My request to Dr. R Scott Smith, a Christian scholar/apologist working at Biola University

On March 7, I read the following written by R Scott Smith, PhD, c/o Biola University, at his blog https://rscottsmithphd.com:

Summary of the Survey
We have surveyed major ethical options for what our core morals are, including:
Are they how we happen to talk?
Are they physical things? Perhaps evolutionary products?
Are they ways of behaving or moving our bodies?
Are they results of a utilitarian calculus?
Are they emotive utterances?
Are they particulars? (nominalism)

But, at least since Hobbes, I’ve argued that none of the views can preserve our core morals of murder and rape being wrong, and love and justice being good.
What Are These Core Morals?

For one, they seem to be objectively real. They seem to exist independently of us as moral principles and values. They also simply seem to be intrinsically valid, and not due to anything else (like, the consequences). That is, they seem to have an essential moral nature. Moreover, they cannot be just physical things or particulars, as we’ve seen. Instead, they seem to be a “one-in-many” – each one is one principle (or value), yet it can have many instances/examples. In sum, they seem to be Platonic-like universals.

That raises many questions, however. Earlier, I remarked that Christine Korsgaard rightly observed that it’s hard to see how such things could have anything to do with us. While she thinks people are physical, it still applies if we are a body-soul unity. Why should these abstract objects have anything to do with us? On Plato’s view, they exist in a heavenly realm of values as brute features of reality.

What makes justice and love character qualities that should be present in us? Why is it inappropriate morally for us to murder or rape? These are normative qualities, not merely descriptive. As we’ve seen, it is hard to see how we can get the moral ought from what is descriptively the case. Yet, that problem could be overcome if humans have an essential nature that makes these moral values appropriate for them, and these acts inappropriate.

Earlier, I argued that the soul as our essential nature provides a sound explanation for how we can be the identical person through change. Body-soul dualists affirm that the soul is our essential nature, and it sets the boundary conditions for what is appropriate for us. For instance, it is inappropriate for us to grow a cat’s tail due to our nature, and it is inappropriate for us to murder due to our nature.

We also saw another reason for the soul’s existence. We do in fact think and form beliefs, yet these have intentionality, which I argued is best understood as something immaterial and having an essence. Now, it is hard to conceive how a physical brain could interact with something immaterial, but that problem does not seem to exist for an immaterial soul/mind.

Moreover, why should we feel guilt and shame when we break these core morals? That doesn’t make sense if these morals are just abstract objects that are immaterial and not located in space and time. Instead, we seem to have such responses in the presence of persons we have wronged morally. Also, retributive justice doesn’t make sense if we repay an abstract principle or value. But it would make sense if a person should be repaid.

There is another explanation we have seen for the grounding of these core morals: they are grounded in God. That helps solve the question of why we feel shame when we break one of these morals. But, that also raises questions, such as: are they good because God commands them, or does God command them because they are good (i.e., the Euthyphro dilemma)? Also, which God would this be?

I will start to tackle these in the next essay. But, first, there is another option for properties besides universals (realism) and nominalism. It is divine conceptualism; properties just are God’s concepts. Justice in us is God’s concept. Yet, concepts have intentionality, but virtues do not. When we think about people being just, we don’t mean they have a concept of justice (though they could), but that they have that virtue present in them. So, offhand, divine conceptualism seems to trade on a confusion.
For Further Reading

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 12

So on the same day I sent him the following message through his blog "contact me" page https://rscottsmithphd.com/contact-us/

Hello,

I would like to ask you a few questions raised in my mind after I read your "Making Sense of Morality: Where Do We Go from Here?", located at https://rscottsmithphd.com, which I read March 7, 2022.

I never seem to get a straight answer from Turek or others who try to argue that the common human repugnance toward murder and rape is more reasonably accounted for by positing "god put his laws into our hearts" than by any naturalistic explanatory mechanism.

I can ask you the questions by email or we can discuss at your blog, or wherever.

Barry

A screenshot of that message is:

my challenge to Than Christopoulos and Bram Rawlings on gospel authorship

 Christopoulos and Rawlings uploaded a video promoting traditional gospel authorship here.

My response was:

Barry Jones0 seconds ago

What would be unreasonable about the hypothesis that says Matthew and the author of Acts give inconsistent views about the risen Christ? Acts 1:3 says Jesus appeared to the apostles over a period of 40 days teaching things concerning the kingdom of God. Even assuming "40" is a figure of speech, it is obviously reasonable to assume the author wanted the reader to assume this risen Christ probably took longer than 15 seconds to teach about the kingdom of God. Matthew's version of the words of the risen Christ on the kingdom of God is so short, the entire thing could be uttered in 15 seconds. See Matthew 28:18-20. What exactly is "unreasonable" with the hypothesis that says it is highly unlikely that if Matthew believed the risen Christ's speech lasted over a period of days, or longer than 15 seconds, Matthew would most probably have given us more than a 15-second snippet? After all, wasn't Matthew interested in quoting the historical Jesus copiously? So can't we be reasonable to expect he'd also wish to copiously quote the risen Christ? What's "copious" about a 15-second snippet? Wasn't Matthew interested in the "kingdom of God" sayings of the historical Jesus? So can't we be reasonable to expect him to copiously quote many of the risen Christ's "kingdom of god" sayings? is it anywhere near "likely" that Matthew believed the risen Christ said anything more than what Matthew himself provides in ch. 28? How could you establish this with a skeptic who views the longer speeches of the risen Christ in Luke and John as fictional embellishment? Should I purchase Lydia McGrew's "Eye of the Beholder" and realize that the gospel of John is historically reliable? In other words, would you bid a spiritually dead atheist to have a more correct understanding of the gospel of John than all those spiritually alive Christian scholars Lydia criticizes in that book? Is it anywhere near "likely" that Matthew expected his originally intended readers to harmonize his account with Acts 1?

Screenshot:

my reply to Bellator Christi on Jesus' words

 This is my reply to Brian G. Chilton's article at

Should be believe what Jesus said?

(what are the odds that a Christain might say "no"?)

As anyone who has followed apologetics knows, the resurrection was transformative for the earliest Christians."

----------Not really.  Despite the risen Christ telling them to evangelize Gentiles, they shove that responsibility off onto Paul's shoulders, and prefer to limit their own ministries to Jews. Galatians 2:9.

"Those who witnessed the resurrection were willing to give their lives for what they knew to be true."

--------Not really, when Jesus predicted what kind of death Peter would die, Jesus specified that it would be something Peter did NOT want to do.  John 21:18-19.  Paul fled death threats (Acts 9:24-25).  The original apostles continued being "afraid" of Paul until by completely naturalistic means they discovered his conversion (Acts 9:26).

Boldly transformed men willing to risk death?  I think not.

"If it were not for the resurrection, it is highly doubtful that the early church would have worshiped Jesus as they did."

----------I don't understand how the disciples' own working of resurrection miracles by command of Jesus (Matthew 10:8) could have been less transformative than their seeing Jesus alive after he was crucified.  So the story saying the disciples were downtrodden after Jesus died, is suspicious.

"While the resurrection solidified and verified the ministry of Jesus"

------No, his pre-crucifixion miracles were equally as dazzling, so again, there is the problem of the gospel authors lying in portraying the disciples as dolts and depressed after Jesus died.  If my brother suddenly started doing the miracles of Jesus and telling me God wanted him to die by gunshot next week, I'd have no trouble taking his word for it.

"And he also extensively trained them about an already-not-yet kingdom.["

--------Except for Preterists, who say the second coming was fully realized and fulfilled within the natural lifetimes of the original apostles...because of statements that plainly indicate as much....like Matthew 16:28.  Jesus did not reward every man according to his works during his transfiguration on the mountain (Matthew 17), so what Jesus was talking about in 16:28 cannot be the Transfiguration.  The point is that skeptics have the perfect right, in light of most Christians being end-time freaks, to consider NT eschatology to be one big fat exercise in futility, and accordingly refuse to believe God is ever going to "come back".

"1] The Christology of Jesus impacted the disciples so much that they preserved his teachings, even before the resurrection, and passed them along after the ministry of Jesus was vindicated by the resurrection. As Paul Barnett points out, “It was [C]hristology that gave birth to Christianity, not the reverse. Furthermore, Christ gave birth to [C]hristology. The chronology drives this conclusion.”[2]"

----------Jesus' explicit claims to being God would never have been deemed by the Synoptic authors as unworthy of posterity, and they were writing before John wrote.  The fact that alternative theories to answer this exist,  might justify your disagreement with me on the point, but they do no increase the probability that the skeptical hypothesis (i.e., that John is fictionalized theology wrapped around a core of historical fact) is false.  Reasonableness for another person is not determined by what's reasonable for YOU.

"If the Christological teachings of Jesus gave rise to Christian doctrine—because as Richard Bauckham notes, the “earliest Christology was already in nuce the highest Christology”[3]

-------no, there is testimony even earlier than Paul's creeds.  See Mark 3:21 and John 7:5.  How high is the Christology in "Jesus cannot do real miracles" and "we are not convinced his miracles are genuinely supernatural"?

"then should it not behoove modern believers to pay close attention to what Jesus said?

-----no it shouldn't, as too many Trinitarian conservative Christians and their scholars have been analyzing the gospels to death 10 times over, yet the continue to disagree about what it meant.  The author of Revelation says his words are very serious, yet today's conservatives relegate most of his assertions to "eschatology" which they have classified as "non-essential" and thus permissible for a Christian to disagree with that the Spirit says to the churches.  The smart Christian doesn't worry about what Jesus said, because the smart person knows that the record of it from 2,000 years ago has proven many time over to be fatally ambiguous, and thus not only is attempted interpretation of Jesus' statements an exercise in futility, it has the potential to go over the line and draw them into heresy.  The average Christian who goes to church more for the obvious social benefits and less for figuring out what Jesus meant, it the smartest type of Christian.

"The teachings of Jesus not only impacted the early believers’ Christology, but they paid close attention to other aspects of the didactic of Jesus, as well. Thus, the modern believer should take the ethical, historical, and theological/philosophical teachings of Jesus into consideration as they live out, research, and build a biblical worldview."

-------And in the process, discover that there are no hard and fast answers to the interpretive questions that bear directly upon doctrine...even though they are supposed to believe that Jesus lives in their hearts, and thus would presumably, but never actually does, alert them when they've arrived at a false conclusion.  Why did God want all people to recognize rape as wrong, but he didn't enable us to instinctively know which doctrines are true?  Is God a liberal?  Does he care about our heart more than he cares about propositional doctrine?

"The Ethical Teachings of Jesus"

If Jesus is YHWH, then it was Jesus who required his OT Hebrews to burn adolescent girls to death (Leviticus 21:9).  The disappearance of the Mosaic theocracy is never predicted in the writings of Moses, and therefore, its disappearance indicates Judaism "evolves" over time....like any religion.  The notion that God always knew the 1st covenant wasn't supposed to last, is a false doctrine taught by NT authors and Paul.

"The Sermon on the Mount is just as controversial today as it was when Jesus first uttered it."

------Meaning the modern-day Christian should be satisfied with any interpretation they arrive at after they have considered the literary context and social context, otherwise, words that are supposed to 'guide' are fatally ambiguous even for like-minded Christians who attend the same church and cannot agree on simple things like whether the SOM is even intended for modern believers.

"Jesus taught such things as showing mercy unto others (Matt. 5:7), having a purity of the heart (Matt. 5:8), and maintaining one’s role as a peacemaker (Matt. 5:9). He taught that believers were to stand for the truth by remaining the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13) while also maintaining a compassionate heart by being the light of the world (Matt. 5:14). He also taught that angry bitterness and lust made one as guilty as committing murder or adultery (Matt. 5:21–30).

------He also wanted people to burn little girls to death.  If Jesus was God, read Leviticus 21:7.  It is absolutely foolish to think the Pharisees who attacked Jesus' teachings, would not have asked something like "if you are claiming to be god, when why aren't you commanding us to slaughter our enemies the way you allegedly did back in the days of Moses and Joshua?"  So we can be reasonable to assume he was asked questions like that, yet the gospel authors do themselves a favor by refusing to report such things.

"One of the most forgotten teachings of Jesus in modern times is his call to love one’s enemies and pray for those who may mistreat a person (Matt. 5:43–48). If Jesus rose from the dead, and he did, then the believer must take seriously the ethical commitments to which he calls his disciples to live. If one chooses to reject his moral standards, then one must ask, “Whose standards am I following—Jesus’s or my own?”

--------The plight of the believer is unavoidable, because Christians have always disagreed on what exactly Jesus meant with his ethical teachings, yes, even on things Jesus allegedly got specific on, such as divorce.

Jesus was also giving an ethical teaching when saying a man leave his gift at the altar and first be reconciled to his brother, and THEN offer the gift at the altar.  Does that :"apply" to modern day unbelievers?  Should their struggle to be righteous be so intense that they put forth effort to find that altar or build a new one, just so they can obey Jesus?  How do you know the destruction by Titus in 70 a.d. was god's "obvious" way of relieving modern-day believers from this requirement?  Isn't that merely your own interpretation?  Isn't the true interpretation guided by how the originally intended hearers would likely have interpreted it?  

"The Historical Teachings of Jesus

Here again, it is common for one to dismiss the teachings of Jesus when it comes to uncomfortable historical matters. Granted, the issue with Jesus mentioning Abiathar being the high priest when Ahimelech held the position in Mark 2:26 poses some issues. But one finds good reasons to think that something in the transmission from Aramaic to Greek could have been left off as the teaching/text was being translated. James Brooks avers that the best explanation to describe the hiccup is that the Aramaic word abba (meaning father) was originally added to Abiathar (abba-Abiathar) in the original teaching. Thus, the teaching would say “he entered the house of God in the time of abba-Abiathar” (Mark 2:26), which would be correct as Ahimelech was the father of Abiathar.[4]

-----Nice to know you agree with skeptics about how easily the NT text could be corrupted, and of course, 

your argument necessarily means yo are talking about corruptions so early that the existing mss. do not reflect 

the change....thus a theory of significant textual change taking place during the first 100 years after the originals, is well within reasonable limits.  God's concern to preserve the originals inerrant, but not the copies, is an absurd theory that imposes not

the least bit of intellectual obligation upon any non-Christian or skeptic.

"Nonetheless, if Jesus is truly the divine Son of God—and the resurrection confirmed that he was"

---------No, Deuteronomy 18 teaches that if a prophet does a genuinely supernatural miracle, you STILL

don't know whether he is approved or disapproved by God.  

"—then, it stands to reason that Jesus would know perfectly whether such people existed when he referred to a historical Adam and Eve (implied in Matt. 19:4–6), Abraham and the early patriarchs (Matt. 22:32), and even Noah (Matt. 24:37)."

------but in truth the texts tell us less about what Jesus thought, and more about what the gospel authors believed.  John's gospel is a perfect illustration of how easily some early Christians could modify or invent doctrinally significant sayings and 

put them in the mouth of Jesus.  The same thing is reasonably deduced from the Markan priority and literary interdependence solutions to the Synoptic Problem.  

" In our age of skepticism, it is easy to cast doubt on these figures of the past. But at the end of it all, we must ask ourselves whether we can take Jesus at his word."

---------That only makes sense to believers.  It does nothing to render skepticism unreasonable.

"Finally, one will ask whether a person can trust what Jesus says about the world, the kingdom of God, heaven and hell, and the direction of history. While there are a plethora of viewpoints concerning eschatology,"

----------Does God the Holy Spirit want authentically born again Christians disagreeing with each other on how to interpret the allegedly urgent serious teachings found in the book of Revelation?  Is there a possibility that God also withholds truth from even sincerely seeking authentically born again Christians?  If so, what would be unreasonable to say that such a god is merely "toying" with us and doesn't deserve for us to grovel at his feet?  If I'm sincerely seeking truth, and God isn't revealing it despite his knowing much better than anybody what I need to convince me, I'm not thinking that kind of god is the least bit serious.  And if God has sovereign reasons for not opening the mind of Jehovah Witness to "truth" until they've been in that cult for 30 years, then YOU are wrong for telling JW's they must leave.  No, God might want some of them to stay deceived, in which case their leaving by their own freewill might mean they are leaving before God is done deceiving them.  Compare 2nd Thess. 2:11 with Jeremiah 4:10 and 20:7.  If we have enough freewill to disobey god, then we have enough freewill to give up false theology quicker than god wants us to.  Yet, Christian preaching and evangelism make no sense in light of 

God's sovereignty.  You will tell anybody and everybody that God wants them to know the truth, when in fact you don't have the first clue whether God has singled out any prospective convert for deception.

"the arrow of history is undebatable when it comes to the teachings of Jesus. In his Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24–25), Jesus warned that such things as wars, false prophets, famines,[5] earthquakes, and various disasters would come."

----------All of which can be proven to have been fulfilled right around the a.d. 70 time that most conservative Christian trinitarian scholars date the Synoptics.  Your rushing headlong to make these statements of Jesus apply to events in 2022 and afterward is unreasonable.  Do you also look at the sky, expecting Jesus to gallop down from heaven on a white horse?  (!?)

"Yet he noted that such things only serve as labor pains, indicating that the coming of the Son of Man was nigh (Matt. 24:8). Much more could be added to this eschatologically rich message. However, the most important aspect of his message is that despite the troubles that would come, God would move the arrow of history toward a time when he delivers the people of God and recreates the heavens and the earth. The kingdom of God would reach its ultimate and complete actualization when the “Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne” (Matt. 25:31).[6] Some may call this fanciful thinking. But this came from one who actually defeated death itself."

----------And because not even equally sincerely seeking authentically born again Trinitarian Christians can agree with each other on how to interpret such eschatological statements, you are forced to conclude 1) god wants Christians to be doctrinally divided, or 2) the people in the debate who are wrong are living in sin or have unconfessed sin, or aren't praying hard enough, etc, etc or 3) there is no god, which is why Christians debate the meaning of the bible about as often as equally American politicians and lawyers debate the meaning of the US Constitution.  These are purely naturalistic documents created so long ago that only very general principles can be gleaned from them, and the "right" interpretation is fatally elusive for wholly non-supernatural reasons.

"Many things are difficult to believe. It is difficult for me to wrap my mind around the fact that light travels at 186,000 miles a second."

-------The difference being that the speed of light is empirically demonstrable...the "right" interpretation of Jesus' words isn't. 

"Likewise, some of the things mentioned in this article may be like the speed of light—very difficult to fathom. However, at the end of the day, we must all ask ourselves who we trust. Who is trustworthy?

----------Our own senses, which tell us that the whole business of trying to interpret Jesus "correctly" is fraught peril, making it unworthy of the risks of trying to figure it out...which may lead to creating of, or joining to, psychologically damaging cults.  There's lots of good and lots of bad in a gun, so until you can show that somebody "should" play with the gun, it's probably best that they don't.  So go ahead:  show that the words of Jesus "apply" to today's people.  But remember that the Apocrypha survived historical persecution too.  And don't commit the ad populum fallacy.

"Who is a reliable witness?"

---------That's assuming the witnesses can be identified, but most Christian Trinitarian scholars think the 4 gospels are combinations of some authentically apostolic content added to and modified by any number of later copyists.  Aunt Martha's original affidavit in Court should be worthy to consider...but if lawyers could prove that it has the same number and type of authorship, authenticity and textual problems that the canonical gospels have, then a person is a fool to pretend that this is still "Martha's" affidavit...and they are reasonable to simply dismiss it as incapable of reasonable certain resolution.

"For me, the thing that led me back to Christianity after a time of doubt was the amazing amount of evidence supporting the literal resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth."

----------And it doesn't bother you that the earliest testimony from his own family members was that he couldn't do real miracles (Mark 3:21, 6:1-4, John 7:5)?  We skeptics have testimony about Jesus' miracle abilities that is even earlier than that 1st Corinthians 15 "creed" that you all hang your hats on.

What Jesus was like before he died, counts far more than what anonymous gospels say about his "resurrection".

Benny Hinn's having thousands of followers means nothing, because his own family members call him a con-artist.  See what I mean?

"If Jesus truly raised from the dead and defeated death, then that is One whose opinion is worth trusting."

---------No, Jesus' resurrection doesn't prove he "defeated" death, and Deut. 18 will not support your rushing immediately from "he did a miracle!" to "he must be approved by God!"

"Some may call it naïve. Well and good. When you are able to conquer death, then let’s talk."

----------When you can show Jesus conquered death, then let's talk.

========================================

From: Brian Chilton <----->
Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2022 at 5:15 PM
Subject: Bellator Christi Comment
To: barryjoneswhat------

Due to the length of your comment and the multiple areas you discuss, we will not be able to publish your comment as it currently stands. Try to engage only one or two areas in which you find disagreement. Use the following link as a guide: https://bellatorchristi.com/website-rules-regarding-comments-and-replies/

Thank you for your input. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Blessings,

Brian G. Chilton, PhD Candidate, MDiv
Author of "Layman's Manual on Christian Apologetics"
Founder of Bellator Christi Ministries

=================================

Brian responded, and I replied:

I am scholarly and thorough in my replies.  Twitter panders to fools who think posting their two cents worth is a legitimate way to 'discuss' something.  I will have none of it.  I require myself to respond point by point.  Anything less only invites the common "you didn't answer his point!" sneer.  You take the risk of dealing with lengthy replies if you continue to contend that skeptics are unreasonable to reject the gospel.  Some of us have scholarly knowledge of the subject.  

"Barry, thank you for your comment. You bring up two interesting rebuttals. For the first, you note, “Despite the risen Christ telling them [the disciples] to evangelize Gentiles, they shove that responsibility off onto Paul.” You must be referring to the issues Paul faced when evangelizing Gentile nations, particularly in the first few decades.  

 We must first realize that despite their transformation, God was doing things with the church that they never anticipated."

---------How could that be consistent with your belief in NT inerrancy?  That they anticipated from the very beginning a need to evangelize Gentiles is what your are forced to conclude from Matthew 28:19-20.  That they were taught by the risen Christ exactly how to go about promoting the "kingdom of God" is supported by Acts 1:3.  That they actually went around boldly exercising their evangelism powers seems clear from Acts 2 through Acts 5.  These texts will not allow your purely naturalistic theory that says the disciples weren't done getting "transformed" until the passing of the earlier period.  No, it is within the earlier period that your NT says God successfully "transformed" them.  Feel free to arguethat it was just enough transformation to make them "bold", but no quite enough to make them "evangelize Gentiles", but such a trifle would hardly impose the slightest intellectual obligation on a skeptic.

"For many of the disciples, they grew in a culture where Jews did not converse with Gentiles."  Very few, if any, would have worshiped with Gentiles."

------In other words, despite the disciples seeing the risen Christ (Matthew 28:19-20), despite his instructing them in operations of the Gentile gospel (Id) and despite their special divine inspiration at the very earliest stage (John 20:22, Acts 2), this STILL did not completely divest them of their prior incorrect ethical/racial leanings?  If that is the case, then what makes you so sure that the bible authors being divinely "inspired", is some sort of assurance that they could not error in what they wrote?   Under y our theory, apostles who are "inspired" by God can still manifest their wrongful understanding in everything they do, which would thus include writing.

"So, God was doing something new in the history of the church, blending Jews and Gentiles together."

------No, Jesus evangelized Gentiles before he had disciples (Matthew 4:15) and after the 12 were called (12:18).  We are not unreasonable to draw the inference that if these references are historically accurate, then the disciples likely conversed with the pre-crucifixion Jesus many times, given a) his openness to Gentiles and b) the Jewish culture's general antagonism toward Gentiles.  We may also assume that Jesus, not being stupid, answered obvious questions about the matter before he was crucified, knowing that he would be asking the disciples after his resurrection to expand evangelism to Gentiles.  The apologist's theory of keeping it all a secret until the very last nanosecond might help "reconcile" the apparently contradictory NT data on the subject, but nothing about such theory imposes the least bit of intellectual obligation upon a non-Christian. 

Your definition of "transformed" was "Those who witnessed the resurrection were willing to give their lives for what they knew to be true".  But in light of my reply, it appears that you now wish to qualify what you meant, so as to leave room in their transformed minds to allow a significant bit of their prior incorrect beliefs about Jewish-Gentile relations to remain, so that you can then use such remaining prejudices to 'explain' why they didn't quite "get it" at the early stage.  No dice:  If the Holy Spirit emboldened Peter to mouth-off so confidently to Jews in Acts 2 at the early stage, we are not unreasonable to draw the inference that he would have also mouthed-off equally confidently toward Gentiles at the earliest stage.  So that if he didn't, we are reasonable to assume this is because the mightily transformative grace of God had zero to do with any evangelism he did in the early period.(i.e., Act 2 is just fiction).

"Furthermore, a good deal of historical evidence can be found that either explicitly or implicitly notes that the disciples journeyed to Gentile nations to evangelize."

--------But you are merely setting a naturalistic basis for the Gentile expansion.  Why didn't the shock of seeing the risen Christ (Acts 1:3) and their being filled with the Holy Spirit 40 days later at Pentecost (Acts 2) completely divest their minds of their previously held prejudices?  Maybe the skeptics are correct, and the degree of "transformation' they experienced upon "seeing" the risen Christ actually wasn't quite as eventful as most Christian apologists insist? That could be supported from Matthew 28:17.

"While the accounts differ on their level of authenticity, it can be said with certainty that both Peter and Paul traveled to Rome where they both died for their faith.

------Then you and I have a fundamental disagreement about historiography.  In my view, held also by Mike Licona and other Christians, there is no such thing as "certainty" in the conclusions that are limited to inferences drawn from ancient historical testimony.  That a lot of church fathers believed Peter went off to preach in Rome doesn't convince me anymore than most of the church thinking Gospel of Hebrews was authentic Matthew, convinces you of who authored that particular gospel.

"A good deal of evidence suggests that Thomas traveled to Madras, India to evangelize, where he also was executed. Peter was crucified; Paul was beheaded; and Thomas was speared to death."

----------irrelevant.  The unwillingness of the disciples IN THE EARLY STAGES to evangelize Gentles is a problem, and your naturalistic theory that they were whole-hearted Jews having difficulty giving up long cherished racial and ethical prejudices might be true, but is not consistent with the type of transformation boasted of in Mathew 28:19, and its divinely inspired implementation AT THE EARLY STAGE,  in Acts 2.  Did God take away their fears of the Jews WITHOUT taking away their views about Gentiles (!?)

"This brings us to your second objection. You argue that because Peter did not want to die and that Paul fled death threats that this, in some way, diminishes their testimony of witnessing the risen Jesus."

---------No, I'm saying their unwillingness to face death for their faith means you are wrong when you say "Those who witnessed the resurrection were willing to give their lives for what they knew to be true".  In nearly every case we can examine, this is false.  Matthew and John are often touted in patristic sources as dying by natural means, not execution.  That's enough to ustify today's people to be skeptical that any truth in ancient martyr-stories is to obfuscated by legend and edification to make those accounts the least bit "useful".

"This could not be farther from the truth. Paul willingly traveled to Jerusalem, even though numerous people warned him not to do so, because of the Spirit leading him."

------That doesn't answer why he wasn't willing to face King Aretus and the men seeking his death earlier in his ministry.

"Additionally, Peter, John, and the disciples stand boldly against the same Sanhedrin that had condemned Jesus to death just a few days after Pentecost."

--------But Jesus still said Peter wouldn't be willing to die for his faith.  Nothing else in the bible can erase that problematic "prediction", and of course, if he's unwilling to die for his faith, then he isn't a "martyr".  You can open up that possibility by saying Jesus got it wrong, but if you don't want to select that option, then Peter did not go to his death willingly.  You have Jesus' word on it.

"This would have happened in the very same year that Jesus was crucified, died, and resurrected."

-----your point is moot unless and until you somehow get rid of Jesus' prediction that Peter would go to his death unwillingly.

"Furthermore, not one of them recanted their belief that they had seen the risen Jesus."

---------But we can reasonably infer recantation  from Matthew 28:17, where "doubt" in Greek is the same word that characterizes a FAILING faith in Matthew 14:31. That is, some of the disciples had an attitude of failing faith when they allegedly "saw" the risen Christ.

"This point is not something that just believers accept. Rather, the consensus of historical scholarship–believer and unbeliever alike–accept this as a historical fact."

-------The NT was written for the obvious purpose of edification.  Skeptics have a perfect explanation for why we don't find the NT ever claiming any apostle recanted their faith.

But regardless, your argument from "no recantation" is overthrown by the argument from "his own family didn't believe his miracles were genuinely supernatural."  See Mark 3:21, 6:1-4, John 6:66 and 7:5.

What's worse?  James the brother of Jesus recanting his faith?  Or James the brother of Jesus thinking Jesus' miracles before the crucifixion were fake?

"Thus, the early disciples were most certainly bold men who were willing to risk death for what they knew to be true–that is, that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead."

-------You have not refuted my argument "Paul fled death threats (Acts 9:24-25)".  His fleeing certainly sounds more consistent with a fear of dying for his faith, and sounds totally inconsistent with your theory that he was willing to face death for his faith.

========================

From: Brian Chilton <---------->
Date: Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 6:58 PM
Subject: Bellator Christi Comment
To: barryjoneswhat-------

Due to the length of your comment and the multiple areas you discuss, we will not be able to publish your comment as it currently stands. Try to engage only one or two areas in which you find disagreement. Use the following link as a guide: https://bellatorchristi.com/website-rules-regarding-comments-and-replies/

Thank you for your input. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Blessings,

Brian G. Chilton, Ph.D. Candidate, M.Div.

Author of The Layman's Manual on Christian Apologetics

Founder of Bellator Christi Ministries

=======================

So I shortened my reply:

"For the first, you note, “Despite the risen Christ telling them [the disciples] to evangelize Gentiles, they shove that responsibility off onto Paul.” You must be referring to the issues Paul faced when evangelizing Gentile nations, particularly in the first few decades. We must first realize that despite their transformation, God was doing things with the church that they never anticipated. For many of the disciples, they grew in a culture where Jews did not converse with Gentiles."

----------But if, at the earliest possible stage, the Holy Spirit's indwelling caused the disciples to overcome their fear of reprisal from Jews (i.e., Acts 2), then why didn't this same divine indwelling ALSO cause the disciples to overcome the social conditioning about Jews/Gentiles that the disciples "grew in"? 

Also, I need to know exactly what you believe about skepticism toward the gospel: Do you say all people of today who reject what you say is the true gospel. are unreasonable?

Or do you allow that sometimes, a modern-day skeptic can be reasonable to reject what you believe to be the true gospel?

==============================

 

my reply to Roger Pearse on Canaanite child sacrifice

 Roger Pearse gives the ancient historical sources for the ancient Canaanite practice of child sacrifice here:

https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012/05/31/sacrifices-of-children-at-carthage-the-sources/?replytocom=1840887#respond

I posted this reply today, February 2, 2022, but it did not immediately appear as posted, and no message was left indicating the post was awaiting approval or moderation, so I'm cross-posting my reply here, just in case there was a "boo-boo" :)

Roger, what do you think of apologists like Frank Turek who make the specific claim that the Canaanites watched their babies "sizzle to death" in the flames?

That's his answer to the question of why the bible-god treated the Canaanites more harshly.

Apparently, he wants to make the bible-god appear justified to impose harsher treatment upon Canaanites.   And indeed, if the Canaanites were 'worse' sinners than most pagans in OT days, then fine.

Unfortunately, not only do none of the ancient historical sources on Canaanite child sacrifice express or imply that the kids were still alive when put in the fire, Plutarch's comment about cutting the throat of the child makes it reasonable to assume that the fire was used solely for cremation, i.e., the child died before its body was put in the fire.

In other words, Frank Turek and other apologists like him are not giving a reasonable answer, so the question of why God treated the Canaanites more harshly than other pagans, remains without reasonable answer, except of course the "god's mysterious ways" excuse that could be employed by any obvious heretic.

In other words, the skeptical contention that the god of the OT was arbitrarily cruel, has not been debunked, but continues to stay above water.  "Burn their children in the fire" does not necessarily require that the kids were still alive when placed in the flames, yet most Christians read "still alive when placed into the flames" into every biblical reference to this child-sacrifice ritual.  This is otherwise known as eisegesis.

But the bible-god's own willingness to burn babies to death is clear from Leviticus 21:9.  If any such priest-daughter existed, she could very well have become pregnant, and discovery of her sin could possibly be delayed for several months, in which case carrying out that law would mean killing her unborn child by fire too, and not just herself.

And if she is having sex with some guy in her priest-father's house, this is likely because she didn't have her own house to live in, implying she wasn't married, implying she was younger than 12, implying that she was still a "child" in the opinion of most modern Christians.

my debate with Farmer Craig about Jesus resurrection

Some guy calling himself Farmer Craig has chosen to dialogue with me about Jesus' resurrection, so since YouTube isn't really set up to facilitate that much scholarly back and forth, I demanded that he contact me here, where posting responses is easier.

Farmer Craig4 hours ago
@Barry Jones Part 2 //" in fact his sites a creed that is dated earlier than the Gospels, in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that He was seen of Cephas (Peter), then of the twelve: After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James (Jesus’ half-brother), then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also….”. --------But that "creed" has no historical value because it wasn't given to him by other apostles, it was given to him by the "Lord". The way he phrases that creed in 15:3 is exactly paralleled in 11:23, which indicates that Paul intends "what I received, I passed on to you" to mean "what I received FROM THE LORD, I pass on to you". Paul's reception of the gospel from the Lord was by way of vision or divine telepathy, see Galatians 1:11-12. Your trifles about how this could merely reflect a general truth without implicating the "creed" may possibily be true, but you don't win a historical argument by simply pointing out that your interpretation of the data remains a logical possibility.// That’s the difference here, and your inserting another part of a verse to make your case. The creed doesn’t start off with “from the Lord I pass onto you”. Paul uses that phrase multiple times, but not here. I agree Paul’s gospel came from Jesus, himself, but everything he says about Christ lines up with the gospel accounts. //"Almost all scholars agree that 1 Corinthians was written by the early 50’s AD, that’s only 20 years after the death of Jesus. Therefore, it’s dramatic that Paul includes the passage “of whom the greater part remain onto this present, but some have fallen asleep.” ----------Or that was just added by a later copyist during the first 100 years for which we have no manuscripts. Educate yourself on how often the later copyists modified NT wording before you pretend that "there's no evidence for that". Blame the Christians for not preserving the first 100 years of manuscripts, apparently their comfort in disposing of older manuscripts indicates they didn't expect the church to continue on earth for another 2,000 years.// No mate, you can’t just assert that claim with no evidence. Because we have so many manuscripts from all over middle east, and they say the same thing, is the evidence nothing was changed. Papyrus was something that didn’t last long, and had to be copied. Also having a Roman emperor who was hell bent on destroying the works of the church, a lot would have been lost. Paul said what he said, then and we have it now, this is a 100% certainty. // " Talk to some of these 500 people yourselves." -----------That's an easy challenge to hurl at the reader, given that Jerusalem and Corinth were separated by more than 750 miles, and most people in those days were so tied to their families, local communities and jobs that they simply couldn't go on long voyages, especially if the sole purpose was to see whether what some local preacher told them was consistent with what the original apostles were saying. And that's to say nothing about how many dangers and perils of robbers existed, ready to pounce on unprotected travelers. // Really in a way they didn’t have to because Paul talks about the miracles that were done in their presence. Paul back up his claim with signs and wonders to the Corinthians. Surely someone would have gone from Corinth to Jerusalem. It just needed person. //"Talk to Peter, John and James." ---------Yeah, give up caring for your kids, quit making money at your job, and take a prohibitively dangerous, expensive and time-consuming trip merely to satisfy your curiosity about whether what I say is the same thing the original apostles were saying. LOL.// See above reply "If Paul’s claims could easily be falsified and the costs of falsification were high, then he would ensure his claims were not mistaken." -------------How easy is it to? How much are Mormons affected by the fact that Mormonism is DEMONSTRABLY false? LOL. Yes Mormonism is easy to refute. But Christianity is a historical event, people could ask hostile eye witnesses of Christianity events.

Craig's second post (fourth reply from YouTube:






Farmer Craig
Barry Jones Part 3 //"He wouldn’t have included a statement like that if he was trying to hide something like a conspiracy, hoax, myth, or legend." ---------But he would if he was relaying to them what he thinks he received by divine telepathy. Once again, the Corinthian creed's historical worth is tied to its being a case of other apostles telling him the creed, and I previously established that Paul got the creed by divine telepathy. I've never met any Christian who would seriously try to argue that a 2,000 year old vision-story is "historically reliable". // It’s a case of the apostles passing on the creed. You didn’t establish that Paul got the creed from telepathy, you inserted he did. You’ll find in 1 Corinthians 11:23 Paul saying “For I received from the Lord..” //"So what happened at Galilee, there’s enough info to gather, that the apostles saw Jesus alive and went forth to preach the good news." -----------You were wrong to date the Corinthian creed before the date the gospels were published. That may be technically true, but how old is authentic Mark's ending the resurrection story at 16:8? Was Mark ending it at that point before Paul wrote 1st Corinthians? I can't prove it, you can't disprove it, so it is something about which reasonable persons can reasonably disagree. You need to shake the bad habit of pretending that proper application of the rules of historicity always yields trustworthy information about ancient events. // There is good evidence to suggest that the Gospel of Mark is early. Paul’s writings are dated to the 50’s. Paul quotes Luke’s Gospel twice in 1 Tim 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, even calling it scripture. Luke in his intro says of the eye witness accounts before his, and what is found in his work? Information from Matthew and Mark. This puts the Gospels into the 40/50’s. When I see the New Testament, I see more trustworthy information than another work in the ancient world. We have more documents, earlier documents, better copied documents than we have for any book in the ancient world. So, if we cannot trust the reliability of the New Testament, then we have to reject all of ancient history. //"No we find that they suffered great persecution, jail, torture and death because of their belief. History tells us, liars make poor martyrs." ---------------You couldn't prove the martyrdom of any original apostle or of Paul to save your life. Read the ending of John's gospel : didn't Jesus predict that Peter would be UNWILLING to go to his death? Isn't unwillingness to die the exact OPPOSITE of a Christian martyr's expected mindset?// Haha good play on words there. “To save your life”. Well firstly about Peter, I guess no one wants to be led to death. But also if you read on, John says this, “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.” It sounds like John knew of how Peter’s death was a willing event. Well Acts 12: 1-2, gives the death of the apostle James, brother of John. Josephus and Hegesippus give the death of James’ Jesus brother. Clement of Rome who was a contemporary of the apostles reports the sufferings and deaths of Peter and Paul. “By reason of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted and contended even unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory” Dionysius, bishop of Corinth. “You have thus by such an admonition bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time” Polycarp “ …Paul himself and the other apostles. You should be convinced that none of them acted in vain, but faith and righteousness, and that they are in the place they deserved, with the Lord, with whom they also suffered” This information given by Polycarp, born around 69 A.D, that all of the other apostles all suffered. There is more out there, but that’s not bad for a start. //"Matthew’s guard story starts before Mark 16:9." -------But you cannot authenticate the author or his sources, so today's skeptics are doing nothing unreasonable in regarding Matthew unique content as useless.// There is plenty of sources for Matthew as the author of his gospel. Papias (c. AD 60-130) writes, “Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.” Pantaenus also confirmed that Matthew was the author of the First Gospel. Take this quote from Justin Martyr. “when a star rose in heaven at the time of his [Jesus'] birth, as is recorded in the Memoirs of his apostles, the Magi from Arabia, recognizing the sign by this, came and worshipped him.” This is from Matthew because it is the only gospel that accounts for this story, and Martyr says “as is recorded in the Memoirs of his apostles” He knew who wrote the gospels. In fact he had a student who made a work of combining all four gospels into one, called the Diatessaron in Greek, meaning " of /from/out of " " four ". With the addition of Origen and Irenaeus’s acceptance of Matthew writing the First Gospel, one is hard-pressed to dismiss their claims. They didn’t give their sources back then. But seeing that a large number of priests joined the group and Nicodemus who was a pharisees, the info about the guards came from them. //"He didn’t get that from Mark, and obviosity true, as you couldn’t make up a story like that in Jerusalem." -------What makes you think Matthew wrote that in Jerusalem? Don't ancient patristic sources say the apostles had early split up and went to different parts of the earth? For all you know, Matthew's original was written in Rome, and its Semitisms indicating only that Matthew intended a mail-carrier to carry it back to his intended Jewish audience.// It sounds like Matthew wrote his gospel for the Jews, just reading his gospel it is very Jewish, mentions the Old Testament quite a bit. The following is Eusebius’s report of Pantaenus’s encounter with the Hebrew edition of Matthew’s Gospel: “It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time.” //"Do Matthew and Luke tell ” dramatically different events”. No, they say the angel tell the women Jesus will meet you at Galilee." ----------But whereas Matthew necessarily implies that that the women's experience at the tomb was a true literal historical event, Luke version tells us their experience was a "vision", see Luke 24:23.// If you read Luke24:4-8, states a physical appearance, really Cleopas saying the women had seen a vision of angels, is simply saying the saw angels. //"They go on to add that they did meet Jesus." ---------So? You can't show that any of this crap // Mark states that the women were told to tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee. Christianity starts after this event. //"Matthew finishes off the guard account. Luke finishes with Jesus’ ascension." -----------Luke last few verses also have Jesus rising from the dead and ascending to heaven ALL ON THE SAME DAY, whereas Acts 1:3 inserts 40 days between the resurrection and ascension. Christian scholars would hardly comment as often as they do about that, if the proper harmonization scenario was the least bit "obvious".// Luke doesn’t pacifically say that all happened on one, and you’re missing the phrase in verse 50, “WHEN he had led them out…” That could be a later date.



Farmer Craig
Barry Jones //Really the question to you is, how did Christianity start, if not how the Gospels stated it?" -------------There is no rule of hermeneutics, historiography or common sense that requires anybody to provide an alternative explanation for the explanation they are seeking to falsify. I can know the space-alien theory of the Bermuda Triangle is false, even if i can't explain every last little mysterious detail.// //Again what is false in the Acts account?" -------Most everything, it was written by Luke the Liar.// //" What do you think happened to Paul? -------Don't care. I could justify ignoring the story by reason of my need to go grocery shopping, and if so, it could very well be that for all hours of each day I have more important things to do than read 2,000 year old histories,// These replies from you, really sum up how weak you position is, basically you don’t have any idea what alternate theory you can put forward. You give a throwaway line, about Luke lying about everything, but totally ignorant of the years of archaeology work that has been done, the references in secular works. You know as well as I do, Luke has yet to be proved wrong of anything. Again with Paul, you haven’t a reasonable theory to put forward against Paul’s conversion. Why after 2000 years do you care about what happens with Christianity, Why not get on with your life?


Farmer Craig
Barry Jones "To key question is has Christianity been shown to be historical false in its writings. The answer is a resounding no." ----------------Jesus' family didn't even find his "miracles" the least bit convincing. Mark 3:21, John 7:5. That evidence for Jesus being a fraud is even earlier testimony than your Corinthian "creed". Oh good your taking the New Testament as true account, then so can I. This is a very interesting detail, and great for historians. What a thing to say about the Son of God, Your forgetting also that James became head of the Jerusalem church, both Jude and James wrote letters which we have in the NT, Jesus mother Mary was in the group of believers in Acts.

Barry:
I will answer these later as time permits.

My attack on the Trinity at Bellator Christi

I attacked the Trinity doctrine with a post over at 

https://bellatorchristi.com/2022/01/24/the-foundation-of-a-family/

The post hasn't showed up yet, so here's the content in case Jesus advises the Bellator Christi author Justin Angelos that the ancient church was doing the will of god by destroying anti-Trinitarian works.

------------------------------------------------ 

 If even god cannot act without implicating his own nature, then Jesus was similarly limited.  Indeed, there is no such thing as acting apart from one's nature.

If Jesus had "two natures", then he necessarily implicated both in everything he said or did.

Meaning, both of his natures were equally implicated in his cry of dereliction, that the Father had "forsaken" Jesus.

You will say the Father only forsook the human "nature" of Jesus, because the Father's forsaking Jesus' divine nature is not consistent with your understanding of the Trinity.

But Jesus is "person" who is indivisible.  If he has two natures, that doesn't open the door to splitting him up whenever theological expediency dictates.  The Father did not forsake Jesus' human nature, but forsook Jesus as an entire two-natured  indivisible person.

Meaning the Father also forsook Jesus' divine nature.

Regardless, if Jesus can, by physical breathing on them,  infuse the disciples with the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is essential to Jesus' physical humanity.  That's required by NT theology, no matter how rational it might be for skeptics to say that Jesus the human being breathed oxygen normally just like any other human.  No, Jesus' breath was the Holy Spirit, whether that is absurdly fantastic, contradictory, or otherwise.

Therefore, if you press the point that the Father only abandoned the physical or human nature of Jesus, you are also saying the Father forsook the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit cannot be subtracted from Jesus without asphyxiating him.

And since Jesus cannot be wrong, his belief that the Father forsook him must be correct.

Since Jesus told the truth about his forsakenness while he was still alive, the forsaking was a completed action at the precise movement he said it...while he was still alive...and while the Holy Spirit was still part of that human nature you think the Father forsook.

The Nicaean version of Jesus' nature and relationship to the Father is refuted by these observations.

The consequence of achieving that rebuttal is that the traditional understanding of the Trinity as three persons who are in eternally unbroken harmony, is also refuted.

For these reasons,  It was God the Second person of the Trinity, who truthfully confessed to being forsaken by the Father, the First person of the Trinity.

So while God might be triparte still, the "unbroken harmony" part must be false by logical necessity, which means any surviving doctrine of the Trinity would have to be a major change away from the traditional understanding that has existed for the last 2,000 years.

My attack on the Virgin Birth in reply to Nick Peters

Nick Peters debated John Richards about the Virgin Birth.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1oPJWCsCWQ

In the comments section, I posted 11 justifications for skepticism toward the Virgin Birth:

Barry Jones

1 second ago

Let's see, the intent of the apologist is never to merely show that belief in the VB can be reasonable. There is ALWAYS a chip on their shoulder, they are ALWAYS trying to prove that skepticism toward the VB could not be reasonable. I advance 11 arguments to show that skepticism toward the VB is reasonable: 1 - Mark's failure to mention the virgin birth is significant. you will say he didn't think it necessary to mention because it was already known, but you don't know how well known the virgin birth doctrine was before the end of the first century. And regardless, Mark mentions lots of stuff that appears in Matthew and Luke, showing Mark's intent to repeat, thus refuting those who pretend Mark didn't wish to repeat things already known. And patristic sources are pretty clear that Mark "omitted nothing" from his account. Therefore what he left out, was not a case of 'omission', but matter that he either didn't know about, or which he regarded as false. Bible inerrancy is a false doctrine, so I have no sympathy for the fools who demand that any theory to explain the virgin birth missing from Mark reconciles Mark with other biblical authors. 2 - Matthew and Luke are the only NT authors to mention the virgin birth, when in fact one hermeneutic used by conservatives is to emphasize a doctrine only in proportion to how often it is taught in the bible. That's why most conservatives can't stop talking about Paul, and why ost conservatives don't have much to say about the VB until somebody presses a skeptical objection to it. 3 - today's fundies would never believe a similar story about some 14 year old girl today. But beacuse the VB is mired in ancient history, fundies seem to think this gives it an aura of verisimilitude, even though they refuse to draw such a conclusion about most other ancient theological statements outside the bible. 4 - Jesus never mentioned his conception or birth, indicating he didn't think such things doctrinally important. In fact, when presented with the perfect opportunity to do so, he rebuked the person who praised his mother: 27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed." 28 But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it." (Lk. 11:27-28 NAU) 5 - Mark 3:21 says Jesus' family thought him insane and sought to arrest him and put a stop to his public ministry. The mother of Jesus in Mark 3:21 does not likely think her son was YHWH manifest in human flesh. If that means Mark is contradicting Matthew and Luke, all the more reason to say the VB is fiction. 6 - John 7:5 says Jesus brothers mocked him and did not believe in him. In the chronology of the ministry, John 7 would be after Jesus completed the first third of his earthly ministry. That is, even after about 1 or 2 years of Jesus running around doing miracles, not only do his brothers persist in unbelief toward him (v. 5), they MOCK the whole idea that he is capable of doing miracles (vv. 1-4). It is very reasonable to infer from John 7:5 that Jesus' brothers did not believe he was anything more special than a con artist. 7 - Supposing Jesus to be god for the sake of argument, we have to wonder to what extent this was or wasn't manifest during his infancy and childhood, in order to account for why his family view him as a loon. Did the child Jesus ever make mistakes? If not, wouldn't that have tipped off the family that he was very special and work against their forming the opinion that he was crazy? Did the child Jesus ever sin? If not, wouldn't that have tipped off the family that he was very special, and work against their forming the opinion that he was crazy? If you and your brother are in your 30s, and your brother never sinned once in his life, wouldn't we be reasonable to assume you'd probably have a very high view of him? And if you told us your brother is crazy and deserves to be arrested and his public ministry halted, meaning YOU don't believe in his claims, wouldn't we be reasonable to assume that you never observed anything about your brother that you thought made him any better than anybody else? If these skeptical contentions are reasonable, then we can be reasonable to use Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 to justify concluding that Jesus' family never had any reason to think Jesus was anything supernatural. Apologist trifles otherwise could never have the power to render such skepticism unreasonable. 8 - Jesus defines essential doctrine as his own teachings to the disciples (Matthew 28:20), so since Jesus never taught anything about his conception or birth, not only are those subjects doctrinally irrelevant, Matthew must have thought they were irrelevant. Thus his inclusion of such stories likely only means he agreed with the intertestamental authors, and thought it morally permissible to mix true history with fiction for the sake of edification. 9 - The biggest hurdle, and the one apologists will always stumble at, is how they figure the VB "applies to" believers today. There is no reasonable way to demonstrate that the NT "applies to" today. 10 - Stories of gods impregnating virgins existed before the 1st century, so that it become irresistable to conclude that Matthew and Luke merely took a popular religious motif and gave it a new spin. See Pindar's Pythian Ode # 12, securely dated more than 200 years before Jesus, where Danae is still called "virgin" during and after giving birth to Perseus, the son of Zeus. “And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus.: (Justin, Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 22, Schaff, P. (2000). 11 - Perhaps most embarrassing to today's apologists, the early church fathers had to resort to a contrived theory of the devil imitating Christ's virtues before Christ existed, in order to "explain" why certain aspects of Christianity and Jesus were found in pre-Christian paganism. If the answer was as simple as "the pagan version didn't exist until after Jesus was born", then the church fathers would not have employed this silly apologetic to 'explain' the parallels. See Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. LXIX. Justin is most explicit in this, in his First Apology:

Chapter LIV.—Origin of Heathen Mythology. But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. And these things were said both among the Greeks and among all nations where they [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain. The prophet Moses, then, was, as we have already said, older than all writers; and by him, as we have also said before, it was thus predicted: “There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape.”115 The devils, accordingly, when they heard these prophetic words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine116 [or, the ass] among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. And because in the prophecy of Moses it had not been expressly intimated whether He who was to come was the Son of God, and whether He would, riding on the foal, remain on earth or ascend into heaven, and because the name of “foal” could mean either the foal of an ass or the foal of a horse, they, not knowing whether He who was foretold would bring the foal of an ass or of a horse as the sign of His coming, nor whether He was the Son of God, as we said above, or of man, gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus. And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. And when they knew what was said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies written aforetime, “Strong as a giant to run his course,”117 they said that Hercules was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth. And when, again, they learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Aesculapius.

------------- For all these reasons, every apologist who classifies VB skepticism as unreasonable, is high on crack.