Reliability of the Bible

Did the women at the tomb of Jesus see a man at the tomb, two men, or two angels?

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Here is a favorite ploy of skeptics and critics of the four gospels: Find two stories that use different words, give different details, name different people and emphasize different things. Throw a flag and cry ‘contradiction!’ But differences in the account aren’t necessarily contradictions. Bart Ehrman has made a career of claiming otherwise. Here is a snippet of Bart in his debate on the resurrection with William Lane Craig: Read one story in Matthew, then the same story in Mark, and compare your two stories and see what you come up with. You come up with major differences . . . Did they see a man, did they see two men, or did they see … Read more

Do the 3 accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts contradict each other?

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There are three accounts of Paul’s conversion found in the Book of Acts. They’re all a bit different and because of that some critics say they’re at odds with each other. Comparing them, skeptical Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman writes: “the three accounts differ in numerous contradictory details…Clearly we are dealing with a narrative that has been molded for literary reasons, not with some kind of disinterested historical report.” If Luke can’t keep from contradicting himself while telling and re-telling Paul’s conversion, this would cast doubt on if he ever traveled with or even knew Paul very well at all. Let’s look at Bart’s complaints one by one and see if he has a good case against … Read more

6 clear reasons why Psalm 22 can’t possibly describe anyone else but Jesus of Nazareth.

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“Psalm 22 isn’t about Jesus at all! Mark was familiar with the Psalm and deliberately fabricated stories about the mocking of the crowds and the distribution of his clothes. Not only that, Christians translators came in and changed the wording of one of the passages to make it say that the sufferer’s feet and hands were pierced. Plus, the Psalm was written by David or some other Jewish sufferer about their own suffering. Christians are just projecting Jesus backward into the Psalm to fit their own narrative. And there’s nothing about the resurrection in Psalm 22. Isn’t that the punchline of the whole story?” That’s the skeptical interpretation of Psalm 22 in a nutshell. To … 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

A look at an alleged contradiction in the Gospels: Was Jairus’ daughter alive when Jesus was approached or was she already dead?

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For historical documents to be reliable, they can’t be full of contradictions. That’s just common sense. As Christians, we say that the Gospels give us an accurate portrayal of historical events, but critics are quick to call foul. They say that the gospel accounts are so full of contradictions that it’s hopeless to even try and argue for their reliability. Or so critics like Bart Ehrman would like us to believe. When asked on his blog if there was a “slam-dunk” contradiction that would be impossible to defend, Bart’s reply was: “I don’t have ONE that is [a] slam-dunk. But there are dozens that are pretty good. Here’s one: Jairus came to Jesus to ask him to … Read more

A look at an alleged contradiction in the gospels: Did the centurion ask Jesus directly to heal his servant, or did he send others to ask?

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If you’ve ever been in a discussion online with atheists, you know that one of their favorite moves is to dump a heap of alleged contradictions in the Bible and act like it is game over time. It’s probably a strange way of thinking about it, but I liken it to throwing a bucket of snakes into a crowded movie theater. It only takes a few seconds to dump some slithering serpents and watch people scatter, but it takes a lot longer catch them one by one and deal with them. It can be a pain to play the role of animal control, but someone’s gotta do it. These things do bother people. One of … Read more

18 Passages From Mark’s Gospel That Prove That Mark Had a High Christology

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Biblical critics like Bart Ehrman say that the deity of Christ was a later invention that developed near the end of the first century. Bart and others of his ilk say that Mark, the earliest gospel, has a lower view of Jesus than John, who says he’s the pre-existent Word made Flesh. Quoting Bart: “If Jesus went around Galilee proclaiming himself to be a divine being sent from God…could anything else that he say be so breath-taking and thunderously important? And yet none of the earlier sources (read: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) says any such thing about him. Did they (all of them!) just decide not to mention the one thing that was most significant … 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

Are you defining faith the same way Richard Dawkins does or the way Jesus does?

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There’s this really annoying thing that I see many atheists do. Not to overgeneralize, but I’ve heard it far too often. And it’s that they will persist in defining faith as belief without evidence. Here are some notable examples: “Faith is pretending to know what you don’t know” – Peter Boghossian “Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that’s also the definition of delusion.” — Richard Dawkins “Faith is generally nothing more than the permission religious people give one another to believe things strongly without evidence.” – Sam Harris   There’s also this thing annoying thing I see Christians do. And it’s that they’ll basically agree with the atheist. The famous reformer Martin Luther … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?