Monday, September 8, 2014

What Twitter can teach us about synoptic harmonization

Sometimes I read an uber-skeptic challenging the credibility of the gospels because of differences in wording from one gospel to another. This is especially true in the gospels where one writer will have Jesus saying one thing and another gospel writer will have Jesus saying something similar yet different in some (usually minor) way. Does this mean that the gospels are untrustworthy? Does this mean that the Bible is in error and therefore uninspired? Is the sky really falling on any sort of conservative evangelical understanding of the nature of scripture? Such skepticism is neither healthy nor fair. Most of the time these small differences will be explained in one of two ways. First of all it is highly likely that Jesus repeated himself numerous times over the course of a three-year ministry. Just think about a politician on the campaign trail. Even in our highly electronic age, he will typically repeat the same talking points over and over with slight variations each time. Why would we expect anything different from Jesus in an oral culture with no communication technology? Secondly, it is reasonable to expect some stylistic and even content differences among the gospel writers even if they were reporting on the exact same event. Recent studies on the nature of oral transmission have essentially proven this point over and over again. But before you call into question the reliability of ancient sources for such discrepancies, I think that you will find that even in modern reporting we find these variations. I submit to you the following example from Twitter sent to me by a student following a recent Notre Dame dump truck job on the University of Michigan. (!!!!) All of these sources were quoting the exact same interview but with slight variations. The one thing that no one would ever question however was that ND did in fact kick Michigan's butt.

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Thursday, August 28, 2014

So...um, heresy. Amen?


This is what passes as the gospel at the largest church in North America. And it is. So distinctly. North American. I'm not sure that any additional commentary is needed. The video condemns itself.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Augustine on Scientific Knowledge

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens...and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn...If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Augustine in On the Literal Meaning of Genesis

in John C. Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 31.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Dietary Taboos



So, tell me again about how crazy the ancients were with all of their dietary taboos. And we silly moderns mock those silly Hebrews for hunting for leaven in their homes.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Help! I've Got a Friend Who is an Atheist!


A brief journey away from biblical interpretation today and into the territory of apologetics.
I have conversations like these fairly frequently. It is a function of teaching a class on Christian Apologetics. The conversation usually begins with words like: “So, I’ve got this friend who is an atheist…” These are conversations that I usually love. Sure, there are those with questionable motives. I’m not much into supplying Christians with ammunition to use against their pagan “friends” and classmates. But most of the time there is a real and personal pleading in the question. “Help me! I hate to see my friends far away from God. I hate to hear them so hostile to faith. Their questions/accusations are breaking my heart, and, if I’m honest, they are freaking me out.” In short, I love to see Christians, especially Christian young people, passionate to provide some sort of answer to their skeptical friends (while also seeking answers to their own questions). This is a very human and biblical instinct. 

I had the opportunity recently to have this conversation in a somewhat surprising place and time. Every year I travel with our church’s youth group to Michigan to participate in Christ in Youth’s “Move” event. It is always an amazing experience for both the students and adults who go. Usually the last night of the event is spent by the boys goofing off in the dorms walking that fine line that all boys walk between having a blast with friends and getting into serious trouble. At about 12:30 I was summoned up to the rooms housing our sophomore boys. My first thought was that someone must have wandered over that line and needed correction. But when I got up to the room, I was asked by about 20 sophomore boys to spend some time teaching them some basic apologetics for some friends who were atheists. I’ve never taught apologetics at one in the morning, but it was one of the best hours of teaching that I can remember. They paid closer attention than most of my college students!

There were basically four points that I made with them about speaking to their atheist friends and I’ve decided to share them here. These are not specific arguments to be made. They are more like “rules of engagement” because specific arguments are worse than worthless if we don’t have the right approach.

1.       Do not be mystified. Sometimes young people treat a friend who has declared herself an atheist with a certain kind of celebrity. A high schooler who is an atheist – particularly in the Bible Belt – is treated as an exotic creature. We may find ourselves assuming then that this person is somehow more intelligent and has thought through the issues with much greater depth and clarity than we have. This may be true on occasion, but my experience is that most of the time it is not. Whenever the average high school atheist is asked to give the reasons for his faith (yes, it is faith when that word is properly defined), the answers are almost always disappointing. Their answers are filled with a shocking number of errors in logic, gullibility to false or sensationalized arguments (Thank you, YouTube.), and a general lack of philosophical, scientific, and theological knowledge. I don’t say this to demean the average high school atheist – only to demystify her. She is a high school kid trying to figure things out just like you. Don’t falsely believe that all of the burden of proof lies with you.

2.       Do not be hostile. We do present arguments for our faith. But we should always do so without being argumentative or hostile. I would hope that this would go without saying, but our job is not crusade against those filthy atheists by hunting them down and beating them up with our superior knowledge. Truth matters. It matters for eternity. But we should also take Paul’s (never one to shy away from an argument) words to heart that the greatest virtue is love. Be careful of gang apologetics and public shaming of atheists – this happens in schools, work, and also frequently on social media. Believe me, your arguments will be counter-productive. The best approach is the private and personal conversation.

3.       Do be a consistent friend and disciple. I always caution students to remember that more atheists have stopped believing in God for emotional reasons than for intellectual reasons. Deep within the heart of the average atheist – especially if they are in high school – is a great deal of brokenness. Often there is a sense of abandonment and despair. The intellectual issues are often a cover for deeper issues. What they need is not someone to continue to yell at them or threaten to leave them if they don’t start believing rightly. What they need is a good and consistent friend who will show them truth and love. They also need to see a consistent disciple. A life faithfully lived for Christ is usually a much better apologetic than a sophisticated philosophical argument. It is hard to make a case for Christ with a friend who is an atheist when there is precious little difference between your life and hers.

4.       Do be prepared. Timely answers come from a deep well. Take seriously your own development as a follower of Jesus. Study, read, and think so that you might know what and why you believe. There are far too many Christian young people who are unwilling or unable to think critically or deeply about the content of their faith. Be careful of easy and thoughtless Christian clichés. Instead develop a deep and seasoned faith of your own so that when the time comes you will be able to offer honest and thoughtful answers.

Monday, January 20, 2014

The Bible was ‘clear’…

Some really interesting historical illustrations from Rachel Held Evans of the pitfalls of a "the Bible clearly says" type of hermeneutic. I don't beleive that these examples should keep us from EVER making final statements about the meaning of scripture, but they do admonish us to be ever more honest and humble in our interpretations. So often that which we think is clear from scripture is really nothing more than our effort to justify our own culture with the words of scripture.





See the blog here: The Bible was ‘clear’…