Basics

ANSWERS!

Here we go into answering these, very few, questions. For many, the answers may be very long, so instead we refer you to outside sources, our betters and real scholarship.

1. Jesus is a myth:

This one involves a fairly lengthy historical research process, but essentially almost no scholars contend that the person of Jesus never existed. Many say He never rose from the dead, or He never performed miracles, never claimed to be God, etc etc, but most agree that He did, at one point, exist. For some articles detailing the historical evidence for His existence see here, here and here. The reader with a little more time to spare on this issue is directed to Lee Strobel’s excellent books The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith and Timothy Keller’s book, the Reason for God all of which deal with this exact question. For the more scholarly, Richard Bauckham’s thick read, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Anne Rice, in the end of her book, Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt, gives her testimony and notes that for years she believed Jesus was a myth because of what she had been told in college. When she finally did the research herself, she found those facts and cases made against Jesus, “simply were not there.” In fact, she even goes on to say that the scholarship of those working to disprove Jesus of Nazareth was some of the worst she had ever seen. We have found the same. I urge you to search in earnest yourself and not just take someone’s word, ours or those of the Jesus Seminar. Test all things. Jesus did live. Jesus still lives.

2. The Bible is a mishmash of old texts

This is a common objection voiced by many but is actually one of the apologist’s strongest proofs. Over 24,000r 24,000
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja! Štetje svetopisemskih vrstic se začne z 1! Vrstica 0 ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin manuscripts exist containing parts of the scripture. The nearest any secular work can come is: only eight copies of Herodotus’s historical works, whose originals were written in 480-425 BC. Likewise, only 5 copies of Aristotle’s writings have found their way to the 20th century, while only 10 copies of the writings of Caesar, along with another 20 copies of the historian Tacitus, and 7 copies from the historian Pliny, who all originally wrote in the first century, are available today (McDowell 1972:42l 1972:42
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin). Do people call into question the reliability of the modern versions of these ancient works? Certainly not! Such a wealth of evidence can give us absolute faith that the Bible we enjoy today is the same as the one that the Church fathers used almost 2000 years ago! For more on the textual proofs see here, here, here and (again) Strobel.

3. The Bible has been edited and reedited to suit the needs of whomever.

Ah, the old missing gospels canard. People never tire of it. Again, this one is pretty easy to deal with. Firstly, most of the so-called missing books were actually written after the Bible as we know it was written by the apostles and compiled by the Church Fathers in the first and second centuries. Books written after the Bible was put together can’t really said to have been ‘missing’ or ‘excluded’, can they? Secondly, as Koukl says, the Bible is either two things: firstly, the inspired word of God, superintended by Him, or, secondly, a statement of beliefs of the early church. In the first instance, if God is superintending it, how could any books get ‘lost’? And in the second case, if it is a statement of belief by the early Church, then they have every right to disregard those writings that don’t espouse their beliefs.

As he says: “It’s like writing a book of your personal beliefs from a stack of ideas you’ve collected over the years and then have someone rummage through your trash to find other beliefs you didn’t include and then claim that these were your secret or lost beliefs. You say, ‘No, they’re not my beliefs; that’s why they’re in the trash. If they were really mine, they’d be in the book.’ ”

4. The Da Vinci Code.

Where do I start? SO EASY! I can’t believe scores of people left the church of this pile of drivel! Just go here and read for yourself. The best 2 minutes you’ll ever spend.

5. The Family trees of Jesus of Nazareth in the Bible don’t match up

Oh my gosh! The family tree thing! Even Dawkins makes this claim in The God Delusion! Could he have done any less research! What a… ahem. Keep it edifying. Right. Well, basically one genealogy is of Mary (Luke), one is of Joseph (Matthew). Simple. According to CMI, a clear pointer to the fact that the genealogy in Luke is Mary’s line is that the Greek text has a definite article before all the names except Joseph’s. Any Greek-speaker would have understood that Heli must have been the father of Joseph’s wife, because the lack of an article would mean that he would insert Joseph into the parenthesis (as was supposed) in Luke 3:23Luke 3:23
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
The Ancestors of Jesus 23 When Jesus began to preach, he was about thirty years old. Everyone thought he was the son of Joseph. But his family went back through Heli,

WP-Bible plugin. So he would read it not as ‘Jesus … being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli’, but as ‘Jesus … being son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli’ (NB: the original Greek had no punctuation or even spaces between words). Indeed, the Jewish Talmud, no friend of Christianity, dating from the first few centuries AD, calls Mary the ‘daughter of Heli’, which could have come only from this understanding of what Luke meant.

6. The Bible is full of genocide and other atrocities ordered by God Himself

Finally, one that requires a little thought. This is a tough one, and one often used by our critics, and the answers are intellectually satisfying, not emotionally satisfying. On one hand it is simple to say that God created all life and He has the right to take it whenever and however He wishes. Not one I’d recommend trying on a hardened atheist. My favourite is the one provided by anthropologists, who provide a couple of points for consideration. Firstly, the brutality of these societies. They were completely debased in all areas of life. For example, child prostitution in their temples. Children sold into sexual slavery. Rape, incest, multiple sexual partners…the list goes on. On the topic of child sacrifices, listen to this. One society had a statue of their god with his hands held together in front of his body. The statue was heated to glowing hot and the infant was placed in the red-hot hands and burned alive. I think these kinds of societies deserved to be judged, don’t you? Anyone care to stand up for them? Secondly, related to the debased sexual practices. In many of these societies, the people were so debauched that they not only committed incest, rape, paedophilia etc, but they also committed bestiality. Anthropologists claim that in these societies the spread of venereal diseases was so wide that even the cattle was infected. Gives us an idea why God told the Israelites to not even spare the cattle, doesn’t it? As an aside, if genocide committed in the name of God disqualifies theism, shouldn’t genocide committed in the name of atheism disqualify it? Read this article for a good case along these lines (might need to log in to see this…).

7. Evolutionary theory (in whatever its present form) has done away with the myth of God

Ah, Darwin. Where should I start. Look, I’m not gonna get into the young earth/old earth thing here, but if you want critiques of Darwin, there are many to be found. Our own are HERE

Organisations like CMI, AIG, ICR, Creation Research Society, Creation Research, Stand to Reason…the list is endless. There are SO MANY good books out there. Visit the links for a good list.

So, that’s it. Hope that’s given you something to think about! If there are other questions you have, certainly mail us and we will get back to you ASAP!

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