Apologetics - The Poached Egg

Midweek Apologetics Hit and Misc: 9 Reasons Why God's Not Dead

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Midweek Apologetics Hit and Misc: 9 Reasons Why God’s Not Dead

Do the Resurrection Accounts of the Gospels Contradict One Another?

What is the Relation between Science and Religion | Reasonable Faith

Good News Elevator Speech | Attempts at Honesty

Prominent Atheist Professor of Law and Philosophy Thomas Nagel Calls Intelligent Design
Scientific and Constitutional to "Mention" in Science Classes

A New New Testament: Are You Serious? | Daniel B. Wallace

Truthbomb Apologetics: Video: The Case for the Existence of the Soul by J.P. Moreland

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Do We Have Souls? Lee Strobel interviews Dr. J.P. Moreland | LifeCoach4God

The Abundant Evidence for Christian Theism | Mike Robinson

Come Reason's Apologetics Notes: Answering 'God of the Gaps' Objections

9 Reasons My Gods Not Dead By Rice Brooks - Beliefnet.com

Early Date for Matthew | Bible-Science Guy

How to Test a Worldview in 3 Easy Steps | Think Christianly

 

MIDWEEK RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES ROUNDUP:

More Than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation

Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science

Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Skeptics Find Faith

Thinking About Christian Apologetics: What It Is and Why We Do It

Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century

Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences

 

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Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every hristian Should Memorize: #2: "Apocryphal Writings are All Written in the Second Century or Later"

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Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: #2: “Apocryphal Writings are All Written in the Second Century or Later”

by Michael Kruger

In the prior post, we discussed the first basic fact about the New Testament canon, namely that the New Testament writings are the earliest Christian texts we possess.  We were careful to make clear that the early date of these books does not make them canonical, but the early date does show that these books were written during a time period when eyewitnesses of Jesus were still alive.

In this current post, we address the issue of “apocryphal” New Testament writings.  These are writings that were not included in the New Testament, but have a similar genre (gospels, acts, letters, apocalypses, etc.).   And these writings are often attributed to famous individuals; e.g., the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of John.

While we cannot go into extensive detail about these various apocryphal writings, we can at least note one basic fact that is often overlooked: all of these apocryphal writings are dated to the second century or later.   Thus, this post is the corollary of the prior one.  Not only are all New Testament writings from the first century, but all apocryphal writings (at least the ones that are extant) are from the second century or later.  And many are from the third or fourth century.

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What is particularly noteworthy about this fact is that even critical scholars agree.  While there is dispute over the dating of some New Testament books (e.g., 2 Peter, the Pastoral Epistles), there is virtual unanimity over the late date of apocryphal books.  There are, of course, fringe attempts to place some apocryphal writings into the first century—e.g., Crossan argues that a “cross gospel” embedded in the Gospel of Peter is from the first century—but these suggestions have not been widely received.

The observation of this simple fact quickly calls into question sensationalistic claims about how these “lost” books contain the “real” version of Christianity…

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Ten Basic Facts about the NT Canon that Every Christian Should Memorize: #2: “Apocryphal Writings are All Written in the Second Century or Later” | Canon Fodder

 

RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:

Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books

Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy

 

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Midweek Apologetics Hit and Misc: God’s Relationship to Time

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Apologist Interview: Blake Anderson of Ratio Christi

Come Reason's Apologetics Notes: Is a Necessary Being really necessary?

Dinosaurs and the Bible: Why Aren't They Mentioned? | Godand Science.org

The Importance of Error in Apologetics | Faith and Self Defense

Four Good Reasons for Belief - Saints and Sceptics

Knowing our world: Christians live mostly in North America, right?

What Darwin Didn't Know | Intelligent Design the Future

When Was the Gospel of Thomas Written? | Tough Questions Answered

Stand to Reason: How to Choose a Church

Bible Background » The historicity of the book of Acts

What is God's Relationship to Time?: A Case for Divine Everlastingness

Bart Ehrman on the Testimonium Flavianum | Hope's Reason

 

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MIDWEEK RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES ROUNDUP:

Reasonable Faith (3rd Edition): Christian Truth and Apologetics

On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision

The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design

The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ

Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

A Shot of Faith (to the Head): Be a Confident Believer in an Age of Cranky Atheists

 

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Should 'Lost' Gospels Be In The Bible?

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Should ‘Lost’ Gospels Be In The Bible?

by Jonathan Morrow

Every Christmas and Easter skeptics (like Bart Ehrman in Newsweek) love to make provocative claims about missing Gospels, Lost Christianities (yes plural), and what we don’t really know about Jesus. Let’s just focus on one of the questions raised. Should lost Gospels be included in the Bible? (see my recent post on how we know we have the right books of the Bible for more on that question)

In 1945, fifty two papyri were discovered at Nag Hammadi in Lower Egypt and some of these texts had the word ‘gospel’ in the title. Now Scholars have known about these and other 2nd – 4th century documents for a long time, but only recently has the general public been introduced to them. This has caused quite a bit of controversy and speculation. Why?

Our culture is generally skeptical of authority and enjoys a good conspiracy theory; sprinkle in some high definition documentaries around Easter and Christmas with titles like ‘Banned Books of the Bible’ and the recipe for confusion is complete. Was there a cover up by the Church? Were we lied to about Jesus?

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These so called ‘lost gospels’ fall into two categories: (1) New Testament Apocrypha (2) Gnostic writings.

Apocrypha means ‘hidden things’. These writings tried to fill in the gaps about two periods of Jesus’ life—his childhood and the three days between his death and resurrection. The motivations for these works ranges from entertainment to the comprehensive redefinition of the Jesus revealed in the 1st century writings of the New Testament.

The first time I heard about these ‘lost gospels’, it honestly made me nervous…until I read them. The juiciest of the apocryphal writings is probably the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Here are some things I discovered about Jesus’ childhood: he called a child an “unrighteous, irreverent idiot” (3:1-3). Another child bumped into Jesus, which aggravated him so much that Jesus struck him dead (4:1-2). Evidently those who provoked childhood Jesus fell dead a lot (14:3). No, I’m not making this up.

Then there are the Gnostic writings. Gnosticism can get kind of complicated…

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Should ‘Lost’ Gospels Be In The Bible? | Think Christianly

 

RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:

Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books

Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy

 

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Did Jesus Have a Wife? A New Gnostic Fragment

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Did Jesus Have a Wife? A New Gnostic Fragment

By Gary Manning Jr.

According to an article in the Washington Post, an ancient manuscript claiming that Jesus had a wife has just been discovered. I’ll tackle this new discovery with some Q&A.

What is this new find?

Karen King, the Gnostic scholar who published the manuscript, has titled it the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (see the scholarly article here). It is a very small fragment, only 12 partial lines, of an ancient Gnostic book. The fragment, written in Coptic, dates from the fourth century, but it is a copy of an older book, perhaps written in the late second century. According to the fragment, Jesus refers to “my wife.”

Is the manuscript genuine?

It’s too early to tell. When manuscripts are discovered, it usually takes some time of examination and scholarly vetting before forgeries are discovered. There are some concerns about Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’s unknown provenance and history of ownership, but the initial reports make it seem likely that this is a real fourth-century Gnostic document. That doesn’t mean that the document is true or has anything to do with Jesus!

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How is this related to the so-called Gnostic gospels?

The Gnostics wrote a number of short collections of sayings that they attributed to Jesus: the Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and others. Technically, these are not really gospels, at least when compared with the canonical gospels. The four gospels in the New Testament are full biographies of Jesus, directly tied to eyewitness accounts, and written within 25 to 60 years of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Gnostic gospels, in contrast, are short collections of sayings, with little or no biographical material. They are written by people more than a century removed from Jesus, with no connection to the eyewitnesses. Generally, these works are easily identified because they try to make Jesus sound like a Gnostic. This newly discovered fragment has a few lines that sound like the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene…

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Did Jesus Have a Wife? A New Gnostic Fragment

 

RECOMMENDED APOLOGETICS RSOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:

The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ

What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible

 

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Apocryphal Gospels and the Mainstream Media

 

Apocryphal Gospels and the Mainstream Media

by Michael Kruger

One thing that I have observed over the years is that major media outlets love apocryphal gospels.  Whenever the person of Jesus is discussed–usually at Easter and Christmas–there is always a discussion about how the real story of Jesus has been suppressed and can only now be found in these lost gospels.   Sweeping claims are then made about how there was no agreement on much of anything in the first four centuries of the faith and that other stories of Jesus circulated by the thousands. Only after Constantine came along does the church decide which books to accept (and then subsequently denies all other books admission to the club).

When you think about it, this sort of historical reconstruction makes for an attractive magazine article or newspaper story for our modern media.   The public loves a good conspiracy theory.  People want to believe that there are “secret,” “hidden,” “lost,” or “forgotten” (the four most common words used in such stories) accounts of Jesus that will finally reveal the truth once and for all.   And, of course, everyone likes to believe that the Church is just like all institutions–corrupt, authoritarian, and concerned only about preserving its own power.

In a recent blog article, Phillip Jenkins has pointed out that a major media outlet (the UK Daily Telegraph) has followed the apocryphal gospel playbook step by step.  The Telegraph, when discussing the death of NT Professor Marvin Meyer, gives this assessment of gospels in early Christianity…

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Apocryphal Gospels and the Mainstream Media | Canon Fodder

 

RECCOMENDED RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:

Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books

Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy

 

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All Gospels Were Not Created Equal

 

All Gospels  Were Not Created Equal

By Philip Jenkins

I just read an obituary of Early Christianity scholar Marvin Meyer, who died at the obscenely early age of 64.

In recent years, Meyer was best known for his edition of the Gospel of Judas, which in his view portrayed Judas in vastly more positive terms than the conventional account. His translation was however controversial, provoking a vigorous attack by his doctoral supervisor James M. Robinson. Among other issues, Meyer seems to have omitted the word “not” in a crucial sentence, resulting in Jesus placing Judas in a highly favorable light. I am not a Coptic scholar, and cannot judge the linguistic point.

I am, though, a historian, and on that basis I fundamentally challenge the framework of the debate presented by among others, Britain’s Daily Telegraph. (I stress that I am critiquing that media discussion, and not Meyer’s own work). According to the Telegraph, which should know better,

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What we know as the New Testament – the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation – was actually born of thousands of texts and gospels circulated among the early Christians. Members of the new faith were subject to persecution, and the Church fathers felt that for the faith to survive, there had to be a unified belief system. Some time around AD 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon denounced all gospels but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as heretical. Later, about 50 years after Constantine’s conversion early in the fourth century, the New Testament became Christianity’s official text.

Lacking here is any sense that these early Christian texts vary enormously in authority, and in date…

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All Gospels  Were Not Created Equal

RECCOMENDED RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING:

Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books

Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy

 

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