John Paine and I have reported before on Newsweek‘s now infamous Christmas front page article written by journalist Kurt Eichenwald entitled, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin.”As a way of following up on the continuing saga of the blunder made by such an influential mainstream publication, after Newsweek invited messianic Bible scholar Dr. Michael Brown to write a response essay in their magazine, Brown then invited the journalist, Kurt Eichenwald, to appear on Brown’s Line of Fire radio show recently. I listened to the program available online and simply felt compelled to make some commentary.
On the bright side, it is apparent that Eichenwald and Newsweek hope that evangelical Christians will engage in creative and respectful dialogue with others without resorting to vitriol and name calling. I could not agree more. Furthermore, Eichenwald believes that there are many Christians who say that they “believe the Bible” but they simply have not read and studied what the Bible really says. Again, Eichenwald is 100% correct about the problem of biblical illiteracy and lack of understanding concerning theological doctrine and church history within our churches today. The hypocrisy of those who say that they “know the Bible” yet who do not take the time or energy to dig into the study of God’s Word and its history is truly appalling. But is Eichenwald correct is his understanding of the Bible, and its history? Continue reading
On Monday, January 19, 2015, selected movie theatres across the country will be showing a special documentary film, Patterns of Evidence. The story is about a filmmaker, Timothy Mahoney, who had a crisis of faith when he learned from the consensus of critically minded scholars that the Exodus, the famous story of Moses leading the people out of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea,… NEVER HAPPENED.
Well, at least, that is the conclusion that is drawn from many archaeologists of the ancient Bible periods. True, the study of archaeology has yet to provide demonstrative evidence confirming the Biblical account of the Exodus. Therefore, many come to the conclusion that the Exodus was simply a “made up” part of the Bible. In other words, the story in the Bible is just as fictional as Ridley Scott’s version of it in Exodus: Gods and Kings, introduced with extensive background discussion to the archaeological issues involved here earlier on Veracity. But is there another way to approach this issue and arrive at a different conclusion?
In Mahoney’s documentary film, he looks at the possibility that the search for the Exodus has focused on the wrong time and place. Having not seen the film myself, I can not myself offer a review, but you may want to look at the following reviews from Answers in Genesis and the Gospel Coalition.
To find a film showing for this one night in your area according to zip code, look here. (In Williamsburg, Virginia, it is at 7pm at the High Street Movie Tavern). A 6:30 pm discussion led by Fox News commentator Gretchen Carlson and featuring author Anne Graham Lotz, Eric Metaxas, Father Jonathan Morris, and Dennis Prager precedes the film. If you attend the film, I would like hear your thoughts about it, as I am not sure myself that Mahoney’s case is without difficulties. Take a skeptical friend. It is sure to be controversial and generate plenty of conversation. Does the filmmaker make a convincing case?
UPDATE: January 20
Check out the Veracity review of the film by viewing the comments section below, given by Veracity’s own John Paine. Thanks, John!
The article has generated A LOT of responses, so many that I think it would be best to list out some of the more prominent ones. The original Newsweek article is extremely long, but it is worth taking some time to go through it as it adequately illustrates many of the most common objections and confusions regarding Christianity and the Bible that you will encounter today among secularly-minded thinkers, or those thinkers who wish to reshape Christian faith to look more “modern.” But you should also read a few of the responses as an aid to help you develop an informed response to Eichenwald’s many complaints. It is great way to get an education on some critical issues in doing Christian apologetics in a skeptical world. Some of what Eichenwald says presents challenging difficulties for the Christian, while much of what he says, if not the bulk of it, can be answered in a manner that effectively communicates an honorable confidence in God’s Word:
Michael Kruger (Reformed Seminary in Charlotte, N.C.) has two articles (#1 and #2 ), but what is most valuable is that Mr. Eichenwald offers some rejoinders to Kruger’s critique in the comments section.
Ben Witherington (Asbury Seminary, Kentucky) offers a response from an evangelical Wesleyan perspective.
For a response from the more conservative wing of mainstream Protestantism, this detailed response from Robert Gagnon (Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) fills in some of the gaps left by others in their critiques.
Kurt Eichenwald has repeatedly said that some of the responses to his Christmas essay from Christians were loaded with “vitriol” and “name calling.” Perhaps Eichenwald has this series of video responses in mind ( you have to scroll past much of the unedited chatter in places, but you can look here: #1 and #2)by Reformed apologist James A. White (Alpha-Omega Ministries), but I will let the viewer be the judge of that.
In addition to the well-known agnostic Bart Ehrman (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Mr. Eichenwald leans heavily on the critical views of Jason David BeDuhn, professor of Comparative Study of Religions, at Northern Arizona University. BeDuhn, in this essay, responds to a critique of the Newsweek article by Southern Baptist Seminary head, Al Mohler.
In my view, the best and most thorough response is from Darrell Bock (Dallas Seminary). If you only have time to read one of these, pick either the Dan Wallace one linked above or this one by Bock.
The latest response from Newsweek itself is that they agreed to publish the following rejoinder by messianic scholar Michael Brown. In Newsweek’s introduction to Dr. Brown’s essay, they still stand by Eichenwald’s original story, in an effort to promote discussion. Furthermore, they announced that Dr. Brown has invited Mr. Eichenwald to be on his Line of Fire radio program the week of January 19.
As you might imagine, truth is a very important topic on a blog named Veracity. Veracity is a one-word description of the Bible. The Bible is true. Most people really have no idea how true. Unfortunately, some believe that it is true because they feel it is true. Others hope that it is true without ever really knowing how true it really is. Agnostics doubt that it is true. Skeptics believe it is untrue.
So how important is it that your faith be based on truth? It sounds like a silly question, but it has profound personal implications. When you engage others about your faith, do you say things like, “This happened to me,” or ” I feel that…”? Unfortunately, these type of statements can point to a subjective faith. But Christianity is much truer than that.
Veracity is also a one-word description for Jesus Christ, taken from his own words:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
So, ultimately, truth is a person. Got it. Plain and simple. But is it an objective truth?
I’m currently preparing to teach a class on personal discipleship, which we define here at Veracity as “the process in which a believer or seeker takes personal responsibility for investigating the claims and content of the Bible.” It is personal and inherently objective. And it should be.
The class will be full of mature Christians. Many of these folks have spent a lifetime studying the Bible, and can offer encouragement to anyone who wants to ask questions. They have encouraged me. I’m hoping to give back by delving a little more deeply and father off the sacred page than most are accustomed to exploring. It will require an open mind that thirsts for the truth. No dogma, no “This is the way I’ve always thought it to be,” and no fear of what we might discover. If successful, some may find a more intimate appreciation of the Bible and the veracity of their faith. But it requires an honest assessment of our biases (we all have them), and an open and objective mind.
A retired cop?! Yup. J. Warner Wallace was a keynote speaker at the 2014 National Conference on Christian Apologetics. When my friends and I were looking at the conference syllabus, we had heard of his ministry but it sounded pretty much like a shtick to us—“A cold-case homicide detective looks at the Resurrection.” But we were blown away at his sessions. He is likely one of the most gifted rhetoricians you will ever hear. There’s nothing wrong with good rhetoric—St. Augustine of Hippo was a professor of rhetoric and one of the most influential thinkers in the early Christian church. Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully persuaded the majority of Americans that racism is wrong and that it was time for the country to move in a more just direction. We need good rhetoric.
By way of background, Jim Wallace had a storied career as a homicide investigator in Torrance, California. Right before he spoke at the Charlotte conference, his last case was chronicled on the TV news program NBC Dateline. (Four of his cases have been featured on Dateline—he never lost a single case in his career as a cold-case homicide detective.) It was the oldest homicide cold case ever brought to trial in the United States, and the defendant’s lawyer was none other than Robert Shapiro, the famous Hollywood attorney from the O.J. Simpson case. It was Shapiro’s last court case. You can watch the NBC Dateline video to see what happened.
I will show some of his remarkably persuasive and compelling videos during the upcoming personal discipleship course but want to put this one out to Veracity readers. The truth matters—if we’re not after the truth, what’s the point in studying the Bible?
“The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by His work of creation, and similarly He gave us the New Testament canon, by inspiring the individual books that make it up.”
J. I. Packer, God Has Spoken: Revelation and the Bible, 3rd ed.
“We should not imagine a committee of church fathers with a large pile of books and these five guiding principles before them when we speak of the process of canonization. No ecumenical committee was commissioned to canonize the Bible.” Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, From God To Us Revised and Expanded: How We Got Our Bible
One of the great misconceptions about Christianity involves the canonization of the Bible (that is, deciding which books comprise the whole, inspired, holy Scripture). For whatever reasons, people tend to imagine some sort of ecumenical process—dragging out over several centuries—where well respected officials in the early and medieval church came together and decided which books were in and which books were out. But as we can see from the quotes above from three of the most conservative Bible scholars, church councils did not produce the Bible.
Ecumenical Councils
Conservative Christian scholarship disallows any notion that ecumenical councils somehow selected the Bible from a list of candidate documents. But there were ecumenical councils, lots of them, so what role did the councils play in the canonization of the Bible?
First, recognize that church councils were necessary for the governance and order of the church. The precedent was set at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, attended by the apostles themselves. There were heresies and challenges to Christian doctrine. There were matters of church discipline and orderly worship that had to be addressed. There was confusion about Gnostic teaching and guidelines for living. Later there would be questions about which books and letters belonged in the canon of Scripture—and which did not.
Shortly after the legalization and state patronage of Christianity within the Roman Empire, the church began to hold ecumenical councils. The first was called by Constantine the Great on May 20, 325 at the Royal Palace in Nicaea. The focus of the Nicene Council was the divinity of Jesus and the clarification of the Trinity. It produced the Nicene Creed, which was later amended to be close to the Apostles Creed. (Sidebar—Did Jesus descend into hell? Here’s a brief discussion about this controversy.) Contrary to modern misconceptions—perpetuated by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code—Constantine did not determine the New Testament canon and the First Council of Nicaea did not even address the topic of the canon of Scripture.
Over the following centuries, there would be many more ecumenical councils and synods, continuing through to the present day. Which meetings are recognized as ‘ecumenical‘ depends largely upon denominational perspective. 19th century church historian and theologian Philip Schaff documented the canons of Seven Ecumenical Councils between 325 and 787 CE (which he defined as “councils which have always, and still do, receive the unqualified acceptance of both East and West”):
The First Council of Nicaea,
The First Council of Constantinople,
The Council of Ephesus,
The Council of Chalcedon,
The Second Council of Constantinople,
The Third Council of Constantinople, and
The Second Council of Nicaea.
Philip Schaff meticulously documented the canons of the historic ecumenical councils of the Christian church.
However, history is replete with other councils that are not accepted as ecumenical by the Eastern and Western churches (‘Eastern’ meaning Eastern Orthodox, and ‘Western’ meaning Roman Catholic and other denominations that developed in Europe). For example, the Synod of Hippo (393 CE) and 3rd Council of Carthage (397 CE) produced authoritative lists of the sacred scriptures. Later, the Council in Trullo (also called the “Quinisext Council,” 692 CE) ratified the canons of these councils—but did not specifically state the list of books considered to be divinely inspired. So why didn’t everyone accept the canons of Hippo and Carthage as ecumenical? As you might imagine, church politics had a lot to do with it—and still does. Hippo and Carthage did not have wide representation from the church as a whole and were heavily influenced by Augustine of Hippo, as later critics would argue.
Page 885 of Schaff’s text contains the list of canonical scriptures from the Council of Carthage. This list includes the Apocrypha in the Old Testament but clearly identifies the 27 books of the New Testament. (We’ll explore the Apocrypha in a future post.)
The canons of the ecumenical councils make for dry reading in parts, not unlike reading the formal minutes from a business meeting where much discussion is reduced to a few statements. Nevertheless, check out the canons of these councils as recorded in Schaff’s monumental work. In addition to the seven ecumenical councils, he also documented the records from other councils, including Hippo, Carthage, and Trullo. Much of what these clergymen dealt with is now irrelevant. Troublesome heretics have long ago died, many of the controversial theological and doctrinal problems have faded in time, and frankly no one cares about how to handle “him who persuades a slave to leave his master under pretence of religion.” When you read the canons, it becomes clear how challenged the Christian church was over matters large and small—and how pious many of these councils must have been.
‘Orthodox’ Christianity
Over the centuries since the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the church found more issues to debate, and more reasons to divide. Rather than serving to unite believers, later ecumenical councils proved to be dividing mechanisms by laying out denominational distinctions.
As shown in the timeline on the right, the Christian church remained essentially united through the early councils. Then, one word (Filioque) caused the Great Schism of 1054 and the ‘orthodox’ church began splitting into more and more denominations.
So…in all the deliberations of the historic synods and councils of the early and medieval Christian church, Christians cannot find agreement on the canon of Scripture. The scholars quoted at the beginning of this post seem to be justified in the strength of their statements. Church councils did not produce or canonize the Bible.
Think about it. Is it reasonable to believe that God would inspire holy Scriptureand that it would then need to be ratified by church councils before being recognized as such?
If we rule out the deliberations of church councils as the deciding authority, how then can we know what books comprise the canon of holy Scripture? We’ll take that up in our next post on this topic…
Can We Trust the New Testament Canon?
…but in the meantime, here’s a brief interview with Dr. Michael Kruger that addresses that very important question.
John Paine and I have reported before on Newsweek‘s now infamous Christmas front page article written by journalist Kurt Eichenwald entitled, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin.”As a way of following up on the continuing saga of the blunder made by such an influential mainstream publication, after Newsweek invited messianic Bible scholar Dr. Michael Brown to write a response essay in their magazine, Brown then invited the journalist, Kurt Eichenwald, to appear on Brown’s Line of Fire radio show recently. I listened to the program available online and simply felt compelled to make some commentary.
Veracity 