Tag Archives: N. T. Wright

Mentoring

Here are some ideas for your Christmas gift giving this year

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I was supposed to work all through Thanksgiving on a project, but I ended up doing all my Christmas shopping. If you have a lot of people on your list like I do, you might want to consider the “Ministry Give-away” offers from Randolph Productions. They sell intelligent design DVDs and the new Illustra Media production of the Craig-Hitchens debate that occurred in Aptil this year at Biola University.

Here’s what I bought:

The ministry give-away packs are neat because they give you the DVD in a simple envelope. It doesn’t have the fancy packaging but then again, it costs $3 per DVD!! (or less, if you buy a bigger pack). I bought the 11-packs, which come with 1 full sized DVD ($20) and 10 give-away DVDs ($3 each!). Shipping is FREE. They have packages up to 100 give-away DVDs! But they don’t yet have Darwin’s Dilemma in Ministry give-away packs yet, so I bought a bunch of those at a discounted price from Amazon.

I have seen the Lee Strobel DVDs they are offering and I do not recommend them, as they are not as detailed as the Illustra/Coldwater DVDs. They try to cover too much in too little time, and some things get missed. Also, they are a bit too stylish and slick for my taste, with too much about Lee’s personal life experiences.

I haven’t actually got the DVDs from Randolph Productions yet, so… you might want to wait and see if mine are done right before you order anything from them! This is my first time ordering from them.

UPDATE: They shipped it by FEDEX ground and e-mailed me again.

Greer-Heard lectures

The Greer-Heard Point/Counterpoint forum is an annual debate run by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The only ones worth buying are the 2005 and 2009 ones, and they are both really, really worth buying. I will be writing about both of these pretty soon. The 2005 ones come on CD, although I e-mailed them and asked them to put up an MP3 version of it so y’all could all get it for a better price. No response yet on that.

The 2005 Greer-Heard forum is available on CDs for $38:

  • J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright — Jesus’ Resurrection – opening speeches and dialogue
  • R. Douglas Geivett — “What Should We Believe about Belief in the Resurrection”
  • Chuck Quarles — “The Gospel of Peter: A Pre-Canonical Resurrection Narrative?”
  • William Lane Craig — “Resurrection: Does it Matter?”
  • Gary Habermas — “Mapping Recent Trends in Critical Resurrection Theories”
  • Craig Evans — “The Place of Wright and Crossan in Jesus Research”
  • Ted Peters — “The Future of the Resurrection”
  • Concluding Comments from J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright

Wright laid out his standard case for the 6 mutations, and Crossan tried to explain the resurrection as metaphor. Crossan was hard to pin down, but he eventually did come clean in the discussion time, and even allowed the empty tomb. Doug Geivett’s response was the jewel in a magnificent crown of debate. He was merciless. Chuck Quarles and Craig Evans were very effective and Craig and Habermas were OK. Ted Peters supported Crossan’s view.

The 2009 Greer-Heard forum is available for MP3 download for $15:

  • Harold A. Netland and Paul F. Knitter — Religious Pluralism – opening speeches and dialog
  • Paul Copan — “Is the World Religiously Ambiguous? No, and Neither Is Religious Pluralism”
  • S. Mark Heim — “No Other Name: The Gospel and True Religions”
  • R. Douglas Geivett — “The Futility of Neutrality: The Uniqueness of Jesus in a World of Religions”
  • Millard J. Erickson — Evangelical Philosophical Society Plenary Address
  • Terrence Tilley — “Principles for Assessing Theologies of Religious Diversity”
  • Keith Yandell — “Does Religious Pluralism Have Sufficient Rationale?”
  • Concluding Comments from Paul Knitter & Harold Netland

I just downloaded this set and it is extremely addictive. I’ve listened to it THREE TIMES! Netland was pretty moderate, and Knitter was a pretty typical religious pluralist – irrational and indifferent to evidence. Copan’s response was the best of a great bunch – it was vicious. Yandell’s paper a close second (his paper had to be read by someone else – if he had read it, he might have surpassed Copan!) Geivett was pretty moderate this time, but still good. Heim was OK and Erickson just made some general comments about postmodernism that were OK. Tilley supported Knitter’s view.

The upcoming 2010 forum on “The Message of Jesus” is set for February 2010. They got Crossan to come back, which is great, because he is a fine speaker and a good participant in these dialogs. I can’t stand his positions, though. And his opponent is Ben Witherington, who is a well-respected historian. Non-Christian respondents are Amy-Jill Levine and Alan F. Segal. Christian respondents are Craig A. Evans, Craig Blomberg, and Darrell L. Bock. All 3 of them participate in debates before.

  • John Dominic Crossan & Ben Witherington III — opening speeches and dialog
  • Darrell L. Bock — response
  • Amy-Jill Levine — response
  • Craig Blomberg — response
  • Craig A. Evans — response
  • Alan F. Segal — response

I’ll probably get this set as MP3s if they keep the price down. It looks like this will be a good one.

I like Craig Evans and Darrell Bock MORE than Witherington and Blomberg, because I think they”ll be more aggressive. All four of these Christian scholars have participated in debates before. Blomberg and Witherington were respondents to the Craig-Crossan debate (the book version). Craig Evans responded to Crossan in the 2005 Greer-Heard forum. And Darrell Bock responded to Borg in the Craig-Borg debate.

You can probably find free lectures from many of these scholars at the Veritas Forum web site.

The best books of 2009, and some older ones you might have missed

If you haven’t bought “Signature in the Cell” yet, what are you waiting for? This is the book of the year. It was named to Amazon’s top 10 science books and to the Best Books of 2009 list compiled by the UK Times Literary Supplement, (selected by the brilliant and honest atheist Thomas Nagel, who is the atheist I would most like to see become a Christian, now that Anthony Flew has left atheism).

For apologetics, get William Lane Craig’s “Reasonable Faith“, 3rd edition, “Contending With Christianity’s Critics“, “Passionate Conviction“, “God Is great, God is Good” and “Tactics” by Greg Koukl. For economics, get “Money, Greed and God” by Jay Richards. For the resurrection, get “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. For bio-ethics, get “The Case for Life” by Scott Klusendorf. For marriage, get “Taken into Custody” by Stephen Baskerville, and also “Love and Economics” by Jennifer Roback Morse. For politics, the book of the year is “Liberty and Tyranny” by Mark Levin.

Charities

For the person who has everything, you can always donate to charity on their behalf.

This year I donated to the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, the Ruth Institute, Reasonable Faith, the Evangelical Philosophical Society, and Michele Bachmann. I also donated to specific debates and conferences that featured Christian scholars in dialog with non-Christian speakers, in non-Christian settings. My goal is to address non-Christian audiences with scholarship that is consistent with and supportive of the Christian worldview. I favor charities that use sound logical arguments supported by objective, verificable evidence.

Something just for fun

I recommend the 1960s spy series “Danger Man“, starring Patrick McGoohan. They’re about $25 from Amazon. McGoohan’s character John Drake is the anti-James Bond. He always put the mission first – he never allowed himself to be manipulated or distracted by enemy agents. And it’s filmed in black and white – exactly the way secret agent John Drake operates.

Here are a couple of videos to give you an idea of what it’s all about.

John Drake infiltrates a murder-for-hire ring based in Italy:

John Drake attempts to kidnap a professional assassin behind the Iron Curtain:

I hope talking about Danger Man doesn’t prevent Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 from adding this post to his Twitter feed. His list of recommended books is here.

Polemics

Assessing Bart Ehrman’s case against the resurrection of Jesus

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Let’s start by listing some of Bart’s debates, and then we can take a look at his argument.

Bart Ehrman’s debates

  1. William Lane Craig vs. Bart Ehrman. The full transcript of the debate is here, so you can follow along with the video.
  2. Mike Licona’s first debate with Ehrman (audio, video).
  3. Ehrman’s debate with Peter Williams on the UK-based Unbelievable radio show.
  4. Ehrman’s debate with Dan Wallace
  5. Ehrman’s second debate with Licona can be ordered here for $10. Review is here.

Here’s William Lane Craig’s opening speech against Bart: (in 12 parts)

Part 1 of 12:

Part 2 of 12:

Bart’s argument

Bart Ehrman has a standard case based on 1) manuscript variants and 2) David Hume’s argument against miracles. Basically, he says that because the massive number of manuscripts contains a massive number of minor disagreements (see below), that the Bible cannot be trusted and therefore we can’t know whether Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

In Ehrman’s debate with Peter Williams on the UK-based Unbelievable radio show, and in Ehrman’s debate with Dan Wallace, Ehrman lists the 4 worst problems caused by the invariants:

  1. the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) is a late addition not present in the earliest manuscripts
  2. the long ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) is a late addition not present in the earliest manuscripts
  3. Jesus was angry and not compassionate when he healed the leper (Mark 1:41)
  4. that Jesus died apart from God, and not by the grace of God (Hebrews 2:9)

I personally dislike that story in 1), because I think a lot of feminized Christians like it because they do not want to have their happiness diminished by moral judgments. They misunderstand this passage to support self-serving moral relativism and postmodern hedonism. Or worse, anti-capital-punishment. Eww.

This Bible verse is a favorite of all the liberal “Christian” women I’ve met. I’ve noticed that they are terrified of moral judgments and they don’t like to have to do anything for God, like study apologetics. I don’t like that. So I say: throw the girly-verse out! If you want a good verse that shows that Jesus liked women, you should be reading the woman at the well story. Or the women witnesses to the empty tomb.

Regarding 2), I like that long ending because it’s more useful from an apologetics standpoint. So I do care about this invariant, and I just don’t use that ending when I debate. For 3), I prefer angry Jesus to compassionate Jesus. And for 4) I really don’t care. It’s Hebrews! It’s not like it’s Mark or 1 Corinthians 15.

Ehrman’s argument against miracles is really just David Hume’s argument against miracles, which even non-Christian scholars, like John Earman, have defeated at the highest level here:

So, one can easily see that Bart Ehrman’s case is silly and amounts to nothing in a formal debate on the resurrection. If you want to understand why he is selling so many books, just like Dan Brown, you need to understand that people want space to invent a Jesus that they like. Bart gives them that space by fueling their skepticism of traditional Christianity.

Responding to Bart Ehrman with the minimal facts

Bart seems to be under the misapprehension that Christians argue for the resurrection by assuming the whole Bible is inspired. But we don’t. We use a minimal facts case where each fact had to pass a battery of standard historical tests for the genre of historical biography.

We come up with a list of minimal facts like this list:

  • the burial narrative
  • the empty tomb
  • the appearances
  • the early belief in a bodily resurrection

We argue that the bodily resurrection is the best explanation of these facts, and we refute all naturalistic explanations of these minimal facts like these:

  • Jesus wasn’t really dead
  • Someone stole the body
  • The appearances were hallucinations

One other thing that may be of interest is British scholar N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection, based on the changes introduced in the belief and practice of the first Jewish converts to Christianity.

Further study

For further study of Licona and Ehrman, I would recommend the book “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus”, by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona on the resurrection, which is the best introductory book you can get on how to argue the minimal facts case.

If you like Lee Strobel’s interviewing style, then you can’t go wrong with this book, “The Case for the Real Jesus” and his earlier book “The Case for Christ”. All the Lee Strobel books are excellent, the best books that a beginner can get – the ground floor of apologetics, so to speak.

If you prefer books featuring debates between opposing scholars, check out William Lane Craig against Gerd Ludemann here, (audio of their re-match is here), William Lane Craig against John Dominic Crossan here, (audio of the debate is here), or N. T. Wright against John Dominic Crossan here, (audio of the debate only is here).

Gary Habermas, (has dual doctorates from Oxford and Michigan State) is also a good source.

He debates a Duke University professor here: (one of my favorites)

Two Views on the Resurrection: Dialog with Dr. Joel Marcus, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Duke University Divinity School
PART I (8MB) :|: PART II (8MB) :|: PART III (8MB) [MP3 files]

And he responds to Dan Brown’s fictional novels here:

Cracking the Da Vinci Code
PART I (8MB) :|: PART II (8MB) :|: PART III (5MB) :|: PART IV (5MB) [MP3 files]
Lecture given at the 4th Annual Worldview Apologetics Conference
April 21-22, 2006, Seattle, Washington

Polemics

Gary Habermas explains the earliest source of resurrection facts

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UPDATE: Welcome, visitors from Free Canuckistan! Did you know that Binks is a web elf? It’s true!

UPDATE: Western Experience has video of Gary Habermas in action here.

UPDATE: Welcome, visitors from Stand to Reason! Thanks for the link, Melinda!

Do you just skim right over 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 when you read your Bible? Did you know that this passage is the best passage in the entire Bible when it comes to defending the resurrection? Let’s take a look at a lecture where historian Gary Habermas explains the importance of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 for defending the bodily resurrection of Jesus as a historical event.

Recall that there are certain criteria for deciding what passages of the New Testament writings are historically reliable. Here is a great article from Gary Habermas that explains all of the criteria. Below, I’ll list some of the criteria from that article.

Early attestation

Early sources include: 1) 7 of the 13 Pauline books that are unanimously accepted as being authored by Paul, 2) the “Q” passages which are shared by Matthew and Luke, but that are not in Mark, and 3) certain short creedal passages from the book of Acts. The 7 reliable Pauline epistles are Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philipians, 1 Thessalonians, Galatians and Philemon.

Habermas writes:

With regard to the historical Jesus, any material between 30 and 50 AD would be exemplary, a time period highly preferred by scholars like those in the Jesus Seminar.

Reports from such an early date would actually predate the written Gospels. A famous example is the list of Jesus’ resurrection appearances supplied by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. Most critical scholars think that Paul’s reception of at least the material on which this early creedal statement is based is dated to the 30s AD. Other examples are supplied by the brief creedal statements that many scholars find embedded within the Book of Acts, which Gerald O’Collins dates to the 30s AD. From the so-called “Q” material in the first and third Gospels, another instance is the statement of high Christology found in Matthew 11:27/Luke 10:22. Further, Paul’s earliest epistles date from the 50s AD.

Eyewitness testimony

Habermas writes:

Whenever these early sources are also derived from eyewitnesses who actually participated in some of the events, this provides one of the strongest evidences possible. Historian David Hackett Fischer dubs this “the rule of immediacy” and terms it “the best relevant evidence.” When scholars have ancient sources that are both very early and based on eyewitness testimony, they have a combination that is very difficult to dismiss.

In our previous example, one reason critical scholars take Paul’s testimony so seriously is that his writings provide both a very early date as well as eyewitness testimony to what Paul believed was a resurrection appearance of Jesus. This is even conceded by atheist scholar Michael Martin. Other crucial instances would concern any eyewitness testimony that can be located in the Gospel accounts.

Multiple attestation

Habermas writes:

Independent attestation of a report by more than one source is another chief indication that that a particular claim may be factual. Ancient historian Paul Maier asserts that: “Many facts from antiquity rest on just one ancient source, while two or three sources in agreement generally render the fact unimpeachable.” The Jesus Seminar emphasizes items “attested in two or more independent sources.”

Several important examples might be provided. Of the five sources often recognized in the Gospel accounts, Jesus’ miracles are reported in all five, with some specific occurrences reported in more than one. Jesus’ crucial “Son of Man” sayings are also attested in all five Gospel sources. And the empty tomb is reported in at least three, if not four, of these Gospel sources. This helps to understand why these items are taken so seriously by contemporary critical scholars.

Timeline of New Testament sources

You can only use the data that pass these criteria when you are constructing historical hypotheses in a debate setting. But the passage of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 is special, because it has the markings on an ancient creed. As Habermas explains, Paul received this creed within five years of the crucifixion. Paul verified this creed twice with eyewitnesses, Peter, John and James, in Galatians 1:11-24 and Galatians 2:1-10.

So, let’s set the date of Jesus’ death as being 30 AD. Then ask the question: what sources are closest to the event? We need to have multiple early sources in order to be able to surface minimal facts that can be used when debating skeptics and atheists. Here’s the timeline, using the absolute latest possible dates for the sources:

  • 30 A.D.: Jesus is crucified. (+0)
  • 31 A.D.: The early creed originates around this time
  • 35 A.D.: Paul receives the early creed from Peter, John and James in Jerusalem
  • 55 A.D.: 1 Corinthians (+25)
  • 70 A.D. Mark (+40)
  • 80 A.D. Matthew (+50)
  • 85 A.D. Luke (+55)
  • 95 A.D. John (+65)

My preferred dates on the gospels are at least 5 years ealier than the skeptical dates. So, your earliest source for minimal facts about the resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. I explained before how to leverage the facts in 1 Cor 15, and other minimal facts, into a case for the resurrection.

Personal application

You really need to be able to talk to your friends and co-workers about the resurrection. That is our obligation as Christians. When you talk to non-Christians, you cannot use the entire Bible on faith. Your opponent is not going to allow you to use the entire text as a source because they don’t assume that it is inerrant. You need to argue from minimal facts that pass the standard historical criteria.

So, you need to learn how to explain how scholars extract the minimal facts from the Biblical sources. You need to list the criteria, explain why they are generally accepted, and then apply them. You need to know the dates and authors of the New Testament writings. You need to know which passages are considered to be minimal facts. And then you can make you case on those facts.

I think the most promising strategy is to argue from a supernatural creator and designer, using some recent scientific discoveries, and then go on from there to historical concerns once the existence of a deistic God has been firmly established.

Further study

First, listen to the 30-minute lecture delivered at California Polytechnic State University in 2008 by Gary Habermas, on 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. Then, check out N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection. Then listen to this lecture delivered at California State University in 2005 by William Lane Craig, on arguing from the minimal facts.

And finally, you can check out some debates on the resurrection. I recommend the debate between William Lane Craig and Roy Hoover. But it is important to read the N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection first! There is a cross-examination section in the debate, so if you’re into that, as I am, then get your fix here.