The First Three Points - Bible Stuff
"First, Jesus has been established as an historical character from eyewitness accounts in the Bible, writers of history such as Josephus, and people who might have rather erased all records of him, that is, the Romans and Jews. The Romans recorded the existence of "Chrestus" and His followers. The Jewish Talmud has references to Jesus, his birth, his ministry and also the Book of Matthew. Almost everyone agrees that He existed, other than a fringe factor that can be ignored. I consider the self-styled Bible scholar known as G A Wells to most definitely be one of the fringe. I am on the side of the majority opinion that Jesus was most definitely an historical character." (My words)
a hermit said...
Here's an interesting quote from John P. Meier
"Q: Can historians address the Resurrection, then?
A: We can verify as historians that Jesus existed and that certain events reported in the Gospels happened in history, yet historians can never prove the Resurrection in the same way. Why not?
Perhaps some fundamentalists would claim you can. Apart from fundamentalists, perhaps even some more conservative Catholic theologians would claim you could. I myself along with most questers for the historical Jesus—and I think a fair number of Catholic theologians as well—would say the Resurrection stands outside of the sort of questing by way of historical, critical research that is done for the life of the historical Jesus, because of the nature of the Resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus is certainly supremely real. However, not everything that is real either exists in time and space or is empirically verifiable by historical means."
One of the foremost Biblical scholars of our day confirms that the Resurrection of Jesus CANNOT be established as historical fact.
My Answer
I already posted several sources for the existence of Jesus Christ, including the New Testament books. But if you want to be thoroughly anal about it, just exactly what people CAN you prove were actual living people during that time? Pontius Pilate? Less proof for him than for Christ. Annanias? Who? How many documents that you can prove were written during his lifetime attest to the existence of anyone other than one of the Caesars? We have more proof of the historians of that time than we do the people they wrote about.
What is important is that there is enough historical evidence to establish Jesus as an historical figure. How much you take from the Bible and apply it is an individual choice. I would tell a hermit that you cannot dispute the resurrection with any historical evidence, either. At some point you either believe or disbelieve. Belief in God has always been a matter of faith rather than knowledge. Jesus was a real man. Was He the Christ?
~
"Second, it has been established that there is a great deal of controversy within the ranks of Biblical scholars concerning the dating of the New Testament books. There are competing camps, neither of which can claim a concensus. I am on the side of the early daters, as I have posted previously."
creeper said...
The Bible Stuff: Yep, there's controversy about the dating of the New Testament books, yep, you're a Biblical literalist, and Jesus is most likely a historical character, though that is not a certainty. And it's still another few steps from a person named Jesus actually existing to the details of his life (especially regarding his miracles, birth etc.), which aren't confirmed historically in the slightest.
My Answer
Well, since there is much to confirm the first five books of the New Testament (containing the history of Jesus and the early church) as being written in the first century AD by men who either knew Jesus or were contemporaneous, it becomes a matter of choice whether to accept them into evidence. Since the books were being mentioned as being in existence in the late first century and early second century, people who attempt to assign late dates to the books appear to be agenda-driven rather than seekers of truth. Dan Brown can make a ton of money being fast and loose with evidence and history but hopefully no one takes his assertions seriously.
One can decide that the Gospels are not historical and ignore the life of Christ revealed within. That is yet another choice to make. But, again, there is plenty of evidence that the Gospels are actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as honest testimonies to actual events. It falls to us to believe, or to believe not.
~
"Third, I have established myself as a Bible literalist. Unless the Bible is clearly using prophetic or allegorical terminology I take it literally for both doctrine and historical narratives. This puts me in the minority, but it is not a tiny minority by any means."
a hermit said...
"I believe it is the rapidly changing world view of a Western World moving away from Christianity and towards Humanism in the 1800's that led to the theories of Darwin being adopted, Uniformitarianism accepted, and Biblical textural criticism popularized. Once popularized, such thoughts became the "default setting" for the teaching of those disciplines, thus many Christians have come to agree with positions that are not in accord with the Bible."
Probably true, and, I think, a good thing since the result has been the rejection of slavery, the recognition that women are persons and not chattel, scientific advances, the expansion of civil and human rights etc.
My Answer
That is a strange comment bordering on the ridiculous, a hermit, since it is the Christian world in which such values have been recognized. You don't see women's rights and the expansion of civil and human rights in communist countries, or in countries ruled by Sharia law. Bible believing men wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in this country, documents foundational to the advances you named. Bible believers led the fight against slavery in the USA, in case anyone has forgotten. Furthermore, the great scientists of the centuries leading up to the 1800's were primarily believers in God. Atheism doesn't make for better scientists.
Creeper and anonymous have done a fine job of responding to most of the rest of this post, so I'll just add pass this on for anyone interested in Prof. Well's response to Rev. Neal's criticisms:
G. A. Wells Replies to Criticisms of his Books on Jesus
"I conclude that I have in Dr. Neal yet another conservative critic who to some extent misrepresents me, dwells on some marginal matters as if they were of fundamental importance to my case, and deals with the more central ones by mounting plausible-sounding objections while ignoring the answers I have repeatedly given to these very points. His polemical tone and confident emphases do not improve his case. His acerbity increases as his dialogue with my defender proceeds and is obviously in part the result of sheer exasperation with an interlocutor who continually comes back at him. But it is partly prompted by his concern to deter potential readers from my books by persuading them that they are unworthy of serious attention."
Quite a substantive rebuttal, I recommend reading the whole article.
My Answer
(I did read the whole article, by the way).
Wells is one of a number of Bible critics who look for evidences in more recent documents to prove to them what went before. They tend to ignore evidences that support the NT books as being written before 66 AD although those evidences are powerful. They pick and choose what historians they will pay attention to and have a pat answer for their decisions. It doesn't change the fact that men of the first, second, third and fourth centuries believed these books were authentic and they were much closer to the time of writing and had far more sources than do these latter-day critics. One of the fallacies of liberal Bible scholarship is to ignore the findings of early scholars.
Wells also displays a great deal of ignorance concerning the writings of Paul. Paul had no need to recount the Gospels, since they were already available. Paul was writing epistles to specific churches or pastors concerning the needs of those particular people and in doing so God used him to present the basics of Christian living to His church. Both Paul and Peter mention that in their preaching they preached the gospel, in other words, the life, death and resurrection of Christ leading to the salvation of man. Let's just consider the writings of Paul, since there is less dispute as to whether Peter would understand and teach the ways of Jesus.
Romans 1:15 - "So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also."
How often does Paul use this phrase or a similar one in his writings? I count at least forty times. How about this phrase?
I Corinthians 1:22-24 - "For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
In the Book of Romans Paul lays out the principles of sin and the price for sin. He explains what Jesus accomplished in His mission to mankind and how Jesus both paid the price for sin and made salvation available to mankind. He lays the background for understanding atonement, and grace, and echoes what Jesus told both His disciples and the crowds to whom He preached. Paul certainly understood Jesus' teachings exceedingly well and could present them convincingly.
I could go on and on. Paul's epistles, like those of James and Peter, were meant to augment the testimonies of the Gospels and the Acts, not to echo them. G. A. Wells seems to think that Paul needs to rerun previous scriptures in order to either have validity or to give validity to the scriptures that had been written by others. But Paul would not have seen that as being part of his mission. Paul sought converts to Christianity and as a mentor to other preachers he helped others to do the same. I am sure Paul never gave a moment's thought to whether his writings were a validation of the Gospel of Matthew. Like Jesus when He taught, Paul would occasionally quote scripture in his writings to make a point, but not to authenticate the passage being quoted.
Wells fails to see the significance of the fact that Peter and other believers associated with Jerusalem and Jesus himself acknowledged Paul as an apostle of Christ. Furthermore, Paul did not cling to that acknowledgement but actually was bold enough to question some of their rituals. Much like Jesus, Paul put emphasis on grace and the state of the heart of man above that of circumcision or the washing of hands. G. A Wells does not grasp this. Unfortunately G. A. Wells lacks the insight to understand the writings of the New Testament thoroughly because he comes to the books as a skeptic. A skeptic will have difficulty understanding.
II Peter 1:19-21 - "And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
I try to be a humble man. It pains me to say something that people will take as arrogance. Yet I believe this to be true, that unless you are a believing Christian you cannot get as much out of the New Testament as can a believer. Based on the scripture above, men wrote the scriptures but first they had to be believers and be able to be moved by the Spirit of God to write. Second, in order to interpret what is written on needs the Spirit of God to help you understand in depth what has been written. This is not my idea, I am just passing on what the scriptures say.
As a believing Christian who has prayerfully studied the writings of Paul in the Bible, having read every one of his epistles dozens of times, looked up the Greek, prayerfully considered and meditated over individual passages, based my living in part on what is contained in those passages, I have to say this: G. A. Wells may very well be both a sincere and a studious man. However, Wells, when talking about what Paul said and knew and believed, just doesn't know what the heck he is talking
about.
____________________________________________________
Preview of coming events
Largely fueled by comments by creeper, the second set of seven points will be a much longer posting. It should be up on Thursday, since I teach a class on Wednesday and have a few other obligations so my post tomorrow may be a shorter one.
I do want to thank again all the commenters who take the time to post here. Concerning feedback, kindly make a comment on the last poetry posting if you would consider taking part in a Poetry carnival. I am thinking of hosting one and I think I have some commenters who could contribute some interesting stuff. Thanks!
a hermit said...
Here's an interesting quote from John P. Meier
"Q: Can historians address the Resurrection, then?
A: We can verify as historians that Jesus existed and that certain events reported in the Gospels happened in history, yet historians can never prove the Resurrection in the same way. Why not?
Perhaps some fundamentalists would claim you can. Apart from fundamentalists, perhaps even some more conservative Catholic theologians would claim you could. I myself along with most questers for the historical Jesus—and I think a fair number of Catholic theologians as well—would say the Resurrection stands outside of the sort of questing by way of historical, critical research that is done for the life of the historical Jesus, because of the nature of the Resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus is certainly supremely real. However, not everything that is real either exists in time and space or is empirically verifiable by historical means."
One of the foremost Biblical scholars of our day confirms that the Resurrection of Jesus CANNOT be established as historical fact.
My Answer
I already posted several sources for the existence of Jesus Christ, including the New Testament books. But if you want to be thoroughly anal about it, just exactly what people CAN you prove were actual living people during that time? Pontius Pilate? Less proof for him than for Christ. Annanias? Who? How many documents that you can prove were written during his lifetime attest to the existence of anyone other than one of the Caesars? We have more proof of the historians of that time than we do the people they wrote about.
What is important is that there is enough historical evidence to establish Jesus as an historical figure. How much you take from the Bible and apply it is an individual choice. I would tell a hermit that you cannot dispute the resurrection with any historical evidence, either. At some point you either believe or disbelieve. Belief in God has always been a matter of faith rather than knowledge. Jesus was a real man. Was He the Christ?
~
"Second, it has been established that there is a great deal of controversy within the ranks of Biblical scholars concerning the dating of the New Testament books. There are competing camps, neither of which can claim a concensus. I am on the side of the early daters, as I have posted previously."
creeper said...
The Bible Stuff: Yep, there's controversy about the dating of the New Testament books, yep, you're a Biblical literalist, and Jesus is most likely a historical character, though that is not a certainty. And it's still another few steps from a person named Jesus actually existing to the details of his life (especially regarding his miracles, birth etc.), which aren't confirmed historically in the slightest.
My Answer
Well, since there is much to confirm the first five books of the New Testament (containing the history of Jesus and the early church) as being written in the first century AD by men who either knew Jesus or were contemporaneous, it becomes a matter of choice whether to accept them into evidence. Since the books were being mentioned as being in existence in the late first century and early second century, people who attempt to assign late dates to the books appear to be agenda-driven rather than seekers of truth. Dan Brown can make a ton of money being fast and loose with evidence and history but hopefully no one takes his assertions seriously.
One can decide that the Gospels are not historical and ignore the life of Christ revealed within. That is yet another choice to make. But, again, there is plenty of evidence that the Gospels are actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as honest testimonies to actual events. It falls to us to believe, or to believe not.
~
"Third, I have established myself as a Bible literalist. Unless the Bible is clearly using prophetic or allegorical terminology I take it literally for both doctrine and historical narratives. This puts me in the minority, but it is not a tiny minority by any means."
a hermit said...
"I believe it is the rapidly changing world view of a Western World moving away from Christianity and towards Humanism in the 1800's that led to the theories of Darwin being adopted, Uniformitarianism accepted, and Biblical textural criticism popularized. Once popularized, such thoughts became the "default setting" for the teaching of those disciplines, thus many Christians have come to agree with positions that are not in accord with the Bible."
Probably true, and, I think, a good thing since the result has been the rejection of slavery, the recognition that women are persons and not chattel, scientific advances, the expansion of civil and human rights etc.
My Answer
That is a strange comment bordering on the ridiculous, a hermit, since it is the Christian world in which such values have been recognized. You don't see women's rights and the expansion of civil and human rights in communist countries, or in countries ruled by Sharia law. Bible believing men wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in this country, documents foundational to the advances you named. Bible believers led the fight against slavery in the USA, in case anyone has forgotten. Furthermore, the great scientists of the centuries leading up to the 1800's were primarily believers in God. Atheism doesn't make for better scientists.
Creeper and anonymous have done a fine job of responding to most of the rest of this post, so I'll just add pass this on for anyone interested in Prof. Well's response to Rev. Neal's criticisms:
G. A. Wells Replies to Criticisms of his Books on Jesus
"I conclude that I have in Dr. Neal yet another conservative critic who to some extent misrepresents me, dwells on some marginal matters as if they were of fundamental importance to my case, and deals with the more central ones by mounting plausible-sounding objections while ignoring the answers I have repeatedly given to these very points. His polemical tone and confident emphases do not improve his case. His acerbity increases as his dialogue with my defender proceeds and is obviously in part the result of sheer exasperation with an interlocutor who continually comes back at him. But it is partly prompted by his concern to deter potential readers from my books by persuading them that they are unworthy of serious attention."
Quite a substantive rebuttal, I recommend reading the whole article.
My Answer
(I did read the whole article, by the way).
Wells is one of a number of Bible critics who look for evidences in more recent documents to prove to them what went before. They tend to ignore evidences that support the NT books as being written before 66 AD although those evidences are powerful. They pick and choose what historians they will pay attention to and have a pat answer for their decisions. It doesn't change the fact that men of the first, second, third and fourth centuries believed these books were authentic and they were much closer to the time of writing and had far more sources than do these latter-day critics. One of the fallacies of liberal Bible scholarship is to ignore the findings of early scholars.
Wells also displays a great deal of ignorance concerning the writings of Paul. Paul had no need to recount the Gospels, since they were already available. Paul was writing epistles to specific churches or pastors concerning the needs of those particular people and in doing so God used him to present the basics of Christian living to His church. Both Paul and Peter mention that in their preaching they preached the gospel, in other words, the life, death and resurrection of Christ leading to the salvation of man. Let's just consider the writings of Paul, since there is less dispute as to whether Peter would understand and teach the ways of Jesus.
Romans 1:15 - "So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also."
How often does Paul use this phrase or a similar one in his writings? I count at least forty times. How about this phrase?
I Corinthians 1:22-24 - "For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
In the Book of Romans Paul lays out the principles of sin and the price for sin. He explains what Jesus accomplished in His mission to mankind and how Jesus both paid the price for sin and made salvation available to mankind. He lays the background for understanding atonement, and grace, and echoes what Jesus told both His disciples and the crowds to whom He preached. Paul certainly understood Jesus' teachings exceedingly well and could present them convincingly.
I could go on and on. Paul's epistles, like those of James and Peter, were meant to augment the testimonies of the Gospels and the Acts, not to echo them. G. A. Wells seems to think that Paul needs to rerun previous scriptures in order to either have validity or to give validity to the scriptures that had been written by others. But Paul would not have seen that as being part of his mission. Paul sought converts to Christianity and as a mentor to other preachers he helped others to do the same. I am sure Paul never gave a moment's thought to whether his writings were a validation of the Gospel of Matthew. Like Jesus when He taught, Paul would occasionally quote scripture in his writings to make a point, but not to authenticate the passage being quoted.
Wells fails to see the significance of the fact that Peter and other believers associated with Jerusalem and Jesus himself acknowledged Paul as an apostle of Christ. Furthermore, Paul did not cling to that acknowledgement but actually was bold enough to question some of their rituals. Much like Jesus, Paul put emphasis on grace and the state of the heart of man above that of circumcision or the washing of hands. G. A Wells does not grasp this. Unfortunately G. A. Wells lacks the insight to understand the writings of the New Testament thoroughly because he comes to the books as a skeptic. A skeptic will have difficulty understanding.
II Peter 1:19-21 - "And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
I try to be a humble man. It pains me to say something that people will take as arrogance. Yet I believe this to be true, that unless you are a believing Christian you cannot get as much out of the New Testament as can a believer. Based on the scripture above, men wrote the scriptures but first they had to be believers and be able to be moved by the Spirit of God to write. Second, in order to interpret what is written on needs the Spirit of God to help you understand in depth what has been written. This is not my idea, I am just passing on what the scriptures say.
As a believing Christian who has prayerfully studied the writings of Paul in the Bible, having read every one of his epistles dozens of times, looked up the Greek, prayerfully considered and meditated over individual passages, based my living in part on what is contained in those passages, I have to say this: G. A. Wells may very well be both a sincere and a studious man. However, Wells, when talking about what Paul said and knew and believed, just doesn't know what the heck he is talking
about.
____________________________________________________
Preview of coming events
Largely fueled by comments by creeper, the second set of seven points will be a much longer posting. It should be up on Thursday, since I teach a class on Wednesday and have a few other obligations so my post tomorrow may be a shorter one.
I do want to thank again all the commenters who take the time to post here. Concerning feedback, kindly make a comment on the last poetry posting if you would consider taking part in a Poetry carnival. I am thinking of hosting one and I think I have some commenters who could contribute some interesting stuff. Thanks!