Showing posts with label Papias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Papias. Show all posts

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Under what circumstances did you first conclude that Jesus rose from the dead?

There are two basic types of Christians in the world today:

a) the former atheist who didn't stop mocking Christians with intellectual arguments until they reluctantly had to admit the resurrection hypothesis better explained the data than any skeptical theory, and so by this were finally brought kicking and screaming over the line into faith, or

b) they went to church, heard the pastor rail against sin and how they were in serious trouble with god, accepted Jesus as their savior during an "altar call" sometime thereafter, and have been reading apologetics books on the historicity of Jesus' resurrection through those rose-colored glasses ever since.

Which one are you?

If you try to sound like "a", you sound reasonable and rational to modern audiences who prioritize evidence above all else, but you open yourself up to the possible attack that the basis for your faith was more secular than biblical.

If you try to sound like "b", then the way you came into faith certainly sounds "biblical", but then you open yourself up to the possible attack that says it was something other than evidence upon which you decided to believe the gospel, and therefore, your promotion of historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection is hiding the actual subjective basis that is the real reason you ever came to faith.

Jason Engwer doesn't appreciate the strong justification for skepticism found in John 7:5

Bart Ehrman, like thousands of other skeptics, uses Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 to argue that Jesus' virgin birth (VB) is fiction.  Jason Eng...