To the "gay atheist" blog owner of "Discomfiting Christianity"

THE DISCOMFITER'S SELF-DESCRIPTION IN HIS BLOGGER PROFILE:

Industry: Fashion
Occupation: Interior Decorating

Interests
Refuting Christians reading John Loftus' blogs and books and remodeling Tuscan style villas

So based on his blogger profile I'd like to address the "gay atheist" blog owner of Discomfiting Christianity [I put those words in quotation marks because I do not believe the Discomfiter is gay nor an atheist, but attempting to satirize both.]:

I suggest dropping the balpeen-hammer hints that homosexuals are worthy of derision, and also suggest you leave sarcasm to the experts [read more below]:

The Simpsons as Religious Satire

The Onion [on God]

The Onion [on Christ]

The Onion [on religion]

Which Circle? [celebrating the truth, beauty, & absurdity of Christian campus ministry]

...or leave it to Christians who have a more expansive sense of humor:

The Door Magazine [Christians satirizing excesses of fellow Christians]

Ship of Fools [another Christian site run by Christians willing to laugh at their own excesses,including links to other religious satire sites]

Landover Baptist: America's Favorite Church

Not to mention the fact that Catholic wits like G. K. Chesterton were lifelong friends with his atheist and unorthodox friends even though they debated and satirized each others' views, even telling his atheist friend, H.G. Wells, that he saw him going to heaven for all the good he did for mankind, and even writing a novel about a Christian and atheist who wanted to duel to the death, but later came to be close friends (The Ball and the Cross).

Lastly, from what I've read at Tekton apologetics (a sexy female screaming bunny), or in The Best Christian Writing of the Year, there do not appear to be very many Evangelical Christian satirists up to say, Dave Barry level, let alone who could keep up with Voltaire, Twain, Mencken, or stand up routines by Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, Rowan Atkinson, George Carlin, or movies by Kevin Smith and Monty Python.

I would add that the opposite of fanaticism is not a rival fanatical spirit but simply acknowledging doubts in general and allowing bygones to be bygones, i.e., allowing people to start over, and attempt to get to know each other again.

For such reasons I tend to doubt that beliefs determine ones eternal destiny. Because even interpreting other people's ideas when communicating with them, people that you know, who live in the same time and era as yourself is fraught with difficulty, let alone "biblical exegesis," and trying to make "doctrines and dogmas" sound like nothing but pure rationality to other folks.

Defining Evil

Believers in Christianity are not like they were decades and centuries ago. When confronted with harsh biblical criticism, they will not tell you things like "just have faith because nobody really 'knows' anything", nor will they admit "I can't prove the Bible or Christianity, but I believe in them." No, those days of quaint and humble honesty are long gone.

What believers of today will tell you is a minimum of ten ways to explain the days of Genesis 1 and the snake of Genesis 3 as figurative rather than literal. On accepting Jesus, they will present the trillemma, "Lord, liar, or lunatic" and try to buff it up with skewed logic. They will refer to Blocher's Thesis time and again, and wax eloquent quoting Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig on issues of common dispute. Concerning the problem of evil, instead of admitting that the existence of evil troubles them, they shine on asking skeptics to "define evil," as though this somehow helps to alleviate the problem. Looking to score points in a debate, believers want a formal definition, which is fine, though it is unnecessary. I suppose, if someone wanted me to, I could give them a definition of sadness, though we all know what it is! Even so, there is no one alive who doesn't know what evil is. Well, I will accommodate them here anyway.

The definition of evil I formulated is as follows...

Evil is..."any action(s), of nature or mankind, or omission(s) of action(s) thereof, that work against the life, health, happiness, and well-being of a species, society, and/or individual."

Rather than break it down further, this sounds pretty self explanatory to me. I think one must have help to misunderstand it. As far as I can tell, this definition covers it all. And naturally, by reversing the definition, you have the definition of good.

In providing our definition, we have just formalized what is already common sense. It doesn't take a formal definition to see that evil can be something passive as is seen in nature...predator-prey relationships, a bear killing a man, a volcano erupting and destroying an entire village, a plaque spreading and wiping out thousands of inhabitants, or it can be something actively evil as committed by sentient, intelligent human animals, like the more obvious crimes...murder (the societally unjustified taking of life), rape, fraud, the torture of a human or lesser animal and gratification received therefrom, etc. It is also obvious that an omission of an action can be called evil. A governing body of people who refuse to deliver on their promises, that failure resulting in a breach of contract and/or misfortune, is evil. A person of leadership or of great financial means refusing to use their resources to feed and help his people could well be called evil. Even the Bible acknowledges this, "He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it." (Proverbs 11:26). An omission of good resulting in evil might well be citizens of a country harboring terrorists, refusing to turn them in to the law, or an individual refusing to testify against a known murderer to put that person away. Even nature, you could say, can commit evil by omission of good; the village might not be destroyed by a flood, but by a lack of water, by drought. No one could deny any of these things as being categorically evil. Some might well contest my calling a natural disaster evil, but the same people readily contradict themselves as they'd have no problem understanding someone who came to them and told them, "something bad has happened to me! My house caught on fire!" We could replace bad with "evil" and the meaning is the same, quite obviously. We use this kind of language all the time, and the meaning is abundantly clear. No one has the slightest trouble understanding it...until God is attacked with the argument from evil, then suddenly we are taken to task on how to define evil!

Of course, the issue gets more complicated, but not much. Evil, as we have seen, is easy to define, and missing it is all but impossible. But applying it is somewhat more technical. Is it evil to inflict pain on a child by taking him/her to the doctor to get a shot if that shot will save the child's life and make the child healthier? Using common sense, that obviously isn't an evil thing to do even though some pain is inflicted, but there is still natural evil here. Where is it from and to whom lies the blame for this child having to be taken to the doctor? The blame lies on the theist's God. I may take a sick child to the doctor to save it's life because it's the only option I have, but an omnipotent God has infinite options and is the one bearing the blame of allowing the child to get sick in the first place. Through the same understanding, I am not to blame for killing a man who snook into my house at night to do me harm. In such a case, I would be just in preserving my own life by taking someone else's, but God would still bare the blame for allowing that to happen in the first place. We humans find ourselves stuck having to choose the least painful, least regrettable solution to a problem when a perfect one isn't to be found. Things like this we call "necessary evils", or "the lesser of evils" as we humans can often only choose from a small and disappointing array of options open to us. The same must be said of natural evils. When the sperm whale eats tons of fish a day, it is not "evil" as we commonly use the term. It is just feeding to sustain itself. The cheetah chasing down and killing the gazelle to survive is only taking the course nature plotted for it. But again, there is evil here, not by intent, but in result. Who is it that set up a system whereby a smaller, weaker animal is consumed by a stronger one? God created such a system and it is he who bares the blame every time a predator's jaws and claws inflict pain on the hide of a bison who struggles to escape it's killers. No intentional evil need be committed to see when "a great evil has befallen" a city. The volcano doesn't bear the blame for leveling a town, but the theists' God does for constructing a dangerously quirky planet that must relieve it's pressures in such a manner.

What I am needlessly laboring to prove here is one simple fact -- that defining evil in it's many forms was never a problem. It is impossible to turn away from even by the most staunch standards of optimistically warped theists who refuse to see reason on the issue. Evil is all around us, and regardless of which side of the debate on the existence of God our convictions may fall, we cannot help but recognize it when we see it. Yet Christians, in the spirit of trying to blend in with the academic mainstream of western thought, have resorted to making silly formalized arguments against the problem of evil and asininely quibbling over definitions of the word itself! An entire world is losing faith in God over the abundance of evils, and all the while, we are being told by Christian philosophers that we can't even define the term! I can, and just did, but don't have to. I see it every time I see a hospital, a police car, an ambulance, or when I turn on the local 6'o clock news. I see it every time I see a pair of reading glasses, a walking cane, or a sign on the highway that says "Buckle Up for Safety." I see evil, and everyone around me sees it too, even those who swear up and down that it doesn't shake their faith.

The buck of the existence of evil cannot be passed from God. He will never escape his appointment to stand forever convicted in the court of human reason as the most evil and fiendish being ever conceived. The standard by which we convict is that of the senses, the same senses with which we judge all of reality, and who could ask for a more objective standard than that? Explaining something can only be so difficult, but eventually we are bound to get it. The only exception is when we don't want to get it! Good old fashioned stubbornness will thwart any effort to learn, particularly on the part of blind god-believers who refuse to see the obligation to hold their higher power responsible for the woes of humanity instead of issuing him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

(JH)

Answering Objections to Visions: Part Four

Defending Visions: Part Four

This will probably be my final post on the subject of visions in this series. I want to concentrate on answering one final objection to the kind of visionary hypotheses of Christian origins that I happen to advocate. This argument concerns the disciples' expectations of Jesus. I wish to address the argument of an online Christian apologist, Robert Turkel, who uses the writing name "James Patrick Holding". But before I proceed to answer his argument, I want to make some preliminary comments. First of all, I have been wrestling with hesitancy in writing this post. It's not due to a lack of confidence in my reply to Mr. Holding's argument. Rather, it's because I am opening a can of worms or so I fear. The fact of the matter is that I am taking quite a risk in replying to Mr. Holding's argument. For some reason I have never been able to fully understand, I believe that Mr. Holding has an obession with always having the last word in a debate or exchange with someone. Just as bad is what I consider to be Mr. Holding's overconfidence. It's not enough to simply think that he may have done a good job in answering an argument; rather, I have seen him brag about destroying an argument. Likewise, it's not enough that Mr. Holding simply think that he has answered someone; rather, I have seen him act as though he gave someone a good intellectual flogging. It's this egotism of his that makes me wince.

I try a different approach. I try and let readers decide for themselves whether I have answered my critics or I have successfully argued a point. Sometimes I might come across as more confident than my argument warrants. For this apologize to readers. I want to be able to articulate my arguments and let readers decide for themselves if I have met my stated burdens. Having said this, I will adopt this tone for these posts. I simply leave it to readers to evaluate my arguments and see if they hold water. The exception I am willing to make is if I feel that a rude, cocky, and all-around obnoxious spin-doctor needs a douse of humility or perhaps a dose of his/her own medicine then I will drop the niceties and turn quite confrontational myself. So I write this essay in response to Mr. Holding and I will leave it to readers to judge whether I am successful or not; I simply trust the intelligence of readers. I doubt that Mr. Holding's readers will read this open-mindedly or in its entirety to see if I, perhaps, have a good argument. I suspect that many of Mr. Holding's readers have gotten to the point where they see him as a faultless guru who simply cannot be wrong and will only read what he has quoted in terms of rebutting my arguments without having to see anything written by me. As much as I regret this, I have come to accept that many Christians only want their doubts quenched and will only read rebuttals to atheists and skeptics like myself, only, ever, with the intention of seeing us refuted, stomped on, intellectually flogged (and perhaps even bullied into salvation, hopefully).

I will state my argument here and perhaps only write one rebuttal to what Mr. Holding has written if he responds to me (I have no doubt that he will and I predict it as utterly inevitable that he will. I don't believe he can pass up an offer to respond to what he admitted is a rising star in biblical academia). I really lack any desire to drag out any exchange with him ad infinitum but I am not always sure where to draw the line. Where do I simply stop, having said my piece, and then move on? I don't want to get into a prolonged exchange with him because I dread that it will only charge his ego. I believe Mr. Holding's is overconfident as it is and I regret the thought of having contributed to that and I fear that a prolonged exchange like this will likewise bolster his ego. This is the last thing I want to do! Having aired these concerns, here into the murky waters we go....

1.) Holding's Argument Against "Visions" and "Hallucinations"

Mr. Holding's chief argument against the hypothesis of visionary origins was stated in response to atheist philosopher Keith Parsons. Readers will recall that Parsons contributed a chapter to the skeptical anthology The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, writing a rebuttal to the arguments against theories of hallucinations by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. I have to state here that I do not agree with Parson's rebuttal actually. I believe that Parson is not familiar with the relevant social-science literature on visionary experiences involving A.S.C. and I don't particularly think that his rebuttal arguments for Kreeft and Tacelli are particularly effective (this may well make a good post one of these days on here!) Holding states his main thesis as follows:

"Here is why I regard the hallucination theory as completely untenable: As noted in the link above, "expectation plays the coordinating role in collective hallucinations". The critical problem here is that the disciples were not expecting a resurrection; any hallucination of Jesus would be interpreted as, if anything, his "guardian angel" (an exact twin), but not as a ghost of Jesus himself, nor especially as Jesus resurrected."

In this statement, Holding linked to a response he wrote to Bible skeptic Farrell Till of The Skeptical Review. Holding's argument is that the disciples would not have been expecting a resurrection, at least not as defined by Jews at the time of Jesus. The core of Holding's argument is that the Greek word "anastasis" when employed in reference to the resurrection referred to what conservative theologian N.T. Wright termed a "tranphysical" body. This is a glorified, immortal, imperishable, body of flesh that rose from the dead. Holding argues that no Jew would have been expecting anyone resurrected in this kind of body and, hence, it would've taken an actual transphysical body to convince the original disciples of Jesus that this is precisely what Jesus had.

Naturally, I am skeptical of this argument. The chief basis for my skepticism has to do with the very Greek word "anastasis" itself. I am not an expert in biblical Greek and the last thing I want to do is leave any readers with the impression that I am so I will offer what I consider to be a potential argument against Holding's argument here. I honestly don't know if my argument will succeed-that remains to be seen. At the very least though, if my argument has any substance at all, what I do want readers to do, especially if they're convinced that Holding is really onto something here, is to pause and think. At the very least, I hope that my argument here, if it doesn't answer Holding's argument in its entirety, can at least take the wind out of Holding's sails. In other words, I hope that my argument can at least have the effect of cancelling out the effectiveness of Holding's argument. Perhaps we can reach a stalemate and conclude that the expert opinion of a Greek scholar is needed to settle the question once and for all.

2.) "Anastasis" and the Resurrection

Holding argues that the Greek word "anastasis" specifically refers to the resurrection, that is a risen body of immortal, imperishable, glorified flesh! Holding writes: "The only word that is term-specific to resurrection is the noun form of anistemi -- and that is anastasis." If this is the case, then whenever, "anastasis" refers to the resurrection, any other raising of the dead, if by "raising of the dead" one means a resuscitation, like that of Lazarus, then it must be described by some noun other than "anastasis". Let's look at some examples here:

"Matthew 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,
6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7 As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.'
8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment...."

The Greek word here is a verb form of "egeiro". It is spoken in in terms of raising people from the dead. Holding might argue that because a verb form of the Greek word "anastasis" was not employed, it couldn't have been referring to the resurrection, that is the raising of a glorified, immortal, imperishable, body of flesh. The phrase "raise the dead" pairs the Greek words "egeiro" and "nekros" not "anastasis" and "nekros", so it couldn't have been referring to the resurrection but rather a resuscitation.

In Matthew 11:5, these same words are used in referring the the "raising of the dead" in Matthew 10:5. It would seem that they folks have been resuscitated and the verb form of the Greek word "egeiro" is used here. In Matthew 14:2, these word pairs are used again, to describe Herod's belief that John the Baptist had risen from the dead. He mistakenly thought that Jesus was John the Baptist. Likewise, in Mark 6:16. However, in some passages, when Jesus speaks of his own "rising from the dead"- the Greek word used is "anastasis" and it's verb forms are employed. Consider Jesus' prediction in Matthew 20: 19. Here Jesus says "They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!" Here the Greek word is "anistemi".In Matthew 17: 9, Jesus tells his disciples "Don't tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." Here the Greek words "anistemi" and "nekros" are used in conjunction with each other.

So, it would appear here, then, that there are two Greek verbs in use here "anistemi" and the verb form of "egeiro" used in conjunction with "nekros". I have to be careful to point out that I am not an expert in Greek but I am willing to make a prediction that I believe that my studies of Greek will bear out. Here goes: "Anistemi" is a verb form of "anastasis", correct? If "anastasis" as a noun, specifically means "resurrection" in the sense of a glorified, immortal, imperishable, body of risen flesh, then I am predicting that whenever the Greek verb form "anistemi" is used in conjunction with "nekros" it can only refer to whatever "anastasis" refers to as a noun. If "anastasis" refers to a resurrection in the sense of a glorified, immortal, imperishable body of risen flesh, then whenever "anistemi" is used as a verb in referring to people being raised from the dead, it can only refer to the actual act, of raising someone from the dead in this kind of body. "Anistemi" when used in any other sense can refer to any "rising" or any sort, whether from sleep, from a chair, or the sun, but whenever it's used in conjunction with "nekros", Christians would have to argue, then, that it can only refer to the action (denoted by the verb) of raising someone in the sense that "anastasis" demands.

Likwise, whenever "egeiro" is used, it can be "to raise" in any sense, but whenever its verb form is used in conjunction with "nekros" it, logically, can only refer to people raised from the dead as in a resuscitation, never a resurrection, never a transphysical body. I believe that this is the logical outcome of Holding's argument here! Now, here is my prediction. My prediction is that the Greek verb form for "egeiro" will never be used to describe the rising of Jesus, whether by itself, or in conjunction with "nekros". If Jesus was risen in a body of glorified, immortal, imperishable flesh, then the only word that will ever be used of Jesus to describe his risen, glorified body, is "anistemi". How might my prediction bear out? I believe that if I am right about this, then these following examples should bear out my prediction:

Jesus predicts his future suffering, his death, his resurrection, and his future meeting with the disciples in Galilee in Mark 14: 28 "But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee". Here the Greek verb employed is a form of"egeiro" not "anistemi"! In luke 9:22, Jesus predicts of himself: "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life!". Once again, the Greek verb here is of "egeiro" not "anistemi"! Again, the author of John's gospel, apparently writing in retrospect regarding the words of Jesus, had this to say about Jesus' resurrection: "John 2:22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said to them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."

Here the Greek word is "egerthe", not "anistemi"and worse of all, it's paired with "nekros!" If Jesus had a risen, glorified, immortal body of flesh, why isn't the Greek word "anistemi" used in conjunction with "nekros"? This would better fit the meaning carried by the noun-form of the word "anastasis". It gets much worse. Perhaps St. Paul is the most damning of all. He constantly uses the Greek verb form of "egeiro" in conjunction with "nekros". Here are some examples I have seen used before.

"Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." So, the Greek verb "egeiro" is used in conjunction with "nekros". Why not "anistemi" since this would convey whatever meaning "anastasis" had? Likewise, verse 9 also has the same thing: "egeiro" paired with "nekros" in reference to Christ's resurrection. In 1st Corinthians 15, we find this very strange reference to Jesus rising from the dead:

"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?"

This should be enough to make one's head spin! Paul is using the Greek word "egeiro" in conjunction with "nekros" and not "anistemi". Why though? Why use the same Greek verb used of people resuscitated like those resusciated by the disciples in the above verses? Why does Jesus use "anistemi" sometimes and yet the verb form of "egeiro" at other times? It would appear that Jesus in one case is saying that he will "rise" in the same way as those whom he had his disciples raise from the dead and these same people, whom Jesus had used as examples to John the Baptist, in efforts to answer his doubts about the Messiahship of Jesus. But why would Paul ever use "egeiro" to speak of Jesus being raise from the dead when "anistemi" would've accurately carried the meaning of "anastasis".

If Holding's argument is that "anastasis" can only refer to the raising of a transphysical body of flesh from the dead, then "the resurrection of Christ" which uses the word "anastasis" as a noun, should mean the same thing as "Jesus raised from the dead" in which "anistemi" would be the verb form used in conjunction with "nekros" to mean dead. "Egeiro" should never be used in conjunction with "nekros" to describe Jesus rising from the dead.

As for Holding's argument that no Jew would've been expecting any individual to rise from the dead before the general resurrection, I have to say that I cannot agree with that. In luke 9:18-19, we read the following:

"Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were were him, he asked them, 'Who do the crowds say that I am?' They replied 'Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life'". The Greek word used here in verse 19 is "anistemi". Now, if it was believed that no one would rise from the dead prior to the general resurrection, why is it that some believed that one of the prophets came back to life and that this "raising" was described by the Greek word "anistemi"? How could anyone get the impression that one of the prophets had come back to life before the general resurrection? If they believed that one of the prophets from long ago was resuscitated, why? Why would God resuscitate a prophet temporarily, only to have that prophet die and then raise him up, transphysically, at the general resurrection from the dead? Finally, if people could become convinced that a prophet from long ago had risen from the dead before the general resurrection, without any one of those prophets from old actually rising from the dead to convince them, how hard would it be to convince the disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead, without requiring that Jesus actually rose from the dead? The disciples of Jesus strike me as being no more literate or educated as many people who believed that Jesus was a risen prophet from old, so if they could become convinced that one of the prophets had risen from the dead before the general resurrection, I don't imagine that it was very difficult at all for Jesus' disciples to believe that he could be risen from the dead prior to any general resurrection.

Here is a question for Christians. If the same words for Jesus' resurrection is used of the "raising-from-the-dead" of all of these people, then whatever Jesus meant by it in reference to his own alleged resurrection would probably have to be the same as what it meant for other people who rose from the dead. If Christians accept the authenticity of these passages and that the disciples really did do these "resuscitations" (Christians do not think of these as genuine resurrections because the body in which they were raised were not glorified, immortal, imperishable, and incorruptible), then wouldn't there be at least a historical precedent in terms of expectation? For Pete's sake, it was the actual disciples bringing these people "back to life"! If the Greek words are the same in referring both to the activity of the disciples and the resurrection prediction of Jesus, then, by all means the disciples should have been expecting Jesus to have been raised from the dead! If the disciples were merely performing resuscitations, at the very least, they should have been expecting Jesus to have been resuscitated. If not, why not?

3.) The disciples would've been expecting an angel and not Jesus.

Except for a passage in Acts that was once cited to me as evidence, I am not all that sure that this would've been the case with Jesus' disciples. Consider the resuscitations that the disciples are believed by Christians to have performed. I ask Christians this: why did no one think that these people who had come back to life (mentioned in the above verses as being raised by the disciples as proof for John the Baptist) were still dead and that they were seeing angels of these dead people instead? In other words, why weren't people expecting the angels of the deceased rather than conclude that the deceased had been raised to life? Consider the confession of Peter to Jesus that he was the Christ and Son of God. Jesus asked who the crowds thought that he was. One of the answers is that people believe that Jesus was actually one of the prophets of old that came back to life. Why didn't the crowds, instead, believe that Jesus was simply the angel of one of the prophets who had died long ago? (I am quite sure that the crowds thougt that one of the Hebrew prophets such as Isaiah or Jeremiah had come back to life and that the crowds were Jewish)

Also, consider the fact that when Herod had John the Baptist beheaded, he concluded that Jesus was John the Baptist who had risen from the dead and that's the reason these miraculous powers were at work in him! Why didn't Herod conclude that Jesus was simply an angel of John the Baptist? Consider the dead raised in the great earthquake following the crucifixion of Jesus. According to Matthew, after Jesus died, there was an earthquake, the tombs were broken open and the dead were raised. Matthew's gospel doesn't add anything in the way of people thinking that they had seen the angels of those who had died, so even Mr. Holding cannot say with complete certainty that this was an expectation of all Jewish people.

4.) The disciples would've been expecting Jesus to directly ascend into heaven.

I have read Mr. Holding argue this in his response to Farrell Till. If I am to accept that Jesus really was buried by Joseph of Arimathea and that this tomb was subsequently found empty, I would probably have to accept that this was, in fact, the original belief of the disciples of Jesus. I would probably have to conclude that the appearances stories came later, perhaps as a anti-Docetic apologetic or an apologetic against would-be critics who might've alleged that the disciples were hallucinating the whole thing. At any rate, I really do not accept the resurrection stories as original but later creations of the evangelists who wrote the gospels. As I have written elsewhere on the subject, I believe that any distinction between visions on one hand and appearances on the other hand would've evolved later as an apologetic by the early Church, against possibly Gnostics such as the Docetics, or even against critics who might've alleged that the disciples were hallucinating or that the visions were self-induced. I believe, then, that the earliest disciples would've believed that Jesus had directly ascended into heaven and only after the distinction between visions and appearances was concieved of by the early Church, would the need to place such a distinction in its historical context arise, thereby creating a gap between the empty tomb and the ascension for apologetic purposes.

In conclusion, I have to say that I really do not buy into Holding's argument. I am not saying that I believe I have actually refuted Holding's argument; only that I might have a potentially powerful rebuttal. I believe that my future studies of New Testament criticism and biblical Greek will bear this suspicion of mine out. But if I do have an argument here, it's my sincere hope that Mr. Holding will not put too much emphasis on his own argument and will offer it as a potential argument. Mr. Holding is not an expert in Greek and I am glad that he acknowledges that he isn't (although from the way that he constantly makes usage of Greek words without referencing his sources, or qualifying his understanding of Greek, you'd never know that he didn't think of himself as an expert in Greek or someone who has mastered it). I am not at all an expert in Greek and I don't pretend to be and I usually go out of my way to qualify my understanding of Greek in my writings, although sometimes I might fall short of it and give a mistaken impression that I know for more than I do. I am sorry if anyone has gotten this impression because, frankly, it was never intended.

Matthew

This From the Closet Atheist

According to the Closet Atheist who writes here:

I'll tell you, I would come closer to believing in 'god' if
1) Everyone that read the bible got the same message.
2) If you could take any 2 people from any part of the world, asked them about 'god' and got the SAME answer.
3) You could physicaly prove 'god' existed.

Are these "demands" unreasonable, or not, and why?

Intense Suffering and a Moral Kindergarten

Over at professor Victor Reppert's blog here, he challenged atheists to come up with a specific version of the argument for evil, which spilled over into a further discussion here, where I asked this question: "Has someone actually shown that moral choice-making is qualitatively different in times of intense suffering over normal choice making?" What do you think? What is there about intense suffering or horrendous evils which purportedly improves or enhances or strengthens moral choice-making such that without this suffering we might be moral pigmies living in a moral kindergarten? Anything?

Love is a many splintered thing

We all come from different backgrounds. I was raised in an environment that the Books of the Bible were written by the traditionally claimed authors. Moses wrote the Torah, Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew, Paul’s companion wrote Luke/Acts, and John the Disciple wrote the Gospel, three short letters and Revelation.

The only questionable authorship was Hebrews, which gave us lively debate, and an opportunity to snicker at the “old school” which held to Paul being the writer.

It was not until I began discussing with skeptics that I realized all of the questions involved in establishing who the authors were on the various books. I know that many who pass through here have had classes, and read countless books on the subject, and can (justifiably) scoff at my naiveté. I have since studied vociferously on the subject.

Yet my discussing with Christians, here and elsewhere, has reminded me that there are many, many Christians who still do hold to the traditional authorship, and have never considered the possibility that John the Disciple did not write the Gospel of John.

Part of my journey was discovering that the authors of the Gospels were not eyewitnesses to the events, and therefore subject to the same troubling problems of error being introduced into their accounts.

Was the author of the Gospel of John an eyewitness to Jesus’ life?

Much of this is may be old-hat, certainly to the contributors of this blog. Yet, for me, a Christian of more than three decades, it was something new that I had never properly considered. It is possible I was the last person in the world to ever be introduced to this, but it seems unlikely. If this has been well-studied by you, feel free to skip elsewhere. Believe it or not, for many of us, this is (was) a new concept.

A brief background. The Gospels can be divided into the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) and what has been termed as the Gospel from the Johannine school of thought (the entire Johannine is the Gospel and the three letters. For purposes of this blog entry, I will ignore Revelation entirely.)

“Synoptic” means “from the same point of view” and the reason the three Gospels are lumped together and given this title, is that they give a similar point of view. In fact, they are so similarly written, most Biblical scholars recognize an element of sharing between the accounts which gives rise to what has been termed “the Synoptic Problem” as in determining who was sharing from whom.

The most common (although not universal) solution is that Mark was written first, and then Matthew and Luke utilized Mark in composing their own Gospels. There is other material shared by Matthew and Luke (but not Mark) which has resulted in the suggestion of another written document which was also used by Matthew and Luke, termed “Q.” Here is a useful article on the Synoptic problem.

The events recorded in the Synoptics are not shared by John. The Synoptics imply one year of ministry, John implies three. The cleansing of the temple occurs at the end of Jesus’ ministry in the Synpotics, at the beginning in John. John has numerous unique sayings, a lack of parables, and refers to Jesus doing signs, all of which are vastly different than what we see in the Synoptics.

Presuming the accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke are an accurate portrayal of the events surrounding Jesus’ ministry—what is the likelihood that the author of the Gospel of John witnessed the same events? There are far too many concerns to cover in just one blog entry, so let’s just look at the use of “love.”

According to Mark, John and James were Galilean fisherman brothers, that Jesus called as part of the Twelve inner-circle of disciples. Mark 1:19-20. Neither John nor James are explicitly named as disciples in the Gospel John, although there is reference to “the sons of Zebedee” in John 21:2. Caution should be noted, that Chapter 21 of John appears to be an additional chapter. Chronologically, it makes little sense, nor the fact that the Disciples, after having seen Jesus, would fail to recognize him. It reads as if it was a first appearance, not a third. Chapter 20 ends on what makes an appropriate final note.

This would mean there is no reference to John in the Gospel of John, let alone claim of authorship. Of course, the argument is made that the author was too humble to provide his own identity and conceals himself under the acronym of the “disciple who Jesus loved.” John 13:23. Unfortunately, using just the gospel, this is speculation. Further, 21:24 refers to this disciple in the third person, as if the person writing Chapter 21 is not this disciple, but the person who wrote the previous section(s) is. If Chapter 21 is part of the original Gospel, what parts did the disciple write, and what parts did “we” write?

What do we know about John? He, his brother James and Peter appeared to constitute an even smaller inner-circle of the Twelve. They were the only ones with Jesus at the healing of Jairus’ daughter. (Mark 5:37). They were with him in the Garden. (Mark 14:33) And, most famously, they were the only three with Jesus at the Transfiguration. (Mt. 17:2, Mark 9:2, Luke 9:28)

Curiously, despite this intimacy with Jesus, after the ascension, both John and James drop off the map. We are told that James was killed by Herod (Acts 12:2), but nothing more is said of him. John also disappears, a mention is made of his missionary trip to Samaria, and no more. Acts 8:14. The primary leaders of the early Church, according to Acts, were not Disciples. Even Peter is relegated to a more minor role as compare to that of Paul and James, Jesus’ brother.

The brothers John and James were outspoken, and Jesus gave them the names “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17) Luke records an incident in which John feels snubbed by a village in Samaria. In a knee-jerk reaction, John asks Jesus to call down fire on the village. (Luke 9:52-54) Not surprisingly, the author of the Gospel of John fails to record this incident. But what IS surprising is what he fails to record next.

Soon after this, Jesus is questioned by a lawyer as to inheriting eternal life. The lawyer believes it is loving God, and loving one’s neighbor. Being a lawyer, he wants to qualify “neighbor” as to who is entitled to receive this loving. (Luke 10:25-29) Jesus launches into the famous story of the Good Samaritan. John, who had most recently been ready to wipe out a village of Samaritans, would have paid close attention to this tale, we would think.

Yet it goes unrecorded in the Gospel of John. Which is even more remarkable, considering the emphasis the author places on the concept of love.

The word “Love” is used more times in the Gospel of John, than in Matthew, Mark and Luke combined! To demonstrate how significant this doctrine is to the Johannine school, the word “love” is used more times in 1, 2 and 3 John, than in Matthew, Mark and Luke combined. If there was anything that would make a Johannine take notice, it would be the son of God saying “Love.”

Word count is not necessarily demonstrative of a person’s focus, depending on their audience, length of the book, etc. But I would defy anyone to read the letters of John and walk away with the thought, “Was he talking about love?” Or read the Gospel of John, and not notice the emphasis on Love.

Jesus talks of Father loving him. Jn. 10:17 Jesus repeatedly makes the connection between love and keeping commandments. Jn. 14:15 & 21 Jesus states compares the father’s love for the son and, if they keep his commandments, they will abide in his love, like he abides in Father’s love. Jn. 15:9-10

Jesus contrasts his love with how the world will hate them. Jn. 15:19

This author is keen on the idea of the Father loving the son, who loves his disciples, who must love each other. The word, “love” comes up, and he is paying attention. How does a person like that, who is intimately involved with Jesus, who (according to apologists) Jesus loved the most, NOT give the story of the Good Samaritan? It is perfectly adapt to what the Gospel and the letters are replete with. It is conspicuous by its absence.

In being questioned, Jesus is asked what the “greatest commandment is.” Jesus says that the greatest is to love God, and the second is to love one’s neighbor. There is no greater commandment than these. Mark 12:31. If John was there, with his emphasis, his ears would be burning up. He constantly ties keeping commandments with love, and this fits his motif perfectly. 1 John 3:23.

Yet John forgets to record this incident in his Gospel? John recounts again and again how the Jews confronted Jesus, in attempts to trick Him. John 5:18. Here we have a combination of both, and he doesn’t remember?

Perhaps he was not there that day—it was his turn to go into town and pick up bread. Would no one tell him of the wonderful confrontation, in which once again Jesus befuddled the Pharisees with their own sayings and gave out the Greatest Commandment? No one claims that Mark was there, either, but they claim that Peter thought it of enough import to share it with him. Luke wasn’t there, but it is told to him. Poor John, the one fellow that is salivating over this tidbit is the one that just happens to not hear of it.

It gets worse for John. Apparently he was not there when Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tells of loving one’s enemy. (Matthew 5:38-48) I imagine that if the author of the Gospel of John was there, his pen would have been scribbling furiously at the wonderful statements about love indicated there. But alas, again he missed it.

And when Jesus repeats and expounds on this in the Sermon on the Plain, AGAIN, John is off fishing and AGAIN misses this. (Luke 6:29-35) Every time the Synoptics indicate that Jesus gave a statement on love, John has the dastardly bad luck of not being there. And no one tells him.

At what point does the Christian start to scratch their head and say, “It is a might bit odd that Matthew, Mark, and Luke record incidents of Jesus giving sayings on love, and John who is allegedly there, and concentrates on love, misses every one.”

John emphasizes how the Father loves the son. A miracle of the voice of God reiterating this from the sky would be hard to pass up. Even the other Disciples, who ALSO were not there, recorded God the Father proclaiming His love for Jesus at His baptism. Matthew records it. (Matt. 3:17) Mark records it. (Mark 1:11) Luke records it. (Luke 3:22) And the one disciple, the one that emphasizes the love the Father has for the son, misses it? The author records John the Baptist. He records John the Baptist seeing Jesus. He even records the Spirit coming down like a dove. (John 1:32) But he misses the voice saying those words he loves to hear?

O.K. perhaps he was buying bread on the day of the confrontation with the lawyer. Perhaps he was off doing other things, and with the rottenest of luck, missed both sermons. Perhaps he was not told everything about the Baptism.

But what about the Transfiguration?

Can’t skate out of this one, ‘cause the Synoptics make it a point to say he was there. (Matt. 17:1, Mark 9:2, Luke 9:28) Again the voice from heaven. Again a declaration of love from the father to the son. Again the author of the Gospel of John completely fails to write about it.

I know, I know. There were too many things to write down, and he had to pare out some. And I could even buy this, if it was a few non-important details. But this is the author, that within a few pages, has “For God so Loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son…” No mention of the explicit statement at the transfiguration? No mention of the Greatest commandment being love? By sheer coincidence alone, every single event that Matthew, Mark and Luke felt was important regarding love (the very focus of the author) the author fails to include?

The author records Jesus as saying a new commandment was given to the Disciples that they love one another. John 13:35 Now, he had previously heard what the Greatest commandments were (Love God, Love your neighbor.) Is this “new” commandment even greater, less, or the same? If it is the same, it is hardly new, eh?

I am stumped as to how one can have Jesus giving a new commandment of “love one another” after the stories recorded in the Synoptics. Was the Good Samaritan NOT about loving one another? What was new about this one?

Look is it possible that the author of John was an eyewitness and simply ignored, and or did not know, or did not record these luscious bits? Sure. Anything is possible. But is that the best we can do? To claim that the author went against every indication of his emphasis, and did not utilize these morsels?

I propose that the Gospel of John was written by someone unfamiliar with the Synpotic stories who was not traveling with Jesus. In that paradigm we would expect the author to present conflicting stories and more importantly miss important stories that fit his motif that are in the Synoptics.

That is exactly what we have. Can anyone explain, better than “it is possible” how the author of John could have left out the sermons, parables and confrontations regarding love that he would have viewed, had he followed Jesus? Something better than “it is possible…”?

What Do You Think?

David Hume argued that there are "four possible hypotheses concerning the first causes of the universe."
1) That they are endowed with perfect goodness;
2) That they have perfect malice;
3) That they are opposite containing both goodness and malice;
4) That they have neither goodness nor malice. [Dialogues, XI]

Which one do you think is preferable when you look at the world, and why?

"The Line Must Be Drawn Here!"

I believe correct reasoning is definitely an acquired characteristic. It is something we develop if only we are fortunate enough to start this life with the basic cognitive abilities nature provided.

I believe a good analysis on a position comes by knowing where to draw a line and whether or not a line has been crossed. What constitutes A? What constitutes B? What are the deciding differences between A and B? At exactly what point does A end and B begin? Then there is the ability to troubleshoot one's own thinking. How blurry is the line between A and B? Do A and B really deserve separate categories? Are the distinctions I have drawn between A and B to constitute a categorical change in thinking warranted, or am I drawing a distinction without a difference? Making a distinction without a difference happens to be a very common fallacy.

What made my departure from Christianity possible was the time I had to think and re-think the quandaries that troubled me. When I found no resolutions, it was only as my faith began to erode that I was finally able to see why I couldn't resolve the issues -- because I was unable to draw satisfactory lines between the available positions I was compelled to choose from...

- I considered how the faith-healer and the charismatic Christian who prayed at a revival meeting for someone to be healed of cancer, expecting "a miracle right now", differed little from the traditional Catholic or Protestant who believed in God's healing providential hand over time. The aggressive evangelicals who demand an immediate healing are saying little different than what any average Christian believes, that God will somehow bend the laws of reality to heal them of their infirmities.

- I considered how the same militant charismatics who believed in modern miracles differed little from those of my former religious persuasion, who believed in just the Bible miracles. The only difference is the time period, and realizing that, it only followed to wonder why God would perform miracles back then and not today when they would be no less needed.

- I considered how the extremist flat-earthers and geocentrist Christians differed little from the literal creationists who argued for a 6 day creation, or those progressive creationists who accepted an ancient earth, but rejected classical Darwinism -- all were in support of supernatural perversions of natural evolution; the literalists basically denied evolution altogether, accepting only "micro-evolution" occurring between God's created "kinds", and in the case of the progressives (depending on which breed you talk to), the evolution only occurred in the animal world, and some time later, God decided to transform an ape into a man and call him Adam, a hoky form of God-directed evolution!

- I considered how those who maintained belief in modern day Jesus and Virgin Mary apparitions were no different than those who believed that Samuel and Moses heard and spoke to God, or that Constantine saw a cross in the sky and received a commandment to conquer in it's name.

- I considered how the Catholics esteeming the pope and the church authoritative, and the Mormons following their own "12 apostles" of the new age whom they consider to be authoritative, is fundamentally no different from my former belief that the original 12 apostles (14 if you count Matthias and Paul) were authoritative as they spoke the will of God on earth.

Similarly, I found that those who stood in the more liberal Christian camps, and who held to the position of a local Noahic flood as opposed to a global one, that the days of Genesis 1 were figurative as opposed to literal, or that the Preterist's view of Revelation was correct, tended to differ little from secular commentators and higher critics, the same class of thinkers who might subscribe to later dates for the Bible books or accept the idea of Thought Inspiration instead of Verbal Plenary Inspiration.

I get asked all the time why I didn't accept a more liberal version of Christianity when I defected from the faith. Well, the answer should already be apparent, but if it isn't, here it is; I found it impossible to identify with any one liberal or conservative alignment of beliefs. I couldn't properly draw the dividing lines that allowed me to make the necessary distinctions to preserve some, and not all, of that superstitious scrapheap known as the Bible. Consequently, I had to reject it.

I cannot put myself in the same camp with someone who denies Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and then claims that such a position is consistent with the New Testament's Jesus, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." (John 5:46) I cannot put myself in the camp with those who have no problem lopping off the first 12 chapters of Genesis as mythical, while accepting only the other parts of the book that are more believable to the modern world, and yet hasten to tell me that I should believe in a crucified and risen savior-god. It just doesn't jive! I am respecting neither Christianity, nor science (not to mention myself) by half-heartedly trying to believe them both.

And one must ask, is there any real incentive seeking out solace in a dethroned Jesus, a Christ robbed of his deity, one who's ass has been kicked by reason and modern science? If I want to learn from and admire a humanitarian, I'll read Gandhi. If I want a self-help specialist, I'll read Dr. Phil.

For me, the findings of assessing Christianity had only one consistent pull -- away from being considered the products of any divine origins at all. The pieces of the puzzle had to fit, and they finally did. I was forced to naturalize what had been pounded into my head as supernatural. Those horses and chariots of fire that took Elijah to heaven had to mean something that would click with my rational mind. Well, in time, they did, but the answer I came to did not bring God any glory. The Bible was a complete work of fiction. That was the answer I came to embrace.

I believe the matter boils down to this; if I'm going to fudge the laws of reality to make room for the possibility of a supernatural god who intervenes in nature, then there are lots of gods to choose from, less defined gods to whom I can assign whatever positive attributes I see fit. But if I want to stay with the Christian God, even preferring a nicer, more scientifically pliable version of him to posit as my creator, I cannot find the consistency to do so; if I can fudge the laws of nature to make room for a supernatural being, then I can fudge a few more laws to preserve the Bible's testimony of who this god is and what he has done, and indeed, I must do so.

If I want to start a new line of Superman comics, my readers are not going to be very happy with me if my rendition of Superman doesn't have X-ray vision, heat vision, and the ability to fly because those are three of the characteristics of Superman. If I am going to expect people to identify with my portrayal of the character, the image I portray of him must be characteristically identical with he who is known as "Superman." Otherwise I would just be stealing his name and creating a new character.

In precisely the same way, one should not be expected to identify with a new version of the Christian God, divorced from the characteristics that make him who he is known to be. But this is exactly what modern theologians want you to accept, a re-made Yahweh for the new age, severed from his barbaric past, one who cares more about science, about having his believers set up abortion protests, racial equality, and preachers in suits and ties, praying non-judgmentally and with tightly clutched hands at social events and the dinner table.

Contemporary apologists want you to forget that it was this same god of old who has been an opponent of science (I Timothy 6:20-21), the cause of abortions (Hosea 13:16; Numbers 31:15-18), racism (Genesis 9:24-27), and a fierce bringer of judgment on his many enemies (homosexuals, Leviticus 20:13, witches, Exodus 22:18, Sabbath breakers, Exodus 31:14, and those who worship other gods, Exodus 22:20, see also Luke 19:27). Yes, today's refined theologians are trying to sell you a new and improved Jesus, one who cares less about crusading against Jews and Muslims, and more about tolerance and compassion for the infidel. This is definitely not the god I read about in the Bible! Yet if the Bible itself is what serves as the basis for one's belief in the God of the Bible, then how can I but rely on that same testimony to define who he is?

Realizing this, I am now compelled to go down the list of less than admirable qualities and fantastic ideas attributed to this deity and accept the biblical testimony about him. The God of the Bible made the sun stand still (Joshua 10:12-13), an ax head float (2 Kings 6:6), and a chariot of fire, led by actual horses of fire (2 Kings 2:11) to take Elijah to Heaven. The God of the Bible is a vengeful war-god who kills seventy thousand men for one man's sins (I Chronicles 21:14). But since all of this smacks of nonsense and savage cruelty, I cannot square these things with sensibility or civility, so I am compelled to go the only other route I can find and accept that the Bible is not of divine origins at all and must be rejected as the testimony of a god in it's entirety. The line must be drawn here!

(JH)

Science and Religion

The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church. Ferdinand Magellan, source unknown

I became skeptical of Christianity about a year before I resigned from my church. During that year, among other things, I began "secretly" reading modern scientific works.

To my amazement I found them filled with facts. Not emotional cries to believe, but experiments to consider. Not stories of old, but studies of today. And slowly, I began to put my stock in the scientific process, which I’ve come to see as the exact opposite of religion.

Consider for a moment the evolution of religion in comparison to science:

Religion usually begins with a single idea that is proclaimed as the one and only “truth” which many come to have faith in. As more and more people come to believe this “truth,” different opinions arise as to the true interpretation of that “truth.” Since there is really no experiment to prove anyone’s interpretation, those different opinions flourish and eventually become different factions and denominations of the religion.

In the end, what began as a single great movement is now splintered into a million pieces.

On the other hand, Science begins with a variety of different and opposing theories about some facet of the universe. It's then that scientists go to work to find verifiable or observable facts about a hypothesis, albeit sometimes with a bias. However, as experiments continue, biases are forced aside in the face of observable and repeatable facts.

In the end, what began as a variety of varying and contradictory ideas has come to something of a consensus with most scientists, if not all people, coming into agreement – a far cry from what happens to religions!

When you try to run the human race on "faith" with no evidence, it just ends in splintered factions, like Christianity and Islam today. Everyone is doing his or her own thing thinking it’s the most correct version. But science can bring humanity closer to agreement because it is based on evidence--something everyone can see if they just look at the facts. That observation alone is a very powerful evidence in my mind that science, not religion, provides a more secure future for humanity, and that religion is simply a man-made idea.

So, I think Magellan was right (if he really said that). Even if there are questions that scientists still cannot figure out, there's still no point answering one mystery with another (i.e. your particular god).

The truth is that if there is truth in the world, it shouldn’t take evangelism, puppet shows, preachers, emotional worship songs, or even a sword to get people to see it. I’ve never seen a scientist leave tracts in public restrooms hoping someone will be inspired and believe. No, science just takes evidence. And evidence, like a shadow, is so much more powerful than the faith that Christianity gave to me.

Particularism and Christianity

JP Moreland has an interesting lecture on Skepticism and Epistemology here. He argues that our current society is hostile to religious and moral knowledge and perhaps even knowledge in general. One of his goals is to explain how we know what we know.

He claims that the duty of "knowers" is to simultaneously believe as many truths as possible while disbelieving as many falsehoods a possible. In other words, be capable of sorting one’s beliefs from good to bad. If our goal were simply to believe as many true things as possible, our task would be easier, we could simply believe everything. Similarly, if our goal were simply to avoid false beliefs, our task would be easy, simply don’t belief anything. The "Problem of the Criteria" is how do we separate our true beliefs from our false beliefs? How do we begin our sorting task?

There are three main answers to the knowledge sorting problem. The first view is Epistemological Methodism. This view holds that before I know something, I must start with a criterion that answers "How do I know it?" Apparently Descartes tried to postulate the criteria of "That which is clear and distinct in the mind" to answer the skeptic leading him the statement "I think therefore I am." However, this view has a problem. Before knowing proposition P, one must know the criterion C, and the fact R: "P satisfies C." This leads the question of “how do I know both C and R?” which leads to an infinite regress.

The second view is Particularism. This view is that there are specific things I know and I don’t need to know how I know them in order to know them. This view starts with particular knowledge claims, criteria may be developed by reflecting on particular knowledge. The criteria developed can be developed to help with difficult cases, but the criteria are no more basic than the particular pieces of knowledge that inspired them. For example, I know 2+2=4. By reflecting on arithmetic knowledge, I may be able to develop axioms of arithmetic. But if my axioms then show 2+2 is not 4, I would conclude my axioms are wrong, not that I don’t know 2+2 = 4.

The third view is Skepticism. Skeptics conclude that there is no solution to the problem of the criteria. They think that the “Methodists” are caught in an infinite regress and the Particularist is begging the question. However, how would the skeptic know that the Particularist is begging the question?

J.P concludes that Particularism is the correct view. That we can know things even if it’s possible we’re wrong. The mere possibility we are wrong is no reason to think we are wrong. I think his view on Epistemology has some merit.

JP goes on to make the case that a “Divine Law Giver” makes the most sense of morality and moral knowledge. (It wasn’t in his lecture, but he could have said moral laws seem like commands, and commands only make sense as communication between minds). For the sake of this post, I will grant that there is a God who makes sense of moral law.

However, I think Particularism poses some serious difficulties for Christianity as well. To see how, it is helpful to reflect on the nature of morality. In some cases, the same action can be either moral or immoral depending on the motive of the actor. For example, suppose a boy tripped someone. If he did it to enjoy seeing the tripped in pain, the action would be immoral. However, if he did it to prevent the tripped from being hit by a bus, the action is commendable.

In addition, a lack of action can be moral or immoral. If one has knowledge of a serious pending crime like terrorism, they would have a duty to report it. Neglecting to act in this case would be immoral. Where there is no motive, like in natural disasters, we may think the results are tragic, but the natural cause is not blamed. Who would blame the meteor for falling out the sky and destroying property?

By reflecting on these and other particular moral truths, I am justified in claiming that I know:

• In order for an action (or inaction) to be moral or immoral a motive must attach to that action.
• Punishing someone for the crimes of someone else is immoral (also see Deuteronomy 24:16)

Now examine 1 Samuel 15:2-3. Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

Samuel claims that God wants the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child, infant, cattle, etc. That in itself may not be wrong, however note the motive that Samuel attributes to God. This attack is punishment for crimes committed over 300 year prior. The sentence is carried out on infants and nursing mothers who cannot have taken part in the act that caused the judgment.

Notice that Samuel attaches an evil motive to the action. This makes the action evil. Thus, if someone believes that there is a God who is the basis for the moral law written on our hearts, they are justified in concluding that the God is not the one referred to in the Bible. If someone says “God wants you to make the board 5 feet long because 2+2 = 5.” I would conclude that person is slandering God’s intelligence. Here, I think I am justified in thinking Samuel is slandering God’s character.

There are some common rejoinders to this conclusion that I would like to address now. The first is God is within his rights to take any life and could have had a good reason the kill the infants and the killing could even be merciful. (Geisler and Howe make this point in their book “When Critics Ask.”) That is true, but misses the point. The point is that Samuel attributed a motive to God and that motive is evil. There could very well be good reasons for killing infants, but punishment for the sins of long dead ancestors is not one of them. Samuel is slandering God here. He should have offered a good reason, but he didn’t. If you are a Christian, what would Samuel have to say before you were convinced he was not speaking for God?

The second objection is that without God, I have no basis for claiming moral knowledge. Firstly, this objection confuses me (a particularist) with an epistemological Methodist. A second point is that I am not presuming God is not the basis for morality. I am merely claiming that if there is a God that is the Basis for morality, it is not the God of Samuel.

Answering Objections to Visions: Part Three

Answering Objections-Part Three

In my previous essays, I did my best to answer the objections raised to the hypothesis of visions that I advocate for Christian origins. My previous essays, however, do not exhausively answer all the objections that are usually raised and so more essays are needed. In this essay, I will address an objection raised by William Lane Craig, in his book Assessing the New Testament Evidence for Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.

This objection is that the New Testament differentiates between visions on one hand and appearances on the other hand. Any hypothesis or theory of visions (which I argue for) or hallucinations (which I do not argue for), or what-have-you, doesn't explicate this difference and so any visionary hypothesis cannot in principle account for appearances because they do not fit the nature of a vision. In fact, Bill Craig, goes as far as to say that he believes that this is a fatal flaw to the vision hypothesis, like the one that I advocate. More than this, he explicitly challenges skeptics to explain the difference. While I willingly accept such a challenge, I hope that such a challenge is not stated with the intention of forcing a conversion among skeptics. I regret that Bill Craig is wasting his breath if he thinks a skeptic like me would gladly and cheerfully convert if I could not meet such a challenge. I have already spoken elsewhere what the personal consequences for me would be if I came to conclude the Christian gospel was valid: I would take my own life; I would see no reason to delay the inevitability of Hell. Never-the-less I enjoy a challenge and the more confrontational it is, the more I love to rise to the challenge, especially if answering it means putting confrontational Christian apologists in their places and just shutting them up! Craig puts forth this distinction in his book Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, as follows:

"On the difference between visions and appearances of Christ, see the discussion by Grass, Ostergeschehen, pp. 189-207. Although Grass discounts most of the visions recorded in Acts as legendary, he nevertheless concludes, primarily on the basis of Paul's testimony, that the Easter appearances took place within a community that enjoyed visions, revelations, and estatic experiences (I Cor. 12-14; II Cor. 12: 1-5; Gal. 2:1; Acts 16:9). The community recognized, however, that the appearances of Christ were restricted to a small circle designated as witnesses and that even to them Jesus did not continually re-appear, but appeared only at the beginning of their new life.

"One cannot follow Grass, however, when he attempts to draw the essential distrinction between an appearance of Christ and a vision as being solely in content, viz.., in an appearance Christ was seen as exalted (Ibid., pp. 229-32) This is undoubtedly true, but surely a vision could be of the exalted Christ, too; indeed how could a Christian believer have a vision of the unexalted Christ? Both the vision of Stephen and the book of Revelation show that the visions of the exalted Lord which were not appearances were possible for the early Church. It is of no matter whether Stephen's vision be an unhistorical embellishment as Grass thinks; the point is that the church of Luke's day was prepared to accept that Stephen saw a vision of Christ. Grass' argument that Revelation is not a vision but a picture story because of the many portraits of Christ seems to presuppose that visions must be monotone. At any rate, the point is Revelation presents itself as a vision, thus showing again that the church did not object out of hand visions of the exalted Christ.

"Nor can it be said that the distinguishing element in an appearance as opposed to a vision was the comissioning, for appearances were known which lacked this element (the 500 brethren). What then distinguished an appearance from a vision? It seems to me that the most natural answer to this question is that an appearance involved extra-mental phenomena, something's actually appearing, whereas a visions, even if caused by God, was purely in the mind. Certainly this seems to be the way in which the New Testament concieves of the distinction. Visions, even veridical visions sent by God, are exclusively mental phenomena, whereas Jesus's appearances always involve an extra-mental appearing in the real, external world. The resistance to this conclusion among contemporary critics seem largely due to a philosophico-theological rejection of the physicalism of the gospels. On this basis, Grass superimposes the form of heavenly visions onto the resurrection appearances, and contemporary scholarship has followed him in this. (See Alsup, Stories, pp. 32, 54.) But if this is done, then-apart from it's being exegetically unjustified- it seems to me impossible to differentiate a vision and appearance, which the early church clearly did. It might be said that a vision, in modern parlance, a subjective vision, that is, a self-induced visionary seeing, but that an appearance is an objective vision, that is, a visionary seeing induced by God.

"This distinction, however, will not help to solve the problem, for so-called objective visions were experienced in the church and these were not ranked as appearances. For example, Peter's vision in Acts 10: 9-17 was certainly "objective" , for it was caused by God (10: 28), but it was not in the same class of phenomena as the appearances of Jesus. More the point, Stephen's vision of Jesus was probably "objective"- Luke does not want us to take it as a self-induced hallucination-, but this was not an appearance of Jesus. But what is the difference between what Stephen saw and what Paul experienced, such that the latter could be called an appearance of Jesus ( Acts 9: 17; contrast the vision to Ananias himself in 9:10 which was not an appearance)? What is the difference between Paul's opportunity on the Damascus road "to see the Just One to hear a voice from his mouth" (22: 14) and his subsequent appearance in the temple when he fell into a trance and saw Jesus speaking to him (22:17)? It is of no help to speak of subjective vs. objective visions, for the mind of the Jewish/Christian believer, all genuine visions were "objective"-anything else would be just an illusion. It seems to me, therefore, despite the modern antipathy to "physicalism," that the difference between a visions and an appearance of Jesus was that only in the latter did he actually appear in the external world. The support for this view is two-fold: 1.) exegetically this is consistently the difference between the two; 2.) if one rejects this view, then the distinction between an appearance and a vision which was made in the early church threatens to dissolve." ( William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus footnote pgs. 68-69)"

First of all, I am not all that convinced that such a distinction really exists or that it is as strong as some Christians make it out to be. Furthermore, if I was to accept that such a distinction did exist, I would have to conclude that such a distinction is no accident nor did it arise because of divine revelation. I would conclude that such a distinction evolved in the Christian community for apologetical purposes. The scope of this essay, therefore, is to illustrate why I am not convinced that the distinction is that strong and subsequently to show precisely how such a distinction originated as a matter of apologetics in early Christianity. I believe that if such a distinction exists, then its origins as an apologetic is precisely what critics like myself would come to expect on the basis that the visionary hypothesis of Christian origins is valid. In other words, I believe that the visionary hypothesis that I am advocating actually can be made to predict that such a distinction may evolve in the early Christian communities as an apologetic, especially against heretics and critics. So let me first deal with the two answers I have proposed, that 1.) such a distinction might not exist or be as strong as Christians claim it to be and 2.) that granting such a distinction exists, it originated as apologetics against heretics and critics.

First of all, I want to make a qualifying remark about this essay. I want to state my main counter-theses in order to answer Craig's thesis and then defend my theses with arguments against his objections to them. This essay is not meant to be an extensive defense of my arguments nor an extenisve survey of historical and textual evidence for my counter-theses. I simply wish to state Craig's thesis and my arguments in terms of a counter-thesis, thereby answering Craig's objections to my counter-theses. An extensive review of historical and textual evidence will be forthcoming in a later essay or essay series and will commence as soon as I feel I have completed my analysis of arguments for and against my theses in greater detail which will take some time.

Why is it that I think that such a distinction might not really exist or be as strong as some apologists make it out to be? It seems to me that if such a distinction exists, it seems to originate with the canonical gospels themselves. Going earlier into the New Testament corpus, especially the written works of apostles such as St. Paul, such a distinction doesn't seem to exist. In 1st Corinthians 15: 3-7, it has been argued that Paul is passing on a creed to the Corinthians, one that he recieved. The creed has a list of appearances of the risen Jesus to various people. Jesus died according to the Scriptures, was buried, rose from the dead according to the Scriptures, appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve, to more than 500 people, to James, to the disciples, and finally to Paul who came into the fold rather late. The Greek word for "appear" in this creed is ophthe. Is this significant? I believe that is is. In another letter, generally regarded as authentically Pauline by many New Testament critical scholars, is the letter to the Galatian Christian Church. In it, Paul recounts how he was converted by God. Paul uses a word for God revealing Christ to Paul, and the Greek word is not ophthe but a word meaning "revelation" Is this significant? I believe that it is. From what I understand, this Greek word in Galatians is used normally to denote visions. It is the same word used in the canonical New Testament book of "Revelation". The significance of these Greek words can now be understood. I take it that Paul had a visionary experience on the road to Damascus as the word suggests in Galatians. If one accepts both 1st Corinthians 15 and the creed as authentically Pauline, and furthermore, as perfectly compatible and harmonizable with what is written in Galatians, then one has to conclude that the Greek word meaning "revelation" in Galatians is describing the same exact experience as the Greek word ophthe in 1st Corinthians 15.

Futhermore, Paul uses the same Greek word ophthe to describe the appearance of Jesus to others in the 1st Corinthians 15 creed. To me, this means one of two things: that since both Greek words ophthe and the one meaning "revelation" are both used to describe Paul's Damascus experience, that it was necessarily a vision. I take this to mean that Paul had a visionary experience on the road to Damascus and that the Greek word for ophthe in this context necessarily means a visionary experience. I also conclude that it's prima facie likely that since the same Greek word ophthe is used to describe the appearance of the risen Jesus to others, then others had visionary experiences involving altered-states-of-conciousness as well. Thus I conclude that such a distinction is either weak or nonexistent. True, I am willing to grant that the Greek word ophthe can be more than a visionary experience of some sort, but I believe that additional textual indicators must exist to modify it in such a way to make it mean that more than a mere visionary experience happened. There would have to be textual indicators/modifiers to show something physically and tangeably happened that could not be otherwise if it was an actual phyiscal and tangeable encounter with the risen Jesus who ate fish and drank in front of the disciples, something no visionary experience, whether to a singular person or collectively to a group of people at a time, could cause. I don't believe that any such textual indicators or modifiers exist in the 1st Corinthians 15 creed or in the letter to the Galatians. I, therefore conclude that it's prima facie likely that all of the postmortem appearances of Jesus were, in fact, originally visionary experiences involving altered-states-of-conciousness and nothing more.

Let me grant for the sake of discussion that there really was a distinction in the early Christian Churches between visions and appearances. Does such a distinction destroy the visionary hypothesis that I advocate? Not at all. In fact, I believe that my visionary hypothesis can be made to predict that such an distinction would arise as an apologetic against heresy and criticism, especially those of Gnostics and other heretics who share a heresy in early Christian times, the heresy known as "Docetism". This was a heresy that Jesus didn't have an actual body of flesh and blood, only that he appeared to have one. For this essay, I had originally planned to use Charles Talbert's work Luke and the Gnostics but I have since learned from very recent e-mail correspondence with Dr. Talbert, that he considers this work (an expansion of his doctoral dissertation) to be "woefully outdated" and has recommended to me a very recently updated book of his Reading Luke which was published by him in 2002 and contains his updated views on the subject. I have yet to purchase this book and fully read it and so I cannot at this time incorporate his recent work into my essay. However, I do believe that however outdated Talbert's original work on the subject was, Craig's critique of Talbert's argument, that Luke's narrative served as an anti-Docetic apologetic, fails. Let me quote Craig at length and provide my own critique of his rebuttal at various points.

"Actually, there are postive reasons to think that the physicalism of the gospels is not an anti-Docetic apologetic: (1) As we have seen, for a Jew the very terms 'resurrection' entailed a physical resurrection of the dead man in the tomb. The notion of a 'spiritual resurrection' was not merely unknown; it was a contradiction in terms. Therefore, in saying that Jesus was raised and appeared, the early believers must have understood this in physical terms."

How was a "spiritual resurrection" a contradiction in terms? While I don't necessarily adhere to the theory that the earliest Christians believed that Jesus had a spiritually resurrected body, I don't see anything as particular refuting it. The best case for the spiritual resurrection, in my judgement, has been provided by historian Richard Carrier in his essay "The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb". I think that Carrier has a very interesting case but I lack the scholarly knowledge to know for absolutely sure (such as a good knowlege of Greek). I am aware of some criticisms of Carrier's arguments and I believe that any produced by such folks like Michael Licona deserve serious consideration ( I find it hard to take seriously the apologetics of Robert Turkel; am I to suppose that Turkel, who thought that the Greek word for "rise", anestemi, was used "twice for emphasis" in the gospels knows more about Greek than Richard Carrier? Am I to believe that Turkel is a better intellect than Carrier? Yeah, right! If I am to accept that, why not little green men on Mars?)

I really don't buy into most of the critiques I have seen of the "spiritual resurrection". I believe that it's a mistake made by both advocates and critics of this theory of Christian origins, to see it as a matter of "physical vs. spiritual". I believe that New Testament scholars like Robert Gundry have amply shown that the Greek word for body, soma was always and necessarily a physical substance (see his work Soma in Biblical Theology). I believe that it's better to view the argument over the "spiritual resurrection" in terms of "flesh vs. a lack of flesh". If the earliest Christians really did believe that Jesus was spiritually resurrected, I don't believe the earliest Christians would've seen Jesus' body as being nonphysical. This, I consider to be an erroneous view. Rather, I believe that if the earliest Christians would've seen Jesus as being spiritually resurrected, I believe that they would've seen the body as a physical body, just one lacking flesh (because it was made of the same heavenly substance as the sun, moon, and stars were; these were also soma lacking in flesh!). If the concept of a "spiritual resurrection" really is the best way to see Paul's discussion of the resurrection in 1st Corinthians 15: 37-50, the distinction between "natural bodies" on one hand and "spiritual bodies" on the other hand, would best be understood as a distinction between bodies (soma) containing flesh (the natural, earthly bodies) and bodies (soma) lacking flesh. All are physical but not all contain flesh. I have to repeat again; I don't necessarily advocate the theory of Christian origins that Carrier proposes. I think it's an interesting theory and I don't ultimately know how to evaluate it simply for the reason that I am not, yet, a New Testament scholar myself.

I leave the argument about a "spiritual resurrection" as an open question that I would like to investigate in graduate school when I have more scholarly resources and knowledge to do so. For the time being, I would also like to say that I have no problem accepting that the earliest Christians believed Jesus to be raised with a body of flesh and I am willing to accept this as a core historical fact and that the "spiritual resurrection" was not something believed by anyone. Even accepting this, I don't exactly think that Craig has succeeded in rebutting the contention that the resurrection narratives of Luke and John were anti-Docetic narratives. He can try and try as he may wish but I hope to show that he hasn't proven his case.

"It was Docetism which was the response to this physicalism, not the other way around. The physical resurrection is thus primitve and prior, Docetism being the later reaction of theological and philosophical reflection."

This is fine; I have no qualms with this. I can accept that the earliest Christians, such as Jesus' immediate disciples believed Jesus to have been resurrected in a body of flesh. I can accept as a core historical fact that many of Jesus' disciples believed that Jesus appeared to them in a risen body of flesh and that the visionary experiences involving altered-states-of-consciousness that they had were visions of a risen Jesus with a fleshly body. I can see Docetism as emerging as a response to this and thus the resurrection narratives serving as rebuttal to this heresy and reinforcing the earlier, yet mistaken view of the earliest disciples. It doesn't mean I accept for a moment that Jesus really did appear to his disciples and ate fish in front of them on the eve of Easter in Jerusalem as Luke's gospel says. I have no problem with a belief in a risen Jesus of bodily flesh being primitive and prior to Docetism.

I believe that the point to remember is that the Greek word for "appear" in the 1st Corinthians 15 creed only means that the groups who believed that they saw Jesus, believed that Jesus simply appeared to them. Docetism would argue, later, that Jesus only appeared to have a body of flesh. The disciples mistook the apparent body of flesh for the real thing and were thus fooled into thinking Jesus had a risen body of flesh. The key point of the Docetists was that Jesus didn't have a body of flesh but only appeared to have a body of flesh. In other words, the Docetists argued, true, that Jesus didn't have a body of flesh, but argued more importantly, that Jesus only appeared to have one. No doubt that the disciples of Jesus mistook an apparent body of flesh for the real thing, but the argument of Docetists here was simple: appearances are decieving and the disciples were victims of this misunderstanding.

"(2) Moreover, had purely 'spiritual appearances' been original, then it is difficult to see how the physical appearances could have developed. For (a) the offense of Docetism would then be removed, since the Christians, too, believed in purely spiritual appearances, and (b) the doctrine of physical appearances would have been counter-productive as an apologetic, both to Jews and to pagans; to Jews because they did not accept an individual resurrection within history and to pagans because their belief in the immortality of the soul could not accomodate the crudity of physical resurrection. The church therefore have retained its purely spiritual appearances."

Once again, I believe that it's best to see any doctrine of a "spiritual resurrection" as involving a physical body yet lacking flesh. I don't believe that there would've been any denial of physicality. The point would've been that the earliest Christians, if the theory of a "spiritual resurrection" is valid, would've believed that Jesus' risen body lacked flesh. But if Jesus was believed to have had a spiritual body, then the threat of Docetism would've been removed and the necessity of anti-Docetic apologetics would've been superflous, right? Does Craig have a good point here? I am not sure that he does. I tend to agree that the earliest Christians, if they believed in a "spiritual resurrection", might have agreed with Docetists about the risen Jesus, but Docetists went further and denied that Jesus had really suffered death on the cross (something no early Christian would've been able to accept) and that Jesus never had been born or incarnated in a body of flesh (something Christians would've found insulting and offensive).

We have to keep in mind, then, that the offense of Docetism wouldn't necessarily have been removed, because Docetists weren't just denying that Jesus had a risen body of flesh- they were denying Jesus ever had any body of flesh during his whole existence on earth. Naturally, Christians would see the need to combat it. Some Christians might've been content with rebutting Docetism up to the point of Jesus' physical death as it was seen as necessary for atonement purposes, while others would probably have gone all the way to the point of completely wiping Docetism out altogether, for they would've believed Jesus to have been vindicated by God and therefore, raised from the dead in a body of flesh.

Does Craig's second objection fly here too? Would the anti-Docetic apologetic be offensive to both Jews and pagans? That depends on whom the audience of the gospels were. Craig tends to think here (lest I am mistaken) that the gospels were written as tools to help win over skeptics. I believe that the gospels were written by Christians and for Christians and no one else. If I am right, what would it matter what Jews or pagans thought? The gospels were written by Christians and for Christians and so any anti-Docetic apologetics would be to reinforce the faith of Christian believers, not to silence skeptics be they Jews or pagans or to convince them of the errors of their ways (I'm sure Craig would love it if it were; I am sure that Craig would love nothing more than to have some undeniable proof that Jesus rose from the dead to give to modern 21st century skeptics like me, so he could drag us kicking and screaming into the faith).

Moreover, I think that Craig is grossly mistaken here. The Jews would not have accepted an individual resurrection? How does Craig know this? I don't doubt that a number of Jews wouldn't have accepted any individual resurrections before the general resurrection, but Craig is really stretching if he seriously believes that this would apply universally without any possible exception whatsoever across the board when it comes to all first century Jews.

"(3) Besides, Docetism was mainly aimed at denying the reality of the incarnation of Christ (1 Jn. 4: 2-3; II Jn. 7), not the physical resurrection. Docetists were not so interested in denying the physical resurrection as in denying that the divine Son perished on the cross; hence, some held that the Spirit deserted the human Jesus at the crucifixion, leaving the human Jesus to die and be physically raised (Irenaeus Against Heresies 1.26. 1). An anti-Docetic aimed at proving a physical resurrection therefore misses the point entirely."

I disagree. I believe that the incarnation, crucifxion, and resurrection were points of denial for Docetists. Suppose that Craig is right and the Docetists were mainly denying the incarnation and not so much the resurrection and it the narratives could hardly serve as an anti-Docetic apologetic. Even if the Docetists didn't so much deny that Jesus had a risen body of flesh, there were other Gnostic groups that did. I would at least accept that the narratives were written as some kind of apologetic against those who denied that Jesus had a risen body of flesh, even if it wasn't really the Docetists. There were four general groups, such as the Docetists, Adoptionists, Separationists, and Patripassiantists, but these categories were not so clean-cut and rigid; there was variation and spectrum within the groups.

"(4) The demonstrations of corporeality and continuity in the gospels, as well as the other physical appearances, do not seem to have been redactional additions of Luke or John ( it is thus incorrect to speak, for example, of "Luke's apologetic against Gnosticism"), but were part of the traditions recieved by the evangelists. Docetisim, however, was a later theological development, attested to in John's letters. Therefore, the gospel accounts of the physical resurrection tend to ante-date the rise and threat of Docetisim."

And how did Craig determine this? I want to know how this is any more than Craig's pontifical "say-so". Why does Craig think that the demonstrations of corporeality and continuity in the gospels are not "redactional additions"? I know for a fact that Craig accepts the Markan priority of the gospels and seems to accept that Matthew and Luke used Mark in their composition. If Luke can redact Mark's gospel and change a prediction (coming from Mark's "young man") of Jesus appearing in Galilee to a prediction of Jesus back when he was in Galilee (as Luke makes the women seem to remember Jesus' words) why can't Luke go beyond the traditions that he had in Mark (and Q?) and go onto write an apologetic against docetism, incorporating corporeality and making such narratives continuous with the rest of the narratives he composed in his gospel? How does Craig know that Jesus eating fish in front of his disciples and inviting them to touch him and showing himself to doubting Thomas were part of the traditions recieved by the evangelists? How does Craig know this?

One last point: Craig repeats himself by saying that Docetism was a later theological development, this time adding the qualifying phrase "attested to in John's letters". I don't necessarily think that Docetism originated at the time of its first mention in John's letters. I believe that Docetism was alive and well before John wrote his letters. I want to be careful here and say that I am not going to attach a precise date as to the origin of Docetism. I really don't know when it originated but I don't think it originated after Luke wrote his gospel and necessarily before John wrote his. I suspect Craig wants more than anything for this to be the case so he can make his work of trying to get modern skeptics to accept the resurrection and get them saved a lot easier. I think that perhaps Docetism originated sometime shortly after 70 C.E. and the gospels have an increasing tendency towards a more corporeal and fleshly Jesus, starting without any resurrection appearances in Mark, one which the disciples see Jesus but don't touch him in Matthew, to Jesus eating fish and inviting contact in Luke and finally a full-blown anti-Docetic apologetic in John's gospel. This may reflect various stages at which Docetism grew in strength and became a threat. Perhaps when Mark wrote his gospel, it wasn't percieved to be that much of a threat (if any) and perhaps was in its nascental stages and evolving more and more during the writing of Matthew and Luke to the point where John's opening prologue was specifically shooting down Docetism as were the letters attributed to John.

"Moreover, not even all later Gnostics denied the physical resurrection ( cf. Gospel of Philip, Letters of James, and Epistle of Rheginus). It is interesting that even in the ending of Mark there is actually a switch away from material proofs of the resurrection to a verbal rebuke by Jesus for the disciples' unbelief."

I am pleased to hear Craig say this! Not all later Gnostics denied the physical resurrection! I also believe that not all early Gnostics denied it either nor had all of them accepted it. I believe that there was a bit of variety among different sects of Gnosticism and perhaps stretching over time. Now it's question time again, boys and girls: how does Craig know that Mark's ending is meant to be a switch away from material proofs of the resurrection?

"(5) The demonstrations themselves do not evince the rigorousness of an apologetic against Docetism. In both Luke and John it is not said that either the disciples or Thomas actually accepted Jesus' invitation to touch him and prove that he was not a Spirit. Contrast the statements of Ignatius that the disciples did physically touch Jesus (Ignatius Ad Smyrnaeans 3.2; cf. Epistula Apostolorum 11-12). As Schnackenburg has said, if an anti-Docetic apology were involved in the gospel accounts, more would have to have been done than Jesus' merely showing the wounds."

I beg Craig's pardon? Eating fish in front of the disciples "does not evince the rigorousness of an apologetic against Docetism"? Was it not Craig who made this stink about the distinction between visions and appearances in the first place? How rigorous does "rigorous" have to be? Does Jesus have to take a stainless steel stake and pound it through his right hand, have his disciples verify that it penetrated by getting blood from Jesus' hand onto their hands, only to have Jesus take the stake out and have his disciples watch his hand heal itself in front of them as though Jesus is a mutant with superhuman powers like the comic book character "Wolverine" in Marvel's The Uncanny X-Men May I suggest something for readers here? May I suggest that not all anti-Docetic apologetics need be the same in terms of rigor and intensity? Docetism, I believe, just like every other heresy, started out small and grew with time. Not every apologetic designed to answer heresies like Docetism need be as rigorous as the next. Luke's apologetic is not as rigorous as would, say, John's because Docetism needn't have been considered as dangerous a heresy in Luke's time as it would've been in John's time. In fact, it may well have been in its nascental and infant stages at the time of Mark's writing which might be why Mark doesn't have any resurrection narratives designed to illustrate that Jesus really did have a body of flesh. From Mark to Matthew, Docetism might have grown somewhat and may have started to become a threat in Luke's time with it evolving to the point of a dangerous heresy in John's time. Ignatius, writing later, wants to assert that the disciples did phyiscally touch Jesus because such a level of rigorousness and seriousness would be needed to combat Docetism in his time, whereas in earlier times it probably wasn't that strong and, hence, not that big a threat and not commanding that much in terms of resources to combat it.

"(6) The incidental, off-hand character of the physicality of Jesus' resurrection appearances in most of the accounts shows that the physicalism was a natural assumption or presupposition of the accounts, not an apologetic point consciously being made. For example, the women's grasping Jesus' feet is not a polemical point, but just their response of worship. Similarly, Jesus says, 'Do not hold me,' though Mary is not explictly said to have done so; this is no conscious effort to prove a physical resurrection. The appearances on the mountain and by the Sea of Tiberias just naturally presuppose a phyiscal Jesus; no points are trying to be scored against Docetism."

Fleshly physicalism may have been a natural assumption to begin with for the earliest Christians but that needn't mean that it wasn't in need of defending by the time that the gospels were pinned. Indeed, not every minor little detail need be polemically against Docetism. These may have just been the kind of details that many Christians believe Jesus would've done had he a risen body of flesh, regardless of how much of a threat Docetism was in their minds. But the eating of fish, the showing of wounds, and Jesus preparing breakfast for his disciples are the exact sort of feats that would be expected to count aginst Docetism. Depending on the composition and the various stages in the evolution of heresies like Docetism, we can expect there to be varying accounts of anti-Docetic apologetics, with varying degrees of physical interaction and corporeality, depending on how widespread and serious the threat of Docetism or any other antiflesh heresy that existed in New Testament times was. Some accounts will not have much physical action performed by Jesus while others will have Jesus doing a lot of physical feats that a mere vision could not do. Now we come to the finale of Craig's rebuttal here...

"Together these considerations strongly suggest that the physical appearance were not as apologetic to Docetism, but always part of the church's tradition; there seems to be no good historical reason to doubt that Jesus did, in fact, show his disciples that he had been physically raised from the dead." ( Craig, William Lane, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus pgs. 330-338)"

Craig would seriously love to think this, wouldn't he? Anything to convince a modern skeptic to become a Christian. Unfortunately, it is Craig who is mistaken here, not Talbert or anyone else. These considerations, I hope to have shown, are flawed and do not make Craig's case as strong as he would like to think that they do. Craig hasn't shown how they were always part of the Church's tradition and hasn't answered Talbert's original arguments. In conclusion, though, I want to say that the fleshly corporeality of the resurrection narratives introduce a Jesus who physically interacts with the world and is no mere vision and that there is a extra-mental phenomenon at work behind the scenes. But the gospels were not written to convince post-Enlightenment skeptics like me but I believe were designed to answer those who would deny that Jesus had risen in the flesh.

The most important part is not so much that heretics at all did deny that Jesus had a body of flesh at any point of time in his earthly existence, but that he appeared to have one but really didn't. The emphasis was on appearances and this was the big point behind Gnosticism. Those blessed with the spiritual knowledge of the Gnostics knew better. The disciples believed Jesus appeared to them and Jesus did but Jesus fooled them into thinking he had a body of flesh. Jesus only appeared to have had one and the Gnostics had this sacred knowledge that Jesus didn't inhibit a body of flesh. Even if it wasn't the Docetics per se who posed a heretical threat to the earliest Christians, there were some antiflesh heretics who would need to be seriously dealt and rebutted.

This, I believe, might adequately account for the distinction between visions on one hand, and appearances on the other. Supposing that Craig is right about the distinction, I am convinced that any such distinction was apologetic in origin. This was the best way I believe that the Christians of Luke and John's community combated heretics. What's more, it also kept the lid on heretics and not only rebutted their antiflesh heresy but also prevented them from claiming any pedigree in the Church as the true disciples of Jesus and their discipleship going back to inner circle of Jesus himself. Any true Christian, any true disciples of Jesus, would have had to talk with him, to walk with him, to touch him, to have eaten with him and to have drink with him. Thus Jesus had a body of flesh after his death and rose to the heavens in it. Only the original apostolic circle was really in a position to claim any kind of pedigree and legitimacy as to being heirs of Jesus and being his disciples, because only they walked, talked, and ate with Jesus, saw him crucified, and saw him risen from the dead, and ascend into the heavens. This, I believe, explains the witness motif of Luke's gospel: to be an apostle, you have to had been appointed by those who were witnesses to Jesus' fleshly corporeality.

Thus, I believe that Craig's third objection may be answered.

Matthew