Podcasts

William Lane Craig lectures on radical skepticism and the historical Jesus

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Brian Auten at Apologetics 315 posted a lecture by William Lane Craig on the historical Jesus.

In his post, Brian doesn’t really say much about where or when the lecture was recorded. But I can tell you! This lecture has a special meaning for me because when I was just learning about apologetics, this was one of the first lectures I ordered. The lecture was delivered in 1996 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary as part of the distinguished Carver-Barnes Lecture Series. The title was “Re-Discovering the Historical Jesus”. Hearing this again (I lent mine away and never got it back) was a real treat for me.

The MP3 file is here.

And here is a summary I made so you can follow along as you listen.

Lecture 1: the pre-suppositions of the Jesus Seminar
– the origins of the radically skeptical “Jesus Seminar” group
– what does the Jesus Seminar believe about Jesus?
– what is a pre-supposition?
– how do pre-suppositions affect the study of history?
– the Jesus Seminar’s pre-supposition of naturalism (atheism)
– the Jesus Seminar’s pre-supposition that the NT gospels are late
– the Jesus Seminar’s pre-supposition of political correctness
– does the Jesus Seminar represent the consensus of NT scholars?

Lecture 2A: are the NT gospels historically reliable?
– should the gospels be assumed to be reliable or unreliable
– argument #1: insufficient time from events to written record
– argument #2: gospels contain very little legendary material
– argument #3: Jewish culture was good at oral transmission
– argument #4: eyewitness correction and apostolic supervision
– argument #5: the gospels are reliable where they can be tested
– #1: legendary elements only appear 1-2 generations after events
– but gospels were written within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses
– sources for the gospels are even earlier, e.g. – 1 Cor 15:3-8
– on the other hand, the apocryphal gospels do contain legends
– #5: gospels are confirmed by history and archaeology were possible
– Luke includes details showing that he traveled with eyewitness Paul

Lecture 2B: the self-understanding of Jesus
– how early and reliable is believe in Jesus’ divinity
– it would be hard to get monotheistic Jews to think Jesus was divine
– the only way this belief could have emerged is if Jesus taught it
– parable of the wicked tennants and vineyard – Jesus’ self-understanding
– passage about no one knowing the father except the son, etc.
– passage about not knowing the date of his second coming
– the healings and exorcisms are well-attested and skeptics grant them

Lecture 2C: the trial and crucifixion of Jesus
– crucifixion is well-attested inside and outside the New Testament
– even the Jesus Seminar considers this an indisputable fact about Jesus
– Jesus was crucified for blasphemy – i.e. claiming to be divine

Lecture 2D: the minimal facts case for the resurrection
– minimal fact #1: the burial in a known location
– minimal fact #2: the empty tomb
– minimal fact #3: the appearances to individuals and groups
– minimal fact #4: the early belief that Jesus was resurrected
– the majority of scholars, including skeptics, accept the minimal facts
– naturalistic explanations are not able to account for these facts

There is a very noisy weird person in the audience who keeps shouting his approval. This lecture is almost identical to a lecture that Craig gave for Stand to Reason’s Masters Series, on the pre-suppositions of the Jesus Seminar. There is no Q&A in this lecture, but there is Q&A in the STR version.

News

Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker signs pro-life ultrasound bill

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Unborn baby scheming about how to move to Wisconsin
Scheming unborn baby planning to move to Wisconsin

Dad sent me this encouraging article from Fox News.

Excerpt:

Gov. Scott Walker quietly signed a contentious Republican bill Friday that would require women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound and ban doctors who lack admitting privileges at nearby hospitals from performing the procedures.

Opponents contend legislators shouldn’t force women to undergo any medical procedure and the bill will force at least two abortion clinics where providers lack admitting privileges to shut their doors.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the bill in mid-June.

[…]Under the bill, any woman seeking an abortion would have to get an ultrasound. The technician would have to point out the fetus’ visible organs and external features to the woman. Abortion providers would have to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles to perform the procedures.

Republican supporters argue the ultrasound requirement is designed to help the woman bond with the fetus and convince her to save it. The admitting privileges mandate is meant to ensure an abortion provider can follow up with a patient at the hospital if an emergency arises, they say.

The bill is part of national GOP push to curtail abortions. North Dakota’s governor, Republican Jack Dalrymple, signed a law this spring that outlaws abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, making North Dakota the most restrictive state in the nation to get an abortion. The state’s lone abortion clinic has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the law.

Republicans in Arkansas this spring passed a law that bans most abortions after 12 weeks. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the Center for Reproductive Rights. A federal judge has temporarily blocked that law. A trial has been tentatively scheduled for next year.

Republicans in Alabama passed a law similar to the Wisconsin bill in April requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit contending the law would shut down three of the state’s five clinics because doctors at the clinics haven’t been able to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. A federal judge temporarily blocked the law in June.

The Wisconsin bill sparked a fierce debate in both the state Senate and Assembly as minority Democrats tried to push back. Republican leaders in the Senate abruptly halted a floor debate in that house. Senate President Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, flew into a rage as Democrats protested, pounding his gavel so hard he broke the base. Assembly Democrats, for their part, did a slow burn, complaining about the bill for hours. Republicans still rolled the bill through both houses.

How many times did you read the word “Republican” in that article? That’s why pro-lifers need to work to get more Republicans elected. They aren’t just concerned about economics – they are concerned about moral issues, too. By the way, Scott Walker is one of my three favorite governors right now. The others are Bobby Jindal and John Kasich. Recall that Scott Walker is the one who pushed through reforms to protect taxpayers from the costs of ballooning public sector union pensions. He is a social conservative and a fiscal conservative, too.

News

Two Christian preachers brutally beaten at Seattle Gay Pride Festival

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Warning: the video above has extremely coarse language and violence.

Fox News reports.

Excerpt:

Two street preachers were brutally beaten — punched and kicked — by a crowd at a gay pride festival in Seattle and the entire melee was captured on video.

The preachers were holding signs reading “Repent or Else” and “Jesus Saves From Sin.” The video shows a group of people initially screaming and threatening the men during Pridefest at the Seattle Space Needle.

Television station KOMO reported that some of the attackers belonged to a group called NOH8

A group of women tried to steal their signs but were unsuccessful. The video then shows a group of men grabbing onto one of the preacher’s signs and dragging him to the ground. At some point he was punched in the back of the head a number of times while others can be seen kicking the man.

Another preacher was sucker punched in the back of the head.

Police arrested two suspects – one of whom has a long rap sheet.

Now the first thing to say, obviously, is that the two Christians are going about their opposition to homosexuality in a wrong way. I don’t think that it is a Biblical approach to expect non-Christians to accept Christian morality because of what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5:9-12. If you want to disagree about homosexuality or same-sex marriage with a non-Christian, then you’ll have to go outside the Bible and use evidence that is compelling to a non-Christian. And that’s what I always do in my blog posts because my audience is non-Christians. So that’s the first thing that needs to be said. There is a right way to argue against homosexuality with non-Christians, and these Christians were not doing it. The right way to discuss homosexuality is by using data found in books like “Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth” and “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality“. And the right context for presenting this data is probably in written work or in the context of a relationship with the other person. Not holding up signs with flames on it to strangers.

My sexual orientation

Now the point I want to make about this is that I have a sexual orientation, too. My sexual orientation is pre-marital virginity, pre-marital chastity and lifelong faithful married love (if I get married). Now I don’t need to have a parade or get all kinds of government recognition and financial benefits in order to make me feel good about what I’m doing. In fact, even if someone puts down my virginity and chastity, I wouldn’t really care. In fact, the number one place where my sexual orientation is looked down on is in the church. In church, there is a whole group of people who are enamored of compassion and they are opposed to having any boundaries on sex at all, regardless of the harm it causes with things like abortion, divorce, fatherlessness and so on. Their idea is that people should be able to have sex if they are in love, and that they shouldn’t be “shamed” or “judged” for doing so. However, I don’t attack them and violently beat them up just because they disagree with me on my sexual orientation. I just let them say what they are going to say and mind my own business. I don’t need anyone to tell me that what I am doing is right. I have reasons and evidence showing me that my view is right, like the peer-reviewed papers that show that premarital sex causes lower quality and stability in marriage. I know what I’m doing, and disagreement doesn’t bother me.

Anti-chastity people could even hold up signs in front of my house saying “Repent of your chastity, evil virgin, or burn in Hell!” and it still wouldn’t bother me. And that’s because I know that what I believe causes no harm to anyone. It doesn’t impose social costs on others because I need special drugs or health care for my chastity. It doesn’t cause me to make other people sick. It doesn’t break up marriages so I can go off with someone else. It doesn’t leave children fatherless or motherless. It doesn’t expose born or unborn children to harm from strangers. It doesn’t require public schools to teach young people how great my virginity and chastity is. It doesn’t require new school lessons telling everyone the contributions that virgins have made in history. It doesn’t require the Supreme Court to force people to affirm chastity. It doesn’t require anyone to be fired because they disagree with me on premarital sex. It doesn’t require other people to have their freedom of speech or freedom of religion limited so that I can avoid feeling “offended” by what they say and do.

So in conclusion then, I don’t respond with anger, vandalism, coercion or violence when people disagree with me about being a virgin and embracing chastity before marriage.

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