disorientation

Three Signs of the Church’s Spiritual Disorientation

By Bob Perry

It is a scary thing to be disoriented. At best, it means you’re headed in the wrong direction. But if you’re flying airplanes, it means you have no reference to the ground. You can’t navigate. You may not even know which way is up. In other words, being disoriented is not just an annoyance. It’s dangerous. But there is something even more dangerous than being disoriented — and that is not knowing you’re disoriented. I hate to say this, but I believe many people in the church are becoming spiritually disoriented. And many of them don’t even have a clue.

Let me explain what I mean.

Spatial Disorientation

On the evening of July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy, Jr. crashed his private airplane into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. I remember that night well because I was the First Officer on a Delta Boeing 767 descending into New York’s LaGuardia Airport at exactly the same time.

The visibility over the water that evening was horrible. The haze, humidity, and sun angle combined to turn the sky around us into a giant, yellow-gray blob. There was no horizon. No way to tell which was up. Between us, the Captain and I had nearly 40 years of combined flight experience. Even so, we were uncomfortable. New York air traffic control was allowing airplanes to use visual flight rules. But we insisted on using instrument procedures for our approach and landing.

John Kennedy, Jr. had no business flying in weather conditions like that. He was not an experienced pilot. Sadly, the plane he was flying did have the instrumentation he needed to operate in those kinds of conditions. But Kennedy wasn’t trained to use it. An investigation of the accident revealed the cause. JFK, Jr. had “failed to maintain control of the airplane … as a result of spatial disorientation.”

Unable to Recover

Spatial disorientation occurs when a pilot loses his reference to the ground. With no visible horizon, his inner ear and eyes begin fighting with each other. They give him conflicting signals. He gets the sensation he’s turning when he is actually flying straight. What he sees and feels don’t match. Making the correction that feels right actually exacerbates his problem.

Experienced pilots know how to recognize the symptoms of spatial disorientation. When they do, they are trained to trust their flight instruments. A failure to do so can quickly become a matter of life and death.

Kennedy didn’t understand what was happening to him. Inexperienced pilots rarely do. By the time he realized something was wrong, it was too late. His lack of training doomed him. His attempts to correct the situation only made it worse. Within a matter of seconds, he was plunging toward the ocean in a “death spiral.”

It probably went something like this…

Three Signs of Disorientation

There are three elements of spatial disorientation to be aware of:

  1. You can’t see the ground.
  2. Your sensations lie to you about your alignment with the world. You think everything is fine.
  3. When you realize something is wrong, your attempts to correct things make them worse.

Spiritual Disorientation

I share this story for a very specific reason. I believe that many in the church have become “spiritually disoriented.” They are flying through this life in a way very similar to the way JFK, Jr. was flying over Long Island Sound.

I don’t say this to be provocative. I say it because I have evidence to back it up.

Media research pollster George Barna makes a living studying the beliefs and behaviors of the Christian community. He has published several findings about how evangelical Christians think and act very much like the world around them. He also looks at their actual beliefs and attitudes. The parallels between spatial and spiritual disorientation are fascinating to see…

They Can’t See the Ground

What grounds the Christian worldview? What is our reference point? I submit that it is no different than what grounds reality itself.

The truth.

This is a topic for another discussion that I will engage more completely later. For now, let me say that for thousands of years, thinking humans have seen truth as an objective feature of the world. It is something external to us. We don’t invent it. We discover it. For that reason, truth is as real as the ground we walk on. And truth is what should ground our thinking.

But today, we have come to believe that truth is up to us to decide for ourselves. As one example, George Barna discovered that:

Only 59% of Christians said that there are moral truths that are unchanging, that truth is not relative to the circumstances.

In other words, we have lost sight of what should ground our thinking. We have no firm reference to the truth.

They Think Everything Is Fine

No longer grounded in the truth, most Christians think and act just like the world around them. For example:

At the same time, this little nugget ought to jump out of Barna’s data and grabbed you by the throat:

92% of self-described evangelical Christians view themselves as being “deeply spiritual.”

We think and act pretty much like the world around us. But we overwhelmingly believe ourselves to be “deeply spiritual.” How is that possible?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that society has lured us into redefining what it means to be “spiritual” by dissecting our heads from our hearts. We have let the culture convince us that the heart is the most important thing about us. Feelings and emotions guide us. When those feelings and emotions are positive, we are on the right track. Those who have perfected this search are considered society’s most “spiritual” people.

Their “Corrections” Make Things Worse

Once feelings and emotions replace truth as the most important point of reference, we use them as our primary means of engaging the world. In our efforts to avoid making people feel bad, we dodge the truth. Feelings become more important than reality itself.

Grace abounds, but truth is dying in the streets.

As an example, imagine an anorexic girl who is nothing but skin and bones. When she looks in the mirror, she thinks she is overweight. She diets and purges. Her weight continues to decline.

Would it be loving and kind of us to tell her she’s looking great? Should we encourage her to continue down the path she has chosen? After all, telling her, she looks like death warmed over would certainly hurt her feelings.

Obviously not. We have a duty to tell her the truth, no matter how much it hurts her feelings. Playing along with her delusion would only make things worse. And it wouldn’t be loving. It would be dangerous.

One doesn’t have to think very hard to see the parallels going on in our culture with all forms of sin and rebellion. Yet we have prominent church leaders and spokesmen demanding that we do just that. But a church that avoids the truth by honoring feelings above truth is a church that has lost sight of the meaning of love.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is tell someone the truth.

Overcoming Spiritual Disorientation

The culture has infiltrated the church. As a result, the church is becoming more and more spiritually disoriented. Many prominent church leaders deny the core principles of our faith. They promote a disoriented Christianity that allows the culture to critique the church instead of leading a biblical critique of the culture. And too many in the church have accepted what they’re saying.

 

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at: truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal, and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and a M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2JNObfQ

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Is Apologetics Anti-Faith

Is Apologetics “Anti-Faith”?

By Robby Hall

Often, I see other Christians objecting to the use of apologetics altogether.  They will usually say that faith doesn’t require evidence, or it’s not faith.

But is that the case?  If we look at the word “faith” itself, we can get a clearer picture of what the Bible is actually talking about.

First, faith comes from the Latin “fides,” which means “good trust.”  But the Greek word used in the New Testament is “pisteuo,” which means to have confidence in or to credit the thing believed in.  The other greek word used for faith is “pistis,” which means “conviction of the truth of anything”[1].

So faith is trust, and trust is object centered.  You put your trust in something.  But does God require a blind trust or has He given evidence that we can put our trust in?  As always, we must consult scripture.

First, Jesus says in John 10:24-26

“So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.”
And again in vs. 36-38, Jesus says

“do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

What about Thomas? Jesus told him blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed — but not seen what? The resurrected Jesus.  But, what did Thomas see in the time he spent with Jesus? Healing of the sick, raising of the dead, casting out of demons, feeding of 4k and 5k, etc. Shouldn’t then, Thomas have believed when Jesus told the disciples ahead of time that he would suffer, die, and on the 3rd day rise again? Jesus gave evidence.

What about John the Baptist? In Matthew 11, we see the following:

“Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receives their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians:

“7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” Phil 1:7

There are many more passages in the NT that admonish us to offer a defense (apologia) for the Gospel we preach. But the one that gives us the direct command is 1 Peter 3:15:

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense(apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

In John 20, the apostle writes ” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Acts 1:3 tells us, “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”
God has not left us without evidence of the truth.  It becomes clear that we as Christians need to know what we believe, why we believe it, and how to articulate that truth.

 “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:19-20

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2KePWBR

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Every Christian Should Begin to Master the Moral Argument Today

Every Christian Should Begin to Master the Moral Argument Today

,

By Erik Manning

There’s a dizzying array of arguments for the existence of God. For a newbie looking to get into apologetics, it can be intimidating trying to figure out where to start. You have the cosmological argument, but it helps if you know something about cosmology, physics, and even math. There’s the argument from the origin of life, but now you’re talking about chemistry, DNA, information theory, and it can feel overwhelming. There’s the ontological argument, but that requires understanding modal logic and let’s be real here, has anyone in the history of the universe come to faith because of the ontological argument? Sorry, St. Anselm.

If you’re looking either for ammo to argue against naturalistic atheism or to give some reasons for someone to think God exists, I wholeheartedly recommend learning the moral argument. Why?

For one thing, it’s accessible. You don’t need a Ph.D. in philosophy, physics, or chemistry to understand the argument. Secondly, it’s more effective because it touches people at a personal level that scientific arguments do not.

Dr. William Lane Craig earned his doctorate in philosophy and spent decades developing a version of the cosmological argument. But after spending years of traveling, speaking, teaching and debating some of the smartest atheists on the planet, here’s what he has to say about the moral argument:

““In my experience, the moral argument is the most effective of all the arguments for the existence of God. I say this grudgingly because my favorite is the cosmological argument. But the cosmological and teleological (design) arguments don’t touch people where they live. The moral argument cannot be so easily brushed aside. For every day you get up you answer the question of whether there are objective moral values and duties by how you live. It’s unavoidable.”

-On Guard, Chapter 6

With a little thought, you know this is true. Just log on to Twitter or turn on cable news for a few seconds. We live in a culture where people are in a state of constant moral outrage. CS Lewis popularized the argument in his classic work Mere Christianity. (Warning: Massive understatement alert!) In regards to the power of the moral argument, Lewis says:

“We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, then I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place). The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put into our minds.

And this is a better bit of evidence than the other because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built. Now, from this second bit of evidence, we conclude that the Being behind the universe is intensely interested in right conduct—in fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty, and truthfulness.“

So what is the moral argument? You can cash it out in different ways, but I favor using it negatively in order to falsify atheism. If atheism isn’t true then obviously we should reject it and find a worldview that makes better sense of reality. Here’s the argument in logical form:

  1. If naturalistic atheism is true, there are no moral facts.
  2. There are moral facts.
  3. Therefore, naturalistic atheism is false.

An example of a moral fact would be that even if NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association…ew.) somehow hypnotized the world into thinking that pedophilia is morally acceptable, it would still be morally wrong. Morality isn’t a matter of personal preference. I’m going to bring some ‘hostile witnesses’ on the scene to help make my case.

CAN MORAL FACTS BE FACTS OF NATURE?

Some atheists have tried to say so, but I think unsuccessfully. Moral facts aren’t about the way things are, but the way things ought to or should be. But if the world isn’t here for a purpose, then there is no way things are intended to be. Natural facts are facts about the way things are, not the way things ought to be. Animals kill and forcibly mate with other animals, but we don’t call those things murder or rape. But if natural facts are the only types of facts on the table, then the same holds true of people. We can explain the pain and suffering on a scientific level, but we can’t explain why one ought not to inflict suffering and pain.

Here are three atheists who drive the point home that on atheism there can be no moral facts.

Michael Ruse

Michael Ruse

“The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than our hands and feet and teeth… Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival, and reproduction…and any deeper meaning is illusory.” – Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse.

“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is.“ – Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins

And finally, here’s atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg, when asked about the cruel and inhumane cultural practice of foot-binding that was practiced by the Chinese for centuries:

Interviewer: “And so your argument is to say we shouldn’t do foot-binding anymore because it’s not adaptive, or should we…?”

Rosenberg: “No. I don’t think that it is in a position to tell you what we ought and ought not to do: it is in a position to tell you why we’ve done it and what the consequences of continuing or failing to do it are, okay? But it can’t adjudicate ultimate questions of value, because those are expressions of people’s emotions and, dare I say, tastes.”

Earlier in the interview, Rosenberg says, “Is there a difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There’s not a moral difference between them.”

A matter of tastes

A matter of tastes?

BUT THERE ARE MORAL FACTS

So rather than giving up naturalism, these atheists bite the bullet and say that on their worldview there is no room for moral facts. But how plausible is that really? As you can imagine, many atheists disagree. Here are some more ‘hostile witnesses’ I’ll bring in to make the point:

“Whatever skeptical arguments may be brought against our belief that killing the innocent is morally wrong, we are more certain that the killing is morally wrong than that the argument is sound…Torturing an innocent child for the sheer fun of it is morally wrong. Full stop.” -Atheist philosopher Paul Cave.

“Some moral views are better than others, despite the sincerity of the individuals, cultures, and societies that endorse them. Some moral views are true, others false, and my thinking them so doesn’t make them so. My society’s endorsement of them doesn’t prove their truth. Individuals and whole societies can be seriously mistaken when it comes to morality. The best explanation of this is that there are moral standards not of our own making.” – Atheist philosopher Russ Shafer-Landau

Louise Antony

Louise Antony

“Any argument for moral skepticism will be based upon premises which are less obvious than the existence of objective moral values themselves.” – Atheist philosopher Louise Antony

This makes sense. Any argument that allows for the possibility that there is no more moral virtue in adopting a child or torturing a child for fun is a lot less plausible than the existence of moral values and duties. Why should we doubt our moral sense any more than our physical senses?

The problem is for the naturalist is that from valueless, meaningless processes valueless, meaninglessness comes. Atheism just doesn’t seem to have the resources for the existence of moral facts. Christian philosopher Paul Copan writes:

“Intrinsically-valuable, thinking persons do not come from impersonal, non-conscious, unguided, valueless processes over time. A personal, self-aware, purposeful, good God provides the natural and necessary context for the existence of valuable, rights-bearing, morally-responsible human persons.”

And atheist philosopher JL Mackie agrees that if there are moral facts, their existence fits much better on theism than on atheism. He wrote “Moral properties constitute so odd a cluster of properties and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful god to create them. If there are objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them. Thus, we have a defensible argument from morality to the existence of a god.”

THE POWER OF THE MORAL ARGUMENT: HOW 3 FORMER ATHEISTS CHANGED THEIR MINDS

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and formerly led the Human Genome Project

Francis Collins

Dr. Francis Collins

Dr. Collins was an atheist until he read Lewis. In his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he writes:

“The argument that most caught my attention, and most rocked my ideas about science and spirit down to their foundation, was right there in the title of Book one: “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.” While in many ways the “Moral Law” that Lewis described was a universal feature of human existence, in other ways it was as if I was recognizing it for the first time.

To understand the Moral Law, it is useful to consider, as Lewis did, how it is invoked in hundreds of ways each day without the invoker stopping to point out the foundation of his argument. Disagreements are part of daily life. Some are mundane, as the wife criticizing her husband for not speaking more kindly to a friend, or a child complaining, “It’s not fair,” when different amounts of ice cream are doled out at a birthday party. Other arguments take on larger significance. In international affairs for instance, some argue that the United States has a moral obligation to spread democracy throughout the world, even if it requires military force, whereas others say that the aggressive, unilateral use of military and economic force threatens to squander moral authority.

In the area of medicine, furious debates currently surround the question of whether or not it is acceptable to carry out research on human embryonic stem cells. Some argue that such research violates the sanctity of human life; others posit that the potential to alleviate human suffering constitutes an ethical mandate to proceed.

Notice that in all these examples, each party attempts to appeal to an unstated higher standard. This standard is the Moral Law. It might also be called “the law of right behavior,” and its existence in each of these situations seems unquestioned. What is being debated is whether one action or another is a closer approximation to the demands of that law. Those accused of having fallen short, such as the husband who is insufficiently cordial to his wife’s friend, usually respond with a variety of excuses why they should be let off the hook. Virtually never does the respondent say, “To hell with your concept of right behavior.”

What we have here is very peculiar: the concept of right and wrong appears to be universal among all members of the human species (though its application may result in wildly different outcomes). It thus seems to be a phenomenon approaching that of a law, like the law of gravitation or of special relativity. Yet in this instance, it is a law that, if we are honest with ourselves, is broken with astounding regularity.”

Leah Libresco, graduate of Yale University, political scientist, statistician and popular blogger

Leah Libresco

Leah Libresco

Leah used to write about atheism on the Patheos network of blogs. She grew up as an atheist but began to doubt her doubts. In her last post on the atheist portal of Patheos, she wrote:

“I’ve heard some explanations that try to bake morality into the natural world by reaching for evolutionary psychology. They argue that moral dispositions are evolutionarily triumphant over selfishness, or they talk about group selection, or something else. Usually, these proposed solutions radically misunderstand a) evolution b) moral philosophy or c) both. I didn’t think the answer was there. My friend pressed me to stop beating up on other people’s explanations and offer one of my own.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got bupkis.”

“Your best guess.”

“I haven’t got one.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got nothing. I guess Morality just loves me or something.”

“…”

“Ok, ok, yes, I heard what I just said. Give me a second and let me decide if I believe it.”

It turns out I did.”

“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to, and it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of.”

Later in an interview with CNN, she said: “I’m really sure that morality is objective, human independent, and something we uncover like archaeologists, not something we build like architects. And I was having trouble explaining that in my own philosophy, and Christianity offered an explanation which I came to find compelling.”

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Western Sydney University, Senior Lecturer on History and Cambridge graduate

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

Irving-Stonebraker wrote an article titled ‘How Oxford and Peter Singer Drove Me From Atheism to Jesus’. Peter Singer is a famous bio-ethicist that is well-respected but has some pretty far-out views. He’s very big into animal rights and has said things like “The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.” Singer has advocated infanticide in certain circumstances, as well as bestiality. Yeah, I know. Only a philosopher could attempt to justify such insanity intellectually. Anyway, here’s Dr. Irving-Stonebraker:

“I grew up in Australia, in a loving, secular home, and arrived at Sydney University as a critic of “religion.”  I didn’t need faith to ground my identity or my values. I knew from the age of eight that I wanted to study history at Cambridge and become a historian. My identity lay in academic achievement, and my secular humanism was based on self-evident truths… 

After Cambridge, I was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Oxford. There, I attended three guest lectures by world-class philosopher and atheist public intellectual, Peter Singer. Singer recognized that philosophy faces a vexing problem in relation to the issue of human worth. The natural world yields no egalitarian picture of human capacities. What about the child whose disabilities or illness compromises her abilities to reason? Yet, without reference to some set of capacities as the basis of human worth, the intrinsic value of all human beings becomes an ungrounded assertion; a premise which needs to be agreed upon before any conversation can take place.

I remember leaving Singer’s lectures with a strange intellectual vertigo; I was committed to believing that universal human value was more than just a well-meaning conceit of liberalism. But I knew from my own research in the history of European empires and their encounters with indigenous cultures, that societies have always had different conceptions of human worth or lack thereof. The premise of human equality is not a self-evident truth: it is profoundly historically contingent. I began to realize that the implications of my atheism were incompatible with almost every value I held dear … One Sunday, shortly before my 28th birthday, I walked into a church for the first time as someone earnestly seeking God. Before long I found myself overwhelmed. At last, I was fully known and seen and, I realized, unconditionally loved – perhaps I had a sense of relief from no longer running from God. A friend gave me C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and one night, after a couple months of attending church, I knelt in my closet in my apartment and asked Jesus to save me, and to become the Lord of my life”

THE NATURALIST’S DILEMMA

I hope you can see by now that the moral argument is an argument that is pretty difficult to get away from. It forces the skeptic into a few different corners: They either have to:

a.) bite the bullet like Mackie, Ruse, Dawkins, and Rosenberg do and just accept the crazy and counter-intuitive notion that there just are no moral facts at all, no matter how obvious that seems to all of us. Or they can –

b.) accept there are somehow moral facts but have no way to really ground them. Why think valueless, meaningless processes produce beings with intrinsic moral value that have obligations to one another? On atheism, there just is no way things ought to be and morality is about what ought and ought not to be. You could stubbornly dig your heels in here anyway, or –

c.) make the move that Collins, Libresco and Irving-Stonebraker (and myriads of others) did and dump their worldview in exchange for one that can provide more robust resources for why human beings have worth and duties towards one another.

My hope is that you see that the moral argument is effective. Many times it has changed people’s minds. It speaks to people because we’re all moral creatures; we can’t help but make moral decisions and judgments every day. And possibly most importantly, the moral argument shows us that we’ve all fallen short of the moral law and that we need forgiveness. Christianity has plenty to say about redemption and God’s mercy.

For these reasons, if there was one argument for God that I’d recommend you really camp on until you master it, it’s this one.

Recommended Resources:

CS Lewis’ Moral Argument on the YouTube Channel CS Lewis Doodle

Mere Christianity, CS Lewis

God, Naturalism, and The Foundations for Morality, Paul Copan (free)

The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism, Mark Linville (free)

A Simple Explanation of the Moral Argument, Glenn Peoples (free)

 

Erik Manning is a former atheist turned Christian after an experience with the Holy Spirit. He’s a freelance baseball writer and digital marketing specialist who is passionate about the intersection of evangelism and apologetics.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2QvLvni

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The Equality Act isn’t About Equality

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What is the one topic today that pastors and Christians seem most scared to discuss? They are virtually silent, yet this topic threatens to make certain aspects of following Christ illegal in the United States. There is NOTHING “equal” about the “Equality Act!” It is LGBTQ+ supremacy over heterosexuality, and we don’t shy away from the truth here at CrossExamined.org. Frank interviews Stephen Black on this topic. Don’t miss it!

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Did Jesus Have a Wife A Simple Response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

Did Jesus Have a Wife? – A Simple Response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

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By Mikel Del Rosario

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

So your skeptical friend just heard about something called, “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” But unlike the fiction Dan Brown created in the Da Vinci Code, this wasn’t in a movie or a novel. She just caught another sensational segment on the evening news talking about how controversial this new find is, and now she’s wondering, “Did Jesus have a wife?”

But here’s the thing. This fragment really isn’t rocking anyone’s world. Especially in the academic community. In fact, Karen L. King, the Harvard Professor who actually presented this at the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies said:

…this new discovery [highlight] does not prove that the historical Jesus was married. [/highlight] This gospel (is)…too late, historically speaking, to provide any evidence as to whether the historical Jesus was married or not

So this is all about later, Egyptian views about who Jesus was–not about the historical Jesus of the 1st century.

In this post, I’ll share a simple way to respond to this fragment because we’ve only got two real options here. But first, here’s what scholars are saying about the fragment itself.

Scholars are Skeptical

I got an e-mail about this from Dr. Dan Wallace as soon as this hit the nightly news.  Later, he expanded on his initial thoughts on his blog, saying:

Does this fragment prove that Jesus was married? [highlight]The answer is an emphatic no [/highlight] … it says nothing about true history, about Jesus of Nazareth.

He says that if this thing wasn’t faked (May 2014 Update: Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Looks More and More Like a Fake), one possibility is that it’s a Gnostic source (basically a totally different religion) which meant something other than real marriage here (since they weren’t big into physical stuff being good). Another possibility is that it’s talking about the church as Jesus’ wife, kind of like John does in the book of Revelation. Other scholars like Dr. Darrell Bock and Dr. Gary Habermas agree, saying there just isn’t an awful lot of context here to even figure out what the author was trying to say.

How I Answer, “Did Jesus Have a Wife?”

So what can you say to a skeptical friend who asks you, “Did Jesus have a wife?” Seems like I’ve been hearing this question off and on for a while now. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a possibility: “Isn’t it possible that Jesus had a wife?” I usually agree, which sometimes surprises people and grabs their attention. I say, “Sure. Anything’s possible. But the question is, are there any good reasons to believe that the historical Jesus of Nazareth really had a wife?” If you want to be confident in conversations about this fragment, here’s what I suggest.

Get the Facts

Blow past the headlines and get the hard facts. There are a whole bunch of Web sites covering The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, but this short post on Talbot School of Theology’s The Good Book Blog will give you the skinny on this fragment (which despite its sensationalized name, really isn’t a gospel) that’s basically the size of a business card.

Dr. Darrell Bock was recently quoted by CNN as saying:

“It’s a small text with very little context…It’s a historical curiosity but doesn’t really tell us who Jesus was…[highlight]It’s one small speck of a text in a mountain of texts about Jesus. [/highlight]”

Indeed, even if this fragment turns out to be real, there are over 5,000 New Testament manuscripts and other ancient sources outside the Bible that talk about Jesus. None of these sources indicate that Jesus ever had a wife. And if you’re really interested in the historical Jesus, you know that the four traditional gospels–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John–were recognized as the most accurate biographies of Jesus by A.D. 125. It’s really these ancient documents that give us the very best picture of Jesus’ life and his teachings.

How History Answers, “Did Jesus Have a Wife?”

So did Jesus have a wife? The best ancient, documentary evidence for the historical Jesus says “no.” As historian Dr. Mike Licona observes:

The most powerful evidence that Jesus was single comes from a deafening silence. In 1 Corinthians 9:5 Paul writes, “Do we [i.e., Paul and Barnabas] not have a right to take along a believing wife, as do the rest of the apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Peter?” It appears that all of Jesus’ disciples, all of his blood brothers, and even the lead apostle, Peter, were married. If Jesus had been married, …we certainly would expect for Paul to have mentioned it here, since it would have provided the ultimate example for his point.

A Simple Response You Can Use

So what can you say when someone asks you, “Did Jesus have a Wife?” after hearing something about this fragment? Let me share a simple response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. You don’t have to be a historian or a scholar to say this. It’s easy to remember and something you can use today. Tell your skeptical friend that when it comes to this little fragment, we’ve only got two real options here:

  • Option 1: It’s a fake fragment that tells us nothing about the historical Jesus. [See 2014 updates below]
  • Option 2: It’s a real fragment that tells us nothing about the historical Jesus.

As Christians, it’s important that we’re able to honestly look at something like this fragment without it messing with our faith. After all, if it’s fake, no one should care. If it’s a real 6th-century fragment, it could help us learn more about the kinds of things some Egyptian Gnostics were writing in Coptic hundreds of years after any of the actual eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and teachings.

As for the question, “Was the historical Jesus married?” The historical evidence points to “no.”

Updates on the Fragment

2012

MSNBC: “One the most suspicious grammatical errors in the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife appeared to be a direct copy of a typo in the PDF file version of the Interlinear translation (of the Gospel of Thomas)”

More: See how Dr. Mark Goodacre compares the fragment text to the PDF.

Still More: Read Leo Depuydt’s conclusion Harvard Theological Review. “The author of this analysis has not the slightest doubt that the document is a forgery, and not a very good one at that.”

2014

Boston Globe: King responds to the alleged grammatical error and forgery charge: “such a combination of bumbling and sophistication seems extremely unlikely.”

Huffington Post: “Scientists have concluded the fragment dates back to at least the sixth to ninth centuries, and possibly as far back as the fourth century.” Still, 6th to the 9th century is way too late to tell us anything about the historical Jesus. Furthermore, there is no external or internal evidence suggesting this goes back to the 2nd or 4th century. According to Dr. Bock, “It is a suggestion based on when these discussions commonly arose. That is all it is.”

[highlight] New! [/highlight] 05/01/2014 Wall Street Journal: How The ‘Jesus Wife’ Hoax Fell Apart. 05/02/2014 GLive Science: Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Looks More and More Like a Fake.  Tyndale House quotes Askeland on the “smoking gun”:

The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife was one of several fragments which were announced by Karen King.  There was also in this group of fragments a fragment of the Gospel of John in Coptic. Just recently, when I gazed upon Karen King’s Coptic John fragment, what I saw was immediately clear.  [highlight] Not only were the writing tool, ink and hand exactly the same as those of the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife fragment, but also the method of composition was the same. As I looked at Karen King’s Gospel of John fragment, I finally saw that it was clearly copied (by the forger) from Herbert Thompson’s 1924 edition of Codex Qau. [/highlight] Indeed, the Gospel of John fragment had exactly the same line breaks as Codex Qau – a statistical improbability if it were genuine.

Scholars Discuss The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (2012)

Did Jesus have a wife? Sit in on a discussion I attended on responding to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and get the details from Dr. Richard Taylor and Dr. Darrell Bock at Dallas Theological Seminary. You’ll even get to recite some Coptic before the end of this video! How many people get a chance to do that? I rarely post full-length videos on my blog. But if you’re read this far, this one will definitely be worth your time.

 

Mikel Del Rosario, M.A., Th.M. helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a doctoral student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel teaches Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University. He is the author of Accessible Apologetics and has published over 20 journal articles on apologetics and cultural engagement with his mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock. Mikel holds an M.A. in Christian Apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and a Master of Theology (Th.M.) from Dallas Theological Seminary where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and a host of the Table Podcast. Visit his Web site at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2M8oWa2

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