HATE CAN SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS

Those who hate Christ seem to be multiplying like fleas. Their contempt for Him is so great, that they even deny His existence. However, His existence is past refuting. Craig Evans, Professor of Christian Origins, has written that even:

·       Mainstream scholarship views the Gospels as essentially reliable, providing sufficient data for the historian interested in knowing what Jesus did and what He taught. (Christian Research Journal, Vol.39/Number 05, 22)

Nevertheless, the facts have never been an obstacle militant Bible critics, who also allege that the Gospel story had been lifted from ancient pagan myths of their gods dying and rising. However, another staunch Bible critic and agnostic, Bart Ehrman, has replied:

·       The idea of Jesus’ resurrection did not derive from pagan notions of a god simply being reanimated. It derived from Jewish notions of resurrection as an eschatological event in which God would reassert his control over the world. (22)

·       There is no unambiguous evidence that any pagans prior to Christianity believed in dying and rising gods, let alone that it was a widespread view held by lots of pagans in lots of times and places. (22)

In “Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci Code,” the skeptic Ehrman also admits that:

·       “The oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus…are the four Gospels of the NT…This is not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the NT and in its historical worth; it is the view of all serious historians of antiquity…it is the conclusion that has been reached by every one of the hundreds (thousands, even) of scholars.” (p. 102)

Nevertheless, the militants stand firm in their assertions, knowing that many will follow them for the same reason – their hatred of the Gospel.

PETER ENNS, SCRIPTURE, AND THE AUTHORITY OF MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

What does it mean to be faithful to the text of the Bible? For Peter Enns it means understanding the Bible according to the lens of skeptical scholarship (including evolution):

• So, things like genomic studies, the fossil record, and ancient Mesopotamian creation myths help us see that the genre of Genesis 1-11 is not science or history.

Reconsidering our interpretation of the Bible is a healthy and Godly thing. However, it seems that Enns wants us to do this through an unbiblical lens and an alien authority:

• The findings of science and biblical scholarship are not the enemies of Christian faith. They are opportunities to be truly “biblical” because they are invitations to reconsider what it means to read the creation stories well—and that means turning down a different path than most Christians before us have taken.

According to Enns, what does it mean to be “truly biblical?” To see it for what it is – an errant document, which requires some tweaking. However, instead of the Bible being placed under the authority of the scholars, the Bible is to place all other claims under its own scrutiny:

• The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

Spiritual warfare is a matter of placing all of our thinking, saying, and doing under the authority of God’s Words.

How then can Enns, who had once taught at Westminster Theological Seminary until he was discharged because of his defective view of the Scriptures, justify subjecting Scripture to the skeptics? Enns assumes that the Bible contains many errors. Well, how do we determine which historical statements are true? Through his experts! For example, they claim that Jonah was written after the exile to Babylon and its history represents a revision according to their theological “growth”:

• The prophet Nahum rejoices at the destruction of the dreaded Assyrians and their capital Nineveh in 612 BCE, but the prophet Jonah, writing generations later after the return from exile, speaks of God’s desire that the Ninevites repent and be saved.

By assigning a very late date to Jonah, Enns denies its historical accuracy. However, Jesus did not:

• He [Jesus] answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:39-41)

 Unlike Enns, Jesus affirmed the historical accuracy of Jonah. Neither did the first commentary to which I turned. It dated Jonah more in keeping with Scripture’s many assertions that is entirely God breathed (2 Tim. 3:16-17):

• Since 2 Kings 14:25 relates Jonah to the reign of Jeroboam II, the events in the Book of Jonah took place some time in Jeroboam's reign (793-753 b.c.). Jonah's prophecy about Israel's boundaries being extended may indicate that he made that prophecy early in Jeroboam's reign. This makes Jonah a contemporary of both Hosea and Amos (cf. Hosea 1:1; Amos 1:1). Jonah's reference to Nineveh in the past tense (Jonah 3:3) has led some to suggest that Jonah lived later, after the city's destruction in 612 b.c. However, the tense of the Hebrew verb can just as well point to the city's existence in Jonah's day. (The Bible Knowledge Commentary)

Should we interpret the Bible in accordance with Enns’ alleged errors or in accordance with the consistent claims of Scripture that it is entirely God-given (2 Peter 1:19-21)? Enns also claims that there are inaccuracies in the historical books:

• In fact, Israel’s entire history is given a fresh coat of paint in the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles, which differs remarkably, and often flatly contradicts, the earlier history of Israel in the books of Samuel and Kings.

However, in the talk that he gave at Michigan State, based on his new book, How the Bible Forces Us to Be Unbiblical, he cites no alleged contradictions. However, he claims that Israel’s later reworking of their history gives us license to also rework the Bible in light of recent scholarship. After all, even Jesus reshaped Scripture with “fresh twists”:

• I could go on and talk about how the theology of the New Testament positively depends on fresh twists and turns to Israel’s story, such as a crucified messiah and rendering null and void the “eternal covenant” of circumcision as well as the presumably timeless dietary restrictions given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. What happened? Jesus forced a new path for Israel’s story that went well beyond what the Bible “says.”

Well, if Jesus went beyond the Bible, so can we! Indeed, there are several instances where certain features of the Old Covenant are called “eternal.” (Interestingly, the Mosaic Covenant is never called “eternal,” while all of the other covenants are called “eternal.”)

Some have argued that “eternal” has several meanings as does almost any word. In this case, “eternal” might mean “to endure throughout the time of the Old Covenant. Perhaps instead, these features are eternal in terms of their spiritual fulfillment. For example, circumcision might be eternal in the form the circumcision of the heart.

In any event, the consistent promise of the coming of the New meant a termination of the Old Covenant:

• "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Heb. 8:13)

Jesus wasn’t inventing new ideas; He was drawing His theology from the Old – from what was prophesied to come! In fact, He only had the highest regard of the Scriptures, explicitly claiming that they couldn’t simply by bypassed:

• "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18)
  

Jesus did not set Himself above Scripture as its judge to decide which verses were truly inspired, as does Enns. Instead, He received it all as God’s Word. If Jesus had regarded the Word as errant in some respect, He would never have said “until everything is accomplished.” Instead, He might have said, “Until every part that is WITHOUT ERROR is accomplished.” Rather, He continually insisted that everything had to be fulfilled.

When tempted by the Devil, He relied exclusively on Scripture:

• Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4)

Enns claims that because Jesus went beyond Scripture, we can also. However, there is no evidence that Jesus had gone beyond Scripture. Instead, He reprimanded those who failed to pay sufficient attention to Scripture:

• He said to them [on the Emmaus Road], "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself… He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24: 25-27, 44-45)

Notice how Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, rather than His own words. Instead, Enns would open our minds to go beyond Scripture into the arms of the skeptic.

However, whenever Jesus quoted from the Scriptures, it was always affirming what Scripture had said. Never once did He disparage Scripture. Instead, He castigated those who didn’t know the Scriptures:

• Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)

They didn’t know Scripture because they didn’t esteem it, despite their protestations to the contrary:

• "But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:45-47)

In contrast, Enns would have us subject Scripture to the authority of the skeptics. Consistent with his approach, he believes in evolution. Consequently, he is forced to deny the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis in order to accommodate to evolution. However, Jesus affirmed their historicity:

• He [Jesus] answered [the Pharisees regarding divorce], “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female [quoting Gen. 1:26-27], and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ [Gen. 2:24]! So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has [historically] joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

Had not God historically and actually joined together the man and the woman, Jesus’ argument against divorce would have fallen apart. To reject Jesus’ view of Scripture as entirely God-given is to reject Jesus’ teachings, and this is precisely what Enns does:

• Simply put, seeing the need to move beyond biblical categories is biblical—and as such poses a wonderful model, even divine permission—shall I say “mandate”—to move beyond the Bible when the need arises and reason dictates.

There is no “divine permission” to go beyond Scripture. Paul explicitly stated to not “go beyond what is written (1 Cor. 4:6). Nevertheless, Enns claims that he has a higher view of Scripture than the rest of us, because he claims that he takes Scripture for what it is – an errant document, which requires modern scholarship and “reason” to separate its wheat from the chaff. Instead, to have a biblical view of Scripture is to adopt Jesus’ view of Scripture – the very view we find throughout the NT.

Bible Critics and their Lack of Evidence: Case of Isaiah

Skeptical critics claim that Isaiah chapters 1-39 were written pre-exilicly (before Judah went into captivity prior to 586 BC), while chapters 40-66 were written post-Babylonian-exile (after 538 BC) by another “Isaiah” (or by a school of “Isaiahs”) in Babylon. Why are they so dogmatic about this?  It appears evident that they have an anti-prophetic bias!

The Book of Isaiah had identified the Persian King Cyrus by name (cir. 700 BC) as God’s chosen person to liberate His people from Babylon:

• Who says of Cyrus, “He is My shepherd, and he shall perform all My pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be built,’ and to the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.'” Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held - to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut. (Isaiah 44:28 – 45:1)

It even seems that Cyrus might have been influenced by Isaiah’s prophecy:

• Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: “All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up!” (2 Chron. 36:23; also Ezra 1:2)

In any event, an archeological find, the Cyrus Cylinder, verifies that Cyrus allowed various peoples to return to their ancestral lands, to their “sanctuaries,” so that all of their gods would pray for him.

Since many critics reject the supernatural and therefore predictive prophecy, they are compelled to find a natural explanation for what seems to have been a prophecy about Cyrus uttered almost 130 years before his birth. Since necessity is the mother of invention, they were able to produce a theory that would account for this prophecy. Consequently, at least part of the Book of Isaiah (chapters 40-66) must have been written by a later “Isaiah.”

The absence of any hard evidence is seldom a deterrent to the broad acceptance of baseless theories. The fact that there are no scrolls – no Dead Sea scrolls or Septuagint scrolls – that give the slightest evidence of a second Isaiah or of two separate sections or books of Isaiah, does not seem to daunt them in the least.

Nor is there any internal biblical evidence for such conjecture. What then do they use to support their conjecture? They claim that there is both linguistic and stylistic evidence that distinguishes these “two” books. However, even if these distinctions exist, there are many possible explanations for this. Perhaps Isaiah had been compiled by theme. Or perhaps Isaiah’s style changed over the years. (It seems that Isaiah had a prophetic ministry of 60 years). Perhaps instead, God’s revelations to Isaiah underwent growth over the years.

Nor is there any basis for such a radical conclusion in the New Testament. In fact, the NT provides evidence for only a single Isaiah. For instance, John quotes from “both parts” of Isaiah together, without any indication that they might be separate books:

• That the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: "Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?" [quoting from Isaiah 53:1] Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them." [quoting from Isaiah 6:9-10] These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him. (John 12:38-41)

Paul also treated the entirety of Isaiah as one book, referring to it together as “Isaiah”:

• Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth." [quoting from Isaiah 10:22-23] And as Isaiah said before: "Unless the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah." [quoting from Isaiah 1:9]… As it is written: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." [quoting from Isaiah 8:14; 28:16] (Romans 9:27-33)…. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" [quoting from Isaiah 53:1]… But Isaiah is very bold and says: "I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me." [quoting from Isaiah 65:1-2] (Romans 10:16, 20)

Paul had quoted from both alleged sections of Isaiah as if they were one book.

The critics also claim that the first section (1-39) reveals a pre-exilic focus on the power of that day – Assyria, while the second section (40-66) focuses on Judah’s Babylonian conquerors in Babylon, thereby proving that there must have been two Isaiahs.

However, the evidence will not agree with them. Several of Israel’s pre-exilic prophets either mirror or actually quote from Isaiah 40-66, indicating that this latter section of Isaiah must have predated them:

•                  This is the rejoicing city that dwelt securely, that said in her heart, "I am it, and there is none besides me." (Zeph. 2:15 seemingly quoting Isaiah 47:8)

•                  Nahum 1:15 Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace! (quoting Isaiah 52:7)

•                  Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar. The LORD of hosts is His name. (Jeremiah 31:35 seemingly quotes Isaiah 51:15)

In fact, there is no evidence of an alleged background distinction between these two parts of Isaiah. According to the late Old Testament scholar, Gleason Archer, Babylon is mentioned nine times in chapters 1-39, while only four times in 40-66 – the opposite of what the critics would expect! For instance Isaiah 13:17 reads, “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them” [Babylon], before Babylon was even an independent nation! This goes directly against the two-Isaiah theory.

Rather than Isaiah 40-66 reflecting a Babylonian setting, it reflects a Judean setting:

•                  “O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, "’Behold your God!’" (Isaiah 40:9)

•                  “I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the LORD, do not keep silent.” (Isaiah 62:6)

•                  "Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6)

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written post-exilicly – after the Jews returned to their Promised Land. Consequently, these books contain Aramaisms from the native language that had been spoken in Babylon. However, no Aramaisms are found anywhere in the Book of Isaiah. However, if Isaiah 40-66 had been written after Israel’s exile in Babylonian, we should expect to find the influence of the Aramaic language, but we don’t.

In addition to these problems, Archer also observes:

•                  “Conservative scholars have pointed out at least forty or fifty sentences or phrases which appear in both parts of Isaiah, and indicate common authorship.”

Here are some examples of this:

•                  “For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it” (1:20; 40:5; 58:14)

•                  “I act and who can reverse it” (43:13; 14:27)

•                  “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads” (35:10; 51:11)

Archer concludes:

•                  “There is no doctrine set forth in 40-66 which is not already contained, in germ form at least, in 1-39.” (Survey of Old Testament Introductions)

Why then does this doctrine of two or more Isaiah’s remain alive in the liberal seminaries? Perhaps as a testament to the power of will over evidence!