Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are going to take a look at the data
You may sometimes hear the objection that there were lots of other gospels and books floating around at the time when the 27 books of the New Testament were standardized. The right way to answer this problem is to ask for a particular book that the challenger would like included and then to take a look at factors like the date it was written, who wrote it, and where it was written. When you look at these factors, it becomes obvious why the other books were left out.
Consider an article by Dr. Charles Quarles, who has written against an early dating of a “left out” book called the “Gospel of Peter”. Why was it left out? Because Christian are mean? Maybe there’s a historical reason why these books are not included.
Excerpt:
An impressive number of clues suggest that this gospel [Peter] postdates even the latest New Testament book and belongs to the mid-second century. First, a close analysis of verbal parallels shared by the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Matthew suggests that the Gospel of Peter postdates Matthew and utilized that Gospel as a source… an examination of the vocabulary, grammar, and style of the two documents strongly favors the dependence of the Gospel of Peter on Matthew. Robert Gundry, one of the most respected experts on issues related to Matthew’s style, called the phrase a “series of Mattheanisms” (Gundry, Matthew [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994], 584). Similarly, John Meier noted “when it comes to who is dependent on whom, all the signs point to Matthews priority. . . . The clause is a tissue of Matthean vocabulary and style, a vocabulary and style almost totally absent from the rest of the Gospel of Peter” (Meier, Marginal Jews, 1:117). This is consistent with a number of other Matthean features appear in the Gospel of Peter that all point to the dependence of the Gospel of Peter on Matthew.
Second, other features of the Gospel of Peter suggest that the gospel not only postdates Matthew, but even postdates the latest book of the NT canon, the Book of Revelation. For example, although Matthew indicates that the Roman guard sealed the tomb of Jesus, Gospel of Peter 8:33 adds that it was sealed with seven seals. The reference to the seven seals conflicts with the immediate context. Gospel of Peter 8:32-33 states that all the witnesses present sealed the tomb. However, a minimum of nine witnesses were present leading readers to expect at least nine seals. The best explanation for the awkward reference to the seven seals is that the detail was drawn from Revelation 5:1. This allusion to Revelation fits well with the Gospel of Peter 9:35 and 12:50 reference to the day of Jesus’ resurrection as the “Lord’s Day” since this terminology only appears in Revelation in the NT and first in Revelation out of all ancient Christian literature. The reference to the “Lord’s Day” in the Gospel of Peter is a shortened form that appears to be a later development from the original form appearing in Revelation.
Still other features of the Gospel of Peter fit best with the historical data if the Gospel of Peter was produced in the mid-second century. The Gospel of Peter assumes the doctrine of Jesus’ descent into Hades to preach to the dead. However, this doctrine first appears in the words of Justin Martyr around AD 150. The talking cross is a feature of other second-century literature. The Epistula Apostolorum 16 states that during the second coming Jesus will be carried on the wings of the clouds with his cross going on before him. Similarly, the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter 1 describes the returning Christ as coming in a glory seven times as bright as the sun and with his cross going before his face. In a similar fashion, beginning in the late first century, Christian texts describe Christ as possessing gigantic stature. In an allegorical depiction of Jesus’ supremacy and authority over the church, Shepherd of Hermas 83:1 described Christ as of such lofty stature that he stood taller than a tower. 4 Ezra 2:43, a portion of 4 Ezra dating to the middle or late third century, referred to the unusual height of the Son of God. These shared compositional strategies and features make the most sense if these documents and the Gospel of Peter were composed in the same milieu.
It turns out that Quarles has actually debated the views he presents in this article against John Dominic Crossan, the main proponent of the view that the Gospel of Peter is early. You can buy the audio on CDs here, or you can get the book. The CDs are highly recommended, but the book leaves out all the dialog, so I don’t recommend it.
And you can read about two more rejected books, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas, as well. The authors of those two articles are Craig Blomberg and Craig A. Evans, respectively. Craig Evans is also involved in the debate I mentioned with Crossan. He was able to debunk another “lost book of the Bible” called “Secret Mark”, which turned out to be a hoax.
A couple of years ago, I was talking to a woman who grew up in a Christian home that was very focused on externals. There was a lot of bullying to get her to comply with expected Christian behavior, although the expected Christian behavior was often arbitrary, and had nothing to do with Christianity and more with just appearing “nice”. There was no discussion of the evidence, no talking through objections. No focus on truth at all. She was always very curious about me, and how come I didn’t drink, and how come I was able to stay a virgin through college, grad school, to the present day when so many people she knew who were raised in the church fell away from it in college. My answer was simple. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home so I was never bullied into acting like a Christian beyond what I was convinced of myself. I just took my time and proved everything out before I had to act any particular way. I was in the driver’s seat all the time, and that’s how Christianity ought to be. The truth-seeking comes first, and then the slow process of re-prioritizing comes after. Performing for your parents and church will not survive contact with college.
Growing up, I didn’t ever have to go to church. I didn’t go to church until I was comfortable going. If I felt bored in church, I read an apologetics book, and I did this openly. If I didn’t like the words of a song, then I didn’t sing. My first youth pastor, Grant, never tried to get me to be like the other kids. He asked me what I was interested in. I said “arguing with people”. He gave me books by E.J. Carnell and Alister McGrath. I read them, and that was how I acted like a Christian. When I met other Christians at the church who hadn’t read anything about God’s existence or the historical Jesus or the problem of evil, I didn’t feel pressured to be like them. In school, there were lots of people who never did any studying or lab work. They could talk a lot about things they knew nothing about. But because they didn’t know anything, they failed tests and they couldn’t put anything they learned into practice, either. People can sound so smart about things… until they actually have to take a test, or put something to use practically.
To me, if you didn’t like apologetics, you were a fake and you were faking behaviors of a worldview that you had never investigated. It was really obvious to me that there was more to Christianity than just God-hollering and Scripture memorization. I did swimming lessons up until the point where I got my lifeguarding certification. At the later levels, we always had written exams as well as a practical portion including activities like treading water, swimming long distances, and rescue simulations. People who could pass the written test often failed the practical. If you fail the practical, then you fail the course. Period. No exceptions.
Knowing the truth about God’s existence and character comes before acting as if God is real and God has a specific character and will for us. From the existence of God, we move on to the accuracy of the Bible, and on to theology, and then and only then do we start the outward behaviors of a Christian. If you skip to the behaviors, that is unnatural – like pretending to be a doctor when you have never been to medical school. Everyone who comes to Christianity from the outside, like me, knows how strange it is to meet people in church who talk about feelings and experiences as the basis of their worldview. Those people would never do anything serious, like making investment choices, on the basis of feelings. They would never think that merely having feelings about auto repair or Java programming enabled them to solve problems in those areas. But somehow, this is the standard operating procedure in the church. Which is why so many kids raised in the church dump their faith in college. For me, it was apologetics that made me so resistant to alcohol, sex and atheism in college. After all, if you win the argument, then why should you act like the person you defeated? They lost. That means they’re wrong. I didn’t feel any social pressure to behave like people who couldn’t beat me in an argument.
Every single day, children raised in intact Christian homes on a diet of piety and “the Bible says” come to an understanding of what Christianity is that is fundamentally different from the knowledge they are acquiring in school or at work. And that is the beginning of their loss of faith. There should be no separation between practical areas of knowledge (e.g. – mechanical engineering) and Christianity. Christianity should not be seen as easy or shallow. We should not praise people who don’t know how to talk about spiritual things intelligently to non-Christians, which is the real core “skill” that Christianity requires. Christianity is not a religion of being nice or feeling good – that’s what all the other religions are trying to do. Christianity is about laying hold of the truth, and adjusting your actions to it.
Every Christian ought to be trying their best to learn how to speak intelligently to non-Christians about their faith, to the best of their ability. Especially when they are confronted with educated non-Christians – which is most of us living in the Western hemisphere. No Christian should be better at something else, like sports or school or music or anything. They should put maximum effort into Christianity, and do other things in their spare time. There is no one in my office who thinks that I know more about computer science than I do about my Christian worldview. Computer science is my day job – I have a BS and MS and 18 years experience in it. But my co-workers know what comes first, and where my real interest and passion lies. When we go out to lunch, I talk about Christian things. That’s what I’m the best at. I’m not trying to impress my co-workers by being the best at computer science. I’m trying to perform for my Audience of One, and show him that his honor and reputation are my top priorities. That quiet, hidden vertical relationship is what Christianity is all about. Not my will, Lord, but your will, be done. Tiny little steps backward from selfishness to communicate to the Lord Jesus that his goals are important to me.
My friend Stephen Bedard tweeted this, recently:
“Frankly, I find it hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics.” – William Lane Craig
Typical Christian parents expect behaviors of their children but they put in almost zero effort to answer their questions. I hear from so many Christians who fell away in college about how they dropped their faith in high school but just kept acting to please their parents. And the parents had no idea. The parents are the ones who are closest to the problem. They are the ones who should be finding out what is in the culture and the schools, and discussing it with their children. Most pastors are in the business of saying things that people like in order to pack the pews, and collect offerings. They aren’t there to talk about uncomfortable topics. They’re no good at responding to non-Christian thought in the culture. So it really falls on the parents to do the work of answering questions and leading.
Christianity ought to be more like engineering or lab work if you want to appeal to young people – testable, repeatable, practical. Think back to math class, and how teachers would insist that students SHOW YOUR WORK, instead of just writing the answer down. Instead of just saying “the Bible says”, parents really need to show young people their work – how did they arrive at their worldview? That’s what parents need to be prepared to show their children. Not singing, not feelings, not community, not family time together. Facts and evidence. Because that is the only way we know to test knowledge claims to see if they are objectively true or false. Parents who get their worldview straight will also find it much easier to act in accordance with what they say they believe. Even when the pressure is on, they will know what is true, and be able to do hard things because they want to respect what is true. Coming through a test of your Christian convictions is much easier when you do the homework first. It’s just like any other test in that respect. It certainly worked for me in high school and college when I had to defend my faith to non-Christians. It also helped that I had no desire to fit in with people my own age, because they didn’t have jobs. I had no respect for people who didn’t work for money, which is almost everyone in high school and college.
In the church, we should respect people who are able to study these issues deeply, and then have conversations about their Christian worldview with people who don’t accept that God exists, and don’t believe the Bible. That is what followers of Jesus did (e.g. Acts 17). We should be especially respectful of those who are able to defend the Christian worldview using scientific evidence and historical evidence. Especially those who get PhDs and do research in testable areas of knowledge that matter to the Christian worldview. Jesus offered his own resurrection as evidence of his claims to people who didn’t believe him. He liked evidence, and he had a passion for the truth. And so should we, if we claim to be his followers.
Dr. Walter Bradley
By the way, the lecture that changed my life the most is this lecture by Dr. Walter Bradley, a fabulously successful professor of mechanical engineering. I got hold of this lecture from 1997, about the time when I first started working full-time. It changed my life. Our young people are being raised to look up to attractive athletes, entertaining musicians, fideistic theologians, charismatic pastors, etc. People who have never set foot in the lion’s den. Dr. Bradley is an expert in the scientific evidence relevant to the Christian worldview, and has lectured on HUNDREDS of university campuses. He is invited to speak on campus because he KNOWS what he is talking about. If parents could just start by understanding what it takes to have a career as an open, visible Christian professor on a secular university campus, that would be a good start.
Drew taught Dr. William Lane Craig’s Defenders class for two weeks in a row while Dr. Craig was in Australia. He chose to focus on secularism.
Note: Drew has some problems with the microphone for the first 2.5 minutes of part 1. Be patient.
Part 1 deals with how Europe and America became secular in different ways.
Part 1 topics:
Secularism: the attempt to take values based on religion (e.g. – Judeo-Christian values) out of the public square
Television programs that are targeted to more thoughtful viewers favor secular or liberal worldviews
Consider the sexual revolution – a new set of beliefs about sex are being pushed into the culture
Sex revolution includes: same-sex marriage, pornography, hookup culture, no-fault divorce
The effect of the sexual revolution has been to introduce widespread fatherlessness, which is very bad for children
The sexual revolution is being pushed in the popular culture, but also in the school sexual education programs
You can see where secularism has led to by looking at Europe, which has largely rejected its Christian roots
For example, Germany and Sweden are very aggressive about stamping out homeschooling
They do this because they are trying to push a government-approved set of beliefs and meanings onto children
How bad could it get? You can look at how Orthodox Judaism was persecuted in Russia after the communist revolution
How did Europe become so secular?
Wars in Europe between Protestants and Catholics caused people to think that theistic religion was bad
Secularists first attacked theism philosophically by trying to replace it with deism – the view that miracles do not occur
Secularists then pushed a radical empirism which attempted to reduce religious claims to meaningless irrationality
The Christian church responded by retreating from philosophical and theological claims and focusing on moral claims
That’s how Europe became secular, but how did America become secular?
America became secular because Christianity was transformed from a knowledge tradition to an emotional tradition
Pastors started to move away from presenting Christianity as true and instead presented it as emotionally fulfilling
Pastors emphasized personal experiences instead of philosophical theology and apologetics
European ideas arrived: deism, Darwinism, Bible criticism, etc.
Christianity responded to this by abandoning the centers of learning it had founded (universities) into pious isolation
As the universities became more secular, they turned out the next generation of influencers, including the media
This retreat from intellectual engagement was augmented by a fixation on end-times speculation (e.g. Left Behind)
(Drew talks to Jeremy, a philosophy student at Georgia State University, about whether Christianity is respected in his classes)
How politicians and the media used the Scopes Monkey Trial to marginalize Christianity as anti-science
The perception of Christians in the public square changed – they were viewed as ignorant, irrational and anti-science
Instead of causing Christians to work harder at science, they became even more fundamentalist, and less influential
Christians today are a tiny minority of influential groups, e.g. – scientists, media, etc.
In contrast, secular Jews, who tend to grow up in a culture that values learning, have a much greater influence
Even if Christians try to retreat to the country where they can homeschool, there is no hiding from the Internet
Which organizations are working against secularism today?
Example of what Christians can do: Plantinga’s refutation of the problem of evil
Example of what Christians can do: widespread use of ultrasound to move people to the pro-life view
Example of what Christians can do: Liberty University’s effort to produce Christians who can work in media
A story about William Lane Craig and a secular physicist who had lost her faith
People must have liked what they heard and saw in the first week, because he got a big turnout in the second week.
Part 2 deals with practical tips for engaging in the culture.
Topics in Part 2:
The real root cause of opposition to Christianity is from the sexual revolution
For example, moral relativism is so popular in the university, but it is almost entirely driven by sexual liberation
Evangelism and culture-shaping are not the same thing – each requires a different set of skills
Where do people get their information? Public school, news media, late night comedy shows, etc.
Two things for every Christian need to do: 1) Get informed, and 2) Get involved
First: you do not need to be smarter than average. Dr. Craig is a leading scholar because he studies 9 hours a day
Implying that people with influence are “smart” just provides us with an excuse not to try if we are not “smart”
Ordinary Christians need to be willing to give up fun more than they need to be naturally “smart”
Asks Cody: what about that Christian apologist who hung out mostly with internet atheists and then became one
Famous quantum chemist: you’re right, I am not much smarter than most people, I just work a lot harder at it
Drew: to get informed, you should follow good Christian blogs like Apologetics 315 and Wintery Knight
Drew knows Wintery Knight personally and WK is someone who knows apologetics but he also knows other things
WK connects the Christian worldview to lots different things, e.g. = marriage – he can find you the right people and books
(Drew holds up “What is Marriage?” book) This is the best book to argue the same-sex marriage issue
(Drew hold up “The Case for Life” book) This is the best book to argue the pro-life position
Slacktivism: don’t just send people links that you find on the Internet – read the articles and books and then talk about them
(Drew holds up the Lee Strobel “Case for” books) These are the best introductory books on basic Christian apologetics
Audio books are a great way for people to take in the information, and you can get them for free from the library
The Internet is not the best place for arguing about the things you learn – face to face conversations are much better
Biola’s apologetics certificate program is an excellent resource, and it’s all audio lectures so you just listen to them
You can get free apologetics audio from Apologetics 315 and Phil Fernandes
We also need to learn how to how to change the culture and how the other side changes the culture
To really make a difference, then a graduate degree might be for you – especially the M.A. in apologetics from Biola
The university is also very important – Christianity needs to be represented in the university
Influential people like Supreme Court justices come out of the university, which is why we need to be there
The Discovery Institute is doing the most to provide a credible rival to naturalistic science
They have a budget of $4 million dollars and they are punching way above their weight
If every evangelical sent them $20, they’d have a budget of $1.2 billion – what could they do with that?
(Drew puts a check for $20 for Discovery Institute in an envelope and seals it, to show how it’s done)
The Truth Project, which is put out by Focus on the Family – it’s another excellent training resource
When it comes to politics, focus on discussing policy issues, not on pushing particular candidates
If every evangelical Christian just pulled their own weight, it would make a big difference
It all starts by making the decision to take some leisure time to do things that really work
I could not agree with him more on his selections on the marriage debate and the abortion debate. I have bought at least a half-dozen of each of those for people. And I highly recommend getting the Strobel books on audio, especially the Case for a Creator. Love that book. Listen to it a bunch a times and you will start to talk like Lee Strobel.
I listened to all the Biola University lectures before they even had the certificate program, along with the Stand to Reason Masters Series in Christian Thought and about 60 Veritas Forum leture sets. Those things probably did the most for me to become a capable defender of Christianity.
The point he made about giving money to the Discovery Institute is important. In the last month, I sent out $300 to a Ratio Christi chapter for a lecture they gave, and $500 for a Christian group in Canada that put on an apologetics conference.
I think he’s right when he talks about everyone pulling their own weight. I spend about 2-3 hours a day reading and blogging. I donate a portion of my earnings to Christian scholars who study and/or speak at the university. I support Christian students who are doing degrees in philosophy, science and engineering. In church, I don’t anything yet, but I have a network of friends who do things in church, like organize lectures, debates and apologetics book studies. My current pastor is aware of my abilities, and he’s already asked me to help them with an evangelism program they are starting up.
I got started on apologetics by putting in the time on some of the things he mentioned in part 2 of his talk. The basic things to do are reading introductory books on apologetics, especially the ones on philosophy of religion, historical Jesus and physical sciences. If you can’t read, then at least get hold of lectures from Biola University and listen to those, along with Lee Strobel audio books, Brian Auten interviews, William Lane Craig debates. Just put them in the car and listen, and soon you’ll be sounding just like them.
WINTERY KNIGHT 