Category Archives: News

News

Why do so many atheist historians think that 1 Corinthians 15 is reliable history?

Leave a comment

Which passage of the Bible is the favorite of Christians who like to defend the Christian worldview? I don’t mean which one is most inspirational… I mean “which one is the most useful for winning arguments?” Well, when it comes to the historical Jesus, the most important passage has to be 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.

The tradition in 1 Corinthians 15 is an early creed that was received from the eyewitnesses Peter and John when Paul visited them several times in Jerusalem, as documented in Galatians 1 and 2, where Paul meets the eyewitnesses. And of course, Paul records his own eyewitness experience, documented in 1 Cor 15:8.

So, is this passage accepted as historically reliable by all ancient historians? Or only by the Bible-believing ones?

Here’s something posted by Dr. William Lane Craig about the 1 Corinthians 15 passage:

The evidence that Paul is not writing in his own hand in I Cor. 15.3-5 is so powerful that all New Testament scholars recognize that Paul is here passing on a prior tradition. In addition to the fact that Paul explicitly says as much, the passage is replete with non-Pauline characteristics, including, in order of appearance: (i) the phrase “for our sins” using the genitive case and plural noun is unusual for Paul; (ii) the phrase “according to the Scriptures” is unparalleled in Paul, who introduces Scriptural citations by “as it is written”; (iii) the perfect passive verb “has been raised” appears only in this chapter and in a pre-Pauline confessional formula in II Tim. 2.8; (iv) the phrase “on the third day” with its ordinal number following the noun in Greek is non-Pauline; (v) the word “appeared” is found only here and in the confessional formula in I Tim. 3.16; and (vi) “the Twelve” is not Paul’s nomenclature, for he always speaks of the twelve disciples as “the apostles.”

Now the visit during which Paul may have received this tradition is the visit you mention three years after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Gal. 1.18). This puts the tradition back to within the first five years after Jesus’ death in AD 30. So there’s not even an apparent inconsistency with Paul’s appropriating the language of the formula to encapsulate the Gospel he was already preaching during those first three years in Damascus.

Ancient historian Gary Habermas loves to read non-Christian scholars… and then he writes about what THEY think about Jesus in peer-reviewed articles, published in academic journals. Let’s look at this one: Dialog: A Journal of Theology, Vol. 45; No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 288-297; published by Blackwell Publishing, UK.

He writes:

(1) Contemporary critical scholars agree that the apostle Paul is the primary witness to the early resurrection experiences. A former opponent (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:4-7), Paul states that the risen Jesus appeared personally to him (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8; Gal. 1:16). The scholarly consensus here is attested by atheist Michael Martin, who avers: “However, we have only one contemporary eyewitness account of a postresurrection appearance of Jesus, namely Paul’s.”[3]

(2) In addition to Paul’s own experience, few conclusions are more widely recognized than that, in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff., Paul records an ancient oral tradition(s). This pre-Pauline report summarizes the early Gospel content, that Christ died for human sin, was buried, rose from the dead, and then appeared to many witnesses, both individuals and groups.

Paul is clear that this material was not his own but that he had passed on to others what he had received earlier, as the center of his message (15:3). There are many textual indications that the material pre-dates Paul. Most directly, the apostle employs paredoka and parelabon, the equivalent Greek terms for delivering and receiving rabbinic tradition (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23). Indirect indications of a traditional text(s) include the sentence structure and verbal parallelism, diction, and the triple sequence of kai hoti Further, several non-Pauline words, the proper names of Cephas (cf. Lk. 24:34) and James, and the possibility of an Aramaic original are all significant. Fuller attests to the unanimity of scholarship here: “It is almost universally agreed today that Paul is here citing tradition.”[4] Critical scholars agree that Paul received the material well before this book was written.[5]

This is important:

The most popular view is that Paul received this material during his trip to Jerusalem just three years after his conversion, to visit Peter and James, the brother of Jesus (Gal. 1:18-19), both of whose names appear in the appearance list (1 Cor. 15:5; 7). An important hint here is Paul’s use of the verb historesai (1:18), a term that indicates the investigation of a topic.[6] The immediate context both before and after reveals this subject matter: Paul was inquiring concerning the nature of the Gospel proclamation (Gal. 1:11-2:10), of which Jesus’ resurrection was the center (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 14, 17; Gal. 1:11, 16).

He’s an eyewitness (verse 8), and he met with the other eyewitnesses, James and Peter. 1 Corinthians is early. Galatians is early. The creed is extremely early – right after the events occurred. There was no time for legends to develop.

And atheistic / critical historians agree, the creed is reliable:

Critical scholars generally agree that this pre-Pauline creed(s) may be the earliest in the New Testament. Ulrich Wilckens asserts that it “indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.”[7] Joachim Jeremias agrees that it is, “the earliest tradition of all.”[8] Perhaps a bit too optimistically, Walter Kasper even thinks that it was possibly even “in use by the end of 30 AD . . . .”[9]

Indicating the wide approval on this subject, even more skeptical scholars frequently agree. Gerd Ludemann maintains that “the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus. . . . not later than three years. . . . the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE. . . .”[10] Similarly, Michael Goulder thinks that it “goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.”[11] Thomas Sheehan agrees that this tradition “probably goes back to at least 32-34 C.E., that is, to within two to four years of the crucifixion.”[12] Others clearly consent.[13]

Overall, my recent overview of critical sources mentioned above indicates that those who provide a date generally opt for Paul’s reception of this report relatively soon after Jesus’ death, by the early to mid-30s A.D.[14] This provides an additional source that appears just a half step removed from eyewitness testimony.

(3) Paul was so careful to assure the content of his Gospel message, that he made a second trip to Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1-10) specifically to be absolutely sure that he had not been mistaken (2:2). The first time he met with Peter and James (Gal. 1:18-20). On this occasion, the same two men were there, plus the apostle John (2:9). Paul was clearly doing his research by seeking out the chief apostles. As Martin Hengel notes, “Evidently the tradition of I Cor. 15.3 had been subjected to many tests” by Paul.[15]

These four apostles were the chief authorities in the early church, and each is represented in the list of those who had seen the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor. 15:5-7). So their confirmation of Paul’s Gospel preaching (Gal. 2:9), especially given the apostolic concern to insure doctrinal truth in the early church, is certainly significant. On Paul’s word, we are again just a short distance from a firsthand report.

(4) Not only do we have Paul’s account that the other major apostles confirmed his Gospel message, but he provides the reverse testimony, too. After listing Jesus’ resurrection appearances, Paul tells us he also knew what the other apostles were preaching regarding Jesus’ appearances, and it was the same as his own teaching on this subject (1 Cor. 15:11). As one, they proclaimed that Jesus was raised from the dead (15:12, 15). So Paul narrates both the more indirect confirmation of his Gospel message by the apostolic leaders, plus his firsthand, direct approval of their resurrection message.

Now, some of the people he lists are really biased against the supernatural, and they really hate the idea that the claims of Christianity exclude other religions. And yet they don’t deny the historical reliability of 1 Corinthians 15, or that it is based on eyewitness testimony.

That’s why when you watch debates about the historical Jesus, you see skeptical historians like Bart Ehrman, Gerd Ludemann, James Crossley, Michael Goulder, etc. accepting that the disciples thought they saw Jesus after his death. They’re not just being nice to Dr. Craig when they give him that. They are forced to accept it, because it passes the historical tests. Every Christian ought to be aware of which passages of the New Testament are seen by the broad spectrum of ancient historians as “historical”, regardless of their various biases. You can believe everything in the Bible. But when you debate non-Christians, you have to use the historical core of Christianity which successfully passes historical analysis.

You can see the creed used as evidence in the debate between James Crossley and William Lane Craig.

News

How many evidences do you know for the origin of the universe?

2 Comments

It’s very, very important to get a conversation about spiritual things started off on the right foot. My favorite place to start is with the origin of the universe. I always use the same 3 evidences, but I found an article that has even MORE. First, let me talk about the ones I like, then I’ll send you the link to the article with the bigger list. Once you get the beginning proved, the next question is: who caused it?

Here’s the article from J. Warner Wallace.

He writes this:

My career as a Cold Case Detective was built on being evidentially certain about the suspects I brought to trial. There are times when my certainty was established and confirmed by the cumulative and diverse nature of the evidence. Let me give you an example. It’s great when a witness sees the crime and identifies the suspect, but it’s even better if we have DNA evidence placing the suspect at the scene. If the behavior of the suspect (before and after the time of the crime) also betrays his involvement, and if his statements when interviewed are equally incriminating, the case is even better. Cases such as these become more and more reasonable as they grow both in depth and diversity. It’s not just that we now have four different evidences pointing to the same conclusion, it’s that these evidences are from four different categories. Eyewitness testimony, forensic DNA, behaviors and admissions all point to the same reasonable inference. When we have a cumulative, diverse case such as this, our inferences become more reasonable and harder to deny. Why did I take the time to describe this evidential approach to reasonable conclusions? Because a similar methodology can be used to determine whether everything in the universe (all space, time and matter) came from nothing. We have good reason to believe our universe had a beginning, and this inference is established by a cumulative, diverse evidential case.

Here is his list of evidences:

  1. Philosophical Evidence
  2. Theoretical Evidence
  3. Observational Evidence
  4. Thermal Evidence
  5. Quantitative Evidence
  6. Residual Evidence

Now, if you listened to our podcast with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, I mentioned the ones that I like, which are #3, #5 and #6. And I like these, because they are scientific, and because I have clever ways of explaining them using simple terms.

Here’s what he says:

3. Observational Evidence (from Astronomical Data)

Vesto Slipher, an American astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, spent nearly ten years perfecting his understanding of spectrograph readings. His observations revealed something remarkable. If a distant object was moving toward Earth, its observable spectrograph colors shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum. If a distant object was moving away from Earth, its colors shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Slipher identified several “nebulae” and observed a “redshift” in their spectrographic colors. If these “nebulae” were moving away from our galaxy (and one another) as Slipher observed, they must have once been tightly clustered together. By 1929, Astronomer Edwin Hubble published findings of his own, verifying Slipher’s observations and demonstrating the speed at which a star or galaxy moves away from us increases with its distance from the earth. This once again confirmed the expansion of the universe.

5. Quantitative Evidence (from the Abundance of Helium)

As Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle studied the way elements are created within stars, he was able to calculate the amount of helium created if the universe came into being from nothing. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (Hydrogen is the first), but in order to form helium by nuclear fusion, temperatures must be incredibly high and conditions must be exceedingly dense. These would have been the conditions if the universe came into being from nothing. Hoyle’s calculations related to the formation of helium happen to coincide with our measurements of helium in the universe today. This, of course, is consistent with the universe having a moment of beginning.

6. Residual Evidence (from the Cosmic Background Radiation)

In 1964, two American physicists and radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected what is now referred to as “echo radiation”, winning a Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1978. Numerous additional experiments and observations have since established the existence of cosmic background radiation, including data from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launched in 1989, and the Planck space observatory launched in 2009. For many scientists, this discovery alone solidified their belief the universe had a beginning. If the universe leapt into existence, expanding from a state of tremendous heat, density and expansion, we should expect find this kind of cosmic background radiation.

So, I’ve made simple analogies for these, so that I can explain them to people from every background.

For #5, for example, I use the story of leaving you in a room with beads and strings and then watching you make one necklace of beads, and timing you, and then leaving you for an hour, and coming back and estimating how many necklaces you will have made, and how many beads you have left. With respect to the beginning of the universe, at the very beginning, it’s all hydrogen (beads). But there is nuclear fusion going on, and the beads are being fused into heavier elements like helium and carbon and oxygen (necklaces). Well, astronomers made predictions about HOW MUCH helium you could fuse during the very hot period, according to the standard cosmology, and the prediction was for 75% hydrogen (beads) and 24% helium (necklaces), and that’s exactly what we see today.

And for #6, I talk about baking a cake. Suppose you heated up your oven and put a ban full of cake batter in there for an hour. You notice that the room is 68 Fahrenheit (20 Celsius) when the cake went in. Then you take the cake out to cool, but you leave the oven open. An hour later, you notice that the oven is cool, but the temperature of the room has gone up to 72 Fahrenheit (22 Celsius). When you have a source of heat in a small area, then you open it up in a bigger area, the smaller area cools down, and the bigger area warms up a bit. Astronomers made a prediction that the very hot creation event would leave a small 3 degrees Kelvin “cosmic microwave background radiation” everywhere in space, and when they were finally able to measure it, they found that the predicted 3 Kelvin temperature was found exactly as predicted.

So, if you don’t know all of these evidences for a beginning, read the article, pick your favorites, and be ready to explain them.

News

Richard Dawkins: “the hypothesis of theism is a scientific hypothesis”

2 Comments

I’m not sure if you’ve been following Richard Dawkins lately, but he has been getting less and less beastly. First of all, he did several debates with Christian scholars. Second, he’s realized the difference that Christian values make for morality and civilization. And thirdly – and this is the new one – he thinks that the intelligent design hypothesis is a valid scientific hypothesis. Let’s take a look.

In this clip from the preview of a debate that Richard Dawkins had with John Lennox, he explains (at around the 3-minute mark) that a “reasonably respectable case” can be made for a deistic God. That means a God who creates and designs the universe, but does not intefere:

That happened back in 2008. And in their debate he said this: “A serious case could be made for a deistic God”.

So already, he was starting to sound more like Anthony Flew, who, atheist though he was, always showed that he would be willing to go wherever the evidence led. I remember in Flew’s debate with William Lane Craig, an atheist questioner asked him why he was accepting the case for a supernatural cause of the beginning of the universe, instead of trying to proposing a different model that would get out of the need for a Creator. And Flew said that he had to go with the scientific consensus, which requires a beginning of the universe. A few years later, Flew gave up atheism and accepted theism (although not Christianity). He was honest about what science shows. I can tell a smart atheist from a dumb atheist.

Anyway, round 2 of Dawkins is when he recently lamented the fact that the decline of Christianity (which he spent his life trying to achieve) had caused changes in British culture that he didn’t like.

Here it is from Christian Post:

Atheist author Richard Dawkins described himself as a “cultural Christian” and lamented the faith’s waning cultural influence in Europe, though he still derided its key tenets as “nonsense,” during an interview on Easter Sunday.

Speaking with British journalist Rachel Johnson, Dawkins noted that the United Kingdom is “fundamentally a Christian country,” and he still personally values the Christian ethos despite not believing the religion from which it emerged.

“I call myself a cultural Christian,” said the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion. “I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. And so, I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.”

All right, here is the latest Richard Dawkins news, from Evolution News:

Recently Dr. Dawkins had a moving dialogue with former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is also a former Muslim. She has announced her conversion to Christianity for what she describes as “very subjective” reasons. It was in response to a “personal crisis”: “I lived for about a decade with intense depression and anxiety and self-loathing. I hit rock bottom. I went to a place where I actually didn’t want to live anymore, but wasn’t brave enough to take my own life.” Faith was her way out of the crisis.

Dawkins answers kindly that belief in a creator or designer is more than a mere subjective response: “You appear to be a theist,” he tells her. “You appear to believe in some kind of higher power. Now, I think that the hypothesis of theism is the most exciting scientific hypothesis you could possibly hold” (emphasis added). Hold that thought in your mind.

Obviously, Dawkins wasn’t giving up his own atheism. He goes on: “And the idea that the universe was actually created by a supernatural intelligence is a dramatic, important idea. If it were true, it would completely change everything we know. We’d be living in a totally different, different universe. That’s a big thing. It’s bigger than personal comfort and nice stories and these things. The idea that the universe has lurking beneath it an intelligence or supernatural intelligence that invented the laws of physics, that invented mathematics, is a stupendous idea, if it’s true.” Minus the reference to “lurking,” that is of course the thesis of intelligent design. He adds, “To me that simply dwarfs all talk of nobility and morality and comfort and that sort of thing.”

This is a remarkable response, granting the premise of arguments for intelligent design like those of Stephen Meyer in Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries Revealing the Mind Behind the Universe. The premise is that in discussions of ID, there really is a scientific question to consider. The design hypothesis could be wrong, or it could be right. But let’s weigh it on its own terms as the scientific hypothesis that it is. Thank you to Richard Dawkins for using his authority to point that out.

And of course, anyone who has looked into these things knows the elements of the scientific case for theism:

  1. origin of the universe
  2. cosmic fine-tuning
  3. galactic, stellar and planetary habitability
  4. origin of life
  5. Cambrian explosion
  6. molecular machines / irreducible complexity

A lot of atheists don’t go near enough to the evidence to be able to make a statement like what Dawkins said. I’m impressed with Dawkins, because he was even able to correct Ayann Hirsi Ali about what Christianity actually involves. Christianity is not primarily about subjective beliefs or communities or even a set of moral teachings. Christianity is a knowledge tradition. It’s a set of claims about reality that are either true or false. And he knows that Christianity makes testable claims, and some of them can be verified or falsified by science. Dawkins has a more respectful view of what Christianity is than many Christians. Impressive.