Tag Archives: Book Review

Commentary

Book review of Bart Ehrman’s latest book “Forged” by Mike Licona

1 Comment

Mike sent me the review, and I printed it out, but Stand to Reason posted on it first, with quotations. (Melinda wrote the post)

Excerpt:

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]….

Read the rest. Mike Licona is my favorite resurrection scholar.

You can also watch the most recent debate between Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona here.

Commentary

Book review of “Four Views on Hell”

15 Comments

Spotted this on the Apologetics 315 Twitter feed.

Excerpt:

The purpose of this article is to critique Four Views On Hell, a book written by four theologians representing their respective views namely: literal, metaphorical, purgatorial, and conditional. This presentation will first give a summary of the book, and then offer several key points of analysis. The first point of analysis will be each author’s theological perspective and background because it serves as their interpretive lens. This naturally leads to examining the scriptural evidence for each view and how the author interprets it. While scripture is the ultimate arbiter, arguments offered from logic and emotion will be examined as well. Finally, criticism will be offered on the basis of exegesis and rational coherence. This critique will attempt to show that the book leads one to accept eternal punishment as the most coherent biblical position, while the biblical descriptions of hell are more likely metaphors for a larger reality.

The four views literal, metaphorical, purgatorial, and conditional are represented by John F. Walvoord, William Crockett, Zachary J. Hayes, and Clark H. Pinnock respectively. Each author contributed a chapter followed by responses from the other three. This makes for a very lively and useful book as each view is well argued and subjected to thoughtful criticism. Walvoord makes a strong case for a literal everlasting hell with actual fire. His exegetical work concerning the eternal nature of hell based on the term aionios is convincing. He remarks, “If exegesis is the final factor, eternal punishment is the only proper conclusion.”[1] While Crockett stresses that hell is an existential reality, he argues against claiming exacting knowledge concerning its nature. He stresses, “the Scriptures do teach about a real hell, a place of frightful judgment.”[2] Still yet, he argues that the literal view makes the Bible say too much and compares it to the Egyptian topographers of the underworld.  He presents a compelling argument for the metaphoric view, emphasizing the use of conflicting language, “how can hell be literal fire when it is also described as darkness?”[3] This point is reiterated ad nauseum against the literal view in several responses throughout the book. The organization of the book is interesting in that the further one reads the more speculative the argumentation and the less scriptural the basis. The slope is slippery indeed.

Hayes argues for an interim state which he believes is rooted in the redemptive work of Christ. His position on hell proper is obfuscated by his argument for purgatory. He bases a lot of his argumentation on history and tradition, which is not surprising as it is its only real grounding. He also petitions a humanistic sense of fairness, an emotional appeal which he shares with the next alternative. Pinnock’s case is based more on a negative argument against the classical view than evidence for his own. Accordingly, he exaggerates the traditional view at the outset. He contends one is asked to believe that God “endlessly tortures sinners by the million, sinners who perish because the Father decided not to elect them to salvation, though he could have done so, and whose torments are supposed to gladden the hearts of believers in heaven.”[4] He argues forcefully that eternal torment is sadistic, vindictive and unjust. It is not befitting of God’s character. He proposes annihilationism or “conditional immortality” as a preferable alternative.

You can kind of see where Pinnock is similar to Rob Bell – he is being forced by his Calvinism into universalism in order to be fair. Molinists like me have no such pressures – if you’re going to Hell it’s your fault. If you’re going to heaven, you would NOT be going there if God didn’t do ALL the work. You just have to not resist him. You have a choice to resist or not. That’s it.

I love reading these Three/Four/Five view books. The whole series is good.

Commentary

Book review of “A Meaningful World”

Leave a comment

From Melissa at Hard-Core Christianity.

Excerpt:

In A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature, Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt argue that, contrary to the nihilism spawned by reductionist materialism, meaning virtually pervades the cosmos. They demonstrate how meaning is evident, not only in the biological realm, but also in chemistry, mathematics, and astrophysics. Wiker and Witt go beyond offering an argument for intelligent design; they set out to prove that the universe is a work of genius intelligence; it is “meaning-full” rather than meaningless. They postulate that, akin to the elaborate, multi-layered works of the literary mastermind William Shakespeare, the universe and the life it contains cannot simply be reduced to their smallest parts; they must be taken as ingeniously contrived, integrated wholes whose parts are often interdependent and viable only within their appropriate context. They liken reductionism to an acid that damages everything it touches, be it man’s brilliant creative expressions or the scientific endeavor to discover the truth about the nature of life and the universe.

This is a good book for people who want to know the difference that objective detection of design makes to a person’s worldview. If there is a design in the universe, there is a designer. And that design comes out in science, literature, art and almost everything else.