Acts Knows Greece. It Also Knows Judea. Here Are the Receipts. (C.J. Cornthwaite Response)

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Acts gets tons of tiny historical details right. For instance, Luke keeps using the exact local titles for officials. At Philippi, he first calls the officials archontes, a general word for rulers, and then uses their proper Roman colonial title, strategoi (Acts 16:19, 22). In Thessalonica, they are politarchs (Acts 17:6). In Athens, a member of the ruling council is an Areopagite (Acts 17:34). Gallio is correctly called the proconsul of Achaia at Corinth, which places Paul there around AD 51–52 (Acts 18:12). In Ephesus, Luke gets three more local terms right: grammateus for the city clerk, neōkoros for Ephesus as temple keeper, and agoraioi for the court sessions held under the proconsuls (Acts 19:35, … Read more

Castor, Pollux, and the Historical Accuracy of Acts

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Here is one of those tiny details in Acts that is easy to read right past. After Paul is shipwrecked on Malta and spends three months there, Luke writes: “We set sail on an Alexandrian ship with the Dioscuri as its figurehead.”Acts 28:11 The Dioscuri were the pagan twin gods Castor and Pollux. And then Luke just moves on. He does not explain who these gods were. He does not tell us why their image appeared on the ship. He does not stop to turn the detail into some big theological object lesson. It reads like the casual memory of someone who was there: “Yeah, this was the ship we boarded.” But once you compare … Read more

Did Muhammad Predict Oil? Nah.

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Dust storm in Saudi Arabia

Some Muslim apologists like to say Muhammad predicted oil when he supposedly said, “The earth will vomit its treasures.” Here’s the actual hadith (Sahih Muslim 1013): “The earth will vomit long pieces of its liver like columns of gold and silver. The murderer will say, ‘It was for this that I killed,’ the thief will say, ‘It was for this that my hands were cut off,’ and they’ll leave it, taking nothing from it.” That’s not about oil. It literally mentions gold and silver, and ends with everyone walking away from the treasure. The point isn’t discovery of treasure, it’s about judgment. It’s a picture of people realizing how worthless greed was when the end … Read more

Joseph Smith’s Failed Prophecy About David Patten

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In Doctrine and Covenants 114:1, dated April 17, 1838, Joseph Smith records the following revelation from God: “Verily thus saith the Lord, it is wisdom in my servant David W. Patten, that he settle up all his business as soon as he possibly can, and make a disposition of his merchandise, that he may perform a mission unto me next spring, in company with others, even twelve including himself.” Notice that this verse is structured as a divine command issued in the spring of 1838, instructing Patten to prepare for a mission with the quorum of the Twelve Apostles in spring 1839. But the prophecy failed. On October 25, 1838, just six months after this … Read more

Did Luke Botch the Census? A Historical Look at Luke 2

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Manuscript Illumination with the Evangelist Luke

Critics love to point out that Luke’s Christmas story is riddled with contradictions and historical goofs. That there’s a 10-year gap between Matthew and Luke’s timelines. That there was no census. That Quirinius wasn’t in charge. That Rome wouldn’t have done a census under a client king. That nobody traveled for registration. And that Luke was just making stuff up to get Jesus to Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy. As usual, Bart Ehrman leads the charge, claiming “Luke’s Christmas story is filled with historical problems” and laughing off the idea of people returning to their ancestral towns. Let’s walk through the charges against Luke and see if they stick. 1. Luke is not confused. His chronology … Read more

The Historical Challenge of Surah 3:55 and 61:14: Who Were Jesus’ True Followers?

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an open koran book

The Quran makes several claims about the fate of Jesus’ followers after his departure. Two particularly striking verses are Surah 3:55 and Surah 61:14, which state that those who followed Jesus were made superior or dominant over disbelievers. This raises a historical question: Who were these true followers, and when did they achieve dominance? While these verses are often interpreted by Muslim scholars to affirm Islam’s eventual victory, they present a major historical challenge: there is no clear record of an Islamic-style monotheistic movement among Jesus’ followers that was both dominant and continuous until Muhammad’s time. Instead, the overwhelming historical evidence shows that the dominant followers of Jesus were Trinitarian Christians who affirmed his divinity … Read more

Who Actually Did Miracles—Paul or Muhammad?

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a statue of saint paul

Paul’s followers believed he worked miracles. His own letters say it. Acts records them in detail. Even skeptics admit the early church believed it. Muhammad? The Quran flat-out says he did no miracles. The only place you’ll find them is in Hadith—written over a century later. So if miracles are a sign of a true prophet, and we’re going by actual historical evidence, let’s be real—Paul has way more proof than Muhammad. Let’s break this down. Paul didn’t just claim to work miracles—he actually used them as proof that he was a real apostle. In 2 Corinthians 12:12, he tells the Corinthians: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, … Read more

What’s the Injil?

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monochrome photo of opened quran

According to the Quran, what is the Gospel, or (in Arabic) the Injil? In this post, I’ll show that on Islam, this question has no answer. The Quran ties itself in a knot that it cannot escape. The Quran says that Allah taught the Injil to Jesus (Quran 3:48, 5:46, 5:110, 57:27). Whatever this Injil is, let’s call it Injil-J. Maybe it was written down, maybe not. Whatever these verses are referring to, whatever Jesus received, that’s Injil-J. The Quran also refers to the Injil as something that is with the People of the Book in Muhammad’s time, centuries later. Quran 5:46-47 says, “let the people of the Injil judge by what Allah has revealed … Read more

Debunking Dawah Spin: Muhammad Allowed Wife-Beating

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I just made a video about how unclear the Quran is regarding Surah 4:34, the infamous “wife-beating” verse. Some modern translators try to water it down—saying “separate from them”, which is very different. But if the Quran is so clear, why is there so much disagreement about a moral command? And if it’s clear, why did earlier translators—including classical Muslim scholars—have no issue saying “beat”? And if it’s not clear, then it’s contradicting itself, since Surah 11:1 literally says the Quran is a “book whose verses are perfected and explained in detail.” So either the Quran is unclear or it’s bad. Pick your poison. Sunan Ibn Majah 1851 – “Don’t Leave a Mark” Now, I’ll … Read more

The New York Times and Ivy League Professor Team Up To Debunk Christmas

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Hate to barge in on your Christmas joy as you reflect on the miracle of the Incarnation, but The New York Times is back with its annual dose of skepticism wrapped in tinsel. This time, it’s an interview with Elaine Pagels, a famed Ivy League biblical scholar. You’d expect some highbrow insights from the Times, but instead, we get baseless speculation that Jesus was a rape baby, dressed up as serious scholarship. Kristof of the NYT starts with this question: So let’s go back to the Nativity. Of the four gospels, two describe the virgin birth of Jesus and two don’t mention it. The Gospel of Mark has people of Galilee referring to Jesus as … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?