Artifact from Solomon’s Temple

One of the claims of biblical minimalists is that much of the biblical history of Israel is fiction.  An important part of this debate is the one artifact we have from Solomon’s Temple which is an ivory pomegranate.  Unfortunately in recent years it has been suggested that this artifact is a fake.  Recent studies, however, are pointing in the other direction.  Check out this recent article that gives the current state of research into this artifact.

The Resurrection and 1 Corinthians

I just had an article published in the American Journal of Biblical Theology.  It is a detailed look at the resurrection message in 1 Corinthians 15.  You can find the article here.  Although it is not strictly apologetics, it may be of some interest to people here.

Hellenistic Influence and the Resurrection

I have just had a new article published, this time in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism and you can read it here.  This is a surprising article for me in some ways.  My first major publishing project was Unmasking the Pagan Christ, where I argued against the Gospels being based on pagan myths.  I continue to hold to that.  But does that mean that Greek ideas have had no influence on biblical concepts?  Is it true that Jewish is good and Greek is bad?  In my article, I argue against the idea that the Greek idea of the afterlife was strictly spiritual and that the Jewish idea was strictly bodily resurrection.  I demonstrate that there are Greek parallels to the biblical idea of resurrection.  This does not mean that I believe that the biblical writers simply took over what was invented by the Greeks.  Rather I suggest that the biblical writers used contemporary language, including what the Greeks were saying, and used that to describe what they believed about the resurrection.

The Shack

I saw this link to Norman Geisler’s review of the Shack over at Apologetics 315.  Geisler gives a pretty negative review of the Shack and seems to point at being heretical in many ways.  I have to make two confessions: 1) I really enjoyed the Shack, it was funny, it was sad, it was moving and it was thought provoking and 2) I have recommended the book to many people and have even given out copies.

Does that mean that I disagree with Geisler’s analysis of the Shack?  I include his review because I think he makes some good points.  There are some theological concerns that people should be aware of.  However, I think this is important, the Shack is Christian fiction and not a theology text book.  If it was written as theology, we should indeed be concerned.  I think that William Young in the context makes some very good points.  He asks some questions that need to be asked.  We might not agree with his answers, but he at least points us in the right direction toward wrestling with where God is in the midst of suffering.  I believe that God is using the Shack in a mighty way to get people to reconsider God despite their suffering and disappointments.  I will continue to recommend the book.  But I will also be prepared to point out areas where the book is soft on biblical truth.

Religion of Atheism

The anger of atheism toward religion, especially Christianity grows as seen in this story from CNN. It is regrettable that Christians would resort to stealing.  There are more productive ways of responding.  But what I find strange is, as a former atheist I never felt the need to attack other people’s opinions. Nativity scenes did not bother me nor did any other church activity. I had my beliefs (or lack thereof) and other people had theirs. There seems to be a new breed of atheist, the angry atheist, who take their lack of belief so seriously that they have turned it into a religion.  I see very little difference between the new breed of atheist and fundamentalists of any religion.

The Late Dating of the Gospels

I have been listening to a podcast by York University professor Philip Harland and have been enjoying it.  I disagree with about 25% of what he says but there are enough good insights for it to be worth my while.  One of the things that he says, that I hear from many scholars, continues to bother me.  This has to do with the late dating of the Gospels.  Harland dates the Gospel of Matthew to 80-90 AD.  There are a variety of reasons for that.  Like most scholars, Harland agrees that Mark is the earliest Gospel.  I agree.  They then look at Mark 13  (the “Little Apocalypse”) and see Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the Temple.  Since critical scholars have trouble believing in real prophecy, they assume Mark wrote this after, as it was happening or just before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  Often they grudgingly give Mark a date of around 68, so that the destruction might not have quite happened but yet is close enough that the writing was on the wall.  Since Matthew and Luke use Mark they must be after 70 AD.  Harland notes the theme in Matthew of the conflict with the Pharisees.  I again agree.  He then assumes that this represents a later time in history, post-destruction, when the rabbis had developed from the Pharisees and were well into their conflict with the Church.  Thus a date of 80-90 gives enough time for that conflict to have developed.

Here are my problems.  I do not agree that the destruction of the Temple could only have been spoken about just a couple of years before the event.  Even putting aside prophecy or the deity of Christ, there is little reason to doubt that Jesus spoke these words.  The destruction of the Temple was hardly unprescedented.  This was afterall the second Temple, since the first was destroyed by the Babylonians.  In addition, reading Josephus, it is clear that there was ongoing tensions between the Jews and the Romans and there had been a number of close calls even before the first Jewish War.  Jesus, as a man who could read the times, could have predicted the destruction of the Temple, even without supernatural powers.

Regarding the conflict between the synagogue and the church, I think scholars are also mistaken.  There is no reason to assume that the conflict had to have waited for the development of rabbinic Judaism.  It is easy to see how someone like Paul would have made Jewish enemies.  There is also no reason to doubt that Jesus did indeed come into conflict with Pharisees and other Jewish parties.  Perhaps Matthew is what it purports to be, an account of what Jesus said and did and perhaps Jesus did see the destruction of the Temple coming and did have trouble with other Jews.

Although Harland does not make this point, it is easy to see why some scholars would prefer a late date for the Gospels.  The earlier they are, the more reliable they are as sources for the historical Jesus (there is a reason why we do not give much credence to the later Gnostic Gospels).  If the Gospels are dated later, we can always point out the gap in time and dismiss anything we do not like as an invention of the early church.  But perhaps we need to put aside our preconceptions and examine the Gospels as we would any other texts and give them a fair reading, accepting the possibility that they may have something to say about the time of Jesus.

Constantine and the Gospels

I recently had a comment on this blog that I thought nicely captures a misconception that many people have.  Here is the comment:

Of the 80 or so gospels extant at the time of Nicea 4 were selected to please Constantine and all the others suppressed. Since the only “evidence” of Jesus life are the gospels selected to please the emperor naturally they did what was required to enhance his position.

It is not surprising that people believe this.  The picture that many have painted is that from the time of the early church in the first century that there were many Gospels that were being widely used right until the time of Nicaea in the fourth century.  Then Constantine, or those who sought to please him, arbritarily picked four of the many to be the official doctrine of the Church.

The facts, however, tell a different story.  First of all, eighty is perhaps high.  There are sixty Gospels listed in the Wikipedia entry.  Of those, some are likely forgeries such as the Secret Gospel of Mark or the Gospel of Bartholomew.  Secondly, we do not have evidence of widespread use of any of these Gospels outside of the canonical Gospels.  Even the herectical Marcionites used the Gospel of Luke.  Thirdly, the four canonical Gospels were widely used at a very early stage.  We have many early church writings that quote the four canonical Gospels without quoting the non-canonical Gospels.  We also have early canonical lists that have only the four New Testament Gospels.  The Muratorian canon (170 AD) includes the four Gospels.  Irenaeus (2nd century AD) gives a symbolic meaning for the four Gospels.  Even if one does not like his symbolism, he clearly demonstrates the wide acceptance of four Gospels at a very early stage.  Finally, the four Gospels were not chosen at Nicaea.  The earliest complete list of canonical books that are exactly the same as our modern New Testament is from Athanasius and that list is post-Nicaea.  Gnosticism (the movement that saw the creation of many of these Gospels) was not the threat at Nicaea but was rather the Arians.

The idea that eighty Gospels were widely accepted by the public and then the institutional church suppressed all but four is attractive to our conspiracy loving and authority suspicious culture but it does not line up with the facts.