my reply to Bellator-Christi on Jesus' level of knowledge

This is my reply to an article at BellatorChristi.com by Sherene Khouri entitled

The Knowledge of Jesus

May 6, 2022

See here.

Some skeptics and even Christians present the following question regarding the knowledge of Jesus. “If Jesus is God, why he did not know when he would return?” According to Mattew 24:36, Jesus seems not to know the hour and the day of his coming. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36).[1] This idea is also echoed in Mark 13:32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” The superficial reading of the text might show that Jesus does not know the time of His coming because the Father has not disclosed it; however, this understanding is problematic for those who claim Jesus is God. 

But even inerrantist Christian scholars admit Mark 13:32 was difficult even for Matthew and Luke to accept:

The difficulty of the statement can be seen in the fact that many manuscripts of Matt 24:36 and a few of Mark omit the statement and that Luke omits the verse altogether. It is also possible that Matthew himself omitted the statement, as he often did in the case of difficult statements in Mark, and that later scribes added it in order to harmonize Matthew with Mark. Inasmuch as Matthew was more highly regarded and more frequently used than Mark in the medieval church, however, Mark usually was harmonized to Matthew rather than vice versa.

Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic e.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 217). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The point is that if even spiritually alive apostles and their immediate followers could be so bothered by Mark 13:32 as to consider it best to get rid of it, then skeptics are justified to view Mark 13:32 as heretical.  Or will you admit that Luke thought less of Mark than you do?

Khouri continues:

This article argues that Jesus does know about the timing because He presented many details about that day, but it is the type of knowledge that should not be announced.

But Jesus in Mark 13:32 classified the character of his not knowing as on par with all other human beings and angels also not knowing this same factoid. At least in the case of all other human beings, their not knowing such a thing has nothing to do with desire to keep such a date secret, but only because they are genuinely ignorant. So skeptics can be reasonable to argue that the basis for Jesus not knowing such a thing was the same basis upon which he also declared that no other human beings knew such a thing…both classes were simply limited in how much information they had access to.

The Divine Knowledge
The divine knowledge in the Christian worldview includes past, middle, and future knowledge. God knows everything that had happened, would have happened, and will happen.

Here are the questions I posted to this article.  They had to be brief because Bellator-Christi unabashadly admits it will reject replies that are too comprehensive or ask too many questions (i.e., smart skeptics who specialize in counter-apologetics are not allowed to fight back with everything they have at their disposal):

How long do you recommend skeptics to study the differences between Christian scholars on the subject of exhaustive divine knowledge and open-theism, before we reach the point at which we can be reasonable to start drawing conclusions as to which camp is more “biblical”?

Or must we be spiritually alive before we can beneficially distinguish orthodoxy from heresy?

And what will god do to protect these inquiring skeptics from going to hell while they remain within this transitory “I’m-not-a-believer-but-I’m-still-researching-Christianity” phase?

Khouri continues:

However, divine knowledge is not always announced, and at some times it is announced in expected and unexpected ways (through humans or miracles).

I'm not seeing the relevance.  Jesus clearly asserted that God possessed a bit of factual knowledge of the future that Jesus himself equally clearly denied was possessed by the "Son".  God's ability to refrain from announcing what's in his foreknowledge is irrelevant.

Khouri continues:

There are some places in the Bible where the superficial reading of the text implies that God is requesting information or seeking to learn something about the person or the situation. For instance, in Genesis 3:8-11, after the fall of Adam and Eve, God asks Adam “where are you?” as if God does not know where Adam is. Later in the text, God asks Adam “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

And the conservative Christian view says those stories were originally told by illiterate Hebrews from 2,000 b.c. or even earlier, when Hebrew theology was far less sophisticated than it is today.  The conservative Christian wants to "reconcile" bible statements about God's apparent ignorance with other bible statements about God's full knowledge, all in the name of having a theologically consistent book that seems to be a prerequisite for rationalizing one's view that the bible is "god's word".

But the more objective approach is to ask what theological position was held by the original authors of such stories.  Any dipshit lawyer can "reconcile" any two statements, especially if they occur, in the case of the bible, hundreds of years apart.  People back then did not speak in such comprehensive terms to as to preclude all possible harmonization scenarios that some inerrantist might propose.  And yet most inerrantists stupidly think that because a harmonization scenario is merely possible, then skeptics have lost the bible-contradiction debate.  LOL

Khouri continues:

God’s question might be understood as if God does not know that Adam ate from the tree, and He is making sense of Adam’s disappearance. But a deeper look into the text reveals that God is not asking Adam about his location but getting him to confess what he has done. In other words, God asking a question is not done to acquire extra knowledge (because He does not know), but to have human beings confess their sins. 

Fallacy of single cause.  There is nothing in the Genesis texts you cited requiring that there must only be a single cause for God's statements asking where Adam was.  And there is no logical contradiction between God not knowing where Adam was, and God's wanting Adam to confess a sin.  But regardless, all you are doing here is pushing the classical theist understanding and saying literally nothing about the Christian theologians who adopt "open theism" or process theology and therefore think these are cases of God being genuinely ignorant.  They are not impressed with the inerrantist who points to other bible verses and then screams that god cannot contradict himself.

So then, what?  If you say Christian open theists aren't truly born again, well, you can't really know that, and the vast majority of conservatives, including the late Walter Martin, would say the presence of heresy in a Christian's theological understanding isn't sufficient by itself to justify placing them outside salvation.  Skeptics would be reasonable to agree with the majority of conservative Christians that at the end of the day, you don't go to hell for heresy, but for having a heart that is not right with god.  So you don't get anywhere with the skeptic who objects using open theist scholars, by saying those kind of Christians are just wolves in sheep's clothing.

So then, what?  How can we take seriously the conservative viewpoint that certain genuinely born again Christians persistently misunderstand the voice of the Holy Spirit, and despite their salvation and sincerity, espouse heresy?   Skeptics are justified to conclude either a) there is "god" guiding anybody's bible interpretation, that's why so many "born-again" people disagree in how to interpret the bible, or b) God wants some authentically born-again Christians to misinterpret the bible, which then automatically excuses and justifies their "heresy".

The point being that you've done a rather sad job of pretending that the "correct" interpretation of the divine-knowledge statements in Genesis is the one you espouse.  For all you know, authors with different theological perspectives wrote the various stories in Genesis, and a later editor came along and did an imperfect job of making the viewpoints look more harmonious than they really were.

Gee, how many Christian scholars accept the documentary hypothesis?  Or did I forget that you will just discount the significance of any Christian scholar who happens to disagree with your viewpoint?

Khouri continues:

A similar example happens when God wrestles with Jacob in Genesis 32:24-30. God asks Jacob “what is your name?” Does God not know what Jacob’s name is? Of course, He knows, but the answer lies in verse 28 when He says, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” God does not ask this question because He does not know the answer, but because He wanted to declare himself to Jacob. In verse 30, Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” Jacob knew right away after this incident that he was wrestling with God. This is all to say that God does not acquire extra knowledge, but He knows everything. The superficial reading of the text might give the wrong impression about the knowledge of God.

I'm sorry, but you have done literally nothing to show that the classical theist interpretation arises from the text itself.  Yes, it is "god".  Yes, Jacob knew at some point he wrestled with "god".  Nothing abut this expresses or implies that the open-theist interpretation of that story is false or unreasonable.  And to the ancient unsophisticated mind, a man's wrestling with "god" would suggest god might have limitations.  Then again, nothing about bible interpretation affects anything in a skeptic's daily life if they don't let it, so what the bible "really" teaches is for all practical purposes, a pointless trifle of academia. We may as well be debating whether the Trojan War every happened. Big fucking deal.

Khouri continues:

The Different Types of Knowledge
Not all knowledge about a topic is equal or the same. According to the Dictionary of World Philosophy, there are three types of knowledge: a) Factual knowledge: it can also be called propositional knowledge. It is the knowledge of facts or a set of propositions that provides information. b) Procedural knowledge: this knowledge is practical. It is acquired through education, learning, and practice. It is expressed by “how to” clauses—a person knows how to ride his bicycle.[2] c) Knowledge by acquaintance, which is the knowledge of people, places, and things.[3] For instance, Susan knows that Alyssa is a musician (the propositional knowledge) is different from Suan knowing Alyssa because she is her sister (personal knowledge).

But Jesus said the knowledge that he didn't have was missing from other human beings, and only the Father had it.  So once again, because the other human beings' ignorance of Jesus' date of second coming was due to simple ignorance, we are reasonable, even if not infallible, to assume that Jesus made the comparison because he thought his own ignorance of the same thing was in the same class.

Your reconciliation scenario is also ridiculous, since it would rationalize away any two contradictory statements somebody made about their knowledge.  If a witness at the scene of the crime said "I don't know the suspect" but then later confessed "I knew the suspect before he committed the crime", your "apologetic" would enable the witness to "reconcile" this contradiction, and the police would be forced to accept it. Sorry, life doesn't work that way.

Khouri continues:

Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). The Jews were not appreciative of what Jesus said because they thought that they knew the truth. The truth to them is God, and they know the name of God and His commandments. They consider themselves the children of Abraham and free men who were never slaves. However, Jesus was instructing them to abide in the word not in a propositional way, but in a practical way. He was not emphasizing the propositional knowledge that they have, but the procedural knowledge they should acquire lest they followed the propositional knowledge. Jesus knew that they are the children of Abraham, and they were never slaves, but He meant those who make sin are slaves to sin. They are not free because they know God. They are slaves because they commit sin. Those who know God propositionally are still slaves to sin until their knowledge is manifested practically.

You are now contradicting other parts of the bible, such as Romans 3:9-10, where Paul includes his spiritually born-again self among those who are detestable because of their association with sin.

And Christians disagree over what exactly Paul meant in Romans 7 in confessing himself to be a contradictory person captive both to sin and to his better spiritual judgment.  You aren't going to resolve that disagreement to the point of "showing" that skeptics are "accountable" to "know" that their distrust of Paul is "wrong".

Additionally, the Bible reveals two types of divine knowledge: what is announced and what is not announced. God in His provision chooses to declare some of the world’s secrets, He leaves other information for human beings to discover on their own, and He announces other data expecting human beings to react to it. As Moses states, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut 26:26). This is to say that there is secret information that God chose not to declare and other knowledge that God revealed.

I don't see the point:  we are dealing with Jesus' confession of ignorance.  Knowledge that God might choose to keep secret  has nothing to do with it, except in the sense that Jesus was kept ignorant of it no less than the angels and the rest of humanity.

 In real life, I remember an incident that happened to me, which illustrates the non-announced type of knowledge. When I was in graduate school taking a biblical language class, I asked the professor during the exam review will this question be on the exam and she said, “I don’t know.” Of course, the professor knew what questions are on the test, but she could not tell me what those questions are. It is not the type of knowledge that should be announced.

We don't know enough about this interaction to pretend that it is "clear" that the professor meant something other than genuine generic ignorance.  her creation of the test doesn't mean she knew, at the point you asked the question, whether that particular question would appear on the test.  And normally, when a person says "I don't know", they mean it in the same way it would be taken in a court of law, as a denial of factual knowledge.

Jesus’s Knowledge about the Last Day
Jesus knows everything because the Father has told Him. Jesus states, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:22).

Luke also omitted Mark 13:32.  You can scream all you wish that even most NT scholars are "stupid" for adopting Markan Priority and the two-source hypothesis, but you aren't going to demonstrate this stupidity to such a degree as to render spiritually dead skeptic "accountable" to "know" that this most popular solution to the Synoptic problem is "wrong".  Thus skeptics are reasonable, even if not infallible, to believe Luke copied off of Mark, but didn't copy out Mark 13:32 because Luke felt the statement was either heretical or reasonably capable of an interpretation that would support what Luke thought to be heresy.  

Feel free to say that Luke was stupid to think that the statement in Mark 13:32 could reasonably be interpreted to support low-Christology.

 Jesus knows the nature and the will of the Father. This factual knowledge was given to Him by the Father Himself.

Your leaning so heavily on other parts of the bible to establish a basis for "refuting" the skeptical view of Jesus' knowledge indicates you are writing primarily for a Christian audience.  To that extent, your article threatens nothing in the skeptical view.

Certain Type of Knowledge Jesus Declared
There are several examples in the Gospels where Jesus claims not to have knowledge about the last day, but the context reveals that He does know. Referring to the day of judgment, Jesus says, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt 7:22-23). Jesus knows what will happen on the day of judgment. He explains what will happen to certain people. Many people will claim to be His followers, but He will say to them that He never knew them. The phrase, “I never knew you” is an example of personal knowledge, whereas the claims about these people confessing their knowledge and belief in Jesus is propositional knowledge. Jesus presents that He has factual knowledge about the last day, but what He does not know is the personal knowledge of some people who will be raised on that day.

I'm sorry, Matthew 7 does not express or imply that Jesus is ignorant about the "personal knowledge of some people who will be raised on that day."

"I never knew you" is not a denial of factual knowledge, since under your conservative hermeneutic of scripture interprets scripture, "know" in the bible often means to have particular or intimate knowledge of a person that most others do not have.  Jesus apparently claimed knowledge that the people he would cast away were "workers of lawlessness", so he was apparently claiming  to know exactly who they were, and his "I never knew you" is the same as the man who tells his adulterous wife "you are no wife of mine".

On the same eschatological occasion, Jesus gives the parable of the 10 virgins. The five virgins who left the wedding to buy more oil because theirs was about to finish, were cast out of the marriage feast. Jesus tells them, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” (Matt 25:1-13). This is another incident where Jesus gives propositional knowledge about the last day (the marriage feast), but He claims not to know some people with personal knowledge.

Well, you think Jesus is God, and you think God knows all factually true propositions, so how do YOU explain that God manifest in human flesh had lacked personal knowledge of some people?

And don't conservatives have a rule of thumb that says you shouldn't attempt to derive theology from the parables of Jesus?

There is an example in the Gospels where Jesus pretends not to know certain information, but the context shows that He does know. When Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman and tells her to call her husband, the woman answered Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.” (John 4:16-18). Jesus knows that the woman is not married, and she is living an adulterous life. Jesus did not deceive the woman by giving her false information, but He presented her with a different kind of information in order to see how she would react. 

Why would Jesus need to see how she would react?  Did he lack that bit of future knowledge that the classical theist god allegedly had?

This incident shows that Jesus knew (propositional knowledge and personal knowledge) but He pretended not to know because of a particular purpose. It was His way of declaring His divinity to a sinful woman and waiting for her response.

 Only a conservative Christian would dare trifle that a man can desire to falsely convince others he is ignorant and yet the man can still be said to have been "honest" in such endeavor.

Certain Type of Knowledge Jesus Concealed
Jesus teaches His disciples to be ready, watchful, and attentive to the last day because they did not know the precise time of His return. He instructs His disciple not to marvel about the last day (John 5:28-29). Apostle Paul reminds his audience that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1Thess 5:2). The same idea is repeated by Peter and John (Rev 3:3 & 2 Peter 3:10). If Jesus was ignorant about the end times, how could He be so specific in giving so many details? 

Maybe for the same reason that you think biblical authors could know such details while still being ignorant of other related matters?  Sure, that doesn't give you a Jesus who is truly "god", but that's your problem.

And once again, you are bouncing all around the bible, acting as if skeptics should consider themselves blown away by your creating your presuppositional foundation by simply throwing together lots of bible verses the way Jehovah's Witnesses do.  Sorry, it ain't working.

The information about the last day lies within the realm of divine knowledge. Since the Bible is clear that the day of the Lord will be revealed at that moment, it is reasonable to think that the exact timing of that day is not meant to be revealed. Jesus tells His disciples, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority (Acts 1:7). He also told His disciples who were asking questions concerning judgment that “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). This knowledge belongs to the Father, it is not revealed yet, and it might not be revealed in the near future because people cannot bear it. People are expected to be wise servants while watching for the Master’s return.

That does not help explain why god manifest in the flesh confessed ignorance about his own future doings.

Jesus’s knowledge about the hour and the day is not factual knowledge but is related to the knowledge that cannot be declared right now. 

No, in Mark 13:32 Jesus did not say his hearers were not allowed to know when he would return, he confessed that even the "Son" didn't know.  Jesus' ignorance of such a thing is going to hurt your classical-theist view, whether or not the ignorance arose from God refusing to "declare" it.

There will be a time in the future when Jesus Himself will announce and execute his coming. 

How long should skeptics study the differences Christian Preterists have with non-Preterist Christians, before we can be reasonable to start drawing conclusions as to who is right and who is wrong?

Or is that a stupid question light of the fact that skeptics are spiritually dead, while you are forced to admit that spiritually alive people cannot come to agreement on the meaning of such biblical data?

He tells the disciples, “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father” (John 16:25). It is the role of the Son to fulfill that day and hour. Jesus declared repeatedly that He will not act independently of the Father (Matt 26:42; John 8:28; John 12: 49-50). Jesus speaks and acts only as the Father has directed and instructed Him. 

So do you recommend that skeptics research the differences between Unitarians, Binitarians, Jesus-only, and Trinitarians?  

How have spiritually alive people fared when they debated each other on such things?

How well do you expect spiritually dead people to care when they inquire into such theological disagreements?

Aren't skeptics reasonably justified to say Christian confusion and disagreement about Jesus is so rampant that the skeptics who can justify interest in this crap are merely those who naturally like pointless intellectual sophistry?

Conclusion
Jesus as shown in different places in the Gospels uses the word “to know” in two different senses. On the one hand, He teaches that the disciples cannot, should not, and will not “know” the precise day or hour of His coming. On the other hand, Jesus “not knowing” belongs to His submission to the Father in regard to the timing of His return. It is not His call to determine or to announce the day of His coming (this role belongs to the Father). It is not the business of the disciples to know, nor the role of the Son to declare. It is not that Jesus’s human nature that limited His knowledge, but that His role and function in the Trinity is not to declare timing.

How urgent is the threat of hell to the skeptic who decides to stop thinking about repentance and instead focus on researching your article?  Are there any second chances in the afterworld for unbelievers who were sincerely seeking, but not yet born-again, at the time they met an untimely death?

Or should I conclude it doesn't matter since your answer will merely show that this is yet another among the thousands of biblical subjects that spiritually alive people disagree on?

Your effort to "justify" Jesus' confession of ignorance in Mark 13:32 falls flat on its face. The context indicates it was also human beings didn't know, and in such context, that means Jesus' own ignorance was equally generic and literal, thus this bible verse is a legitimate attack on the classical theist view that Jesus is "god" by nature.  That's going to be reasonable regardless of your trifles based upon statements elsewhere in the bible, a hermeneutical move that does nothing to impose an intellectual obligation upon a skeptic who doesn't even believe in biblical inerrancy/consistency.

my reply to Ty Nienke on Jesus' resurrection

Ty Nienke tries to argue the resurrection case in his YouTube video here.

I was apparently the first to reply, and I replied as follows:

Barry Jones

Not sure why it would matter whether Jesus rose from the dead:  making Jesus relevant to modern people requires you to do something biblical authors never do:  make the NT "apply to" modern day people. 

I don't see how any Christian has any hope of showing the bible's applicability to modern people, to such a degree that it would render today's skeptics foolish.  The bible doesn't talk about itself and doesn't talk about what people living 2,000 years after the authors wrote are supposed to do.  Yet today's Christians fallaciously put just as much stock in a non-biblical claim like "the bible applies to us today" no less than they put stock in clear biblical claims such as John 3:16 (!?) 

A skeptic could cite Christianity's in-house debates about dispensationalism, to justify saying not even spiritually alive people can be reasonably sure whether anything in the NT "applies to" people today, thus they are being unreasonable to 'expect' spiritually dead unbelievers to recognize biblical "truth". 

If Jesus' miracles are supposed to mean he was approved of by God, why don't today's apologists stay consistent with that reasoning, and insist that if miracles happen in any modern church, god is similarly manifesting his approval of that church's particular theology?  Does the bible provide criteria for knowing when the working of a true miracle signals god's approval of the miracle-worker's theological viewpoint, and when the working of a true miracle leaves that question unanswered? 

I overcome the "early" nature of the 1st Corinthians 15 "creed" with  Mark 3:21 and John 7:5, which under the conservative view are facts that occurred before Jesus died and thus are far earlier than the Corinthians "creed", supra.  According to Mark 3:21 and John 7:5, Jesus was incapable of working genuinely supernatural miracles.  If your brother or son was running around town raising people from the dead, what are the odds that your disagreements with him about points of theology might blind you to the obvious implications of God's working through him in such an undeniable way? 

No, if Jesus' family found him decidedly unconvincing, it wasn't because he dashed their dreams of a military messiah, it was more likely because they checked out his miracle claims and found them false, and therefore began to view him the way most people today view Benny Hinn and other faith-healers....a very popular charismatic charlatan. 

And why did the original eyewitnesses to the empty tomb expect it to continue being sealed three days after Jesus died?  Can we be reasonable to deduce that these women must not have found Jesus' prior miracles very convincing, and therefore didn't put a lot of stock in his prior predictions that he would rise after three days' being in the grave?  

Skepticism of Jesus' resurrection is very reasonable, and in actual daily life, reasonableness always trumps  accuracy.  

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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?

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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.