Who would we expect to write the first detailed accounts of Jesus and His ministry? *** Well, there were no investigative reporters or official church historians in the first century, or newspaper archives available to some enterprising free-lance biographer. It was, rather, the twelve apostles who were apparently there from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry … [Read more…]
The author of this book is a French conservative and classical liberal. His take on the famous Wager — in chapter 2 — is that Pascal is urging the reader to adopt a mindset in which he is at least open to the possibility of Christian belief; in that regard I note (21-22, footnotes omitted) … [Read more…]
I’ve read that, while there are many questions hard for an atheist to answer, there is really only tough one for a Christian apologist — but’s it’s a doozy: Why do bad things happen to good people on this earth? Here’s a possible elevator answer: It depends. (1) Sometimes it’s because God has given us … [Read more…]
Suppose you find an ancient manuscript that purports to be, not a scatalogical poem or potboiler novel or polished piece of classical literature, but a serious biography of at least 11,000 words. The man who is the subject of the manuscript is revealed to be divine, the Son of God, who tells people what God … [Read more…]
The three scientists in this video interview recently posted on National Review Online are philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, mathematician John Lennox, and chemist James Tour. The interview is summarized this way: Moving from the Big Bang and the discovery of cosmic beginnings, to the fine-tuning of the physical constants that make life possible, to … [Read more…]
I’ll start the month with this: Genealogies would have been practically very important to ancient Jews, since tribal membership determined land rights, among other things. So we would expect there to have been great demand for their scrupulous accuracy in Scripture. Now, would we expect the scribes to switch casually from that mindset in one … [Read more…]
For anyone looking for reading material for pre-teens/young teens, I want to recommend the four books (totaling about a thousand pages) in the Wingfeather Saga. It’s fantasy along the lines of the Narnia books and Lord of the Rings, with Christian themes but also allusions and similarities to classical and Norse mythology. The plot is … [Read more…]
Our pastor has used the arresting metaphor of a man lost in an airport, who has misplaced his itinerary and is now trying desperately to find the right gate to board his plane home. The pastor then asks the congregation, How helpful is it if he is told, “Don’t worry about it: Any of the … [Read more…]
He is risen! Happy Easter! And to sweeten your celebration, here is a six-minute clip from Gary Habermas on the historicity of the Resurrection. For more on Dr. Habermas’s “minimal facts” approach, see my blogpost here. That blogpost reviews a book coauthored by him, which I summarize this way (thus, this is also a fair … [Read more…]
First, Richard Bauckham — the amazing scholar and author of, among other things, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses — has an interesting lecture here. In brief, he discusses how the supposed geographical “errors” in Mark can be explained by the facts that (1) Mark is relying on the recollections of Peter, and (2) Peter himself was … [Read more…]