Objections to Scripture

Busting 7 Arguments Against the Traditional Authorship of John

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When arguing for the traditional authorship of John, you’re going to encounter a significant amount of pushback. Skeptics will often say that there’s a vast scholarly consensus against Johannine authorship, but when you look at their arguments, many of them are quite weak. In this post, I’ll address some of the more common ones.  1. Wouldn’t someone close to John sound more like the Synoptic writers?  No, not if John had different purposes for writing his Gospel. The early evidence from the church fathers says that his Gospel was intentionally supplemental. Clement of Alexandria wrote:  “Of all those who had been with the Lord only Matthew and John left us their recollections (hypomnēmata), and tradition … Read more

7 things that should be better known about the problem of hell according to Jesus

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The topic of hell usually generates more heat than light, pun intended. The doctrine gets used as a bludgeon against those who claim to follow Jesus, who is said to be meek and lowly of heart, yet spoke so often of this harsh subject. The late outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens said, “not until the Advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing the dead.” You hear many thinking believers say they’d prefer to get rid of the doctrine if it didn’t have such scriptural support. CS Lewis said, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this if it lay in my … Read more

Why does the Biblical God need our worship? Is he some sort of egomaniac? Was David Hume right when he said God has a “restless appetite for applause?”

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The Biblical God requires worship. Some find that repulsive. Isn’t someone who wants constant adoration prideful? Is God some kind of narcissist? David Hume was a famous 18th-century philosopher. He was also no fan of Christianity. He wrote: “It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause”. Before becoming a Christian, even C.S. Lewis struggled with the idea of a God who required worship. While reading the book of Psalms, he thought God was longing “for our worship like a vain woman who wants compliments.” So what’s the deal here? Is God an egomaniac? An egomaniac is someone would … Read more

Atheists like Sam Harris say that the Bible advocates chattel slavery. To say that’s an uncharitable reading is an understatement.

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Is the Bible pro-slavery? “If God loves us and wanted to guide us with a book of morality, it’s very strange to have given us a book that supports slavery.”  Anti-religious atheists like Sam Harris love making statements like these. They do carry a lot of rhetorical force. And they do seem to throw the character of the God of the Bible in question. Is the “Good Book” not so good after all?   When modern people think slavery, our minds go to pre-Civil war times in America. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the horrible chattel slavery in the South. And the sad reality of it is, there were clergymen who condoned and even promoted … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?