Dr. McGrew,
I have listened to your
lectures and learned much. Thanks for the work you do.
I was wondering whether
you'd be willing to discuss with me, by blog or formal written debate, at any
internet location of your choosing, any of the following propositions which I'm
willing to defend, which are as follows:
1.
The argument to God from complexity is fatally flawed.
2.
The first premise of Kalam is unscientific.
3.
If anything in the NT can be trusted as historically true, then
it is more than likely that Jesus ‘miracles’ during his earthly ministry were
not genuinely supernatural, but were more like those performed by Benny Hinn
and Peter Popoff.
4.
Generously granting assumptions of traditional gospel
authorship, there are no more the 3 testimonies in the NT to the resurrection
of Jesus which have come down to us today in first-hand form; Matthew, John and
Paul.
5.
Mark was the earliest published gospel.
6.
The author of Mark intended to end that gospel at 16:8,
therefore, the earliest gospel strata on the resurrection of Jesus had lacked
stories about his appearing to apostles.
7.
Mark’s silence on the virgin birth is best explained as either
his not knowing Jesus was born of a virgin, or his believing such story was
false; either conclusion does severe violence to the conservative Christian
position that Jesus’ virgin birth was a literal fact of history.
8.
Peter’s knowledge of, but refusal to encourage, Mark’s gospel
writing efforts, justify today’s unbelievers in dismissing Mark’s gospel as
unworthy of serious attention.
9.
The problems surrounding Matthew’s identity are sufficiently
extreme as to justify excluding the gospel of Matthew as disqualified from the
realm of eyewitness testimony to the resurrection of Jesus.
10. The author of canonical Greek Matthew
borrowed most of Mark’s text.
11. Unbelievers are rationally warranted to
conclude that because eyewitnesses typically do not use second-hand sources to
the extreme degree that Matthew used second-hand sources, the author of Matthew
was not likely an eyewitness.
12. Canonical Greek Matthew did not likely
originate with apostle Matthew.
13. The ambiguity and paucity of Papias’
statement about Matthew’s authorship is sufficiently extreme as to rationally
justify the unbeliever in dismissing it wholesale as utterly incapable of
justifying any degree of confidence in one’s conclusions about what he meant.
14. Some of the 11 apostles did not believe
Jesus rose from the dead even after the story says they saw him alive after he
died.
15. Luke is guilty of giving a false
impression for his forthrightly admitting his reliance on eyewitnesses while
remaining silent about his reliance on hearsay.
16. The Muratorian Fragment says John’s
initial idea on how to obtain gospel material was to get it by way of
starvation-induced vision, something utterly incompatible with the conservative
Christian notion that John drew mostly on his own memories of literal
historical events.
17. If John wrote a gospel, he didn’t intend
to limit his Christ-sayings to those words that the historical Jesus actually
spoke.
18. John’s account of Jesus’ baptism
justifies the belief that the author of that Gospel had no problems setting
forth visionary material as if it was literal history.
19. There is nothing in the NT to indicate
that Paul physically saw a resurrected Jesus, hence, Paul doesn’t qualify as an
“eye”witness to a resurrected Jesus.
20. The original 11 apostles disagreed with
Paul on what criteria must be fulfilled for a person to qualify as a legitimate
apostle.
21. The apostle Paul confessed his
willingness to misrepresent his true theological convictions to others, where
he thought doing so would convince people to join his cause.
22. Barnabas’ disagreement with Paul about
table fellowship, given that Barnabas was personally chosen by the Holy Spirit
to assist in Pual’s ministry (Acts 13:2) justifies suspicion toward Paul’s
claims to divine inspiration.
23. The shockingly immoral situation in
Paul’s Corinthian church justifies the suspicion that Paul was willing to
characterize unbelievers as true Christians merely because they joined his
cause.
24. James, the leader of the Council of
Jerusalem, was a Judaizer.
25. Peter was a Judaizer.
26. Some of Paul’s doctrines constituted a
perversion of the gospel of Jesus.
27. Paul’s infamous and near total apathy
toward the teachings of the pre-Cross Jesus justify the suspicion that he was
knowingly changing original Christianity away from what Jesus intended.
28. Assuming Jesus rose from the dead, a
Christian’s rejection of everything written by Paul would have no effect on
their spiritual growth.
29. The failure of the church to preserve
into the present the preaching of most of the 500 alleged resurrection
eyewitnesses, is less likely a case of circumstances beyond their control
causing their history to disappear, and is better explained as the 500
witnesses being a fabrication, or their having experienced something less
convincing than a real resurrected Jesus.
30. Some of the apostles’ actions after
Jesus allegedly rose from the dead, indicate that their transformation was
nowhere near the “amazing” thing most Christian apologists say it was.
31. The evidence supporting the notion of
apostles being willing to die for their faith is sufficiently weak and
ambiguous, as to reasonably justify the unbeliever in dismissing this popular
apologetics argument.
32. Luke’s dishonesty as a historian is
amply demonstrated from Acts 15.
33. The anger of the Jewish apostles at
Peter for having eaten with a Gentile believer (Acts 11:1-3) justifies the
suspicion that the parts of the gospels portraying Jesus as having a Gentile
ministry, are fabrications.
34. The Acts 11:18 church viewing Gentile
salvation as some shocking unexpected theological development they’d never have
guessed without Peter’s recent divinely-induced trance, justifies the suspicion
that the parts of the gospels portraying Jesus as having a Gentile ministry,
are fabrications.
35. If the better explanation for these
things in Acts 11 is that the apostles “just didn’t get it”, this legitimately
impeaches their general credibility as resurrection witnesses. If they
could get obvious reality wrong despite three years of Jesus teaching it to
them, why do most Christian apologists tout the reliability of the resurrection
testimony as beyond serious dispute?
36. The first-century church, by their own
admission, was far more prone to creating and nurturing false rumors about the
apostles, than conservative Christian scholars allow.
37. The historical and other errors of the
early church fathers legitimately impeach their general credibility for matters
of apostolic succession and authorship.
38. Under NT theology, the only time sex
within adult-child marriages could be “sin” in the eyes of the bible-god, is a)
where it is prohibited by secular law or b) threatens the life of the female.
39. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 constitute God’s
approval for a Hebrew soldier to obtain a wife by means including forcible
rape.
40. Genesis 6:6-7, Exodus 32:9-14, and
Samuel 15:35 make no logical room for the possibility that God is perfect or
infinitely good.
41. Several passages in the bible portray
God as forcing people to sin against their wills, and thus make no logical room
for the notion that he is intrinsically good. If other bible passages
teach god’s intrinsic goodness, the bible contradicts itself on the matter.
42. Several passages in the bible portray
God as causing men to rape women, thus leaving no logical room for the notion
that he is intrinsically good. If other bible passages teach god’s
intrinsic goodness, the bible contradicts itself on the matter.
43. Several passages in the bible portray
God as requiring his followers to kill children and infants, despite the
availability of other less drastic measures to solve the problem being dealt
with, and thus leave no logical room for the notion that he is intrinsically
good. If other bible passages teach god’s intrinsic goodness, the bible
contradicts itself on the matter.
44. Several passages in the bible portray
God as requiring his followers to burn children to death, and thus leave no
logical room for the notion that he is intrinsically good. If other bible
passages teach god’s intrinsic goodness, the bible contradicts itself on the
matter.
45. If those Christians who deem themselves
spiritually alive perceive possible moral contradictions between the OT Yahweh
and the NT Jesus, such Christians cannot deny the reasonableness of those they
deem spiritually dead for thinking the perceived contradictions are real.
46. Unbelievers have reasonable and rational
justification, in light of the ceaseless debates among conservative Christian
NT scholars, to conclude that the biblical data really are fatally ambiguous
and incapable of allowing reasonably certain conclusions on anything about
Jesus beyond his basic biological historical existence.
47. It is irrational for those Christian NT
scholars who deem themselves spiritually alive, and who yet disagree with each
other on nearly everything the NT teaches, to say that those they deem
spiritually dead, are ‘without excuse’ for rejecting “the” gospel.
I
look forward to dialogue with you.
Barry
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WKbx0dTy_4
