Mike Licona is one of my favorite Christian apologists, and here is an excellent lecture to show you why.
In the lecture, he explains why the four biographies in the New Testament should be accepted as historically accurate: (55 minutes)
Summary:
What a Baltimore Ravens helmet teaches us about the importance of truth
What happens to Christians when they go off to university?
The 2007 study on attitudes of American professors to evangelical Christians
Authors: Who wrote the gospels?
Bias: Did the bias of the authors cause them to distort history?
Contradictions: What about the different descriptions of events in the gospels?
Dating: When were the gospels written?
Eyewitnesses: Do the gospel accounts go back to eyewitness testimony?
This is basic training for Christians. They ought to show this lecture whenever new people show up, because pastors should not quote the Bible until everyone listening has this information straight.
Paul’s Antagonism Towards the Early Messianic Movement
Paul’s Encounter with the Risen Messiah
Paul’s Letters: Primary and Secondary Sources
Paul’s use of oral tradition terminology
Why do Paul’s Letters Matter?
I think everyone is going to look at 4 and 6 and immediately think of the early creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. So I’m going to pick out #2, which mentioned in Galatians, since I was just reading that and making notes.
Here’s what Eric says:
2. Paul as an active persecutor
The language Paul uses in his pre-revelatory encounter with the risen Lord shows how antagonistic he was towards the messianic movement. In Gal. 1:13-15, Paul uses terms such as “persecute” and “destroy” to describe his efforts to put and end to the spread of the early faith. We see here:
Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him (Stephen) to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. (Acts 8: 1-3).
Furthermore, Luke summarizes Paul’s persecution of the early Messianic community.
I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities. (Acts 26:10-11).
This makes his conversion inexplicable – unless he really got the personal appearance from Jesus that he claimed to have received. His status as persecutor of the church and then leader of the church is not denied – even by skeptical historians. The practical application of this for us is to never count out someone on the other side. The person who is the most antagonistic can make the biggest contribution.
Paul is awesome. If you doubt me, just read Ephesians 5. God used this man mightily to tell us amazing things about himself. Don’t miss out!
Here’s a good introductory lecture on the topic by Chad Gross, who blogs at Truthbomb Apologetics.
You can see the footnotes for his article on his blog.
The one criticism I have is that he seems to be quoting from John a lot, and he should have some sort of case for John being reliable. I would maybe cite the scholarly work of someone like Richard Bauckham, who thinks that John is not only based on eyewitness testimony, but was actually written by a disciple of Jesus named John. John is my favorite gospel, but skeptical NT critics critics are pretty hard on it. Of course, Chad was speaking in a church, so it’s understandable why he might not take the time to do that.
For those who don’t want to watch the video, here’s a good thought from J. Warner Wallace at Please Convince Me.
Excerpt:
A “just” God does justice, which means to punish or reward appropriately. In the Western tradition, we punish people for the actions they commit, but the extent of punishment is dependent also on the person’s mental state, and a person’s mental state is reflective of his or her beliefs. Premeditated murder is worse than manslaughter, and is punished more severely, and a hate crime is a sentencing enhancement that adds more punishment to the underlying crime. In both examples, a person’s beliefs are at play: the premeditated murderer has reflected on his choices and wants the victim dead; a hate crime reflects a belief that the rights of a member of the protected group are especially unworthy of respect. So, considering a person’s beliefs may well be relevant, especially if those beliefs have motivated the criminal behavior.
But the challenger’s mistake is even more fundamental. He is wrong to assert that people are condemned for not accepting the gospel. Christians believe that people are condemned for their sinful behavior – the “wages of sin is death” – not for what they fail to do. The quoted challenge is like saying that the sick man died of “not going to the doctor.” No, the person died of a specific condition – perhaps cancer or a heart attack – which a doctor might have been able to cure. So too with eternal punishment. No one is condemned for refusing to believe in Jesus. While Jesus can – and does – provide salvation for those who seek it, there is nothing unjust about not providing salvation to those who refuse to seek it. After all, we don’t normally feel obliged to help someone who has not asked for, and does not want, our assistance. So too the Creator has the right to withhold a gift – i.e. eternity spent in His presence – from those who would trample on the gift, and on the gift-giver.
The quoted assertion also demonstrates an unspoken belief that we can impress God with our “kind” or “generous” behavior. This fails to grasp what God is – a perfect being. We cannot impress Him. What we do right we should do. We don’t drag people into court and reward them for not committing crimes. This is expected of them. They can’t commit a murder and then claim that punishment is unfair, because they had been kind and generous in the past. When a person gets his mind around the idea of what perfection entails, trying to impress a perfect Creator with our “basic goodness” no longer seems like such a good option.
If you want to hear a debate featuring exclusivists versus pluralists, I’ve got a podcast and a summary of a good debate on this issue between Chris Sinkinson and John Hick. You can’t find a more prominent pluralist than John Hick, except for maybe Paul Knitter, who is featured in a debate with Harold Netland in the new “Debating Christian Theism” book that is just out with Oxford University Press.
WINTERY KNIGHT 