Thanks, bro! Why James the Lord's brother keeps Jesus in the grave

Christian apologist Bill Pratt from ToughQuestionsAnswered.org thinks James the brother of the Lord believed Jesus rose from the dead, and uses that alleged belief to support the case for Jesus rising from the dead.

I posted the following reply to him:

Hello,

What would be wrong with concluding, from your admission that Jesus' immediate family rejected his claims during the earthy ministry, that Jesus likely couldn't work real miracles and likely didn't rise from the dead?

I've done an extensive study of every appearance of the name "James" in the NT.

I find unconvincing the arguments of Christian scholars who say James eventually came to believe his brother Jesus rose from the dead.  The evidence for that proposition is weak and ambiguous and requires far more speculation than the competing hypothesis that says James the Lord's brother likely never believed Jesus rose from the dead, and likely remained an unbeliever for the entirety of his association with the post-crucifixion apostles.

If you feel you can show the theory of James thinking his brother rose from the dead, is more reasonable than my theory that James was more likely a lifetime skeptic of Jesus' resurrection, you know where to contact me.   Or if you wish, I can start the discussion with my critique of your arguments.  Sincerely,

barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

 We'll wait to see if Mr. Pratt wishes to engage a clearly sincere request to challenge him with tough questions on the merits, and more.

Tough Questions Answered: Why Don’t the Synoptic Gospels Recount the Raising of Lazarus?

This is my reply to an article at "Tough Questions Answered" entitled

Tough Questions Answered

Why Don’t the Synoptic Gospels Recount the Raising of Lazarus? – #4 Post of 2017

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 06:00 AM PST

Some critics have cast doubt on the veracity of the raising of Lazarus in John’s Gospel because it is not recorded in the other three Gospels.

That's perfectly reasonable given that both historiography and rules of evidence in American courts have prescribed the conditions under which the argument from silence will have force.  Only stupid people insist that all arguments from silence are necessarily fallacious.  Though I admit that this particular argument from Synoptic silence isn't exactly forceful, which is precisely why I don't use it myself.

John’s Gospel is believed to be the last Gospel written, so the critics allege that John invented the story to further his particular agenda.

Because, among other reasons, Clement of Alexandria said John knew the Synoptic authors already published the "external facts", and not wishing to duplicate their efforts, instead wrote a "spiritual gospel".  The way Clement sets "external facts" apart from "spiritual gospel", certainly justifies the interpretation that he meant that John wished to give the reader something "deeper" than mere "external facts".

While that need not require that he invented the resurrection of Lazarus, rules of historiography don't require one interpretation to be "required" before one can be reasonable to hold it.  Otherwise, 99% of all Christians are unreasonable, given their differing views on all biblical matters, since the numbers of disagreements and willingness of Christians to change their minds seems to indicate they don't hold their current interpretations to be "required" except on basics.

Andreas Köstenberger, in The Gospels and Acts (The Holman Apologetics Commentary on the Bible), argues against this viewpoint. 

This critique is part of a larger argument against the historicity of John’s Gospel based on its omission of many events found in the Synoptics and its inclusion of material absent from the other Gospels. However, this critique is ultimately unconvincing. For no matter one’s theory as to how John composed his Gospel, it is apparent that he had a large amount of material from which to choose. If John was aware of the Synoptics as he was writing, which is probable (see Bauckham 1997a, esp. 147– 71; Köstenberger 2009, 553– 55), then he could reasonably be expected to assume much of the material they contain.

I don't see how imparting to John a knowledge of the prior Synoptic gospels, does anything to weaken the argument from silence that says the Synoptic authors didn't know Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, because they surely would have mentioned such a strong supporting proof for their theory that Jesus was God's Son, had they known about it, or believed the story to be true.

It his unlikely that they would have known and believed such story but yet "chose to exclude" it from their gospels nonetheless.  This whole idea that the gospel authors "chose to exclude" ANYTHING they believed God did on earth in the person of Jesus, just doesn't make sense.  If the gospel authors seriously believed Jesus was the divine Son of God, they would more than likely have found it best to record as many of his words and deeds as they could possibly remember.  Choosing to exclude some of these is what we'd expect only if they viewed Jesus as something less.

Other Christians agree that John's gospel is far more complicated than the "external facts" that average Christians think that gospel provides.  It is far from certain John is talking about real events when describing something Jesus said or did.

On the other hand, if John wrote without knowledge of the Synoptics, then it is likely that at least some of the differences can be attributed to the large amount of material from which he had to choose.

Since I late-date John, I need not worry about the possibility of John being ignorant of the Synoptics.

This corresponds with what John later writes: ‘Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book’ (20: 30).

The author felt compelled to admit he wasn't giving a full record.  Obviously, he was a truth-robot, incapable of lying. Please excuse me while I go consign the rest of my life to investigating biblical inerrancy.

Craig Blomberg rightly notes, ‘Any two ancient historians’ accounts of a given person or period of history differ from each other at least as much as John does from the Synoptics, when they do not rely on common sources for their information’ (Blomberg 2007, 207).

The issue is not John "differing" from the Synoptics, it is the Synoptic silence on the resurrection of Lazarus, and the argument that they surely would have mentioned it had they believed it true, that justifies skepticism toward John 11, even if such argument is not a "smack-down".  Christ knows apologists don't have any "smackdowns" themselves.

In addition, it stands to reason that John had his own theological emphases and unique perception of the significance of the events surrounding Jesus, not to mention his own individuality, style, interests, and distinctive eyewitness recollection from which to draw.

Doesn't matter, the resurrection of Lazarus ranks high on the scale of proofs that Jesus was the divine son of God, so it doesn't matter if it is true that the Synoptic authors believed it true but chose to exclude it for their own literary reasons from their own productions...the claim that John's gospel is historically reliable is a claim implicating historiography, which is an art implicating probability theory, which is a science implicating discussion of the argument from silence, which is an argument whose force depends on how likely it is that the author, whose silence is in question, would have mentioned a thing, had the author known of the thing.

The Synoptic authors' agenda was to provide literary evidence that Jesus was the divine son of God.  Sorry, but only stupid people "choose to exclude" the most dramatic evidence underscoring their case.  One has to wonder why the gospels authors picked and chose as they allegedly did, when in fact any Christian fool today can conceive of far more persuasive ways the gospel authors could have made their case.  Such as comprehensively indexing each and every miracle of Jesus, names of eyewitnesses, obtaining their testimony, and recording how Jesus' brothers answered the question of why they refused to believe in him during his earthly ministry (John 7:5, Mark 3:21).  It is to the gospel authors' detriment that far more efficient and accurate means of arguing gospel truth were available to them, than the sorry 4 productions we now call canonical.

And the more you attempt to trifle that the Synoptic authors wished to prove their case only implicitly, the more you get crushed under the wheels of the the Transfiguration; Matthew 17:2, Mark 9:2, Luke 9:29.  The Synoptic authors were not likely to hold back from giving the reader knowledge of the more dramatic proofs Jesus gave of his divinity.

If the raising of Lazarus really did occur, why would the other Gospel authors fail to include it in their biographies? Surely an event of this significance would necessitate inclusion, the critics argue.  Köstenberger disagrees:
 Why does an event require multiple attestations in the Gospels to be considered historical?

It doesn't.  The rule is the more attestation, the more likely true, the less attestation, the less likely true.  No, genius, we don't "just" believe singular testimony from ancient sources until a skeptic can prove it false, otherwise, since protestants cannot prove false the many allegations of Marian apparitions and healings in Fatima and Lourdes, they are obligated by their own reasoning to accept those accounts not just as true, but as also establishing the Catholic version of Christianity to be true.  

Throughout the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus performs a host of miracles, including raising people from the dead (an admittedly rare feature), so critics certainly cannot legitimately argue that Lazarus’ resurrection fails to comport with the general Synoptic portrait of Jesus.

The Synoptic evidence of Jesus raising people from the dead is scant and not very convincing:

They give a general report that Jesus raised people from the dead (Matthew 11:5 / Luke 7:22), but a detailed analysis justifies skepticism toward this generalization.

Jesus specifies that Jarius' daughter was not dead but rather asleep (Matthew 9:24).

The parallel from Mark 5:39, by having Jesus specifically wonder and inquire why the people would be so upset when she hasn't died, confirms that it was literally true that he hadn't died.

The parallel in Luke 8:52 also has Jesus specify that the girl wasn't actually dead, but only sleeping.

In Luke 7:11-18, it is specified several times that the person on the coffin whom Jesus raised back to life had actually been dead.  This weakens to some degree the skeptical argument that the Lazarus story in John 11 is fiction due to Synoptical silence on it.  But because this particular story is found only in Luke, Luke's credibility is at issue.  Luke's report of the Council of Jerusalem spends 98% of Acts 15 telling about the apostolic arguments, and about 2% recording short summary statements of the Judaizer opinion, so Luke's bias is sufficiently high in favor of his own party that skepticism of his honesty is justified.  Most scholars agree Luke depended to a significant degree on Mark, which makes Luke a liar for saying in his Preface that he drew from eyewitness testimony, leaving the false impression that eyewitness testimony is ALL he used.

But that Jesus' miracles during his earthly ministry were likely fake is justified on the basis the unbelief of his own family members in John 7:5, a point in time about a third of the way into his earthly ministry.

Matthew 11, John the Baptist sends from prison a question to Jesus about whether he is the messiah.  Jesus asks his disciples to answer John the Baptist by mentioning that among the miracles, raising people from the dead is something Jesus has already done at that point:

 1 When Jesus had finished giving instructions to His twelve disciples, He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities.
 2 Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples
 3 and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?"
 4 Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you hear and see:
 5 the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. (Matt. 11:1-5 NAU)

Luke 7 is the parallel:

19 Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?"
 20 When the men came to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask, 'Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?'"
 21 At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who were blind.
 22 And He answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. (Lk. 7:19-22 NAU)

It thus appears that about a third of the way through his earthly ministry, Jesus had raised people from the dead, and yet it is about a third of the way through his earthly ministry that John says is the point at which his "brothers" were still refusing to believe in him, John 7:5.

From this I deduce that his brothers likely had good reason to believe whatever miracles Jesus was doing, were not likely to be authentically supernatural.  John 7:5 passes the criteria of embarrassment, so that verse deserves our trust more than other parts of John.

And because the circumstances of how exactly the brothers of Jesus named James and John rose to positions of leadership in the post-resurrection church are never stated in the bible, we have justification to believe that they obtained those positions more because of their relation to Jesus and less because of any theory that they believed Jesus risen from the dead.

Indeed, there is no evidence Jesus' brothers did ever believe, until after Jesus died.  So his brothers apparently stayed in unbelief throughout the entirety of Jesus' earthly three year ministry...(!?)

You lose, no matter what theory you fantasize about.  If you say Jesus' brothers during his earthly ministry were just stupid idiots would couldn't get the point if they sat on it, then you lay a good ground for skeptics to say their resurrection testimony lacks credibility.  If you were falsely accused or murder and facing a prosecution witness on the stand whose credulity soared the same heights as those of Jesus' brothers during his earthly ministry, you'd be screaming your head off about how absurd it is to believe willfully blind idiots like this.

If you say Jesus' brothers didn't believe him in spite of the miracles because they had good reason to believe those miracles were fake, then such fakery justifies skepticism of Christianity in general.

The desire of John and James to allocate the entire Gentile ministry to Paul while they themselves would confine their ministry solely to Jews (Galatians 2:9), constitutes their disobedience to the resurrected Jesus' alleged mandate that they, and the original 11 disciples, evangelize the Gentiles (Matthew 28:19-20).

Therefore, we are justified to believe that if John and James got to high positions in the church after Jesus died, they likely did so through sheer politics in spite of their less-than-amazing experience with the allegedly resurrected Jesus, which means they carried around unbelief toward their messiah brother despite his alleged doing of miracles during their lifetimes where they could have checked the facts very easily.

This problem of the unbelief of Jesus' brothers during Jesus' earthly ministry either justifies rejection of Christianity in whole, or justifies viewing the resurrection testimony of these dolts as more credulous than believable.  God gave Adam and Eve freewill...it's your choice.

Although it is impossible to know for certain why a given author selects or omits particular material in his or her account, one possible reason for the omission of the story of Lazarus in the other Gospels is their focus on Galilee (the raising of Lazarus takes place in Judea). Also, in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Bauckham (2006, 184– 87) cites favorably G. Theissen’s theory of ‘protective anonymity,’ according to which the evangelists sought to shield individuals who were still living from persecution by not naming them.

So the gospel authors did not agree with the author of Acts, that suffering for the name of Christ was a blessed thing about which one should be happy.  Acts 5:41.  Another reason to think Acts has, at best, white-washed history.  Nobody said truth is required to create a spiritually edifying story.

If Lazarus was still alive when the Synoptic Gospels were written, but died in the interim between their publication and the composition of John’s Gospel,

Sorry, John 11 contains a shitload of evidence that Lazarus' raising was to teach "resurrection", not "reviving", and as such, if he was "resurrected", honesty requires that he was raised in a resurrection body that cannot die.  Skeptics have everything in John 11 on their side, Christians (who say Lazarus died again) have NOTHING in John 11 on their side to support their theory.  

this, likewise, may account for the Synoptic non-inclusion of the account and John’s inclusion of it. Lazarus’s death would have meant he no longer needed protection from persecution, so that John was free to include the account of his raising from the dead by Jesus.

Sure, skeptics who push the argument of the Synoptic silence on Lazarus, aren't giving the world's most powerful argument, but that criticism plagues Christian apologists equally well.

I believe that the argument from John 7:5 is conclusive against any trifles of gospel miracle details any apologist can bring up.

Tough Questions Answered: How Did Paul Find Common Ground with Greek Intellectuals in Acts 17?

This is my reply to a Tough Questions Answered article entitled

           

How Did Paul Find Common Ground with Greek Intellectuals in Acts 17?

Posted: 25 Aug 2017 06:00 AM PDT

Darrell Bock, in Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, provides an excellent analysis of Paul’s speech to the Athenian Areopagus in Acts 17. Bock demonstrates how the beginning of Paul’s oration found common ground with his Greek audience. By studying Paul’s technique, we can learn how to find common ground with members of our culture who are biblically illiterate.

And the desire to find common ground makes it seem you don't believe the Holy Spirit will be quite as successful with your audience without this secular persuasion technique.  This tells me that at least unconsciously you believe there's nothing more to your selling of God to others, than there is when Arnie sells a used car.  If the Holy Spirit can convict of sin without the human speaker establishing common ground with the unbeliever, why did Paul wish to seek common ground?  Could it be that this is the expected fruit of a man who thinks God can be assisted by employment of secular psychological tactics?

snip

    In addition, ‘we are his offspring’ (γένος ἐσμέν, genos esmen). The expression that we are God’s offspring comes from another pagan poet, Aratus (ca. 315–240 BC), Phaenomena 5 (some scholars also note Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus; Marshall 1980: 289; but Fitzmyer 1998: 611 rejects a connection to Cleanthes). Paul explicitly notes this connection in introducing the citation as coming from ‘some of your poets.’ Paul is working with ideas in the Greek world that are familiar to the Athenians and only alludes to Scripture in his speech instead of quoting it directly. The text from Aratus, as Paul uses it, recognizes the shared relationship all people have to God.

Paul was also taking it out of context, since the immediate context Aratus gave, clearly indicates the god is Zeus and "offspring" meant humans are little gods:

 PHAENOMENA, TRANSLATED BY G. R. MAIR 
[1] From Zeus let us begin; him do we mortals never leave unnamed; full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men; full is the sea and the havens thereof; always we all have need of Zeus. For we are also his offspring; and he in his kindness unto men giveth favourable signs and wakeneth the people to work, reminding them of livelihood. He tells what time the soil is best for the labour of the ox and for the mattock, and what time the seasons are favourable both for the planting of trees and for casting all manner of seeds. For himself it was who set the signs in heaven, and marked out the constellations, and for the year devised what stars chiefly should give to men right signs of the seasons, to the end that all things might grow unfailingly. Wherefore him do men ever worship first and last. Hail, O Father, mighty marvel, mighty blessing unto men. Hail to thee and to the Elder Race! Hail, ye Muses, right kindly, every one! But for me, too, in answer to my prayer direct all my lay, even as is meet, to tell the stars.

What would you do if you found out that in the immediate context of the pagan poem Paul quoted, Aratus was talking about people being the children of Zeus?

Would you continue asserting what you've confidently asserted your whole life, namely, that the person who takes a text out of context has engaged in obvious wrong-doing?

Or did you suddenly discover, just now, that taking things out of context can sometimes be a good thing? When is the last time you ever entertained such a stupid notion that taking things out of context could ever be acceptable? 

 

There's no denying Paul took Aratus out of context, so instead of doing the obvious and concluding Paul was wrong to take something out of context, just like you always insist this is wrong for everybody else to do, you instead insist that this act which everybody has always agreed is always wrong, an act that you've used to definitively prove the dishonesty of skeptics and cultists, and now you get a flash of knowledge that perhaps taking something out of context isn't necessarily always indicative of stupidity or dishonesty.

If Paul believed Hebrews 4:12 or the same as that verse, that the word of God is alive and powerful, would he have attempted to find common ground with the pagans by quoting their own devilish polytheistic and fictional literature?

Isn't it more likely that, if Paul believed the same as Hebrews 4:12, he would have concluded that finding common ground is the less forceful way to convince pagans, and the clear settled word of God is the most powerful took in his arsenal to fight through their ingrained paganism?

When you evangelize a Hindu, do you try to find common ground by quoting something from the Vedas? Stupid, right?

If any of this Acts 17 scene is historically true, then Paul clearly had less faith in the revealed word of God to convict pagans of their error, than he had in the purely naturalistic approach of establishing common ground with them. But there is no common ground possible anyway:

15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? (2Co 6:15-16 NAU)

 

Conservative Inerrantist commentators agree Paul was quoting a text that was originally about Zeus, see "Ashamed of the Gospel (3rd Edition): When the Church Becomes Like the World", By John MacArthur, Crossway Pub. 2010, p. 159), so you don't have the option of saying this part of Aratus' poem was inspired by God.

A Christian professor of classics admits that Paul did not use this quotation according to its originally intended Stoic sense:

It is noteworthy that Aratus commences his poem with the words, "let us begin with Zeus," for the gods who were conventionally invoked by Greek poets were the Muses, the goddesses of poetic inspiration. Aratus' contemporaries would have been struck by this change, by which the poet lends a religious Stoic tenor into the Phaenomena. To ancient Greeks Zeus was the sky-god whose control over the sun and clouds directly concerned human beings; mention of him at the outset of a work on constellations and weather is therefore appropriate. For Hellenistic Stoics, however, Zeus was another name for that force which controlled the universe and resided in man and beast. It is a kind of pantheism which Aratus advances in these opening lines:the divine Reason permeates every facet of human endeavour. The city-streets and market-places, the seas and harbours are filled with the presence of this deity (lines 2-3). Zeus must be praised at the start of his poem because this "world-soul" controls the cosmos. Mankind is, according to such belief, part of that environment and so "is indebted to Zeus." The omnipotence of Zeus is expressed with the words "for we are indeed his offspring." Literally the poet states that we are of the race (genos) of Zeus. Thus the ancient weather-god, once depicted in anthropomorphic terms, is replaced by the Stoics with an abstract force which pervades the entire world.

Having noted the context of the half-verse "for we are indeed his offspring," the reader will conclude that the apostle Paul does not quote this passage in complete agreement with its meaning and intent, but in order to show that even to some Greek thinkers and writers the idea of an anthropomorphic Zeus is false.

Verses 24-31 of chapter 17 clarify Paul's use of the quotation in declaring the gospel of repentance to the Athenians. When he cites the saying that man is God's offspring, Paul employs the words in light of God's self-revelation in the Old Testament. Mankind was created in the image and likeness of God, as revealed in Genesis 1 :26-27. Paul does not give the phrase "for we are indeed His offspring" the meaning which Stoics do; rather, he uses it to preach that God abhors idolatrous worship. Paul had stated earlier in his speech that God does not "live in shrines made by man" (24). After quoting Aratus the apostle says that the Deity is not "like gold, or silver, or stone" (25). Surely Paul has in mind the second commandment here, as stated, for example, in Leviticus 26:1 "you shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no graven image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land." The Stoics had rightly reasoned that if mankind is the offspring of God, then the living God cannot be represented by an inanimate object. Paul himself writes elsewhere that God's eternal power and deity are visible in creation (Romans 1 :20). And in yet another context the apostle restates in general terms what he says specifically to the Athenian populace in Acts 17: "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, 'I will live in them and move among them' (2 Corinthians 6:16)." Thus on the Areopagus Paul points out that the Athenians had exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man.

Verses 24-31 also makes clear that Paul does not adopt the Stoic theology of a guiding principle as expressed by Aratus; the apostle depicts God as the Creator, whose person is real. In verse 25 the missionary reminds his listeners that God is the creator of the universe, who has no need of human idolatrous adoration. Here Paul may have in mind Psalm 50:7-15, where the Lord states that He does not require sacrifices from mortals, for all the world and everything in it is His by virtue of His work of creation. And to underscore the personal quality of the true God Paul states that God has "overlooked" the times of ignorance (30), "commands" all men to repent (31), since He has fixed a day when He "will judge" (31) the world by Christ whom He "has appointed" (31). Thus the apostle in no way identifies with Stoic or Epicurean theology, but declares the God who is Creator and Judge.

Do you agree with this professor that "the apostle Paul does not quote this passage in complete agreement with its meaning and intent"?

If so, what else are you doing when you quote a passage not in complete agreement with its meaning and intent, except quoting it out of context?

The desire to vindicate Paul regardless of how good the evidence against him is, is rather difficult to resist, amen?

 

Clement of Alexandria believed Paul was quoting from Aratus.  From Stomata, Book 1, ch. XIX:

Since, then, the Greeks are testified to have laid down some true opinions, we may from this point take a glance at the testimonies. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, is recorded to have said to the Areopagites, “I perceive that ye are more than ordinarily religious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with the inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him; though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we also are His offspring.”
Whence it is evident that the apostle, by availing himself of poetical examples from the Phenomena of Aratus, approves of what had been well spoken by the Greeks; and intimates that, by the unknown God, God the Creator was in a roundabout way worshipped by the Greeks; but that it was necessary by positive knowledge to apprehend and learn Him by the Son. 

Does a pagan take Genesis 1:1 out of context by using it to show that Zeus created the world?  If so, then necessarily, by the same logic, you believe that when Paul quoted a pagan text about Zeus for the proposition that the biblical god is the father of all people, he was taking that pagan text out of context. 

 

Either way, the revealed word of God provides plenty of ammo to fight against ingrained paganism, so Paul's attempt to evangelize using more methods than simply the sure-fire word of God, indicates his lack of faith that God's word is powerful. You don't see Peter coddling the scruples of any Jews in Acts 2, do you? Apparently, successful evangelism of those most against the gospel does not require establishing any common ground whatsoever.

Augustine didn't hold back from admitting Paul quoted Aratus out of context.  From Schaff's edition, Augustine, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily 38  Acts 17:16, 17:

 And he does not say, “Through Him,” but, what was nearer than this, “In him.” - That poet said nothing equal to this, “For we are His offspring.” He, however, spake it of Jupiter, but Paul takes it of the Creator, not meaning the same being as he, God forbid! but meaning what is properly predicated of God: just as he spoke of the altar with reference to Him, not to the being whom they worshiped. As much as to say, “For certain things are said and done with reference to this (true God), but ye know not that they are with reference to Him.” For say, of whom would it be properly said, “To an Unknown God?” Of the Creator, or of the demon? Manifestly of the Creator: because Him they knew not, but the other they knew. Again, that all things are filled (with the presence) - of God? or of Jupiter - a wretch of a man, a detestable impostor! But Paul said it not in the same sense as he, God forbid! but with quite a different meaning. For he says we are God’s offspring, i.e. God’s own, His nearest neighbors as it were. 

DeSilva cites E. Ferguson's noting the pantheistic nature of the Aratus quote: 

E. Ferguson notes another conceptual similarity to be the idea of kinship with the divine. 29 The citation from Aratus in Acts 17:28 (“for we are of his offspring”) documents the Stoic concept 30 as does, for example, Epictetus, who speaks of Zeus as the father of humankind (whom Odysseus even regarded as a personal father-like guardian). 31 Paul’s similar statement in Gal 3:26 (“for you are all children of God”) distinguishes itself from the Stoic counterpart by the addition of “in Christ Jesus” and “through faith” as the qualifiers. For the Stoic, there were no qualifiers on kinship with the divine, a relationship all held to the deity by virtue of being the deity’s workmanship together with the rest of nature. Similarly the Stoics held that all parts of the universe formed a whole, and to describe this they employed the metaphor of a body and its component members. 32

29 29. Ferguson, Backgrounds 293.

30 30. Aratus Phaenomena 5.

31 31. Epictetus Dissertations 3.24.

32 32. Cf. ibid. 2.10.4-5; Seneca Ep. 95.52: “All that you behold, that which comprises both god and man, is one—we are the parts of one great body,” cited by Fee, First Corinthians 602.

 JETS 38/4 (December 1995 ) 554,

"Paul And The Stoa: A Comparison", David A. Desilva*

The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.

1998 (electronic edition.). Garland, TX: Galaxie Software. 

In 1995 David deSilva was assistant professor of NT

and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary 

J.D. Charles admits Paul's source is Aratus, and that similar language is found in other Stoics, but the point is that the fundie Christian cannot escape Paul taking Aratus out of context merely by whining that Paul's dependence on specifically Aratus for the quote isn't concretely established:  The Stoic view was pantheistic, so it doesn't matter if Paul was quoting any of them directly or indirectly, he still took the pantheistic statement out of context, given the pantheistic intentions of the Stoic authors writing such stuff.  When you quote a Stoic view of God to get Stoic interested in hearing your perspective, you are leaving them with the false impression that you approve of the theology in the quote, and indeed, Paul nowhere expresses or implies that the pantheistic Stoic view is incorrect:

The second citation, “We are his offspring,” stems from the third-century BC Stoic philosopher Aratus, who, significantly, hailed from Paul’s native Cilicia. Aratus penned these words in a poem in honor of Zeus. Titled Phaenomena, the poem is an interpretation of constellations and weather signs. It reads that “in all things each of us needs Zeus, for we are also his offspring.” Without question, “his offspring” is sure to resonate with any Stoic present in the audience.67

----67 “Phaen 5. It is difficult to confine with precision these words to Aratus of Soli alone, given the fact that this language appears in numerous ancient sources. For example, the words of Cleanthes, another third-century BC. Stoic, are comparable: “You, O Zeus, are praised above all gods… Unto you may all flesh speak, for we are your offspring” (the text is reproduced in M. Pohlenz, “Kleanthes Zeushymnus,” Hermes 75 [1940] 117–23). Similarly, the third-century BC poet Callimachus, in a hymn “To Zeus,” speaks of humankind as “offspring of the earth” (Hymns, Epigrams, Select Fragments [Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University, 1988] 3).

"Engaging the (Neo)Pagan Mind:   Paul’s Encounter with Athenian Culture as a Model for Cultural Apologetics"  (Acts 17:16–34, J. Daryl Charles, TrinJ 16:1 (Spring 1995) 58,
Trinity Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Deerfield, IL: Trinity Seminary.

If Paul has no problem quoting pagan literature out of context, what exactly is wrong with concluding that he likely didn't have a problem quoting the OT out of context either? If Paul didn't think he did something wrong in taking Aratus out of context, he likely wouldn't believe that taking the OT texts out of context was something wrong either.

 

 Paul even misquoted the sign "to the unknown god", as Jerome says that sign had read "to the unknown gods" plural, and he says Paul changed it to a singular god to make the intended comparison easier to maintain than it really was. 

 

 In Jerome's Commentary on Titus 1:12, Jerome says the signs in question would have been in the plural, such as "To the Gods of Asia and Europe and Africa, to unknown and strange gods":

It has often been discussed whether Paul took a certain degree of “homiletical license” in his reference to the inscription “to an unknown god.” Jerome thought so, arguing in his Commentary on Titus (1:12) that there were altars in Athens dedicated to “unknown gods” and that Paul had adapted the plural “gods” to the singular “god” in light of his monotheistic sermon.78 Pagan writers also attested to the presence of altars “to unknown gods” but always in the plural. For instance, the Traveler Pausanias, writing in the middle of the second century A.D., described the presence of altars to gods of unknown names on the road from Phalerum to Athens and an altar “to unknown gods” at Olympia.79 Written in the third century, Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana also refers to these Athenian altars “to unknown gods.”80 There is thus ample literary evidence that Paul did not fabricate his allusion, that there were in fact such altars in Athens. Whether they were invariably inscribed in the plural or whether there was one dedicated to a single “unknown god” remains an open question.

Polhill, J. B. (2001, c1992). Vol. 26: Acts (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;
The New American Commentary (Page 371). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

  snip

In like manner, when we engage anyone with the truths of Christianity, we must find common ground first.

That doesn't cohere with biblical statements that God's word is powerful on its own (Isaiah 55:10-11, Hebrews 4:12) and conflicts with Peter's alleged ability to successfully evangelize Jews without needing to coddle their scruples in Acts 2.   Really now, if you think you need to quote something from the Vedas to establish common ground with the Hindu you are attempting to evangelize, you are saying you think the Holy Spirit can be helped with secular persuasion techniques.  But if the Holy Spirit truly is moving through your preaching, it is highly unlikely that he needs you to employ naturalistic bridging-tactics to successfully convict them of their sin.

Tough Questions Answered: Pretending Acts 15 is reliable history

 This is my reply to an article from "Tough Questions Answered" entitled 

Commentary on Acts 15 (Jerusalem Council)

Posted: 18 Aug 2017 06:00 AM PDT

In AD 48, some Jewish Christians from Jerusalem come to Syrian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas’ home church. These men from Jerusalem argue that Gentile Christians must be circumcised and adhere to the Mosaic Law if they want to be truly saved.

Which raises legitimate questions such as:

If Paul was the inerrant truth-robot today's fundamentalist Christians think he is, how could his own churches produce legalists of such significant popularity that it took a meeting of Christianity's finest to answer them?  Could it possibly be that the arguments of the Judaizers were far more difficult to answer, than what we can infer from the NT rebuttals to them?

Was Paul such a dolt that despite his establishing churches, he couldn't say enough to keep in check the kind of theological aberration today's inerrantists think is "obviously" heretical?

Paul and Barnabas disagree, so the church in Antioch appoint Paul and Barnabas to go to the mother church in Jerusalem, where they will convene with the apostles and elders there.

Barnabas was personally selected by the Holy Spirit to assist Paul in the Gentile ministry (Acts 13:2), so if a person whose knowledge of Paul was more intimate than anything we could have today, wasn't convinced that Paul had the truth, it is rather immature and presumptuous for today's fundamentalist Christians to act as if the truth of Paul's doctrines is a foregone conclusion. 

The journey to Jerusalem probably takes a month or more, so Paul and Barnabas stop along the way and visit several churches in Phoenicia and Samaria. At each stop, they relay the news that Gentiles are converting in high numbers, and the news is met with great joy.

When they arrive at Jerusalem, they meet with the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church, along with several other members of the Jerusalem church. Paul and Barnabas describe in detail the conversion of Gentiles during their first missionary journey into Asia Minor.

Paul's stories of conversions need not be considered any more authoritative than the same reports coming from Benny Hinn or Bill Graham.  Smart people realize perfectly well that most such alleged converts aren't true converts. Paul's admission that most of his churches were constituted of intellectually ignorant people and other lower social classes (1st Cor. 1:26) increases the likelihood that something other than appreciation for Paul's intellectual justifications of doctrine is what motivated them to convert. And Paul explicitly admitted God did not want him to preach the gospel in ways the world would deem skillful or wise, because academically persuasive preaching would void the power of the cross,  1st Cor. 1:17.

After they finish speaking, a group of Christians who were formerly Pharisees rise to argue that these Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. John Polhill, in vol. 26, Acts, The New American Commentary, writes:

    It should come as no surprise that some of the Pharisees had become Christians. Pharisees believed in resurrection, life after death, and the coming Messiah. They shared the basic convictions of the Christians. Because of this they are sometimes in Acts found defending the Christians against the Sadducees, who had much less in common with Christian views (cf. 5:17; 23:8f.). A major barrier between Christians and Pharisees was the extensive use of oral tradition by the Pharisees, which Jesus and Paul both rejected as human tradition. It is not surprising that some Pharisees came to embrace Christ as the Messiah in whom they had hoped. For all their emphasis on law, it is also not surprising that they would be reticent to receive anyone into the fellowship in a manner not in accordance with tradition. That tradition was well-established for proselytes—circumcision and the whole yoke of the law.

On the contrary, if we assume Paul's version of the gospel is what Jesus and James also taught, it is an eye-popping mystery how legalistic Pharisees who think Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved, could possibly be genuine converts to a religious system that preaches the exact opposite.   This is how you solve that mystery:  Christianity in the first century consisted of at least two competing factions; the legalistic Judaizers headed by Peter/James/John, and the non-legalists headed by Paul.  Inerrantist attempts to reconcile NT statements about some apostles' legalism, with Paul's law-free gospel, are laughably trifling word-games played by inerrantists who live under a childish sense of black and white certainty.

A lengthy debate ensues, although Luke leaves out the details.

What would your opinion be of an atheist who wrote up an online review of an atheist-Christian debate not otherwise recorded, wherein the atheist reporter represents the Christian position with two sentences, but spends the next few pages giving numerous details for the atheist arguments and how these were approved by other atheists?

Would you say such a reporter appears more interested in spinning history than in fair and balanced reporting?  Luke says nothing more about how the Judaizers argued their case, except a single summary statement (15:1) repeated one time (v. 5), then spends the entire rest of ch. 15 focusing on the apostolic viewpoint.

I say Luke is lying, James was the leader of the Judaizers at that Council (if it even ever happened), and either a) James Peter and John agreed with the Judaizers that Gentile men must be circumcised to be saved, or b) despite viewing Paul as a heretic, they decided in his favor anyway, because giving Paul that much leeway would likely result in Paul sending the Jerusalem church financial donations from the Gentile churches.  You scream about how stupid Mormonism is all day long, but if you were drowning and the only person who could save you was a Mormon lifeguard, how loudly would be you screaming about Mormonism's falsehoods as you are being rescued?

So then, don't discount the historical plausibility of the original apostles believing the material benefits of making Paul part of the club, outweighed the risks of obstinately pointing out his doctrinal errors.

After listening to both sides, Peter, as the leader of the apostles, stands to speak. In verses 7-9, Peter recounts his experience with Cornelius and his household (Acts 10), an event which had occurred some ten years earlier. The Holy Spirit had been given to Cornelius because his heart had been cleansed by faith, not by circumcision or by following the law of Moses. Peter then argues that to require Gentiles to follow the Law would be to challenge God Himself. After all, if God does not require circumcision and Law adherence, then why should the Christian leadership add these burdens to the Gentiles? Peter closes by reiterating that “we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Why don't any of the apostles make the one argument that the canonical gospels indicate would have been the most powerful, namely, that the Judaizers are in error because Jesus preached the gospel to plenty of Gentiles for three years prior and never once required them to get circumcised?  Did not Jesus preach his gospel to Gentiles to the point of causing massive crowds of them to gather around him (Mark 1:45, Matthew 4:15, Luke 5:15, etc)?

Aren't you just a little suspicious about the fact that in Acts 15, the apostolic response avoids resting on the obvious authority of Jesus every bit as much as Paul himself avoids it in his epistles? 

Or maybe the Judaizers were correct, and the reason they started a stir that required a meeting of Christianity's finest is because their arguments were weighty and powerful and that's why Luke never tells us what arguments they made to support their beliefs...had he done so, it would be clear that the the apostolic reliance on shallow OT exegesis and praise reports from newly established Gentiles churches would make the apostles the losers of this Acts 15 debate.  By kepeing the reader from knowing how powerful the Judaizer case can be made, the apostolic response revealed in the text need not be very substantive.

Read what Jesus said and ask yourself whether Exodus 12:48 was a part of the Law at the time:

 17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
 19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
 20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.   (Matt. 5:17-20 NAU)

At the time Jesus said that, the Law excluded Gentiles from covenant with God unless they got circumcised:

 48 "But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
 49 "The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you." (Exod. 12:48-49 NAU)

Regardless, as long as the canonical gospels continuing having Jesus surrounded with large crowds, fundamentalists are going to look stupid insisting that by some miraculous accident, Jesus never had opportunity to answer the question of whether Gentiles need to be circumcised to be saved.

The whole assembly falls silent until Barnabas and Paul speak up again and describe the miracles that God performed during their mission trip to the Gentiles in Asia Minor.

Sort of like Benny Hinn refuting your accusations of his teaching heresy, because he can allege miracles and conversions in several of his churches.  That phenomena hardly suffices to get him or Paul out of their theological jams.  Any fool can "start a church" and allege "miracles".

James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the elders of the Jerusalem church, now stands to speak.

To clarify, James, a brother of Jesus, who with brother John remained singularly unimpressed with Jesus' miracles (John 7:5).  Unless we count James and John willfully blind idiots, their rejection of their own brother Jesus as Messiah during his physical life justifies the contention that Jesus was an actual fraud...in turn justifying the conclusion that frauds do not rise from the dead.  If James "converted", he only converted to a gospel version that pleased Judaizers (Acts 21:20), and then there's no reason to believe he took the Christian religion any more seriously than Benny Hinn.

James makes the case that Peter’s experience with Cornelius is a precise fulfillment of prophecy.

Once again, under inerrantist assumptions, it is shockingly unexpected that a brother of Jesus who became leader over the Jerusalem church, should think making questionable interpretation of the OT is the best way to resolve a circumcision issue that Jesus himself surely had ample opportunity in three years of preaching to resolve.  What would you think of a Christian apologist who argued that Psalm 16 was a sufficient proof that Jesus rose from the dead, and then never quoted anything in the NT to substantiate Jesus rising from the dead?

Regardless, the fact that Peter feared the legalistic "men from James" (Gal. 2:12) despite knowing James personally, argues he knew their legalism was a correct representation of James' own doctrinal position...and this being so, Luke is lying in Acts 15:24, the real true and legalistic James likely did authorize emissaries to travel to Antioch to impose the circumcision requirement on Gentile converts.

Darrell Bock, in Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, explains that “James’s quotation matches Amos 9:11–12 LXX with material in verse 18 from Isa. 45:21. Jeremiah 12:15 may be the source for the opening ‘After these things I will return,’ but this is less than clear, since the phrases may be only a transition into the citation that shows how James sees the timing.”

Once again, the Jewish apostles on Acts 15 appear suspiciously Pauline in how they avoid the obvious authority of Jesus in favor of resting their conclusions about important matters on how they interpret the OT.  James said nothing of the sort, this is just Luke putting words in James' mouth to make it appear that the mother church spoke and taught more like Paul than they actually did.

Bock adds:

    The reference to the prophets is important. James’s point is not just about this one passage from Amos; rather, this passage reflects what the prophets teach in general, or what the book of the Prophets as a whole teaches. Other texts could be noted (Zech. 2:11; 8:22; Isa. 2:2; 45:20–23; Hos. 3:4–5; Jer. 12:15–16). James is stressing fulfillment, for the prophets agree with what Peter has described.

 But it is more likely, under inerrantist-assumptions, that James knew that Jesus taught against the Judaizer position.  So the apostolic failure here to rely on the obvious authority of Jesus remains a problem inerrantists cannot resolve in terms of historical plausibility or probability.

This is not an affirmation of analogous fulfillment but a declaration that this is now taking place.

...which makes the account all the less believable.  How could Gentile salvation be such a post-resurrection development like this (i.e., "now" taking place), if the canonical gospels are correct in representing Jesus as having a mix of Jewish and Gentile followers (Matthew 4:15, etc)? 

God had promised Gentile inclusion; now he is performing it. Paul cites a string of OT texts on this theme in Rom. 15:7–13.

Common sense says if the prophets predicted Gentile inclusion, the fulfillment was Christ's own mission to the Gentiles:

 12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee;
 13 and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.
 14 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet:
 15 "THE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI, BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES--
 16 "THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED."
 17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. 4:12-17 NAU)

 The presentation in Acts that Gentiles are "now" being included, clashes in bright sparks with the canonical gospel presupposition that inclusion of Gentiles was already established.

The prophets predicted that the Gentiles would be added to God’s people. They would be added when the house of David was restored. The house of David was rebuilt in Jesus of Nazareth, the descendant of David and long-awaited Messiah. Bock notes that the

    goal of this rebuilding work is to allow the rest of humanity, not just Jews, to seek God. This fulfills not only the promise to David about his line but also a commitment to Abraham that through his seed the world would experience blessing (Gen. 12:3; Acts 3:25–26; Gal. 3). Thus James argues that this Gentile inclusion is part of the plan of Davidic restoration that God through the prophets said he would do. The prophets affirm what is taking place now. So both divine events and Scripture sustain the church’s inclusion of Gentiles.

Just one problem:  Luke doesn't tell us about 99% of the Judaizer response, so just how acceptable other Christians found this questionable use of the OT will never be known.  Indeed, it would be reasonable to conclude that the Judaizers cited to Jesus' words to substantiate their position, so much that Luke could not have honestly recorded their response without making the apostles look as willfully stupid as humans are capable of being.

In James’ opinion, the Gentile converts need not be circumcised nor follow the law of Moses to be saved.

An issue he'd never have needed to comment on if the apostle's message was doctrinally the same as the message of Jesus.  If Jesus preached Gentile salvation without circumcision and the apostles followed suit, how could legalistic Pharisees ever attain sufficient status in the new church that their legalistic and false view requires a meeting of Christianity's finest in order to root out?

How about a Mormon who "converts" to Mormonism, but retains her prior distrust in Mormon doctrine?

He agrees with Peter that salvation is now by faith in Christ. But the problem remains that the Gentile converts, since they are new followers of Yahweh, are falling prey to the pagan religious institutions to which they once belonged.

At some point you have to get realistic about God's responsibilities, and acknowledge that some sinners fail because God doesn't do His part as promised.  Stop viewing God as so perfect.  If Copan and Flannagan are correct that OT authors frequently employed language of exaggeration when describing God's commands for Israel to entirely slaughter other nations, it follows quite reasonably that their high and lofty language about God's unspeakably infinite perfections is likewise just more exaggerated talk, hence, if God is real, he likely has his share of imperfections despite laudatory biblical language to the contrary.  Exaggerated language doesn't count for establishing reality.  God has problems and worries about which solution is best.

James believes that the church in Antioch should be sent a letter which states that Gentiles should “abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.”

Then he must have liked doing things the hard way, because telepathy and teleportation were available to get the job done much more efficiently:

 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.
 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.
(Acts 8:39-40 NAU)

 9 A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."
(Acts 16:9 NAU)

Clinton Arnold, in John, Acts: Volume Two (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) explains:

    The focus of the debate now shifts away from the question of what is essential for salvation to one of how to help Gentile believers break away from their idolatrous pre-Christian practices.

The original question is only shifted away from because Luke chose to avoid revealing how the Judaizers responded to these already-unlikely answers from the apostles.

Each of these four instructions relates to dangers associated with involvement in idolatry.

What you don't tell the reader is that despite the importance of this decree, it is textually corrupted.  Metzger says in his Textual Commentary on the NT:

15.20, 29; 21.25

The text of the Apostolic Decree, as it is called, is given at 15.29; it is referred to proleptically in 15.20 and retrospectively in 21.25. The three verses contain many problems concerning text and exegesis: (1) Are Gentiles commanded to abstain from four things (food offered to idols, blood, strangled meat, and unchastity) or from three (omitting either strangled meat or unchastity); and (2) are the three or four prohibitions entirely ceremonial, or entirely ethical, or a combination of both kinds?

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(a) The Alexandrian text, as well as most other witnesses, has four items of prohibition.
(b) The Western text omits “what is strangled” and adds a negative form of the Golden Rule in 15.20 and 29.
(c) Several witnesses omit “unchastity” from 15.20 (so î⁴⁵ [which unfortunately is not extant for 15.29 or 21.25] and eth) and from 15.29 (so Origen, contra Celsum, VIII:29, as well as vg^ms Vigilius and Gaudentius).
The occasion for issuing the Apostolic Decree, it should be observed, was to settle the question whether Gentile converts to Christianity should be required to submit to the rite of circumcision and fulfill other Mosaic statutes. The Council decided that such observance was not required for salvation; at the same time, however, in order to avoid giving unnecessary offense to Jewish Christians (and to Jews contemplating becoming Christians), the Council asked Gentile converts to make certain concessions for prudential reasons, abstaining from those acts that would offend Jewish scruples and hinder social intercourse, including joint participation in the Lord’s Supper.
As concerns transcriptional probabilities, th/j pornei,aj may have been omitted because this item seemed, superficially, to be out of place in what otherwise appeared to be a food law. Although such a consideration may well account for its absence, it is possible that what was intended by the Jerusalem Council was to warn the Gentile believers to avoid either marriage within the prohibited Levitical degrees (Lv 18.6-18), which the rabbis described as “forbidden for pornei,a,” or mixed marriages with pagans (Nu 25.1; also compare 2 Cor 6.14), or participation in pagan worship, which had long been described by Old Testament prophets as spiritual adultery and which, in fact, offered opportunity in many temples for religious prostitution.
Another way to make sure that the list deals entirely with ritual prohibitions is to remove pornei,aj by emending the text. Bentley,²⁹⁵ for example, conjectured that the Apostolic Decree was an injunction to abstain “from pollutions of idols and swine’s flesh (coirei,aj) and things strangled and from blood.” A similar conjecture, intended to

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produce the same dietetic interpretation, is to read porkei,aj²⁹⁶ instead of pornei,aj. But there is no known example of such a word in Greek, and if an example were found it would be an abstract noun (from po,rkoj) meaning “piggishness.”²⁹⁷

Concerning (b), it is obvious that the threefold prohibition (lacking tou/ pniktou/) refers to moral injunctions to refrain from idolatry, unchastity, and blood-shedding (or murder), to which is added the negative Golden Rule. But this reading can scarcely be original, for it implies that a special warning had to be given to Gentile converts against such sins as murder, and that this was expressed in the form of asking them to “abstain” from it – which is slightly absurd!
It therefore appears to be more likely that an original ritual prohibition against eating foods offered to idols, things strangled and blood, and against pornei,a (however this latter is to be interpreted) was altered into a moral law by dropping the reference to pniktou/ and by adding the negative Golden Rule, than to suppose that an original moral law was transformed into a food law.
The alternative to accepting the fourfold decree is to argue, as P. H. Menoud has done,²⁹⁸ that the original text involved a twofold prohibition, namely to abstain from pollutions of idols and from blood, and that to this basic decree respecting kosher foods, î⁴⁵ al added “and from what is strangled,” thus extending the food-law concerning blood to all flesh improperly slaughtered. In the Western tradition the twofold decree was understood to be a moral injunction relating to idolatry and murder, and these witnesses added the prohibition against another major sin, unchastity. Subsequently the injunction concerning the negative Golden Rule was appended to the Western text, which thus extends the moral application far beyond the three

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basic prohibitions. Finally, the text of the great mass of witnesses represents a conflation of several Western expansions of the basic twofold decree.

Attractive though this theory is on the surface, the textual evidence is not really susceptible of such an interpretation. First, there is no manuscript evidence for the hypothetical twofold decree. Menoud does indeed shrink from pressing his conjecture concerning the twofold decree, and is prepared, with Lagrange, to adopt the reading of î⁴⁵ as the original text.²⁹⁹ But such an alternative proposal leaves the text critic with exactly the same problems that confronted him before, namely, how to explain the deletion as well as the addition of certain items in the decree.
Secondly, the fact that in 15.20 pniktou/ precedes kai. tou/ ai[matoj is hardly compatible with the theory that it was added in order to clarify and extend the meaning of ai[matoj.
In conclusion, therefore, it appears that the least unsatisfactory solution of the complicated textual and exegetical problems of the Apostolic Decree is to regard the fourfold decree as original (foods offered to idols, strangled meat, eating blood, and unchastity – whether ritual or moral), and to explain the two forms of the threefold decree in some such way as those suggested above.³⁰⁰
An extensive literature exists on the text and exegesis of the Apostolic Decree. For what can be said in support of the Western text see, e.g., A. Hilgenfeld, “Das Apostel-Concil nach seinem ursprünglichen Wortlaut,” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, XLII (1899), pp. 138–149; Gotthold Resch, Das Aposteldecret nach seiner

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ausserkanonischen Textgestalt (Texte und Untersuchungen, N.F. XIII, 3; Leipzig, 1905); A. von Harnack, Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Neue Testament, III (1908), pp. 188–198, and IV (1911), The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1909), pp. 248–263; K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, their Motive and Origin (London, 1911), pp. 48–60; idem, The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. v, pp. 205–209; J. H. Ropes, The Text of Acts, pp. 265–269; A. C. Clark, The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 360–361; Thorleif Boman, “Das textkritische Problem des sogenannten Aposteldekrets,” Novum Testamentum, VII (1964), pp. 26–36.

Those who have argued in support of the fourfold decree³⁰¹ include Theodor Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, III (Edinburgh, 1909), pp. 18–22; idem, Die Apostelgeschichte des Lucas (Leipzig and Erlangen, 1921), pp. 523 ff.; William Sanday, “The Apostolic Decree (Acts XV. 20–29),” Theologische Studien Theodor Zahn…dargebracht (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 317–338; idem, “The Text of the Apostolic Decree (Acts XV:29),” Expositor, Eighth Series, VI (1913), pp. 289–305; E. Jacquier, Les Actes des Apôtres (Paris, 1926), pp. 455–458; Hans Lietzmann, “Der Sinn des Aposteldekretes und seine Textwandlung,” in Amicitiae corolla, a Volume of Essays Presented to James Rendel Harris, ed. by H. G. Wood (London, 1933), pp. 203–211; W. G. Kümmel, “Die älteste Form des Aposteldekrets,” Spiritus et veritas [Festschrift Carlo Kundzinš] (Eutin, 1953), pp. 83–98; E. Haenchen, Die Apostelgeschichte, ad loc.; Marcel Simon, “The Apostolic Decree and its Setting in the Ancient Church,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, LII (196–970), pp. 437–460; C. M. Martini, “Il Decreto del Concilio di Gerusalemme,” Atti della XXII Settimana Biblica (Brescia, 1973), pp. 345–355; C. K. Barrett, Australian Biblical Review, XXXV (1987), pp. 50–59.

  ====================

James wants to make sure that these Gentiles make a clean break with their past when they embrace the living and true God. The instructions are, therefore, guidelines to assist their growth as believers, knowing full well that the Gentiles will continue to face significant cultural and spiritual pressures stemming from their past immersion in idolatry and ongoing association with family, friends, and coworkers still involved with it. These guidelines are a practical help in the spiritual and moral battle these Gentiles will face.

Sounds like those guidelines are so important, you should have alerted the reader to the fact that textual corruption problems plague such rules.

snip the rest.

Tough Questions Answered: if James denied Jesus' miracles, he likely wouldn't have believed Jesus rose from the dead

This is my reply to an  Tough Questions Answered article entitled:           

How Does James’ Belief in Jesus Corroborate the Resurrection?

Posted: 11 Aug 2017 06:00 AM PDT

The astute reader will be astonished to see, in Acts 12, that James, the half-brother of Jesus, is mentioned by name by Peter before Peter leaves Jerusalem to escape Herod Agrippa. Let’s quickly review what we know of James from the Gospels.

    Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him during his ministry (Mk 3:21, 31-35; 6:3; Jn 7:1-10).

Why?  Because Jesus' miracles were fake?  Or because Jesus' brothers had a method of miracle-investigation that impeached their credibility?

    Jesus’ brothers taunted him (Mk 6:3; Jn 7:1-10).

    Jesus’ brothers were apparently absent at Jesus’ crucifixion, where Jesus entrusted the care of his mother to one of his disciples, suggesting his brothers were nonbelievers at the time (Jn 19:25-27).

His brothers don't believe during the three year miracle ministry, and they are absent from him as he dies from crucifixion.  If you want me to believe their skepticism existed because they were stupid morons who didn't know how to properly investigate claims, that credibility problem will continue impeaching them as a character trait even if later accounts say they suddenly believed in his resurrection.  You can believe in Jesus resurrection because of an inability to properly investigate the claim. 

Given the fact that Jesus’ family, including James, rejected his messianic claims while he was alive, why would Peter want his Christian brothers and sisters in Acts 12 to tell James what had happened?

I deny the legitimacy of the question, as it blindly presupposes the truth of biblical inerrancy, here, blindly assuming that the author of Acts 12 is telling the truth about Peter wishing to tell James.  I argue elsewhere that Luke's unfairly biased and already unbelievable account of the clash between the apostles and Judaizers at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) justifies suspicion toward anything Luke says that is not independently corroborated (this does not mean proof of such corroboration will meet my challenge.  The corroborating witness has to pass their own tests of reliability and credibility, etc.

Michael Licona, in The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, explains that James seems to have changed his mind about Jesus after Jesus was crucified. He notes:

    Jesus’ brothers were in the upper room with Jesus’ disciples and mother after the resurrection (Acts 1:14).

    James was an apostle and leader in the Jerusalem Church (Gal 1:19; 2:9, 12; Acts 12:17; 15:13).

    Paul reported his activities to James (Acts 21:18).

    It would appear that at least some of Jesus’ brothers became believers (1 Cor 9:5).

The best explanation for James’ change of heart is that he saw his brother after he was raised from the dead. Licona writes, “James’s transformation from skeptic to believer is plausibly explained by his belief that Jesus had been raised and by a postresurrection appearance of Jesus to him (1 Cor 15:7). James believed his risen brother appeared to him.”

Same answer:  I claim any atheist or non-Christian who thinks Luke is telling the truth here, to be sloppy in their research or at least innocently ignorant of my reasons for saying Luke's bias as a historian is too great to justify giving him the benefit of the doubt in cases where he is not corroborated independently.

Licona adds:

“[Gary] Habermas asserts that the majority of critical scholars writing on the subject grant the conversion of James as a result of what he perceived was a postresurrection appearance of Jesus to him. As examples he lists Betz, Conzelmann, Craig, Davis, Derret, Funk, Hoover, Kee, Koester, Ladd, Lorenzen, Ludemann, Meier, Oden, Osborne, Pannenberg, Sanders, Spong, Stuhlmacher and Wedderburn. We may add Allison, Bryskog, Ehrman and Wright to Habermas’s list.

There is significant heterogeneity within this group that includes atheists, agnostics, cynics, revisionists, moderates and conservatives. With James, we have significant evidence that indicates he and his brothers were not among Jesus’ followers.

And that is a permanently fatal problem for you, because you think Jesus was doing genuinely supernatural miracles during his three year ministry, that is, the time James and the other brothers did not believe Jesus was the messiah.  So does James have significant credibility problems because he doesn't believe even when a member of his immediately family gives infallible proof of divinity?

Or was James responsible and prudent, when watching Jesus do miracles, to conclude that the tricks didn't involve any supernatural agency? 

However, sometime after the crucifixion of Jesus, James became a follower of his brother, a leader in the church Jesus had started and finally died as a Christian martyr.

And given that the area suffered a terrible famine around 40 a.d., I can imagine James thinking it prudent for the larger goal of group survival that he act like a good politician, and publicly profess to believe something he didn't seriously believe, as countless pastors and politicians do today.

The best explanation for this change of heart is that James came to believe that his brother had risen from the dead. It is probable that James had an experience that he perceived as being a postresurrection appearance of Jesus. However, it cannot be stated with certainty whether his conversion was prior to the experience or resulted from it.”

Something caused James to go from skeptic to believer. If James had seen his crucified brother alive days later, we could all understand why he converted. Absent the resurrection, there seems to be every reason for James to remain a skeptic the rest of his life. After all, following Jesus was a death sentence for most of the apostles.

 Once again,  my reasons for rejecting Luke where he cannot be corroborated by reliable independent sources are strong.  The family of Jesus continuing to be unbelievers and skeptics all the way through his miracle ministry and up to his death, cannot be brushed aside without harmful consequences to the Christian position:

Given your blind trust that the gospels are reliable when reporting Jesus' family didn't accept his messianic claims, how do you explain their skepticism, and are your reasons for this belief more convincing than the "they-didn't-believe-because-Jesus'-miracles-were-fake" reason?

I am PISSING myself with fear that the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead best explains the historical data.  I wish that Christian apologists would stop doing what they do and withdraw their books from circulation so I can feel better about my atheism.