Posts Tagged ‘new testament’

4
Sep

Evidence? What evidence?

   Posted by: me    in Faith, Science & Doubt

Over the years I’ve sat through a number of civil trials as an observer.  Over 2 or 3 days (sometimes more) I would hear the plaintiff put on their side, and the evidence always seemed overwhelming.  It wasn’t until I heard the defense evidence that things were put into perspective; at times, the plaintiff’s case would simply evaporate in light of the rest of the evidence.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately from folks like Bart Ehrman about the many problems with the Biblical texts, yada, yada.  His rhetoric can sound pretty convincing if that’s all you hear.

A blogger who calls himself Makarios has put together a short series of posts listing just a partial listing of facts that start to tell “the rest of the story.”

In Can you trust Luke? he mentions all of the valid historical facts in the Gospel of Luke; enough to certainly give any historian credibility (except, of course, if he’s talking about Jesus).  With ancient history (or current history, for that matter) credibility is important.  He continues that discussion here.

Then, in I’m an expert!, he provides some facts that support the historicity of the New Testament in general, and compares the NT docs to other ancient historical documents. The comparison is striking.  With regard to the NT, he writes:

When it comes to the New Testament, especially as it attests to the reality of Jesus the Christ, His life, His death and especially His resurrection, there is more witness testimony than for any other document in ancient literature. With respect to the accuracy and continuity of the documents:

. There are more than 5,700 Greek copies of the New Testament.

. There are 10,000 copies of the New Testament in Latin.

. Take into consideration copies that are available in other languages and we have available to us 30,000 handwritten copies of the New Testament.

. Take into consideration all the quotations of the early Church Fathers and you will find over one million more verses that have been preserved from the first century onward.

Comparing the ancient documents that we have,

At the latest, there is only a 75 year gap between available copies and the time that the New Testament was completed. For the early Church’s creed that Paul passes on to the Christians in Corinth and which he most certainly got from the apostle’s oral, eye witness reports, we are looking at within 5 years of Jesus death and resurrection at most.

For copies of materials from other ancient historical writers, a gap of 1,000 years is not unusual and what we have in those cases are mere fragments of their works.

and he continues,

. The history of Thucydides has just eight copies dated 1,300 years after he wrote.

. Copies of Aristotle’s poetics are dated 1,400 years after the originals and only five copies exist.

. Copies of Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” are from 1,000 years after the originals and only ten copies exist.

Even though the time between the original and copies seems very long indeed, no classical scholar, or atheist for that matter, would ever conclude that the copies are not dependable because they were written over a thousand years after the original. They do however complain if a document that’s been included into the New Testament is dated 30 years later than the original. (You may roll your eyes now)

He concludes this series of posts here.

None of this is, of course, conclusive. It merely provides credibility to what we have as the New Testament documents.  But, that’s what history is all about.

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23
Jul

Did Jesus repudiate Old Testament violence?

   Posted by: me    in Theological Musings

I tend to like Greg Boyd, even if his “open” theology puts him in many people’s “heretic” column.  I have given away numerous copies of his Letters From a Skeptic (with a cautionary note about one reference to his “open” view of God) over the years, and still have a couple of copies on my shelf.

I think he has some interesting views, especially re pacifism, which is how he’s most well-known today.  Today, he writes,

What’s interesting is that Jesus himself repudiated the violence of the Old Testament — despite his belief that this collection of writings was inspired. Jesus taught, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also (Mt 5:38-39).

He points out that according to Moses, this “eye for an eye” practice was not optional:

Most interestingly, in Deuteronomy Moses goes so far as to stress that the law must not be waved aside out of compassion. “Show no pity,” the text says, “ life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Deut 19:21). Yet, Jesus not only commands people to “show pity,” he replaces the Old Testament quid pro quo ethic with his radical ethic of unconditional love.

Interesting. Check out the whole article.

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4
Jun

WWJD

   Posted by: me    in Theological Musings

This is a follow-up to my last post, Atheists: Forget the Old Testament, in which I introduced the concept that the Old Testament paints an imperfect picture of God.  The writer of Hebrews makes this point, as well as the Gospels of Matthew and John.

John’s Gospel introduces Jesus as the Logos – the Word – of God.  (Interestingly, Aristotle’s concept of logos was “to argue from reason.”)  Logos was also identified in later Greek philosophy with the creative force of the universe. In the first chapter, John states:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Logos (who was “in the beginning”) became flesh.  In verses 17 & 18  we read,

17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

Here John makes an interesting contrast: In the OT, we have the Law, and a God whom no one has seen.  In Jesus, we have grace and truth, and God is now known through Jesus.  The implication here is that even though the Law does testify to God’s holiness, it doesn’t give us a good picture of God (the Father).  Only Jesus, the Logos, “God the one and only,” has made God (the Father) known.

Now, the Old Testament contains some great stuff; however, whenever we start to get an idea of God from the OT, we should stop and ask, “What would Jesus do?”  Assuming the Bible authors were correct in that God does not change, and that Jesus indeed is a perfect representation of the Father, we need to compare our Old Testament notions of God to what we know about Jesus.   If there’s a conflict, who do we believe?  On one hand we have an imperfect, incomplete revelation of God, on the other, a perfect revelation.

This is not to say we now know and understand everything; Paul makes it clear in 1 Cor. 13 that we don’t. However, we have the testimony of 4 Gospels as to the character of Jesus. We saw his reaction to sinners, and his reaction to the self-righteous. We saw his emotion concerning death, and his anger when confronting hypocrisy.  How dare we take an Old Testament stand on issues where Jesus would seem to have taken the opposite stand?

Interestingly, Jesus held a higher standard than the Pharisees did when it came to sin; not only is action sin, but so is desire!  However, whenever Jesus confronted someone caught in sin, what was his response?  He forgave them, he healed them, and he had dinner with them!

What this tells me about the seeming contradictions between the “old, mean” God and “gentle” Jesus is that it may not be our perception of God which is the issue; perhaps it is our perception of the nature of sin.  Time and again Jesus spoke of and dealt with sin as if it were a sickness, a plague from which humanity was suffering.  Come to think of it, so did the God of the Old Testament!

The problem with the WWJD test is that we end up with seeming contradictions which we are unable to resolve. What do we do then?  My personal opinion is that we hold to what is clear, and wait for the fog to lift on the rest.  We have to get used to the fact that we still see only in part.  We just have to remember, Jesus’ own words, “no one knows the Father except me.”

There are those, of course, who will insist on holding on to the OT sketch of God, especially if there’s someone to condemn, or if you need a God to hate.  Choosing an imperfect picture of God over the Logos tells me more about the person doing the choosing than about God.

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