Stand to Reason Blog

Great Mistake

Justin Buzzard:

About ten years ago I heard Ben Patterson, campus pastor of Westmont College, say something that I will never forget. Ben told the story of a retired pastor who began noticing that his former congregation was sliding away from orthodoxy. The pastor saw this as his fault, noting the one thing he thought he did most poorly as a pastor. The pastor stated, in two sentences, his great failure as a pastor:

I always told people what to believe.

My great mistake is that I never told my people what NOT to believe.

From Between Two Worlds

Here's a book to start with what NOT to believe.

Licona on Erhman

Here are some highlights from Mike Licona's review of Ehrman's new book Forged.  Ehrman's book contends that some of the New Testament books are forgeries.  These include Acts, the two Epsitles bearing Peter's name, and six of Paul's Epistles.

The gist of Licona's assessment is that Ehrman repeatedly brings up partial information and dismisses arguments that disagree far too quickly.

Ehrman appear[s] to take a different approach, assuming all of the 27 are guilty of false attribution until nearly unimpeachable evidence to the contrary can be presented.  Evidence of this approach can be seen when the evidence for traditional authorship is dismissed too quickly or when arguments against the tradition authorship are strikingly weak....Unfortunately, because many of Ehrman's readers will go no further than reading Forged, they will fall prey to some very poor arguments....

An example of partial information that ends up misleading:

In chapter five, Ehrman turns to some of the motive behind ancient forgeries.  In the cases presented in this chapter, the Christians were responding to their conflicts with Jews and pagans.  After discussing some of the literature he writes, "the authors intended to deceive their readers, and their readers were all too easily deceived" (159). Although Ehrman is correct, it is likewise noteworthy that none of the literature he cites became canonical.  Ehrman fails to mention that....

...In a book where he is identifying deceit, it's ironic that Ehrman himself engages in misleading his readers.  In a technical sense, he's correct: the reason we have the present literature in the New Testament is because a theologically orthodox group won the theology war.  However, the impression Ehrman leaves his readers is that the only things distinguishing the literature that made it into the New Testament from the literature that did not is the results of a vote....

But sometimes the winners deserve to win [for historical reasons]....

Ehrman considers Acts a forgery because it supposedly presents a relationship between Peter and Paul that is contradicted in the Epistles.  In Acts, they are in agreement, but the Epistles show them in conflict.  Licona points out a simple explanation available in the text Ehrman cites,

However, in Galatians 2:11-14 (an undisputed letter), Paul tells us that he opposed Peter to his face when he withdrew from eating with Gentiles....Ehrman recognizes there are ways of reconciling these differences.   But he extends no charity in such exercise....But Ehrman will have none of it.  Coult it be because it would throw a wrench in his views?

With regards to another of Ehrman's arguments that Acts is a forgery:

Although he provides reasons, he fails to mention even in an endnote that many schoalrs disagree and have provided answers to what Ehrman regards as conclusive.

Licona notes another flaw in Ehrman's reasoning.  Ehrman argues against the authenticity of these books because they are so long to have been cost prohibitive at the time except for someone very wealthy, and the authors we traditionally credit were not wealthy.  Licona gives some facts that mitigate this argument, but then points out that Ehrman himself provides evidence against his own argument.  Ehrman lists the Epistles he disputes with their word count, and also lists the Epistles he considers legitimate - some of which are longer than the ones he thinks are too long to be legitimate.

Licona concludes that raising a discussion of the legitimate authorship of the New Testament is a useful thing, but that Ehrman's arguments are weak so that he "is left with a firm grasp on an empty sack."  Unfortunately, Ehrman's books continue to trouble some Christians laying seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of the New Testament, and therefore the truth of Christianity.  But his latest book follows his pattern in the others.  Partial facts, flawed arguments, and dismissal of counter-evidence that deserve more credit.  Ehrman's arguments aren't anything that should cause us to doubt the New Testament is historically reliable.

Michael Kruger author of the Heresy of Orthodoxy will be a guest on the radio program April 11 to discuss Ehrman's new book.

Intellectual Skepticism in Our Youth

Recently, pollsters have confirmed what many of us already know:  a large number of Christian students leave the church once they graduate from high school.  Barna has the number at 61%.  Lifeway has it at 70%.  Even if we take Barna's lower number and then subtract another 10% just to be conservative, we're still left with a situation where we are losing half our kids.

But let's not be conservative because it looks like the situation could be worse.  According to political scientists Robert Putman (Harvard) and David Campbell (Notre Dame) in their book, American Grace, young Americans are dropping out of religion at a rate 5-6 times the historic rate (30-40% have no religion today versus 5-10% a generation ago).  The Church definitely has a challenge on its hands.  

So what are the causes?  Well, there are a number of reasons young people leave.  Moral reasons.  Sociological reasons.  But it seems clear they also leave for intellectual reasons (Drew Dyck has some important thoughts on the interplay between the reasons young people give for leaving).  In his book Soul Searching, sociologist Christian Smith found that students reported leaving the religion of their upbringing primarily due to "intellectual skepticism and doubt."  Certainly Christian students who cannot give a reason for their hope in Christ to everyone who asks (I Peter 3:15) will be ill-equipped to deal with the intellectual minefield that is the modern secular college campus.  

Here's part of my solution:  start exposing our Christian students before they leave for college.  Let's bring up their doubts before they do and then create a safe place to talk about those doubts.  Recently, I did just that at a local Christian high school in Southern California by pretending to be an atheist college professor.  You can see how the Christians students did, as I recorded the dialogue:  

 

Of course, these students knew they fared poorly, giving themselves a failing grade.  But here's the key:  afterwards, they're ready to be trained.  Once they see for themselves how ill-equipped they are, they're more open to their real need for serious training and discipleship of the mind.  And then we need to do our part to inoculate them from the false ideas that permeate our culture.

Updating the Bible's Speciesist Language?

This is what you get when you treat the Bible as a book by men that is available for updating versus what it claims for itself - a revelation from God about Himself so we can know Him - therefore, not open to updating.  Note that the justification starts with the updates Christian themselves have made with the Bible.

This is hilarious and tragic all at once:

PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is calling for a more animal-friendly update to the Bible. The group is asking translators of the New International Version (NIV) to remove what it calls ‘speciesist’ language and refer to animals as ‘he’ or ‘she’ instead of ‘it....

PETA is hoping the move toward greater gender inclusiveness will continue toward animals as well.

“When the Bible moves toward inclusively in one area ... it wasn’t much of a stretch to suggest they move toward inclusively in this area," Bruce Friedrich, PETA's vice president for policy, told CNN.

(HT: Challies)

A Meditation on Christ's Passion

You cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that his wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by him, as we read in Isaiah 53 [:6], “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” St. Peter says, “in his body has he borne our sins on the wood of the cross” [I Pet. 2:24]. St. Paul says, “God has made him a sinner for us, so that through him we would be made just” [II Cor. 5:21]. You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your contrition and penance, you will never obtain peace of mind, but will have to despair in the end. If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by his resurrection.

Martin Luther, "A Meditation on Christ's Passion"

What Can We Know about the Afterlife? (Video)

What do you say when a person says that we can't know what happens after we die?

Ehrman's Overblown Claims - Again

Bart Ehrman's latest book is out - Forged: Why the Bible's Authors Aren't Who We Think They Are.  It follows his usual formula.  Take a kernel of truth that is well-known amoung Bible students and blow it out of all proportion to make controversial claims that aren't supported by the evidence to undermine the authority of the Bible. 

I've got it on my desk and will read it next week to make a more detailed review.  And we have Michael Kruger, author of The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity, scheduled to discuss it on the radio program Sunday, April 10.  He and Greg discussed Ehrman M.O. last summer.  Greg assessed Ehrman's work in a recent Solid Ground.

In the meantime, Jerry Newcombe has gathered some comments from leading Bible scholars about the book:

    Dr. Licona, who has debated Ehrman twice, told me, "What we’re seeing from Ehrman [in Forged] is not new information.
       It may be new to many readers who aren’t used to looking at the academic stuff, but it’s not at all new."
Ehrman goes on to assert that many New Testament books that do claim authorship within the text, such as Ephesians, Colossians, and the letters of Peter and James, are not written by the claimed authors. It should be noted that this is not based on manuscript evidence. It’s based largely on the style of the text, and there are many conservative scholars who are not convinced by these arguments. Thus, Ehrman is stating liberal opinion as fact.
       Ironically, Ehrman even states in his own book, "Virtually all of the problems with what I’ve been calling forgeries can be solved if secretaries were heavily involved in the compositions of the early Christian writings." [p. 134]...

    Dr. Paul Maier, a professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University and a first rate scholar of the New Testament and its history, told me, "Both [Ehrman] and his publisher [HarperOne] are guilty of cheap sensationalism with little or no regard for the truth."

Bell's Logic

Logic is fairly simple.  If the argument is valid and the premises are true, then the conclusion follows.  Rob Bell's thinking presented in his new book Love Wins seems to make use of a logical syllogism that goes like:

God is love. God wins. Therefore "Love Wins."

So does the conclusion follow?  Well, no, because there's a problem with the first premise.  It's true, but it's incomplete.  Yet it's used in this syllogism as though it were a complete identity statement about God in order to get to the conclusion.  God is love, but that's not all God is.  Bell offers "God is love" and builds upon it to come to his conclusion as though love is the exclusive or penultimate quality of God.  But it's only one of many, and His other qualities are just as important in concluding the issues of eternity. 

Among His other qualities is justice.  Bell could plug in "justice" to his syllogism and come to the conclusion "Justice wins" that would be just as valid and it might lead to an entirely different book.  But it would also be just as misleading because, again, justice is only one of God's qualities and we cannot focus on one to the exclusion of the others.

Bell isn't along in singling out this one trait of God's as though it were complete.  It's cited often to the exclusion of other verses about God's qualities to justify all kinds of bad theology.

God is love.  God is just.  God is holy.  God is good.  God is powerful.  Etcetera. 

What's the valid conclusion of all that God is in regards to the end times and our final fate? God wins.  And He decides what the terms are.

Did God Have a Wife?

A historian from the University of Exeter is suggesting that God (Yahweh), the God of Israel, had a wife that the Jews worshipped but it's been edited out of the Bible.

Well, not so much edited out of the Bible as edited out of Israel's practices. 

The Bible records Israel's syncretism and worship of deities from the Canaanite neighbors.  It's not surprising archaeologists would find amulets and other evidence of idolatry by Israel.  Far from editing out their idolatry from the Old Testament, that is a major theme throughout the Old Testament.  Through the prophets, God calls them back from their false worship.  Eventually Israel was punished severely for their idolatry - the Northern kingdom was taken away by the Assyrians never to return, and the Southern kingdom was held captive in Babylon for 70 years before returning to the land.  And idolatry was not a problem for Israel after that.

The mere fact that Israel worshipped other deities isn't the same thing that this worship was true.  That's answer is one archaeology can't answer.  The Bible does answer that.  Yahweh is the one true God and we are called to leave our false idols to worship Him alone.

It's rather tedious and tiresome the way information is slanted to look as though there's something edited or hidden from the Biblical record.  This is a recurring theme that isn't grounded in the discoveries that are reported, and this is another example of the claim exceeding the evidence.

Levitical Law (Video)

What method do you use to determine which laws from Leviticus are for today and which aren't?