Why is Dawkins making this so easy for us?

_{David Anderson

August 22, 2012

Religion}

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For some, apparently Richard Dawkins is their guide to life, death and eternity.

Here’s Dawkins on the Bible, supplied by UD News:

DAWKINS: The evidence [Jesus] existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real.

PLAYBOY: You’ve read the Bible.

DAWKINS: I haven’t read it all, but my knowledge of the Bible is a lot better than most fundamentalist Christians’.

Here’s the apostle Paul, author of 13 or perhaps 14 (the authorship book of Hebrews is uncertain) of the 27 books of the New Testament:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, … , And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 17-18.

Got that? Let me make it easier for you.

The apostle Paul: If Jesus didn’t live, die and rise again, then we’re all damned.

Dawkins: Of course, Paul wasn’t really that bothered about whether Jesus existed. Trust me, I know the Bible really well.

How about some others who wrote the epistles? Let’s try John, who comes next, having written 5 books in the New Testament, including 3 letters. John’s made this one a really difficult one for us, by failing to raise the whole subject of Jesus’ coming as a true human being until the first lines of his first letter:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us – that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our 1 joy may be complete. – 1 John 1:1-4

The whole purpose of 1 John was to refute false teachers amongst the churches who taught that the Christ had not really come as a true human being…. and hence 1 John is full to bursting with lines like these:

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. – 1 John 4:2-3

Got that one?

The apostle John: Those who do not believe in the coming of Jesus as a true human being are the spawn of Satan.

Dawkins: John didn’t really care about whether Jesus was here or not. Was scarcely on his radar. Really, I’ve studied the Bible quite hard, you can trust me on this one.

How about the leader of the apostles, Peter – who wrote two letters and is reputed to be the main source for the gospel of Mark?

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. -2 Peter 1:12-18

You get the drill by now…

The apostle Peter: I saw the glory of Jesus, and heard the voice of God. This stuff isn’t made up. It’s really important that you remember that.

Dawkins: Peter hardly cared about whether there was a Jesus at all. Honestly, I’m a Bible scholar.

Those dozing in the passenger seat might want to peer out of the window and take a look at where Dawkins is driving them. The man talks a good game, but he can’t read the map.

Why is Dawkins making it so easy for folk to spot his foolishness? It’s almost as if he’s dropping you a hint! In case Dawkins wants a further opinion from any other of the epistle-writers, then here’s Jude:

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” – Jude 17-18

Weren’t we talking about that earlier?

Comments

Gil, you are right. We need a miracle, to recover through a reformation. KFkairosfocus_{August 24, 2012
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TA: I point out that there is such a thing as a duty of care to be accurate and fair in public speech especially. Where, CRD plainly failed this in his dismissal of the evidence pointing to the historical reality of a certain civilisationally significant Jesus from a small town in C1 Galilee called Nazareth. He then proceeded to dismiss those he called "fundamentalists" as ignoramuses -- which directly echoes his earlier contempt laced characterisation of people who take the Bible seriously as ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked. Not to mention some very incendiary language -- and frankly, proverbial village atheist talking points -- directed at the God of the Bible and those who take him seriously. Worse, as the leading New Atheist, he is utterly failing to cogently and satisfactorily address the basis on which evolutionary materialism makes both cognitive and moral judgements, the latter in light of the is-ought gap faced by evolutionary materialism. And, pardon, that is before I touch on your attempt to push me into the same immoral boat as those who have set out to slander me over at TSZ. (And remember you are here dealing with someone who has to deal with hate sites and clearly unhinged denizens thereof who -- as the recent shooting at FRC shows, if that was necessary -- credibly pose threats.) This is a lot more serious than neat little talking points exchanges in a faculty seminar room. G'day sir. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 24, 2012
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Dear David, You might remember me. I count you among many who helped rescue me from the curse of Dawkins' philosophy, which poisoned my life for 43 years. The death of Christianity and Judeo-Christian values in the UK and the EU means the collapse of civilization in your part of the world in the not-distant future. It's really that serious. I fear that the point of no return has already been reached. The U.S. is not far behind. Only a major reawakening can save us. The irony is that the science Dawkins proposes as the foundation of his nihilistic atheism was a major factor in my conversion from his worldview to a theistic one.GilDodgen_{August 23, 2012
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The total sum of atheists' contributions to the field of theology consists of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that atheists make very poor theologians.EvilSnack_{August 23, 2012
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KF I will repeat for emphasis: I am not concerned with whether or not there was a historical Jesus – just whether this thread is primarily concerned with that question, or defending the Christian moral code (in other words, if the latter is true, then why would the former matter?). Dawkins' quote in the original post suggests that he thinks there is moral value in the Christian code, whether or not Jesus actually existed or actually spoke the words attributed to him.timothya_{August 23, 2012
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David Anderson: "Pseudepigraphy" is the correct spelling. I did attempt to deal with every one of your points, and in sufficient detail that you should have recognized the intellectual seriousness of my attempt. But I don't think most of my objections have even registered. The clear refutation of your point about the genre of Revelation, for example, has garnered no reply from you. The stuff you wrote in your other column, which I referred to already, contains outright errors, but I have no expectation that you will retract them. You're right; this is tedious. I did my Ph.D. in religion at the 5th-ranked graduate department in North America, and I've taught Greek and Hebrew in a seminary as well as Religious Studies in secular universities. I don't enjoy debating the Bible and theology with clergymen, and I should have known better than to publically criticize one for his comments on the Bible. I'll take the blame for leading this discussion into unprofitable waters. My apologies. In the future let's concentrate not on what divides us -- our very different understandings of the Bible and Christian faith, which are not likely to change radically -- but on what unites us -- thumping Dawkins and upholding ID. Best wishes.Timaeus_{August 23, 2012
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PS: Onlookers, if you look at 30 above, you will see that when I paraphrased what Dawkins said, I used the full form essentially as he did. TA has some explaining to do, especially as he went into a twist-about accusation at a time when I am dealing with a smear.kairosfocus_{August 23, 2012
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TA: Please, we were not born yesterday. I used the short form of the word he DID use, which is just as much a smear word, one that is so twisted and abused from its original meaning in most usage that AP's guidelines say to avoid it . So, kindly drop the immoral equivalency tactics. KFkairosfocus_{August 23, 2012
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KF Dawkins doesn't use the term "fundie" anywhere in the text quoted from the Playboy interview. Evidently you aren't above a bit of smearing on your own account. In any case, I am not concerned with whether or not there was a historical Jesus - just whether this thread is primarily concerned with that question, or defending the Christian moral code (in other words, if the latter is true, then why would the former matter?).timothya_{August 23, 2012
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Timaeus, this is a bit tedious. In each fresh post, you ignore the issues and shift the goal posts. I answered your point about Mosaic authorship in the Pentateuch (and thus the wider point about the importance of the question of the author in general) far up the discussion, but you've simply repeated your position at greater length without interacting with the point made. "Your first post proposed pseudopigraphy [sic]" - why did this merit a 'sic' ?David Anderson_{August 23, 2012
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David Anderson: You wrote: "I’ve noted that you’ve shifted the grounds of your argument. Your first post proposed pseudopigraphy [sic]. The second proposes it was not the apostle John, but a different John, writing in his own name. You moved the goalposts." Sorry if I wasn't clear. When I was proposing an artificial adoption of the name "John" -- where John the disciple was to be understood -- I had in mind the author of the Gospel, and also of the letters supposedly written by that disciple. This *could* also apply to the John of Revelation -- *if* the John of Revelation is making himself out to be John the disciple. But he may not be doing so. In the latter case, the other argument I gave is the relevant one: if he doesn't claim to be John the disciple, how can we safely infer that he was? Especially when there are strong reasons on other grounds (style and contents) for doubting that he could have been? You also wrote: "Claims to be able to differentiate authorship based on stylistic differences between two documents of wildly different genre and presentation are a glaring example of scholarly over-reach." I already granted that sometimes scholars are guilty of over-reach in their conjectures about authorship. However, sometimes their inferences are quite sound. For example, George Bernard Shaw wrote plays. He also wrote Prefaces to those plays. The plays and the prefaces are in "wildly different genres." But neither the plays nor the prefaces contain grammatical errors that would embarrass a ninth-grader. If the prefaces contained such errors, we would rightly suspect that they had been tacked on later by an author pretending to be Shaw. Apply this to Revelation. There is nothing in the "genre" of Revelation that requires such bad Greek. So your "explanation" is no explanation at all. You may think you are defending the Bible by championing Johannine authorship of Revelation, but in fact you are merely defending a traditional opinion about the Bible. This is not uncommon among Protestant apologists. The Bible doesn't say that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, either, but conservative Protestants get apoplectic when anyone doubts it. I can understand this in the case of Jews, who are not committed to "sola scriptura" and for whom Oral Law is binding; but there's no excuse for a Protestant to think that the truth of the Pentateuch depends upon Mosaic authorship. More generally, there's no requirement that a Biblical book be written by anyone great or famous in order for it to be true. The book could even be by an anonymous author. One of the greatest wastes of time in the history of Biblical study is the pointless battle, going on since the Enlightenment, between skeptics denying that X wrote such-and-such, and traditionalists affirming that X wrote it. Who cares who wrote any of the books? It is not Moses, or John, or Mark, or Luke, or Paul who guarantees the truth of the words written in the associated books; it is the Holy Spirit. If it turns out that every book in the Bible were written by butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers, would you stop believing in the Bible? Don't you think God could inspire hoi polloi? Authorship is irrelevant. It's different in the case of a technical field. If you give me a set of equations for flying to Mars, and tell me that Einstein wrote it, and I believed you, I'd be inclined to steer my rocketship based on it; but if I doubted your word that Einstein wrote it, and suspected that maybe your little brother in seventh grade wrote it, I'd be inclined to take it to a mathematician and have him check it out, since little brothers in seventh grade aren't usually competent in celestial mechanics. But in religious texts, that doesn't matter, because God could inspire someone with no native intellectual ability to write something that was wholly true. That's why I don't give a hoot who wrote Paul's letters, or Revelation. If God can inspire Joe Blow as easily as he can inspire John or Paul, it doesn't matter. The famous Ode to Charity is no less true if we find out tomorrow that it was written by Timothy rather than Paul. When Thomas Paine "proved" to Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, that a number of the Biblical books couldn't have been written by the authors who were supposed to have written them, Watson replied: "It may be so; and what then?" I.e., "Why should I care?" I doubt there is any point in your replying to my comments on the other thread. Those comments concerned Biblical self-references, and Jesus's references to the Bible. I thought you made some arbitrary and undefended statements which were motivated by conventional piety rather than sound scholarship. Based on our current discussion, I suspect we would simply end up agreeing to disagree. I'll leave you in peace.Timaeus_{August 23, 2012
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TA: Try the OP, then 20 above for a tad more details. If you want more, try the 101 here (notice, e.g. the summary from NON-Christian sources). There is MUCH more out there. And recall the "fundies" -- in context, a smear in itself -- in question include Lennox who wiped the floor with CRD twice, at length, and probably the third time (anyone got a link to the vid?), as well as Craig, whom CRD is obviously terrified to go on the same debate stage with. Not to mention Habermas, Evans, Moreland, and any number of others. Suggesting that there is not adequate evidence for the basic historicity of Jesus of Nazareth (and suggesting that "fundamentalists" know less about the Bible than he does) is a real clanger, even for CRD. KFkairosfocus_{August 23, 2012
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David Anderson posted this:
I was establishing that Dawkins makes bold claims about what he knows, that can be trivially demonstrated to be bunk.
Bunk trivially demonstrated how?timothya_{August 23, 2012
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Bornagain77 posted this:
Due to trying to be brief, I won’t go into
and then goes into it. I know I shouldn't post this, but I can't resist. Are you being ironic?timothya_{August 23, 2012
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Due to trying to be brief, I won't go into how this formula is found to coincide with the overall 'macro-structure, and operation', of the universe, but just to say, this equation, when compared to physical reality, rightly deserves to be called 'the most enigmatic equation' in all of mathematics. As well, on top of all the 'supernatural watermarks' I've just listed (I'm sure I've missed some others that are probable more spectacular) that give proof of the Bible's 'supernatural dimension', many people, including myself, argue that the Bible itself is proof of God’s supernatural and personal involvement with man because the Bible is ‘alive’, and I mean that in a way that specifically differentiates the Holy Bible from other inanimate objects or books. This is because the words of the Holy Bible have literally, at a very low point in my life when I turned to the Bible for guidance through some very difficult times, in a event that turned my worldview completely upside-down, ‘came alive’ as I was reading them: This following testimony reveals one such time this 'supernatural watermark' occurred:
Strange But True - Miracle Testimony https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfNTNocmRjZGtkdg&hl=en
Thus, perhaps that is why, when anyone appeals to 'real Bible scholars' in order to try to cast doubt on the integrity of the Bible, I am far less than impressed as to their 'unbiased criticism' of the Bible than perhaps they personally think I should be impressed of their opinion on the Bible. Verse and Music:
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The Word - Sara Groves - music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofE-GZ8zTU
bornagain77_{August 23, 2012
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,,,that these 'undesigned coincidences', for someone not given over to overbearing skepticism of the Bible, are fairly convincing evidences for the authenticity of the Bible, and more importantly, evidence for the 'integrity' of the Bible,,, integrity that is retained 'through the fire' of many of the 'nitpicking criticisms' of 'serious bible scholars'. But more importantly, at least for me, in these 'undesigned coincidences' is that they border on being a 'supernatural watermark' for the authenticity of the Bible. i.e. on being exactly a type of 'supernatural watermark' that one would expect find in a Book claimed to be written by men who were inspired by Almighty God! Along this line of 'supernatural watermarks' for the Bible, here is another interesting 'watermark' point of authentication for the Holy Bible. The New Testament gospel is actually hidden within Genesis:
The New Testament Hidden In Genesis - Chuck Missler - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4193378
Interestingly, and more controversially, the Bible also has a 'hidden watermark' of a 'heptadic structure of sevens' which 'automatically authenticates' it as inspired by God:
The Holy Bible - God's Watermark Of Authenticity - Ivan Panin - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4136566 IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN? - Ivan Panin Excerpt: It was in 1890 that Dr Panin made the discovery of the mathematical structure underlining the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament. He was casually reading the first verse of the gospel of John in the Greek: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with the God and the Word was God...". Dr Panin was curious as to why the Greek word for "the"' preceded the word "God"' in one case and not the other. In examining the text he became aware of a number relationship. This was the first of the discoveries that led to his conversion and uncovered the extensive numeric code. http://www.wordworx.co.nz/panin.html
Here is a defense of the integrity of Ivan Panin's impressive work on Bible Numerics from some 'higher level' criticisms from, you guessed it, 'serious Bible scholars who study at major universities':
BIBLE NUMERICS EXAMINED -- PART 2 http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1363.cfm
As well interestingly, and very much more controversially, there is a very mysterious 'Bible Code' watermark in the Bible that has some very interesting results:
Bible Codes (Yacov Rambsel) - (Jesus name found in Isaiah 53) - video http://vimeo.com/4470170 Chuck Missler - Hidden Torah Message Bible Code - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBjjnC8DiSo
In my personal opinion for what its worth, although the Bible Code is certainly a very interesting 'supernatural watermark' when used in a very restricted sense, as the two preceding examples I gave were used in a restricted sense, the 'Bible Code', when used in a 'unrestricted' manner, has been the source of, in my personal opinion, much rampant unfounded speculation that has been ripe for abuse. But to continue on to what we can know for sure, the mystery of 'supernatural watermarks' in the Bible doesn't stop there, this following videos show how pi and e are found in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 (in the two main creation verses in the Bible)
Fascinating Bible code – Pi and natural log – Amazing video (of note: correct exponent for base of Nat Log found in John 1:1 is 10^40, not 10^65 as stated in the video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg9LiiSVaes This following website has the complete working out of the math of Pi and e in the Bible, in the Hebrew and Greek languages respectively, for Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1: http://www.biblemaths.com/pag03_pie/
Moreover, as is fitting, Pi and e are foundation to the 'the most famous of all formulas' in mathematics:
God by the Numbers - Connecting the constants Excerpt: The final number comes from theoretical mathematics. It is Euler's (pronounced "Oiler's") number: e*pi*i. This number is equal to -1, so when the formula is written e*pi*i+1 = 0, it connects the five most important constants in mathematics (e, pi, i, 0, and 1) along with three of the most important mathematical operations (addition, multiplication, and exponentiation). These five constants symbolize the four major branches of classical mathematics: arithmetic, represented by 1 and 0; algebra, by i; geometry, by pi; and analysis, by e, the base of the natural log. e*pi*i+1 = 0 has been called "the most famous of all formulas," because, as one textbook says, "It appeals equally to the mystic, the scientist, the philosopher, and the mathematician." http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/march/26.44.html?start=3
bornagain77_{August 23, 2012
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What is amazing to me about the Bible is the resilience to which is has stood up to the criticisms of,,
serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities, not teachers at little Bible colleges in the Ozarks
As I mentioned previously greater scholarship into the Bible, and greater evidence into the 'historicity of Jesus', has fostered what has been called, as Gary Habermas has put it, 'The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Scholars'
The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Scholars (Gary Habermas) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVivZB5OhBc
And, as mentioned previously, William Lane Craig has several videos on this wholesale shift in attitude of "serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities". Here is one of his videos,,,
The Historicity Of The Resurrection Of Jesus - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdzUYyIKMM
The obvious point being in all this, from the wholesale shift in attitude of "serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities", is that it is the attitude of the serious scholars that changed towards the actuality of historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, it is not the Bible which changed in its claims about the reality of the resurrection of Jesus! This is not a minor concession from 'serious Bible scholars', for as Paul put it:
1 Corinthians 15:14 If Christ hasn't come back to life, our message has no meaning and your faith also has no meaning.
somewhat related note:
The Oldest Known Fragment Of The New Testament - 'Serendipitous' Gospel - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6517637
,,, But there is a fairly peculiar characteristic that has always struck me about "serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities" that I would like to point out. They, these alleged experts which are above reproach in many skeptics eyes, seem to be experts in 'Nitpicking the Bible' just so to try to find any alleged errors in the Bible, just so, at least it seems to me, that they may say to believers "'AHA, gotcha' the Bible can't be the word of God! you ignorant believer from the Ozark" (all the while ignoring what can be known for absolute certainty from the Bible, i.e. the resurrection, which is certainly not trivial). In fact, ignoring the fiasco of 'serious Biblical scholars' that was called the Jesus Seminar, more recently Bart Ehrman, whom is often a favorite 'serious Bible scholar who teaches at a major university' that the secular media likes to use whenever they need a 'Bible expert' to cast doubt on the Bible, Bart Ehrman has made quite a name from himself in this whole 'nitpicking the Bible business'. In fact Bart Ehrman has ruffled quite a few feathers in his nitpicking the Bible work as this fairly lengthy list of videos responding to his claims of Biblical errors testifies:
The (Bart) Ehrman Project - several videos defending various Biblical texts and Historicity of Jesus http://www.youtube.com/user/ehrmanproject
,,, but My favorite defence to this whole 'nitpicking tactic' of those 'serious scholars', scholars who seem to specialize in casting doubt on the integrity of the Bible as a whole, has been from Dr. Timothy McGrew,
Alleged Contradictions in the Gospels by Dr. Timothy McGrew - lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJizWvoGCIg Who Wrote the Gospels? by Timothy McGrew - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldvim1yjYM
The reason why Dr. Timothy McGrew has become a favorite 'defender of the Gospel' of mine is because of a series of he has done on 'undesigned coincidences' of the Bible. Here is a video and interview along that line:
Tim McGrew - radio Interview http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/interview-tim-mcgrew.mp3 The Gospels and Acts as History by Dr. Timothy McGrew - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAPG3eECaxw
As Dr. Peter Williams points out in this following video,,,
Accuracy Of The Bible - Feeding 5000 - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6745194
bornagain77_{August 23, 2012
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What is amazing to me about the Bible is the resilience to which is has stood up to the criticisms of,,
serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities, not teachers at little Bible colleges in the Ozarks
As I mentioned previously greater scholarship into the Bible, and greater evidence into the 'historicity of Jesus', has fostered what has been called, as Gary Habermas has put it, 'The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Scholars'
The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Scholars (Gary Habermas) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVivZB5OhBc
And, as mentioned previously, William Lane Craig has several videos on this wholesale shift in attitude of "serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities". Here is one of his videos,,,
The Historicity Of The Resurrection Of Jesus - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdzUYyIKMM
The obvious point being in all this, from the wholesale shift in attitude of "serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities", is that it is the attitude of the serious scholars that changed towards the actuality of historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, it is not the Bible which changed in its claims about the reality of the resurrection of Jesus! This is not a minor concession from 'serious Bible scholars', for as Paul put it:
1 Corinthians 15:14 If Christ hasn't come back to life, our message has no meaning and your faith also has no meaning.
somewhat related note:
The Oldest Known Fragment Of The New Testament - 'Serendipitous' Gospel - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6517637
,,, But there is a fairly peculiar characteristic that has always struck me about "serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities" that I would like to point out. They, these alleged experts which are above reproach in many skeptics eyes, seem to be experts in 'Nitpicking the Bible' just so to try to find any alleged errors in the Bible, just so, at least it seems to me, that they may say to believers "'AHA, gotcha' the Bible can't be the word of God! you ignorant believer from the Ozark" (all the while ignoring what can be known for absolute certainty from the Bible, i.e. the resurrection, which is certainly not trivial). In fact, ignoring the fiasco of 'serious Biblical scholars' that was called the Jesus Seminar, more recently Bart Ehrman, whom is often a favorite 'serious Bible scholar who teaches at a major university' that the secular media likes to use whenever they need a 'Bible expert' to cast doubt on the Bible, Bart Ehrman has made quite a name from himself in this whole 'nitpicking the Bible business'. In fact Bart Ehrman has ruffled quite a few feathers in his nitpicking the Bible work as this fairly lengthy list of videos responding to his claims of Biblical errors testifies:
The (Bart) Ehrman Project - several videos defending various Biblical texts and Historicity of Jesus http://www.youtube.com/user/ehrmanproject
,,, but My favorite defence to this whole 'nitpicking tactic' of those 'serious scholars', scholars who seem to specialize in casting doubt on the integrity of the Bible as a whole, has been from Dr. Timothy McGrew,
Alleged Contradictions in the Gospels by Dr. Timothy McGrew - lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJizWvoGCIg Who Wrote the Gospels? by Timothy McGrew - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldvim1yjYM
The reason why Dr. Timothy McGrew has become a favorite 'defender of the Gospel' of mine is because of a series of he has done on 'undesigned coincidences' of the Bible. Here is a video and interview along that line:
Tim McGrew - radio Interview http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/interview-tim-mcgrew.mp3 The Gospels and Acts as History by Dr. Timothy McGrew - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAPG3eECaxw
As Dr. Peter Williams points out in this following video,,,
Accuracy Of The Bible - Feeding 5000 - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6745194
,,,that these 'undesigned coincidences', for someone not given over to overbearing skepticism of the Bible, are fairly convincing evidences for the authenticity of the Bible, and more importantly, evidence for the 'integrity' of the Bible,,, integrity that is retained 'through the fire' of many of the 'nitpicking criticisms' of 'serious bible scholars'. But more importantly, at least for me, in these 'undesigned coincidences' is that they border on being a 'supernatural watermark' for the authenticity of the Bible. i.e. on being exactly a type of 'supernatural watermark' that one would expect find in a Book claimed to be written by men who were inspired by Almighty God! Along this line of 'supernatural watermarks' for the Bible, here is another interesting 'watermark' point of authentication for the Holy Bible. The New Testament gospel is actually hidden within Genesis:
The New Testament Hidden In Genesis - Chuck Missler - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4193378
bornagain77_{August 23, 2012
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timothya: I was establishing that Dawkins makes bold claims about what he knows, that can be trivially demonstrated to be bunk. Where the conversation goes after that is something else.David Anderson_{August 23, 2012
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Why would someone be credible enough to interact with if their small Bible college is stationed in Africa rather than in the Ozarks? I've noted that you've shifted the grounds of your argument. Your first post proposed pseudopigraphy. The second proposes it was not the apostle John, but a different John, writing in his own name. You moved the goalposts. Claims to be able to differentiate authorship based on stylistic differences between two documents of wildly different genre and presentation are a glaring example of scholarly over-reach.David Anderson_{August 23, 2012
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David Anderson: No, you're not a teacher in the Ozarks; last time I checked, you were a British-trained missionary in Africa. Or are there two David Andersons posting on UD? The book of Revelation claims to have been written by *a* John. But the identification of Revelation's John with the disciple John comes from church tradition, not the text itself. And even the church tradition is not unanimous; if it were, Revelation would have been accepted into the canon immediately (as having the authority of one of the apostles), but in fact, there was quite a delay, and Revelation almost didn't make the cut. In any case, anyone who has worked on the Greek of both the Gospel and Revelation, as I have, is struck by the massive difference in style, including the large number of solecisms in Revelation. I suppose it is possible that the author of the Gospel deliberately chose to write bad Greek in Revelation, for some purpose which now escapes us, but I find such explanations contrived. Not that it matters. Revelation is a wonderful book; its visionary quality makes it a treasure among NT books. I can forgive the clumsy and inelegant Greek because the author's spiritual imagination is so rich. Optimus: I didn't mean to suggest that Biblical scholarship should automatically be accepted. Much of it, as you say, is questionable. It strikes me, however, that the scholarship which puts the book of Revelation too late to have been the disciple John, and wrong in style and contents compared with the Gospel of John, is sound scholarship. So I'm not accepting it because it's scholarship; I'm accepting it because I think it's correct. (Just as I reject the longer ending of Mark because I think the scholars have argued rightly in rejecting it.) Regarding the letters of Paul, I guess it depends on why someone accepts that the letters of Paul teach truth. If one accepts that they teach truth only because they are verified as letters of Paul, rather than of someone else, then of course authorship will matter. But if one accepts the truth of, say, Ephesians (one of the books frequently regarded as non-Pauline) on its own merits, one won't really care whether it was written by Paul, or a student of Paul, or some independent person. I wouldn't go so far as to say that all 13 of the letters *couldn't* be Paul's; I would say that I don't really *care* if they are Paul's. Of course, I'm not a Protestant and don't hold to a Protestant doctrine of the Bible, so it's not surprising if many people here would disagree with me. Anyhow, I've been a naughty boy, because I've drawn this discussion off-topic. Yes, Dawkins is silly to say what he says about the Bible. But then, surely anyone who knows even a tiny bit about the Bible would know that Dawkins can't be taken seriously on the subject. So, yes, he's making it easy for us.Timaeus_{August 23, 2012
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Mung: J A T Robinson had good reasons for arguing for re-dating in correction of a hyperskeptical and dismissive tendency. Of course, the main weight of those who adhere to a school committed to latest "possible" dating, kept on being dismissive. For me, the Rylands fragment is decisive, and I have no problem with Jn being c 90 AD, shortly before John's death. Same, for the Revelation. Since we are dealing with a codex here from c 125, in Egypt, 300 miles from place of likely composition, we have good reason to see the NT as complete within C1, making it all eyewitness lifetime materials, i.e. historical materials of the first rank of prime source quality. That is the context in which I see the hyperskepticism as telling far more about the critics -- and none of it good -- than the matters on the merits. On the synoptics, what took it how to me is to see the clear historical line where Luke was in Palestine c 57 - 59 at the time of Paul's charitable trip that ended up in a near lynching, arrest and attempted assassination leading to his appeal to Ceasar's seat of judgement. Luke is a conscious history, and is explicitly based on testimony and earlier sources. Some of that testimony obviously traces to knowledgeable women, and some of it seems to use Mk as a source. But the Ac is the sequel and it terminates at AD 62 (suggesting use as a background brief for the defense). So, we have a pivot for dating the synoptics, and that puts us in JAT R's dates. Paul's epistles are practically self-dating and indeed plainly fall in the window AD 50 (maybe a bit earlier) to 67 or so when Paul was beheaded. In the epistles are inclusions that go much closer to the events, most importantly 1 Cor 15:1 - 11, where we have what can be described as the early church's official testimony from Peter and James as leading culturally acceptable witnesses, among twenty identifiable witnesses in the core circle of 500 witnesses. (We know from other documents, that Mary Magdalene -- whom I think is also very possibly Mary of Bethany -- is the actual temporal first witness. But of course, women were not accepted as official witnesses. That is one reason why Luke's work was so important as it captured a perspective we would otherwise never have got.) 1 Cor 15:1 - 11, with context, points to a date of c 35 - 38 AD, in Jerusalem, in the teeth of the Judaean elites' opposition. And it is not without significance to note that Paul had formerly been their sword, but was by AD 55 -- the time of 1 Cor -- one of the leading missionaries and teachers of the Christian faith. So, we have in this text the consensus view of Peter, James, John, Paul and other leaders, dating to AD 35 - 38. men who would willingly die as peaceful martyrs rather than recant what they were convinced of was true. You don't get better prime source documents than that. The rough handling of these documents over the past 250 or so years speaks volumes, and little or none of it to the advantage of the hyperskeptical critics. As for Dan Brown and ilk, and now Mr Dawkins and ilk, sadly, what they are advertising to the world is their willingness to assert talking points convenient to their preferred views and agendas, without having done due diligence under duties of care to truth and fairness. And, we have not even got to the summation of the non-Christian sources up o the turn of C2. I like Barnett's summary:
On the basis of . . . non-Christian sources [i.e. Tacitus (Annals, on the fire in Rome, AD 64; written ~ AD 115), Rabbi Eliezer (~ 90's AD; cited J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1929), p. 34), Pliny (Letters to Trajan from Bithynia, ~ AD 112), Josephus (Antiquities, ~ 90's)] it is possible to draw the following conclusions: 1 Jesus Christ was executed (by crucifixion?) in Judaea during the period where Tiberius was Emperor (AD 14 - 37) and Pontius Pilate was Governor (AD 26 - 36). [Tacitus] 2 The movement spread from Judaea to Rome. [Tacitus] 3 Jesus claimed to be God and that he would depart and return. [Eliezer] 4 His followers worshipped him as (a) god. [Pliny] 5 He was called "the Christ." [Josephus] 6 His followers were called "Christians." [Tacitus, Pliny] 7 They were numerous in Bithynia and Rome [Tacitus, Pliny] 8 It was a world-wide movement. [Eliezer] 9 His brother was James. [Josephus] [Is the New Testament History? (London, Hodder, 1987), pp. 30 - 31.]
KFkairosfocus_{August 23, 2012
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I don't understand the direction of this thread. Is it aiming to defend the historical status of Jesus, or the value of Christian moral teaching. If the former, then Dawkins is certainly making a contentious but defensible point. If the latter, then you should at least provide the full quote (as you did on the other part of your site). He said this:
The evidence he existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real. Even if he’s fictional, whoever wrote his lines was ahead of his time in terms of moral philosophy.
What are you seeking to establish? The historical existence of Jesus, or the value of the Christian moral code? I assume that most people here believe in Christianity as a moral philosophy, and Dawkins clearly agrees that some or even most of it (though not all of it) is a valuable legacy for our society.timothya_{August 23, 2012
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Timaus: I might think about replying, but since I'm a teacher at a small Bible school in the Ozarks, I don't pass your threshold of whose opinion counts... so you can stop reading now. For anyone else reading, who doesn't have that threshold: obviously if Revelation itself contains a claim to be authored by John, then the truth-value of Revelation and the authorship cannot be independent questions. The claim that pseudopigraphy was common in the ancient world needs to be further evaluated in the light of whether it was accepted in the early Christian church, and whether it was acceptable to write in the name of an apostle (an authoritative teacher of the church) when you were not an apostle, and whether we also need to read Revelation not only as ancient literature but also as divinely inspired Scripture. When those questions are also allowed to be raised, that puts a rather different light on it, to say the least. Similarly, to note that there is no straightforward and explicit claim to Mosaic authorship inside the Pentateuch is one thing. However, another thing is to note that Jesus and his apostles explicitly endorsed such claims. That then brings a whole sequence of other, wide-ranging consequences into play.David Anderson_{August 23, 2012
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Timaeus @15 In this case I must disagree with you that the authorship is irrelevant. At least some of those writings explicitly state who wrote them (the Epistles mention Paul by name a number of times). If they were not really written by the person who is credited with them in the text itself, then they could legitmately be charged with falsehood, damaging their credibility. Also, while I respect scholarship, it must be pointed out that merely because a certain idea has traction in academia, even if there is a concensus (where have we heard that before:-P), that hardly makes it true. There is a long and glorious history of biblical criticism that was found to be grossly in error. At one point in time, prominent Bible critics disputed the very existence of certain Assyro-Babylonian monarchs, impugning the Bible's credibility, only to later be shown up by the light of archaeological study. The point of all this is merely that there is a pattern of academics saying silly things about the Bible, so it doesn't seem wise to invest too much energy in what they say, specifically when it contradicts the Bible itself.Optimus_{August 22, 2012
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High priest Dawkins has clearly traded in his soul, or should that be his mind?coresa_{August 22, 2012
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David Anderson: Agreed, that Dawkins's statement is foolish and worthy of satire. Regarding some inessential points in your post, I remark, just for the sake of scholarly accuracy, that almost no Biblical scholars think that Paul wrote Hebrews any more, and that the Pauline authorship of several other epistles has been seriously questioned by a number of the world's best NT scholars. The same would apply to the idea that the disciple John wrote 5 NT books -- almost no one these days -- I'm talking about serious Biblical scholars who teach at major universities, not teachers at little Bible colleges in the Ozarks -- thinks that the disciple John wrote Revelation, and a good number of scholars doubt that the same person wrote the letters as wrote the Gospel. Not that it matters -- the truth of a book doesn't depend on who wrote it. That's why all the arguments about Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch are a waste of time. The books themselves don't claim to be written by Moses, so if they aren't, nothing is lost. And even where books claim to be written by someone that they weren't written by, their contents still might be true. It wasn't uncommon in the ancient world for writers to attribute their work to an earlier great name, to draw attention to it. I assume that you did not respond to my extensive analysis of your argument in your previous column either because you did not notice my post or because you did not think it worth entering into debate on the points I raised. If you don't respond again, I'll assume the same.Timaeus_{August 22, 2012
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Robinson concluded that much of the New Testament was written before AD 64, partly based on his judgement that there is little textual evidence that the New Testament reflects knowledge of the Temple's AD 70 destruction. In relation to the four gospels' dates of authorship, Robinson placed Matthew at 40 to after 60, Mark at about 45 to 60, Luke at before 57 to after 60, and John at from 40 to after 65.[14][15] Robinson also argued that the letter of James was penned by a brother of Jesus Christ within twenty years of Jesus’ death, that Paul authored all the books that bear his name, and that the apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel. Robinson also opined that because of his investigations, a rewriting of many theologies of the New Testament was in order.[16][17][18]Mung_{August 22, 2012
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StuartHarris:
...the Gospels were complete by about 90AD.
No orthodox Christian should accept that. Matthew; ???? Mark: ???? Luke: ???? John: ???? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robinson_%28bishop_of_Woolwich%29
Mung_{August 22, 2012
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OT: ID The Future has a special treat, Michael Denton, on today's podcast:
"Dr. Michael Denton on Evidence of Fine-Tuning in the Universe" - podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-08-21T14_43_59-07_00
bornagain77_{August 22, 2012
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