Trinity on Thursday – Trinitarian and Unitarian debate transcript

As promised the debate transcript PDF of last Thursdays posted debate is available today.

I really enjoyed listening to the debate on my journey back from the beautiful Pembrokeshire coast in south west Wales.

If you knew Fred Sanders you’d know how good a likeness this is – Click it to download the debate transcript PDF.

I highlight a section which really resonates with my thinking and often features in my discussions with fine muslim people. It drives me to say “if Jesus is not actually divine, then we have major problems with the text of the Bible”. True for discussions with muslims who generally reject the reliability of the Old and New Testaments and also true for discussions with unitarians who generally accept the reliability of the Old and New Testaments.

God’s Glory Kept for God by Doctrine of the Trinity
Let me say this: one of the consistent strands that I hear in Professor Buzzard’s entire approach is a concern for monotheism, for the one-ness of God and for the God-ness of God; the fact that God is a jealous God who doesn’t give his glory to another. Isaiah is full of this stuff: “There is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior,” “There is none except me,” “Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth,” “I am God, there is no other,” “I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness, it will not turn back,” “To me, every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.” “They will say of me, ‘only in the Lord are righteousness and strength’,” “I am the Lord, that is my name, I will not give my glory to another.” This is the concern of the Bible: the unity of God, that jealous, “I will not give my glory to another,” one-ness of God.

The problem with the view of Jesus Christ presented by Socinianism (or Arianism) is that it takes all of God’s glory – all of his prerogatives, his being the one to whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess – takes all of that and gives it to Jesus Christ. It takes the man Jesus Christ and puts him on the throne of God, in the driver’s seat of the universe, as the consummator of the covenant of God’s ways with the world. It hands all this over to a man. And at that point, when Muslims look at Christianity and misunderstand it – they look at Christianity and see it as Socinian – they say, “You just handed all the glory of God to a man, a mere man. You’re an associator; you’ve associated someone with God.” I submit that the only way out of that is if God doesn’t give his glory to another because the Son is not an “other;” not another being; not something else, but is God; God the Son.

Page 30-31 of this transcript.

Trinity on Thursday – Trinitarian and Unitarian Debate

Here is a debate hosted on a Unitarian (non and anti-trinitarian) website that took place sometime in the mid 2000’s between Professor Anthony Buzzard (real name) and Dr. Fred Sanders. Is God one person or three? The sound quality is not brilliant. There  is a transcript available somewhere and I will post that next week.

Click the image for the debate

Trinity on Thursday – Modes of revelation and presentation

For source click the image

Purely by accident, Fred Sanders and his thoughts of the Trinity – specifically how it is uniquely revealed and its importance for how we handle thinking and telling about the Trinity – feature today. They are worth reflecting on. Careful thought here will prevent the presuppositions of skeptics carrying undue weight.

It’s from a very useful blog which I visit frequently The Scriptorium Daily.

Click here for the original work and the last 5 thesis over at The Scriptorium daily.

1. The Revelation of the Trinity is Bundled With The Revelation of the Gospel. God published both at the same time, in the same ways: more obscurely and by way of anticipation under the old covenant, more luminously and by way of fulfillment under the new.  The answer to the question, “was the Trinity made known in the Old Testament” runs parallel to the question of whether the gospel was. In both cases, Trinity and gospel, we must account for two factors: the consistency of God’s entire work of salvation, and for the newness in the revelation of “the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, and that in other ages it was not made known to the sons of men, but  now is.” Epangel is not evangel, but they are both constitutive of God’s one message of salvation.

2. The Revelation of the Trinity Accompanies Salvation. Though it can be stated propositionally and in the form of information, it was not given primarily as information. Rather, this knowledge came along with the carrying out of God’s work of salvation. God saves, and further, wants the saved to “understand the things freely given us by God.” God did not hand down statements regarding the Trinity, but extended his arm to save, an action which by design brought with it knowledge of, and about, the one doing the saving.  As B. B. Warfield wrote, “the revelation of the Trinity was incidental to, and the inevitable effect of, the accomplishment of redemption.”

 3. The Revelation of the Trinity is Revelation of God’s Own Heart. Theology, broadly considered, is knowledge of God and of all things in God; “all things” are accounted for by a great many doctrines. But the doctrine of the Trinity is theology proper, knowledge of God in se. Thus its focus is not on those aspects of the divine nature which are knowable by the things created or of God in relation to things outside of him; those things are spoken of in Scripture substance-wise, according to God’s one nature. But the doctrine of the Trinity is a statement about God’s interior life, requiring statements relation-wise, internal to the divine being, describing the Father and the Son and the Spirit as they stand toward each other. Prepositions will be decisive in here: “That true and absolute and perfect doctrine, which forms our faith, is the confession of God from God and God in God” (Hilary of Poitiers, On The Trinity, V:37).

4. The Revelation of the Trinity Must Be Self-Revelation. This knowledge cannot be delegated or delivered by proxy. Hilary of Poitiers again:

Since then we are to discourse of the things of God, let us assume that God has full knowledge of Himself, and bow with humble reverence to His words. For He Whom we can only know through His own utterances is the fitting witness concerning Himself.

5. The Revelation of the Trinity Came When the Son and the Spirit Came in Person. In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, and sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father (Gal. 4:4-6). God did not openly proclaim the existence of his Son and Holy Spirit and then send them; but sent them. God did not announce the Trinity; rather the Son of the Father showed up, with their Spirit. “The revelation itself was made not in word but in deed. It was made in the incarnation of God the Son, and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit” (Warfield).

6. New Testament Texts About the Trinity Tend to Be Allusions Rather than Announcements. The evangelists and apostles write from a background assumption that readers know God the Father because they have met the Son and Holy Spirit. They refer almost off-handedly to this understanding as something already given, not something to be introduced, put in place, or argued for. There is an obliqueness in nearly every sentence on this doctrine in the New Testament.

There are more – click the ‘here’ link above.

Text Tuesday – The Eichenwald Files 5

This will be the last in the Eichenwald Files. All the pieces I have linked to or excerpted say similar things (consistency anyone?) and are all by credible scholars – in the world of scholars. I have posted this series each week to leave a resource trail for Christians and the ‘curious and open-minded other’ to be exposed to careful, thoughtful, rigourous and defendable material. Rarely are ordinary Christians (like me) aware of such voices or exposed to them. That is one of the purposes of the Humble Donkey.

For the last File (5) I am directing you to Dr. Dan Wallace and his response to Kurt Eichenwald’s Newsweek piece.

For source click image.

You can find the full Wallace response here as well as other interesting materials by clicking here.

But here is an interesting excerpt from the section entitled:

Error 4: Simplistic Biblical Interpretation When it Suits His Purpose

…

Second, Eichenwald employs other simplistic interpretations to deny the NT’s affirmation of Christ’s deity. His statement that ‘form of God’ in Philippians 2.6 “could simply mean Jesus was in the image of God” betrays his ignorance about biblical interpretation. The kenosis, the hymn about the self-emptying of Christ (Phil 2.6–11) has received more scholarly interaction than perhaps any other paragraph in Paul’s writings. To claim that Jesus’ being in the form of God may mean nothing more than that he was human is entirely against the context. The hymn begins (vv. 6–7) as follows:

“who [Christ], although he was in the form of God,

he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,

but he emptied himself,

by taking on the form of a slave,

by looking like other men,

and by sharing in human nature.”

Christ’s humanity is mentioned only after he is said to have emptied himself. Thus, ‘form of God’ must mean something more than humanity. Further, the parallel lines—‘he was in the form of God’ and ‘taking on the form of a slave’—are mutually interpreting. Jesus was truly a slave of God; this is how he regarded himself (cf. Mark 10.45; Matt 20.27; 26.39). If ‘form of slave’ means ‘slave’ then ‘form of God’ may well mean ‘God.’ The rest of the hymn confirms this interpretation. Philippians 2.10–11 alludes to Isaiah 45.23, where God says, “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (NRSV). Paul quotes this very text in Romans 14.11 in reference to YHWH—a book Paul wrote six or seven years prior to his letter to the Philippians. Yet in Phil 2.10–11 he says,

“at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father” (NRSV).

Now the confession is about Jesus and it is a confession that he is ‘Lord.’ Either Paul is coming perilously close to blasphemy, something that a well-trained rabbi could hardly do, or he is claiming that Jesus is indeed true deity. And to underscore the point, he notes that all those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth will make this confession—language that is reminiscent of the second of the Ten Commandments, as found in Exodus 20.4: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (NRSV). The Decalogue—known as well as any Old Testament text to an orthodox Jew—is unmistakably echoed in the kenosis. To use this in reference to Jesus is only appropriate if Jesus is true deity, truly the Lord, YHWH himself.

The Trinity on Thursday – One single verse?

For source click image.

I keep coming back to Fred Sander’s book Embracing the Trinity (UK title to his book The Deep Things of God). Reading it for the fourth time. It sparkles each time I read it but has yet to become part of my bloodstream (dolt me!).

From his College’s online magazine at Biloa USA here’s an article on the search for the single all emcompassing Trinity verse.

The Trinity is a biblical doctrine, but let’s admit it: There’s something annoying about how hard it is to put your finger on a verse that states the whole doctrine.

The Bible presents the elements of the doctrine in numerous passages, of course: that there is only one God; that the Father is God; that the Son is God; and that the Spirit is God. We can also tell easily enough that the Father, Son and Spirit are really distinct from one another, and are not just three names for one person. If you hold all those clear teachings of Scripture in your mind at one time and think through them together, the doctrine of the Trinity is inevitable. Trinitarianism is a biblical doctrine and all the ingredients are given to us there: Just add thought and you have the classic doctrine.

Like most evangelicals, though, I would prefer to have a doctrine be stated clearly and concisely in one place. I like my doctrines verse-sized. I sometimes wish there were one verse that said, “God is one being in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” The doctrine of the Trinity, though, is simply not verse-sized. Sometimes that feels like a disadvantage, but in fact it’s an advantage. The doctrine of the Trinity is a massive, comprehensive, full-Bible doctrine that serves to expand our minds as readers of Scripture. In Scripture, God is leading his people to understand who he is as Father, Son and Spirit.

For example, set aside for a moment the desire to fit the doctrine into one verse. Look instead at how it shows up in a slightly larger (three verses) passage, Galatians 4:4-6: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son … to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” Paul is describing God’s greatest acts in the history of salvation, and those acts are specifically Trinitarian: The Father sends the Son and the Spirit to save.

Or think even bigger: In a crucial passage of Romans, Paul summarizes his message in five verses, and there is a necessarily Trinitarian cadence to his summary: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. … We rejoice … because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:1–5).

Or try to take in 12 verses at once: Ephesians 1:3-14 is one gigantic sentence (in Greek) that surveys all of God’s plans and intentions from eternity past, through our present salvation, and on to final redemption. Three times it points us to the kind intention of God’s will, and three times it points us to the praise of his glory. The fundamental movement of the passage, though, is from the Father’s choosing and predestining us in love, through the beloved Son’s death for our forgiveness, to the Holy Spirit’s work sealing us for redemption.

Once you learn to see the Trinity shaping these larger stretches of Scripture, you’re ready to notice how entire books of the Bible are structured by the same Trinitarian logic. In Galatians, for example, Paul proves his gospel of faith against salvation by works in a three-part argument: The Galatians received the Spirit by faith, God promised Abraham that he would justify the Gentiles by faith, and Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. The great arc of Romans runs from the Father’s judgment through the Son’s propitiation to the Spirit’s deliverance.

If you want to catch a glimpse of the Trinity as the big story behind the Bible, the best thing to do is to read the Gospel of John fast, in one sitting. Your dominant impression during the first half will be that the Father and the Son love each other, and in the second half the Holy Spirit will burst into your attention as the fulfillment of the revelation.

There are a handful of verses where the three persons are named in one place, such as Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14. These classic passages have the advantage of being comfortably verse-sized. But when we move on from the partial glimpses of the Trinity we can get from single verses, we are led on to larger stretches of argument, wider vistas of insight, and a more inclusive expanse of God’s self-revelation through Scripture. And that prepares our minds for the biggest Christian thought of all: The whole Bible is one complete book that reveals the Trinity. That fact is what the ancient church fathers meant when they summarized the Christian faith in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father … and in his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ … and in the Holy Spirit.”

The Trinity is a biblical doctrine, therefore, in a very special sense: not in any one verse, but as the key to the entire book.

Fred Sanders is an associate professor of theology in Biola’s Torrey Honors Institute; Sanders’ latest book, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, was published in August 2010.

This artcle & others can be found by clicking here.

Trinity on Thursday – Credo Magazine

Wonderful resource here – Credo Magazine – a free downloadable magazine.

This issue looks at the Trinity – ‘The Trinity and the Christian Life – why a triune God makes all the difference.’

Click the image below to go to the download page

Text Tuesday – The Eichenwald Files 3

Two continuations today 1) another careful handling and critique of the now notorious Newsweek article “The Bible So Misunderstood It’s a Sin” by Kurt Eichenwald and 2) the New Zealand connection continued from yesterday.

The resource I am pointing to today was posted at The Gospel Coalition which I highly recommend and written as a guest post by Dr. Darrell L. Bock, a serious New Testament scholar whom I had the priviledge of hearing for 3 hours and chatting with in New Zealand at the Matamata Bible Church in 2012.

Here’s an excerpt from the post at The Gospel Coalition – specifically Justin Taylor’s blog – click at the end of this excerpt to get to the whole post and do consider its reasonableness, it’s content and it’s implications.

So let’s go through this piece one issue at a time. Let’s start with what is said about the actual text we have. For this I could just cite the response of my colleague, Dan Wallace, who has spent his life investigating and photographing the very manuscript evidence this article raises as so untrustworthy. Dan correctly opens up saying the issue is not the fact that Eichenwald asks hard questions. The Bible makes such important claims, so such questions should be asked. It is the way he answers them that is the problem. Dan also shows how the nature of the issues Eichenwald makes about our manuscripts does not lead to Eichenwald’s conclusions. I leave the Textual Criticism side of the argument to Dan’s piece.

Eichenwald’s way in is to cite Bart Ehrman, whom he calls a ground-breaking New Testament scholar. Now Bart himself has said that what he writes is a reflection of current discussion that has been around a long time. He and I have debated over the radiom where he made this statement to me as something I was well aware of, something I also affirmed at the time. The views presented (including the appeal to the telephone game as Erhman’s illustration for how poorly copies were passed on) are but one take on these issues that are argued pro and con in the public scholarly square. This hardly makes him a ground-breaking source. Ehrman is a spokesperson, a very competent one, for one take on all of this. But the article even uses his material extremely selectively. Here is another quotation Ehrman makes on this topic: “Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.” What this means is that people on all sides recognize that what we have in the Bible, in terms of the core things it teaches, is a reflection of what made up these books originally. The caricature by Eichenwald that what we have in our hands has no resemblance to what was originally produced is misleading in the extreme, even considering the source the journalist uses to make his point.

Click here to go to the full blog post and feast, think and grow.

Trinity on Thursday

From the Monergism  website an excerpt from BB Warfield (1851 – 1921).

The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity

Benjamin B. Warfield

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The term “Trinity” is not a Biblical term, and we are not using Biblical language when we define what is expressed by it as the doctrine that there is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence. A doctrine so defined can be spoken of as a Biblical doctrine only on the principle that the sense of Scripture is Scripture. And the definition of a Biblical doctrine in such unBiblical language can be justified only on the principle that it is better to preserve the truth of Scripture than the words of Scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view. Or, to speak without figure, the doctrine of the Trinity is given to us in Scripture, not in formulated definition, but in fragmentary allusions; when we assembled the disjecta membra into their organic unity, we are not passing from Scripture, but entering more thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture. We may state the doctrine in technical terms, supplied by philosophical reflection; but the doctrine stated is a genuinely Scriptural doctrine. 

Click here to go to full article.

Friday Fundamentals

I want to encourage you to watch this video entirely, think about what it proposes; try and park emotional responses, which have value but can cloud our ability to see logical consequences. Follow the logic and examine the feelings. Enjoy.

Text Tuesday – Book Review

This is a portion of a review of Bart Ehrman’s recent book by the important New Testament and Early Christianity scholar Larry Hurtado. The review is posted in its entirety over at Christian Century.

 

Lord and God

Bart Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God

Through his words and actions, Jesus of Nazareth excited expectations that he was (or would be) the Messiah. That Jesus inspired this hope likely led the Roman authorities to crucify him. Jesus didn’t actually claim divinity for himself, and he wasn’t worshiped as such during his earthly ministry. The ascription of divine status to Jesus and the accompanying devotional practices that are reflected in the New Testament arose only after—though astonishingly soon after—Jesus’ crucifixion. Key to this development were experiences (“visions”) of the resurrected Jesus, which generated in the earliest circles of Jewish believers the conviction that God had raised Jesus (bodily) from death and exalted him to a unique heavenly status and glory. Further developments in christological belief over the ensuing decades and centuries led to the classic doctrine of the Trinity.

That, in a nutshell, is the thrust of Bart Ehrman’s book. To anyone familiar with a historical approach to the topic, these will not be novel conclusions. Indeed, they have been affirmed by a significant number of New Testament scholars, especially over the past several decades. That an astonishing “high Christology” erupted quite soon after Jesus’ crucifixion, and that the risen Jesus featured remarkably in the corporate devotional practices of earliest believers, has been increasingly recognized. As the great German New Testament scholar Martin Hengel observed about developments in the 20 years between Jesus’ execution and the earliest letters of Paul, “in essentials more happened in Christology within these few years than in the whole subsequent seven hundred years of church history.”

However, Ehrman’s book is intended for readers generally unacquainted with this scholarly work. Among those readers he obviously aims to have a dramatic impact. Many Christians unacquainted with the historical data will assume that beliefs about Jesus’ divine status derive from Jesus’ own claims, and many non-Christians will likewise assume that the validity of traditional Christian beliefs about Jesus depends upon whether Jesus actually made corresponding claims. For both kinds of readers, the “news” that Jesus didn’t actually make the sort of claims for himself that earliest believers made about him may seem somewhat sensational.

As in his other popular books, Ehrman clearly seeks not simply to inform but also to stir controversy among this varied readership. More specifically, he hopes to startle naive traditionalist Christians, nettle anxious apologists of Christian faith, and reassure fellow agnostics (Ehrman’s self-description) and skeptics that there is justification for their doubt. (He is obviously able to stir a response: published almost simultaneously with this book is a multiauthor riposte, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature, released by Zondervan.)

Ehrman’s polemical agenda may well make for a lively discussion and a marketable book, but it also lessens somewhat his ability to give a balanced historical picture. Ehrman, who teaches at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, gained prominence by way of a string of books with a similarly sensational tone aimed at a general readership on a variety of topics—variants in New Testament manuscripts (Misquoting Jesus), the problem of evil (God’s Problem), and pseudonymous writings in the Bible (Forged). These books generated appearances on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and phenomenal sales, at least compared to most books by scholars. In all these works he makes frequent reference to his own journey from naive and fundamentalist Christian to voluble (but generally genial) agnostic. Along with (and as another result of) his popular books, he often engages in public debates with Christian apologists, adding to his public stature.

In those prior books, Ehrman drew more directly on his own scholarly expertise. In this one he focuses on matters on which he himself has not been a noted contributor. He draws heavily (and respectfully) on the work of a number of other scholars (including my own work, such as Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity) who in recent decades have probed the origins of belief in Jesus as divine. Ehrman is often good at making scholarly arguments accessible. Unfortunately, in a few matters he oversimplifies or misconstrues things, and in other cases his claims and arguments appear one-sided.

An example of oversimplifying: in the first chapter Ehrman rightly notes that the Roman world was full of gods and deified humans (especially deified rulers), and he suggests that this phenomenon helps explain the emergence of beliefs about Jesus as divine. But he fails to indicate that for Roman-era Jews the plurality of deities and demigods and the practice of deifying rulers were repellent, even blasphemous. More of an explanation is needed as to how the multiplicity of deities in the Roman environment could have been a relevant and facilitating factor for considering Jesus divine in the circles of devout Jews among whom (as Ehrman readily grants) the divinity of Jesus was first asserted.

more …

Text Tuesday 10 to 13 – The Gospels as Histories

Calling very serious christians – here is a quite academic series of talks from a very serious scholar. They are above my head but so what! I am indebted to and can confirm the advice of John Piper about reading above your level. Your level does lift over time. I can read stuff today that I couldn’t have imagined being able to engage with 5 and 10 years ago. Also while reading above your level – you do get some of the things and as you push ahead you begin to gets stuff your earlier had to gloss over.

So watching lectures is kinda’ the same deal and I encourage you to read, think and converse above your level. Big ideas under consideration are like muscles worked out in the gym. Under strain, there is growth. I certainly prefer books to running machines, though I need both.

They are all over 60 minutes so treat them like a study series and watch one a week and repeat it within the week of viewing to maximise opportunites for increased understanding.

Richard Bauckham Lecture 1 – The Gospels as Historical Biography

Richard Bauckham Lecture 2 – The Gospels as History from Below – Part 1

Richard Bauckham Lecture 3 – The Gospels as History from Below – Part 2

Richard Bauckham Lecture 4 – The Gospels as Micro History & Perspectival History

Jesus the Hungry – Ramadan Reflections

Lovely muslims say to me, a christian ….

Jesus could not be God – he hungered, ate – game over!

I say to lovely muslims that I, a christian

expect to see Jesus eating and hungering;

because Jesus on earth was the eternal Word of God – made flesh.

Flesh – real flesh – not fake flesh – not pretend flesh;

real eating – real hungering.

That is what incarnation (Word made flesh) means; what one expects with incarnation.

Jesus – God but not solely God

Jesus – man but not solely man.

Jesus – God and man.

Read the scriptures – all of them – not just the ‘Jesus eats! Game Over’ ones.

So when the lovely muslim person says to me, “Jesus ate, he was hungry”, said muslim undoubtedly has an expectation of a light bulb moment for me. There certainly is one – but not the one he expects.

The lightbulb moment for me is the sudden awareness that although this muslim knows I am a christian, he clearly does not know what christians understand our scriptures to say and what we therefore believe.

The lightbulb moment is seeing that the lovely muslim is putting 6th century islamic requirements on the first century Jesus and our scriptures.

We have work to do to understand one another and have a productive chat, this lovely muslim and me.

Gospel according to John – Chapter 1 – Verses 1 to 5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Gospel according to John – Chapter 1 – Verse 14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Text Tuesday 9 – The Reliability of the New Testament

Great presentation here from Dr. James White on New Testament reliability.

Text Tuesday 8 – Historicity of the New Testament

This post of someone else’s valuable thoughts and work continues on the theme of reliability and dependability of the texts that tell us about the birth, life, death, resurrection of the man Jesus the worlds Messiah.  Worth thinking about, whether you believe in Him or not.

Historicity of the New Testament – by James M. Rochford [footnotes at original article]

The gospels and epistles are a historically reliable record of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. There are three tests in which all historical documents are subjected in order to determine their reliability:

A. The Bibliographical Test

B. The Internal Test

C. The External Test

Let’s begin with the first test:

A. Bibliographical Test

The bibliographical test (also called lower criticism or textual criticism) asks if the manuscripts from the first-century were accurately transmitted to us today. Was the original NT documents distorted over time?

Many modern people believe that the New Testament was passed down to us like a game of Telephone.^[1] I’m sure you remember the game of telephone from grade school. You might begin with the phrase, “Games are played in this space” and you end with the phrase, “James has an ugly face…” (at least, that’s how I remember it from grade school). By whispering the phrase from person to person, the message becomes distorted and unintelligible. Critic Bart Ehrman estimates that there are roughly 400,000 variations in the New Testament.^[2] He writes, “There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”^[3] However, this claim is misleading for a number of reasons:

First, the reason why we have so many variations in the New Testament documents is because we have so many manuscripts. Textual critic Daniel Wallace observes, “No classical Greek or Latin text has nearly as many variants, because they don’t have nearly as many manuscripts. With virtually every new manuscript discovery, new variants are found. If there was only one copy of the New Testament in existence, it would have zero variants.”^[4] This objection is similar to criticizing a muscle car for burning too much fuel. The engineer might retort: “The only reason this car burns so much fuel is that it burns so much rubber!” In the same way, Ehrman’s criticism actually serves to demonstrate one of the greatest strengths of the New Testament documents: the thousands of manuscripts that support it.

To read the rest of this interesting and comprehensive article at evidence unseen – click here

Text Tuesday 7 – What is the truth about alleged contradictions in the Gospels?

Week 5 and last in this valauble series from Dr. Timothy McGrew hosted by Calvary Bible Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Alleged contradictions in the Gospels? is the subject.

I have loved this series and not just because of Dr. McGrew’s jumpers (pullovers / sweaters) but also getting to write the lovely word kalamazoo 6 times – this being the sixth.

Week 05, Powerpoint, Feb 17, 2013.pdf

Week 05, Resources, Feb 17 2013.pdf

Text Tuesday 6 – What about the alleged errors in the Gospels?

Week 4 with the Dr. Timothy McGrew series at Calvary Bible Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Alleged errors in the Gospels? is the subject.

Resources:

Week 04, PowerPoint, Feb 10 2013.pdf

Week 04, Resources, Feb 10 2013.pdf

Text Tuesday 5 – Is there Internal Evidence for the Truth of the Gospels?

Week 3 of the McGrew series at Calvary Bible Church Kalamazoo, Michigan.

This week the question being addressed is Is there Internal Evidence for the Truth of the Gospels?

Resources:

Week 03, PowerPoint, Feb 03 2013.pdf

Week 03, Resources, Feb 03 2013.pdf

Text Tuesday 4 – Is there external, historical evidence for the truth of the Gospels?

Continuing the series by Dr. Timothy McGrew delivered over at Calvary Bible Church Kalamazoo, Michigan.

This is week 2 of their series – Is there external, historical evidence for the truth of the Gospels?

 

Resources referenced in the talk available in PDF form.

Week 02, PowerPoint, Jan 20 2013.pdf

Week 02, Resources, Jan 20 2013.pdf

Text Tuesday 3 – Who wrote the Gospels?

This is the first of a very good and well resourced series of talks entitled The Gospels & Apologetics by Dr. Timothy McGrew who delivered this series at Calvary Bible Church in Kalamazoo Michigan USA.

The series is accessible but demands attention and is worthy of return trips. The resources accompanying the series – capturing and going beyond the series are invaluable and great to find in one place.

Here is the outline of the 5 week series which I hope to host here each Tuesday:

1) Who wrote the Gospels?

2) Is there external, historical evidence for the truth of the Gospels?

3) Is there internal evidence for the truth of the Gospels?

4) What is the truth about alleged historical errors in the Gospels?

5) What is the truth about alleged contradictions in the Gospels?

All the delivery work is by Dr. McGrew and the setup over at Calvary Bible Church by their team, whom I am grateful to for their work – which I am just posting here to make available to my readership, such as it is.

Dr. McGrew’s resources for Who wrote the Gospels? is as follows:

Week 01, PowerPoint, Jan 13 2013.pdf

Week 01, Resources, Jan 13 2013.pdf

Text Tuesday 1 – Why We Trust the Bible?

Calling serious christians – I want to recommend this resource to you Apologetics Review

Many great resources for your mind, your faith and your fruitfulness. There’s an example below.

Before that, just to say, Dr. Darrell Bock’s presentation below is really a New Testament or gospels defense more than the whole Bible. A very accessible and thoughful scholar, I had the pleasure of hearing, chatting and eating with him in Matamata New Zealand in 2011. Matamata is very close to ‘hobbitville’ from the overated Lord of the Rings movies – controversial I know.

From Apologetics Review

On May 14th, our Reasonable Faith NYC chapter attended a presentation by Dr. Darrell Bock, of Dallas Theological Seminary on the subject, “Why We Trust the Bible.” In this wonderful audio presentation you will find these things discussed:

1. Historical Criteria applied to the Gospels to test authenticity

2. The Jesus Seminar – goals and outcomes

3. Evaluating the Extra-Biblical attestation to Jesus (Joseph, Suetonius and Tacitus – special attention to Josephus)

4. A close look at the Crucifixion story and its historicity

A really great Q & A session was held afterwards.

Here’s the Audio:

Dr. Darrell Bock’s presentation “Why We Trust the Bible”

Dr. Bock provided us with a copy of his PowerPoint slides in pdf format:

Dr. Bock’s PowerPoint slides on “Why We Trust the Bible”