Tag Archives: Religion

Commentary

What Christians can learn from Jews, part 2

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Here’s the second video in the series from yesterday.

This is the Jewish shema – which is Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[a]

5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Notice the emphasis on passing your beliefs to your children. Is that something we should be leaving to chance? Or should we have definite ideas about how to do that given a realistic assessment of the challenges they will face?

What I would like to see is for people to read the Bible, but not for comfort, or to feel pious, or to have community. I would like people to read the Bible and then think about it. I would like people to study other areas of life – like science and economics – and then devise strategies for letting the Bible inform the way they make decisions and achieve their goals. I want people to think about the most effective ways to wisely achieve the goals of their Christian lives using the best information available.

Videos

What Christians can learn from Jews, part 1

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Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 linked this on his Twitter feed.

I could not agree more. My orthodox Jewish doctor is really worried about me not marrying and he gives me lots of advice for how to live in a secular culture too. This is one of the things he told me about.

Podcasts

Two debates on Christianity and history featuring Richard Bauckham

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A leading New Testament scholar from Cambridge, Dr. Richard Bauckham, was recently on the radio program ‘Unbelievable?’ which is on the Premier Christian Radio network.

Debate 1: The reliability of the gospels

Bauckham was arguing that the Gospels are based on eyewitness accounts and therefore should be regarded as fundamentally trustworthy.

Joining him was New Testament historian Dr. James Crossley, discussing the implications of Bauckham’s work and whether the Gospel of John was written by the disciple John himself, as Bauckham claims.

It is well worth the listen.

Part 1 – (1 hr 20 mins)
Part 2 – (1 hr 20 mins)

This is a great debate between two great New Testament scholars.

Debate 2: The divinity of Jesus

The second debate concerns whether the belief in Jesus’ divinity was early and authentic, or whether it developed slowly over time. Richard is very thorough and works only with minimal facts that skeptical scholars will agree with. James Crossley is an excellent atheist and argues his side as well as any atheist I have ever heard in a debate on historical questions.

Here is the MP3 file. (Just over an hour)

Below there are speaker bios.

Richard Bauckham

You can find out more about Bauckham in this Christianity Today profile.

Summary:

The author of CT’s 2007 Book Award winner in biblical studies, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham proposes a new (or, rather, an ancient) paradigm through which to view the Gospels: as the eyewitness testimony of trustworthy insiders. Wheaton professor Gary Burge asked the St. Andrews scholar how his approach diverges from mainstream New Testament scholarship—and what it means for our understanding of Jesus.

I’m really excited by the respect he is getting in the academy. This is a completely NEW perspective on the gospels that is getting a lot of attention.

James Crossley

Crossley specializes in Mark, the earliest and most reliable gospel. Mark’s source for the Passion narrative of Jesus is dated to the 40s, about 10-20 years after the death of Jesus. Mark’s gospel is based on the eyewitness testimony of his companion Peter. So it is fun to hear them debate Mark in the first show. And they get into 1 Corinthians 15 as well, which is dated to 1-3 years after Jesus died.

Crossley debated against William Lane Craig before here and he debated against Michael Bird as well (part 1, part 2).