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.

Scripture, Inerrancy, and its Detractors

The doctrine of the “Inerrancy of Scripture” claims that in their original writing, Scripture was fully God-breathed and without error, as many verses affirm:

• All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

• Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:19-21)

However, many have faulted this doctrine, claiming that we can’t even begin to talk about inerrancy without the original writings in hand. New Testament Critic Bart Ehrman is one of them:

• What good is it to say that the autographs [the originals] were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies. And the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them…(Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace in Dialogue: The Reliability of the NT, 86)

Does the fact that we do not have the originals present an insurmountable obstacle? I don’t think so. For one thing, we have the overwhelming affirmation of Scripture that it is all God-breathed. We also have reason.

When we look at a sunset, we also do not see (or have) the “originals.” We do not see directly what we are looking at. Instead, we “see” an electro-chemical mental reproduction – a “copy” – of the “original.” Our eyes break down the incoming light – and the light is not even the seen objects – into millions of simultaneous electro-chemical reactions that are transported into the depths of our brain, and immediately we have a trustworthy series of images of the external world.

Although we cannot literally see the external world, we have a trustworthy facsimile of it. This facsimile or “copy” enables us to drive our cars and make thousands of appropriate decisions every minute.

Can we therefore say that there exists a stable, fully reliable and believable external reality, even though we cannot directly apprehend it? Certainly! Likewise, can we say that there exist fully reliable and believable inerrant originals, even though we don’t possess them?  Why not?

Ehrman might challenge the analogy in this manner:

• When it comes to the Scriptures, we have thousands of textual variants among the 5,800 NT manuscripts and fragments. There are no “variants” when it comes to the external world.

However, such a response misses the point of the analogy. Ehrman’s point had been that “We don’t have the originals.” Therefore, it is not possible to talk about inerrant originals. However, we can talk about a totally reliable external reality even though we can’t directly see it. Even though we don’t directly have the originals, we can still assert that they are/were fully reliable.

Besides, we see reality in “variant” ways. However, despite this very obvious fact, we should not conclude that reality is “variant.” Nor should we conclude that our textual variants in any way undermines the doctrine of “inerrancy.”

Of course this raises another question:

• Even if the originals are inerrant, in light of the many textual variants, can we say with any confidence what the originals looked like?

While the radical critic Ehrman would answer “no,” the faith of many has only been reaffirmed through the study of the variants. NT scholar William Warren writes:

• I would say that our [present composite NT] text almost certainly represents a form that is almost identical to the original documents. (122)

Another NT scholar, Craig Evans, affirms the same thing:

• Given the evidence, we have every reason to have confidence in the text of Scripture. This does not mean that we possess 100% certainty that we have the exact wording in every case, but we have good reason to believe that what we have preserved in the several hundred manuscripts of the first millennium is the text that the writers of Scripture penned.

Similarly, NT textual critic Silvie Raquel writes:

• I also have studied New Testament textual criticism and, by contrast with Ehrman, have found confirmation about the validity of the text…by defective reasoning, misuse of the evidence, and a misconception of inerrancy, Ehrman fails to build a case for the unreliability of the New Testament text as a sacred and inspired text. (173, 185)

Don’t think that this question of “inerrancy” is just a stale and irrelevant academic disagreement. It is essential to our lives. If we are convinced that the Bible isn’t entirely trustworthy, then we are doomed to always have to decide what parts of Scripture we are to trust and what to discard as untrustworthy. Consequently, instead of Scripture judging us, we are judging Scripture. Instead of Scripture reigning over us, it is our judgment that reigns over Scripture. And if our judgment is more reliable than Scripture, well, we might as well just read the New York Times!

However, all of the books of Scripture regard Scripture as supreme and authoritative.  Isaiah would certainly agree:

• The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. (Isaiah 40:8)

Only God’s Word can stand forever, despite Bart Ehrman’s protestations

(My thanks to W. Gary Crampton’s review of the Ehrman-Wallace dialogue in The Trinity Review)   

The Historical Reliability of the Four Canonical Gospels

Some skeptical scholars date the Gospels late (70-100AD) and claim that they are largely the invention of the early Greek-speaking church, presenting an idolized, “politically-correct” Jesus. However, against this position, there are many powerful, objective reasons to suppose that the Gospels are historically authentic and paint an accurate picture of Jesus’ ministry (27-30AD). Here are several:

1. Multiple Attestations

2. Extra-Biblical Confirmation (Archeological and Explicit Affirmations)

3. Embarrassing Revelations (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” “Let this cup pass from Me!” Apostles are consistently presented in a negative light.) It seems that accuracy and not fabrication had been the goal of the Gospel writers.

4. Apostolic Credibility (They had nothing to gain by starting a new religion, but the martyrdom that eventually befell them. Besides, there is no evidence that any of them had ever reneged on their testimony, even when they would have been granted their lives by doing so.)

5. Even if we take the late dating suggested by the critics (70-100AD), there still would have been eyewitnesses present to contradict any fabrications. This would have made it very difficult to promote a fabricated Jesus.

6. Jesus’ teachings are difficult to understand and to live - “If your eye cause you to sin, pluck it out,” “sell all you have”- and therefore not likely to have been fabricated.

7. Jesus’ teachings were far more cryptic than what the early church would have invented to justify their own positions.

8. Jesus’ associations with society’s rejects.

9. Jesus’ words (Aramaic usage – “abba”) and figures of speech reflect early 1^st century Israelite culture.

10. Jesus demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures and even their poetic structures, something that would have been very difficult for the early church to pull off.

However, New Testament scholar, Craig Evans, has presented another line of reasoning to argue against the notion of a fabricated Jesus:

• The oft-heard assertion that many of the sayings [of Jesus] were generated by questions and issues that the early church faced is called into doubt by the observation that many of these questions and issues (as seen in the New Testament letters) are nowhere addressed by the sayings of Jesus. There was disagreement over the question of circumcision, eating meat sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, Jew-Gentile relations, and the qualifications for church office, but not a saying of Jesus speaks to any of these questions. This shows that the Gospel writers were not in the habit of making things up. There is every reason then, to conclude…that the Gospels have fairly and accurately reported the essential elements of Jesus’ teachings, life death and resurrection. (Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, 234)

Evans argues that if the early church had invented the words of Jesus to settle one of their many controversies, they would have invented different words and subjects that would have been a greater concern for them. In conclusion, there is absolutely no evidence that the Jesus of the four Canonical Gospels represents the fabrication of the early church.

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