Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

William Lane Craig on historical reliability of the gospels

2 Comments

From Reasonable Faith, a challenge from a non-Christian who watched the Craig-Ehrman debate. (PDF of the transcript here at Apologetics 315)

Here are his questions:

1) What outside sources (outside of the canon) are there that support Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in bodily form, and ascension into heaven?

2) The message of Jesus was spread by word of mouth until the gospels were written. How do we know legend wasn’t developed? Such as Jesus being buried by Joseph of Arimathea.

3) What about other pagan miracle workers such as Honi the Circle-Drawer, Hanina be Dosa, and Apollonius of Tyana (p 27). Doesn’t the fact that these pagan people doing miracles similar to Jesus discredit Jesus as a miracle worker?

4) What about the seeming contradictions in the different gospel accounts? Please give me a different answer then “These are only secondary details and does not lie at the heart of the matter.” If we go to a University that declares the Bible is inerrant, then shouldn’t we be able to explain these?

I quote from Mr. Ehrman in his debate vs Craig on p. 11:

“What day did Jesus die on and what time of day? Did he die on the day before the Passover meal was eaten, as John explicitly says, or did he die after it was eaten, as Mark explicitly says? Did he die at noon, as in John, or at 9 a.m., as in Mark? Did Jesus carry his cross the entire way himself or did Simon of Cyrene carry his cross? It depends which Gospel you read. Did both robbers mock Jesus on the cross or did only one of them mock him and the other come to his defense? It depends which Gospel you read. Did the curtain in the temple rip in half before Jesus died or after he died? It depends which Gospel you read. Or take the accounts of the resurrection. Who went to the tomb on the third day? Was it Mary alone or was it Mary with other women? If it was Mary with other women, how many other women were there, which ones were they, and what were their names? Was the stone rolled away before they got there or not? What did they see in the tomb? Did they see a man, did they see two men, or did they see an angel? It depends which account you read. What were they told to tell the disciples? Were the disciples supposed to stay in Jerusalem and see Jesus there or were they to go to Galilee and see Jesus there? Did the women tell anyone or not? It depends which Gospel you read. Did the disciples never leave Jerusalem or did they immediately leave Jerusalem and go to Galilee? All of these depend on which account you read.”

Now check this out – Dr. Craig quoting Ehrman to respond to a challenge raised by Ehrman:

4. What about the seeming contradictions in the different gospel accounts?

Here’s your straight answer, Grant: they don’t matter. I could accept that all of these apparent discrepancies are irresolvable, and it wouldn’t affect my historical argument one wit. Don’t believe me? Then let’s let Bart Ehrman speak for himself. Does he think that the seeming contradictions he lists undermine the historical credibility of the facts upon which my argument is based? No! He says,

The resurrection of Jesus lies at the heart of Christian faith. Unfortunately, it also is a tradition about Jesus that historians have difficulty dealing with. As I said, there are a couple of things that we can say for certain about Jesus after his death. We can say with relative certainty, for example, that he was buried. . . .

Some scholars have argued that it’s more plausible that in fact Jesus was placed in a common burial plot, which sometimes happened, or was, as many other crucified people, simply left to be eaten by scavenging animals (which also happened commonly for crucified persons in the Roman Empire). But the accounts are fairly unanimous in saying (the earliest accounts we have are unanimous in saying) that Jesus was in fact buried by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and so it’s relatively reliable that that’s what happened.

We also have solid traditions to indicate that women found this tomb empty three days later. This is attested in all of our gospel sources, early and late, and so it appears to be a historical datum. As so I think we can say that after Jesus’ death, with some (probably with some) certainty, that he was buried, possibly by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and that three days later he appeared not to have been in his tomb (“From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity,” Lecture 4: “Oral and Written Traditions about Jesus” [The Teaching Company, 2003]).

The same goes double—well, many times more than double—for Jesus’ crucifixion. This event is widely recognized as the most solidly established fact about the historical Jesus, denied only by kooks and Muslim true believers. Yet Ehrman’s first five discrepancies are all connected, not with the burial and empty tomb narratives, but with the crucifixion accounts! So are you going to deny that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Roman authority at the time of the Jewish Passover feast in AD 30 because of these differences in the narratives? If so, Grant, then you will have not only intellectually marginalized yourself but also shown that you are not a sincere seeker after truth.

Do you see now, Grant, why I refused to be drawn into a dispute about how many angels there were at the tomb? Insofar as the historicity of the empty tomb is concerned, it just doesn’t matter.

This article also contains a bit of broad, educational material on how to do history:

In addition to these general considerations, scholars have enunciated certain “criteria of authenticity” to help detect historically reliable information about Jesus even in a document which may not be generally reliable. What the criteria really amount to are statements about the effect of certain types of evidence upon the probability of various sayings or events narrated in the sources. For some saying or event S, evidence of a certain type E, and our background information B, the criteria would state that, all things being equal, Pr (S|E&B) > Pr (S|B). In other words, all else being equal, the probability of some event or saying is greater given, for example, its early, independent attestation than it would have been without it.

What are some of the factors that might serve the role of E in increasing the probability of some saying or event S? The following are some of the most important:

1. Historical congruence: S fits in with known historical facts concerning the context in which S is said to have occurred.
2. Independent, early attestation: S appears in multiple sources which are near to the time at which S is alleged to have occurred and which depend neither upon each other nor upon a common source.
3. Embarrassment: S is awkward or counter-productive for the persons who serve as the source of information for S.
4. Dissimilarity: S is unlike antecedent Jewish thought-forms and/or unlike subsequent Christian thought-forms.
5. Semitisms: traces in the narrative of Aramaic or Hebraic linguistic forms.
6. Coherence: S is consistent with already established facts about Jesus.

Notice that these criteria do not presuppose the general reliability of the Gospels. Rather they focus on a particular saying or event and give evidence for thinking that specific element of Jesus’ life to be historical, regardless of the general reliability of the document in which the particular saying or event is reported. These same criteria are thus applicable to reports of Jesus found in the apocryphal Gospels, or rabbinical writings, or even the Qur’an. Of course, if the Gospels can be shown to be generally reliable documents, so much the better! But the criteria do not depend on any such presupposition. They serve to help spot historical kernels even in the midst of historical chaff. Thus we need not concern ourselves with defending the Gospels’ general reliability or every claim attributed to Jesus in the Gospels (much less their inerrancy!).

Click here for the rest. It is very important that Christians be able to use the Bible as a historical source with non-Christian challengers who do not accept the Bible as inerrant, nor even as generally reliable. The best way to learn is by seeing how Christian scholars make the case in debates and discussions.

Commentary

Do gun registries solve crimes? Learning from the Canadian experience

1 Comment

John Lott explains in the Washington Examiner.

Excerpt:

The D.C. Council will soon vote on a new law that would eliminate several obstacles for gun buyers — a five-hour training course, ballistics testing, a vision test, and a ban on certain types of ammunition. But they will leave unchanged the registration requirement for gun owners. D.C. could learn a lot from Canada’s decision to finally rescind its gun registry in February.

Beginning in 1998, Canadians spent a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a registry for long guns — in the U.S., the same amount per gun owner would come to $67 billion. For all that money, the registry was never credited with solving a single murder. Instead, it became an enormous waste of police officers’ time, diverting their efforts from traditional policing activities.

Gun control advocates have long claimed that registration is a safety issue. Their reasoning is straightforward: If a gun is left at a crime scene, and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry will link it back to the criminal.

Unfortunately, it rarely works out this way. Criminals are seldom stupid enough to leave behind crime guns that are registered to themselves.

From 2003 to 2009, there were 4,257 homicides in Canada, 1,314 of which were committed with firearms. Data provided last fall by the Library of Parliament reveal that murder weapons were recovered in fewer than one-third of the homicides with firearms. About three-quarters of the identified weapons were unregistered. Of the weapons that were registered, about half were registered to someone other than the person accused of the homicide.

In only 62 cases — that is, nine per year, or about 1 percent of all homicides in Canada — was the gun registered to the accused. Even in these, the registry does not appear to have played an important role in finding the killer. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police have not yet provided a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a case.

Note that the data provided above cover all guns, including handguns. It isn’t just the long-gun registry — there is also no evidence that Canada’s handgun registry, started in 1934, has ever been important in solving a single homicide.

In parts of the United States where registration is required, the results have been no different. Neither Hawaii, D.C., nor Chicago can point to any crimes that have been solved using registration records.

Nor is there any evidence that registration has reduced homicides. Research published last year by McMaster University professor Caillin Langmann in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence confirmed what other academic studies have found: “This study failed to demonstrate a beneficial association between legislation and firearm homicide rates between 1974 and 2008.” There is not a single refereed academic study by criminologists or economists that has found a significant benefit. A recent Angus Reid poll indicates that Canadians understand this, with only 13 percent believing that the registry has been successful.

The problem isn’t just that the $2.7 billion spent on registration over 17 years hasn’t solved any crimes. It is that the money could have been used to put more police on the street or pay for more health care or cut taxes.

We have been trying all kinds of things since Obama was elected that were already tried in other countries. Green energy, stimulus spending, green jobs programs, socialized medicine, printing money to pay off record deficits, and so on. We need to start learning from the experiences of other countries. If something hasn’t worked in another country, then we shouldn’t be trying it here. We should do what has been known to work. Gun registries don’t solve crimes.

Commentary

What today’s young adults think of marriage, commitment and happiness

9 Comments

Mary sent me this article from Mercator/The Public Discourse. It talks about young people’s views of marriage.

Excerpt:

First, let’s take a look at how working-class young Americans think about marriage.

Meet Ricky, 27, an unmarried father who has been in “about eighteen” relationships and is in his fourth engagement (though never married). Although he has a wedding date set, he questions the point of marriage: “You’re willing to be with that person and you’re gonna spend the rest of your life with that person, so why sign a contract?”

But Ricky does like “the whole thought of what it’s actually about.” What is the “whole thought” of marriage? “It’s, like, being there for the other person and helping them when they’re down, helping them get through tough times, cheering them up when they’re sad,” Ricky says, “You know, just pretty much improving each other’s lives together.” In other words, marriage is about mutual help and companionship.

Ricky also sees marriage as permanent. “When I go into marriage divorce isn’t even on my mind,” he says. “It’s like not even an option.” He looks at his mom’s three divorces and the divorces of his aunts, uncles, and cousins, and asks, “Why’d y’all get married? When I put in what I’m doing I give over one hundred percent.  You know, I do what I’m supposed to do, I put pride behind it.”

And like everyone with whom we talked, Ricky believes that marriage is about commitment. Cheating is inexcusable.

In short, while Ricky would be fine with an informal, common-law marriage arrangement, he definitely aspires to at least some of the ideals of marriage—namely, mutual help, fidelity, and permanence.

Missing in Ricky’s discussion of the meaning of marriage is any connection to children. In fact, he specifically mentions that children and marriage are unrelated. “It’s kind of biased if you say you have to be married because you have a kid, you know. ‘Cause I mean, that’s not the point. I mean, that doesn’t matter.” He goes on to say, “Of course a child needs a father figure and of course a child needs a mother figure.” But that “really has nothing to do with the marriage.”

Further, we found that young adults’ belief in marriage as commitment and permanence comes with an asterisk: so long as both spouses are happy and love each other.

For instance, Brandon, 27, who ended his engagement when his fiancée cheated on him, lauds marriage vows as a “beautiful thing” in which two people say, “Hey, I wanna be with you and nobody else.” He laments that those vows aren’t “necessarily taken so serious as maybe what it used to be.” However, he adds, “But … if you’re married and if you don’t feel like it’s working out—you know, if you guys don’t wanna work it out, I don’t really see a problem with getting a divorce. ‘Cause, it’s just like why live your life in misery?”

Or as another cohabiting young man put it, “I think that the people that get divorced and married and divorced and married are stupid, honestly. But I mean, if you’re unhappy, you got to make yourself happy.”

For as much as young adults express hopes of permanence and commitment, those ideals crumble against the specter of unhappiness. What should the unhappily married person do? A common response went something like this: “It probably means that you married the wrong person and were never in love in the first place. You might have married for the wrong reasons—maybe because the person had money, or just because you got the girl pregnant.” As one roofer put it, “Maybe they was never in love at all!”

What is this enduring love that promises perpetual happiness and for which young adults are searching? Brandon’s response was a common one: “Love is a feeling that you just get when you just know, man. I don’t think there’s a word for it. Like, if you like look into that person’s eyes and it’s, like, you just feel it. Maybe just by the kiss, or by the look, or by the touch.”

Or as one woman defined love: “You know when your body lights up when you get that first kiss from a guy and your whole body is like in overload?….When you are still with that person ten years from now, and you still feel the same way.”

Many of the young adults we interviewed emphasized love’s subjective aspects—such as powerful emotions and “the spark”—as love’s essence. While they recognize the objective aspects of love—such as genuine care for the other person, faithfulness, and friendship—they tend to see the subjective aspects as the authentic indicator of marital love.

Discerning whether the “spark” will endure is of the utmost importance, particularly if one is determined to avoid divorce. Maggie, a twenty-year-old whose parents divorced when she was 13, wants to “set up the life of the non-divorced … for my kids and the future. That’s my plan, really, just normal, try to be normal.” Given this goal, Maggie worries about finding the “right person” with whom she will always be happy.

John, 21, whose parents divorced in his early childhood and is now in a cohabiting relationship, struggles with the same uncertainty. When asked how one knows that he has found the right person, he stresses that you have to “know absolutely for certain, with 100 percent of your being” and that the person has to be “somebody who makes you happy.” But evaluating whether or not the person will always make you happy is tricky and time consuming—especially if one believes, as John does, that happiness is essentially outside of one’s control.

This unrealistic view of marriage is like the total opposite of the Wintery Knight method of courtship and commitment. I totally de-emphasize happiness seeking, the need for “in love” feelings, premarital sex, cohabitation and serial monogamy. I instead favor strict evaluation of spousal candidates over a long period of chastity and courtship – with the aim of maximizing the chance of providing a stable environment for the raising of effective, influential children.

What makes a commitment in my view is not the feelings, it’s the decision of each spouse to work conflicts out – to honor the marriage vow no matter what. And how come no one cares about forming the character of children any more? That should be at the center of the courting evaluation process, because marriage is also for them – they are the vulnerable ones. The spouse you choose has to be suitable for stability – suitable for loving and raising children.

It seems to me that young people are only half right about the goals of marriage. They are right about permanence, but wrong about the needs of children. And when it comes to love and commitment, they are completely wrong. Their view of commitment is no commitment. Commitment is carrying out your obligations to someone when you don’t feel happy – because you love them and want what is best for them regardless of how you feel. The promise comes first.

This is why I put such an emphasis on having a plan for the relationship. Actually there are multiple plans – a plan for the relationship, a plan for each person to grow their spouse, a plan to impact the culture with the relationship and a plan to raise effective and influential children. Once you are committed to specific plans that are objective and not subjective, it really doesn’t matter whether you go some period of time without feeling happy. The relationship is about the plan – not your feelings.

Related posts