Tag Archives: Jesus

Polemics

Choosing my religion: why I am not Jewish

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I’ve decided to spend some time writing extremely short explanations about why I am an evangelical Protestant Christian instead of anything else.

I have two aims.

First, I want show how an honest person can evaluate rival religions using the laws of logic, scientific evidence and historical evidence. Second, I want people who are not religious to understand that religions are either true or it is false. Religions should not be chosen based where you were born, what your parents believed, or what resonates with you. A religion should be embraced for the same reason as the theory of gravity is embraced: because it reflects the way the world really is.

Why I am not Jewish

  1. Jewish persons can’t believe that God raised Jesus from the dead.
  2. There are historical criteria for determining what parts of historical biographies are true.
  3. If we apply the historical criteria to the Gospels and Paul’s letters, a set of minimal facts about Jesus’ death, (and what happened after), can be extracted.
  4. Among these facts are the burial, the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances and the early belief in the resurrection.
  5. There are no good naturalistic explanations for these minimal facts.
  6. The best explanation of these minimal facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead.
  7. Therefore, Jewish persons are mistaken in their beliefs about the resurrection of Jesus.

It’s interesting to note that Pinchas Lapide, an Orthodox Jewish New Testament scholar, accepts the resurrection of Jesus as a historical event. But, he thinks that only Gentiles are saved by Jesus’ atoning death. He believes that Jews must still attain salvation by the law.

I would like to see more formal debates featuring Jewish scholars and Christian scholars on the resurrection.

Polemics

Choosing my religion: why I am not a Muslim

8 Comments

I’ve decided to spend some time writing extremely short explanations about why I am an evangelical Protestant Christian instead of anything else.

I have two aims.

First, I want show how an honest person can evaluate rival religions using the laws of logic, scientific evidence and historical evidence. Second, I want people who are not religious to understand that religions are either true or it is false. Religions should not be chosen based where you were born, what your parents believed, or what resonates with you. A religion should be embraced for the same reason as the theory of gravity is embraced: because it reflects the way the world really is.

Why I am not a Muslim

  1. To be a Muslim, you must believe that the Koran is without error.
  2. The Koran claims that Jesus did not die on a cross. (Qur’an, 4: 157-158)
  3. The crucifixion of Jesus is virtually undisputed among non-Muslim historians, including atheist historians.
  4. Therefore, it is not rational for me to become a Muslim.

The data

Consider some quotes from the (mostly) non-Christian scholars below:

“Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.” Gert Lüdemann

“That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”  J.D. Crossan

“The passion of Jesus is part of history.” Geza Vermes

Jesus’ death by crucifixion is “historically certain”. Pinchas Lapide

“The single most solid fact about Jesus’ life is his death: he was executed by the Roman prefect Pilate, on or around Passover, in the manner Rome reserved particularly for political insurrectionists, namely, crucifixion.” Paula Fredriksen

“The support for the mode of his death, its agents, and perhaps its co-agents, is overwhelming: Jesus faced a trial before his death, was condemned, and was executed by crucifixion.” L.T. Johnson

“One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Ponitus Pilate.” Bart Ehrman

That’s 7 famous historians: 3 atheists, 3 Jews and 1 moderate Catholic. Ludemann, Crossan and Ehrman have all debated against the resurrection of Jesus with William Lane Craig. The Koran was written in the 7th century. That is why no professional historian accepts the Koran as more authoritative than the many earlier Christian and non-Christian sources for the crucifixion story. Many of the sources for the crucifixion are dated to the 1st century.

So that’s one reason why I am not a Muslim.

Commentary

What would Jesus say about no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage?

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Neil Simpson posted recently about this passage of Scripture from the gospel of Matthew.

1 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:1-11)

OK, just so you know no-fault divorce is the most anti-family policy out there right now, along with anti-father welfare programs that reward women for having out-of-wedlock births. Same-sex marriage is probably in third place, I would think. All three of these things are bad for at least one reason: they all deprive children of being raised by a father and a mother. Both are needed.

When the parents are linked to the children biologically, the bond is even more stable and the children benefit even more. Children are more vulnerable than adults, and we need to put their needs above the needs of adults, especially adults whose only reason for atacking marriage is selfishness and hedonism. I also think that re-marriage after a divorce is bad for the children. Stepfathers are trouble!

Neil is particularly concerned with responding to “Christians” who don’t support traditional marriage.

Neil writes:

Jesus didn’t drag out the discussion with the Pharisees like we do with the pro-gay theology crowd.  I think He would have answered them the same way He did with the pro-divorce crowd, with a dig at how in their rebellion they miss the obvious: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Are we straining for complicated responses, when a simple response will do?