Category Archives: Other Apologetics or History

Related to broader apologetics, philosophy, or history/archeology

Other Apologetics or History

Easter-Then and Now

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Easter is a holiday to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection. But I think often Christians don’t think of it as much as they should. So, this is to explore the resurrection and its relevance to us today. The Apostles who travelled and did ministry with Jesus for about three years were often confused and had petty doubts and disagreements. They often had difficulty understanding Jesus, judging from the four gospel accounts in the New Testament. When Jesus was arrested and crucified this was not what they expected because they thought he would become King. The Jewish religious leaders, who were generally very hypocritical, wanted to kill him for blaspheme, but the Romans didn’t allow them to execute someone. So, they seemed to pressure governor Pilate into executing him as someone who claimed to be a king. Yet, Pilate understood from speaking to Jesus that this was not really the case (See John 18:28-19:6 and Luke 23:13-25). But I think Pilate was concerned that the Jewish leaders would go to Caesar and get Pilate in serious trouble. So out of this complex political situation Jesus was crucified as a non-Roman citizen criminal.

So, Jesus was crucified on a Friday according to the Jewish calendar before Passover started in the evening. Jesus was placed in the tomb prior to sunset. Since it was before sunset the portion of daylight on Friday after he died becomes counted as a day in the Jewish manner of counting days. Then that Saturday was the normal Jewish Sabbath. From Friday evening sunset to Saturday evening sunset was the Passover (the second “day” of his death). Then Sunday was considered the first day of the week. Jesus’ resurrection was shortly before sunrise that Sunday morning (John 20:1). From sunset Saturday to when Jesus rose from the dead would be considered part of a 24-hour day to the Jews because they counted days from sunset to sunset. So, it may have still been dark when Jesus appeared coming out of the tomb in blinding light which caused the Roman soldiers to faint (Matthew 28:1-7).

Then some of the women disciples went to the tomb, apparently arriving after the soldiers fainted. Then later, Peter and John went to the tomb. The New Testament doesn’t indicate whether the Romans allowed others to continue going to the tomb or not. If they did, then many could have seen the empty tomb. But word got around quickly and there continued to be sightings and appearances of Jesus for a period of 40 days (Acts 1:1-5). The appearances were in varied places and times of day, sometimes to individuals and sometimes to groups (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-10). In 1 Corinthians 15 the Apostle Paul says Jesus appeared to more than 500 believers at one time, and that at the time he wrote that many of those people were still alive. So, the people receiving Paul’s letter to the Corinthians could have spoken to those who were in the group of 500 who saw Jesus. There was also an appearance of Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus sometime later. That was an appearance to someone of a very hostile opposing point of view, which makes it unique. Saul, the young Pharisee, became a Believer and was chosen by Jesus to be an Apostle. He changed from being a zealous opponent trying to arrest Christians to being a promoter of the faith he had tried to destroy. This is summarizing a lot of information in the New Testament.

To read some of this see the Bible passages below.
See this link for Matthew: https://www.bible.com/bible/59/MAT.28.ESV
or this for John: https://www.bible.com/bible/59/JHN.20.ESV

Of course, many have questioned or doubted the New Testament to varying degrees. But the New Testament has a very good track record in its historical reliability. If the New Testament writers are well verified on historical details, for the facts that can be verified from other sources, then why doubt them? It is usually because of the reluctance to believe in miracles or the reluctance to believe all that the New Testament says. But doubting the New Testament is not really out of evidence against it, but it is a personal issue to reject it. The Old Testament and New Testament in the Bible are truly historical. It is not that we know how to tie every detail to historical evidence, but there are many things that can be tied to historical and archeological evidence. The archeological evidence confirming the Bible gets better over time also. The Bible describes real places, real kings and political leaders, known wars, and various events of history. So, the New Testament is written in the context of history.

This is not the case with non-Christian religions. For many religions the adherents don’t really expect it to relate it to history. They may care about the history surrounding a founder, but it doesn’t hinge on being historical, such as Hinduism for example. Some religions have a false history that is believed but that cannot be verified, such as Mormonism. In recent years scholars have been challenging Islam because historical evidence argues against Muslim claims about Mohammad and the Koran. So, the New Testament accounts related to Jesus’ resurrection then become the earliest eyewitness accounts we have. They are the accounts of eyewitnesses or close associates of eyewitnesses who were there in the first century. Within a few short weeks after Jesus’ crucifixion, there was explosive growth in the number of Christian converts (Acts 2:36-41). Then Christianity started spreading around the world. The early disciples of Jesus also changed from being people who were living in hiding to being bold witnesses, some of which were doing miracles like Jesus had done.

I think the thoroughness of the Romans did Christians many favors regarding the resurrection of Jesus. The Romans were very professional and skilled at crucifixion and handling criminals. They crucified many criminals and enemies of Rome. Crucifixion did not start with the Romans. I believe the ancient Assyrians practiced it in some manner. But the practice was much refined by the Romans. The Romans were experts at the process. Some non-Christian religious people like to claim Jesus did not actually die. But this is easy to answer I think because if Jesus didn’t actually die then the Romans made a mistake that they would just never make. Jesus was also flogged before being crucified and the flogging was a terrible thing that would have severely weakened Jesus. In John 19:34 it indicates a Roman soldier verified Jesus had died by piercing his side with a spear, and it says out came blood and water. Medical doctors have pointed out this is what would happen if the pericardium sac around heart was pierced. A watery fluid would come out with the blood. So, this is clear evidence of death from the Bible. But even if you don’t accept this, it’s not realistically possible for the Romans to crucify someone and not kill them. There were official Roman written records that Jesus was put to death by Pilate, but those records haven’t survived to today. The soldiers normally made sure of death by breaking the legs of the person being crucified, since this made it impossible for them to breathe. But John 19 indicates they didn’t do this with Jesus, but used the spear to verify instead, since he had already died (John 19:31-37). There had even been prophesies from the Old Testament about this (Zechariah 12:10 and Psalm 34:20). So, Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled Old Testament prophesies.

Then we can consider how the Romans guarded the tomb. In Matthew 27:65, the ESB Bible indicates Governor Pilate said “make it [the tomb] as secure as you can.” Some movies have depicted the resurrection so there is only two guards at the tomb. But this is contrary to what is known about the Romans. Josh McDowell’s books point out that when the Romans posted a guard they used some multiple of 4. Also it may be that since it was guarding something outside, rather than being in a prison, they may have used more guards. So the minimum possible would be four guards but even that may be contrary to Roman practices. It seems 8 or 16 would be more likely. Even 20 guards would be possible. Since Jesus had 12 of the more well-known closest followers I can’t imagine the Romans having less than 12 guards. But we don’t know the exact number. At any rate, there was special training the Roman soldiers got on how to guard something. They were supposed to be capable of defending a small area against an attacking army. They would sleep in shifts with a group of four guards in each shift. If Roman guards went to sleep when they weren’t supposed to on guard duty, they were executed. Yet, according to the New Testament these guards were not executed. The Jewish religious leaders made some special arrangement with Pilate and told the soldiers to tell people that the disciples stole the body while the guards were asleep. But the story of them sleeping is not plausible and common people would have known this. They would not all go to sleep like this, especially if there were 16 or more guards. All this leads to the conclusion I think that it is not really plausible the disciples stole the body, though this is the story that was adopted. Furthermore, why weren’t some of the disciples arrested for stealing the body, if this is what happened?

Another common “explanation” brought up is that the disciples hallucinated or just “imagined” it. But the problem with both of these ideas is that it happened too many times in too many different situations. The Bible even describes Jesus encouraging the disciples to touch him and even eating fish in one of his appearances (Luke 24:36-43). Hallucinations cannot be the same between two people. So, there is no way multiple people, both together and separately, could have had the same hallucination, or have imagined the same thing. He also appeared when they did not expect it. It’s true they would have missed him a lot, but this is not enough to make these plausible explanations. To not believe in the appearances of Jesus, you end up just having to not trust the New Testament. My own father once suggested that they hallucinated but I was a new Christian at the time and did not know what to say to this. There were a number of appearances to people individually and in groups in multiple locations over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:1-5). On one occasion Jesus spoke to some of the men on the road and they didn’t recognize him till he went home with them and broke bread to eat. The disciples were obviously wrestling with whether to believe their own eyes. Thomas is well known for having said he would not believe till he touched the wounds in Jesus hands and side. Later, he had his chance to do this, and his response was “My Lord and my God! (John 21:24-29)” Some of the disciples didn’t believe the other disciples initially. So, it took them time to deal with what had happened. The New Testament presents authentic accounts of what the disciples went through, “warts and all” as we could say. The New Testament doesn’t present the disciples as perfect people without problems.

The disciples became very bold after Jesus had risen and then ascended into heaven. The resurrection confirmed all that Jesus said would happen to him and proved he was both fully God and fully human. The resurrection was something that dramatically changed the disciples lives. But what about us today? Pastor John MacArthur once said something about the resurrection that I’ve never forgotten. He said “The resurrection is not just something that happened to Jesus. If you’re a Christian, it’s something that happens to you!” This means that it empowers us now, to live new lives. It gives us power to change and be better than we could be on our own. We don’t have to be “stuck” in bad habits! Christians who die are promised to be resurrected like Jesus one day, but the power to change is something we have now, today! Jesus did not promise life would be easy. But I would say God makes life more good. This is not theoretical to me, because He did it for me.

Other Apologetics or History

Why I still believe

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I have recently passed the “milestone” of having been a Christian for forty years and I still believe. If you asked the question, “Why did I become a Christian?” that has mysterious aspects. The process of becoming a Christian is where we run into the mysteries of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. I think that without God’s acting in someone’s life, they would not believe. But it is not that God forces the person to believe. It really is their real choice, but somehow God helps a person get over the spiritual handicap they were born with, so they can believe. I wrote a blog post about coming to faith in November of 2018, called “The Road To Faith.” I explained how I see the role of reason in believing in God. There is a relational side of the issue of believing in God, and a mental or rational side of it. In becoming a Christian, I think the relational side actually is more important to most people than the rational side. But this varies with each person. On our “road to faith” we put blocks on our own path because we want something to stop us from believing. But just because you have an unanswered question that your reason cannot answer, this does not in and of itself make it a roadblock. It only becomes a roadblock when you decide it’s a roadblock. To make an unanswered question a roadblock we sort of give that question a special status. So if an unanswered question has been vested with the status of being a roadblock to faith, then we must decide how to respond to it. Will we find an answer that allows us to remove the obstacle, or will we go around it, try to jump over it, or give up and go backwards?

So the road to faith is not entirely a rational process, but that doesn’t mean there are no reasons for faith. Having genuine questions is not a sin in and of itself. Questions about why we should believe do need answers. But having answers is often not enough in and of itself to satisfy us. There are some who seem to give up on faith along the way, after years of believing, as they describe it. I’m not addressing explaining that situation. People like that become ambiguous cases. I haven’t been one of those cases. It is common for some Christians to struggle at certain times in their lives over the question of are they really a Christian? I have never struggled with that question in the forty years I’ve been a Christian. But that does not mean my faith hasn’t wavered or weakened at times. In living the Christian life, there is still a relational aspect and a rational aspect. God certainly has an active role in the path taken by a believer. In fact, without God leading and sustaining a Christian, any Christian could fall into doubt and trouble. So I have to thank God for a good 40 years, though they were far from being easy years. I do think it is over time that the rational side becomes most relevant in a way. If I have a bad day where I do something I regret, that does not have to make me question that I am a Christian. But it could make me question something in the Bible or something I’ve been taught by believers.

Why have I not given up on faith after all the challenges and difficulties? This question is something where I would have to first thank God that I have not given up on faith, but I may not fully understand how God has been involved. I believe he has been involved from my experience. There have been many times where Christian friends were supportive in ways that was vital to me also. I’ve been very fortunate to have some wonderful long term friendships. We all need a combination of support from others, the will to persevere, and reasons to persevere. I try to understand everything in life from the Biblical perspective. I find this always leads me in the right direction, as long as I am understanding Scripture correctly. So with all this said, I will proceed with summarizing some reasons why I still believe as a Christian, after forty years. Reasons to believe are there when your feelings fail you. So the reasons for faith I’ve learned about have helped me to “keep my balance” you could say.

1. The uniqueness, authority, and trustworthiness of the Bible

Much can be said about this, but I will only say a little here. Nothing compares to the Bible. It is amazing how 40 authors from different times in history, different walks of life, and different levels of education wrote the Bible and yet it has one coherent consistent message throughout. The way it has been instrumental in the lives of many people throughout history is another good argument for it. People who don’t know much about the Bible may bring up the question of how can you trust it, and believe that there are no copying errors. But this kind of statement shows ignorance of how the Bible came to us. It’s not that there are no copying errors. It’s that we have so many manuscripts to compare to that it is pretty straightforward to show when you have a copying error. The Old Testament was copied by use of extreme methods to ensure accuracy and again there are manuscripts from different times in history to compare. The New Testament was copied so much we have many manuscripts from different times in history. So copying errors are not an issue. There are other good reasons to say that we can trust the text of the Bible when you compare it to other ancient literature. The New Testament was written down pretty close to the time of the original events. This is not true of much ancient literature we have. The Bible’s “story” is also in the context of history. This means it does relate to history and many historical details have been verified. Many religions in the world don’t really depend on historical documents like the Bible does, other than perhaps the history surrounding the life of the founder of the religion.

2. The Evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection

The resurrection is critical to Christianity. One of the most important arguments for the resurrection revolves around how skilled the Romans were at it. The Romans did many crucifixions and they had it down to a very refined diabolical process. The Romans could not produce the body and they could not prove someone else took the body. There are many things that point to a real miracle at the resurrection, such as who moved the large stone, or why did Pilate allow a false story to be told? The various attempts to explain away the resurrection are pretty flimsy when you dig into them. There are also several well established facts that are well attested historically about Jesus’ death and resurrection. There’s no question Jesus died by crucifixion, the Bible’s description of it is medically accurate. It was not feasible for the disciples to steal the body because of how the posting of a guard was done by the Romans. A Roman “Guard” usually meant at least 4 men, and in the case of Christ’s burial, it could have meant some larger multiple of 4. So I would say no one has ever had a realistic alternative explanation for the resurrection. The best a skeptic could say would be that it is a mystery what happened.

3. The many changed lives which are all based on the same truths from the New Testament

This is still one of the best arguments for Christianity. Some would bring up “other religions” and say following any religion might lead positive changes in a person’s life, so what makes this evidence of Christianity? I would say that if someone thinks any belief can lead to the changes Christians have experienced, then they don’t understand. There are a lot of people that have tried other beliefs, various religions, before becoming a Christian. They are not equivalent. They describe those as being partial answers but not the real thing. In fact, this is being generous. In many cases, the experiences people have with various non-christian religions are painful stories of abuse, corrupt or harsh leaders, or other tragedies. To try out various religions is a frustrating negative experience for many. There are certain common values in various religions and the accountability to others in that group can have some positive influence. But if it is not based on a Biblical faith in Christ, it ends up becoming outward rules and not a complete change from the inside out. Living the Christian life means that as you learn about God and live as the Bible says, God changes you from the inside. In experiencing this as a Christian, you find that though God’s way of living may not always be what you originally wanted, it does turn out to be what is best for you. The way the Bible says we should live is not arbitrary harsh rules. It is the way we were designed to live. Christ has changed the lives of all kinds of people, from all languages, of all skin colors, education levels, and any kind of family background. If you want to compare the changes in lives of people of other faiths, I think they don’t really compare because they become unsatisfying one way or another. Biblical Christianity satisfies in explaining how we experience life as well as answering the big philosophical questions about the world and the universe. But you cannot experience this without really living a life of obedience to God. Some don’t experience this because they aren’t living by Biblical principles. Sometimes skeptics of Christianity have become turned off to faith in God because of a Christian they knew who let them down or who failed in some way. But you can’t judge if Christianity is true by considering only a person who is a bad example. The evidence for the truth of Christianity exists even apart from whether Christians know it or not.

4. Historically fulfilled prophesy

There are a lot of examples of events or people described in Scripture well before the events happened, then in history it happened in a manner that agrees with Scripture. First, there were prophesies about Jesus’ birth from long before the events happened, such as that he would be “born of a virgin” from Isaiah 7:14. Also that he would be of the Tribe of Judah in Israel, from Genesis 49:10 (written in the time of Moses). Then there was Micah 5:2, which mentions that the Ruler of Israel would come out of Bethlehem. Then there are other Old Testament prophesies of significant historical facts, years before they happened. I wrote about these in an article called “Why Believe the Bible, Part 2” on CreationAnswers.Net in the Christianity section. A notable example is in Isaiah 44:28 the prophet Isaiah mentions a king named Cyrus who would one day give the order to send the Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city. This was written roughly 80 or 100 years before Cyrus was born; this was the Persian king known as “Cyrus the Great.” Mentioned by name years before he was born and before the Persians were in power! Then there are the prophecies of the prophet Daniel while he was in exile in Babylon. He predicted a number of details about great kingdoms of the world that would come to power after his lifetime. Some of these details are remarkable predictions about Alexander the Great, who conquered Persia. Daniel 11:4 describes what will happen after the rule of a powerful king (Alexander the Great). It says “his kingdom will be broken up and parceled out toward the four points of the compass, though not to his own descendents, nor according to his authority which he wielded, for his sovereignty will be uprooted and given to others besides them.” (NASB) This is a remarkable prediction. For an explanation of how this was worked out, see my “Why Believe the Bible, Part 2” article.

5. The historicity of the Old and New Testaments

Both the Old and New Testaments tell about what God did through history. Thus Christianity depends on historical events. Miracles described in the past in Scripture may not be something that can be confirmed by historical or archeological evidence. But there are many people, places, and events that have been confirmed by archeological and historical sources. This is true for both the Old and the New Testaments. On the other hand, there are questions where there is not a clear consensus on how the Biblical account relates to the history. We may not know the location of every city or town mentioned in the Bible, for example, but we know the location of many of them. Christian faith is supported by multiple types of categories of evidence, as I am trying to overview here. So if scholars get some particular question about archeology wrong regarding the Bible it need not shake my faith. Over time, more and more discoveries from archeology have confirmed the Bible.

The historicity of the Bible for the Old Testament goes back to the time of Abraham as described in Genesis and it also encompasses many details in the New Testament. There were manners and customs regarding marriage and how agreements were made between people from the time of Abraham that have been confirmed from ancient writings from the time of Abraham. The New Testament has many references to people, places, coins, and Roman officials in the four gospels that have been found to be accurate about the first century from historical sources. Many places in and around Jerusalem mentioned in the gospels have been confirmed to exist by archeologists. The gospel writer Luke, who wrote the books of Luke and Acts has been found particularly careful in his description of Roman officials, places, and events. Luke’s writings are very helpful in dating events surrounding the ministry and crucifixion of Christ. So information like this is confirmable by historical and archeological discoveries. This doesn’t in itself confirm everything the Bible says, but if it is right on the confirmable details like people, places, events, and other historical facts, then we should not dismiss it. The Bible tells a great story of how God worked to save mankind through history. So, it is worth reading.

6. The attempts to keep people from reading the Bible

If the Bible were not true, why would so many governments and other powerful organizations throughout history work to destroy it, subvert it’s transmission and dissemination, make it illegal, and generally persecute people who believe it? No one has been able to eliminate the Bible or stop its influence or stop the spread of its message around the world. Many times the lives of some believers have been made miserable by people who persecute Christians. This happens today as well. The efforts to subvert the Bible or prevent distribution of it, coupled with the lengths people will go to to obtain a Bible, shows the truth of it. The efforts to subvert or prevent access to the Bible tend to expose corruption and deception from various leaders. Often making the Bible illegal makes people more curious about it. It makes people want to find out why it should be restricted!

7. The evidence from science that confirms the Bible

Science confirms the truth of the Bible. But this does not mean the Bible gives scientific detail, it doesn’t. But as God’s word, the Bible is authoritative on everything it addresses. Thus to understand how the Bible and science agree, it is necessary to learn how to interpret the Bible correctly and also learn how to interpret the facts of science correctly. There are sometimes some scientific questions we don’t have complete answers to. But there are so many things where science does agree with the Bible that no one should really consider science to be an obstacle to faith. I can understand that science can seem to be such an obstacle, but from years of looking into how science and the Bible relate, I’m thoroughly convinced science is no obstacle. There is now much documented evidence for intelligent design in the way things are made, such as in the properties of the atom or in the information content of the cell. Young age creationists put forward evidence for intelligent design long before there was such a thing as todays “Intelligent Design (ID) Movement.” The “ID” movement produces some very good materials and has generally been a good thing but it does not specifically point people to the truth of the Bible. For my creation writings and ministry I’ve never been satisfied with leaving it at evidence for some unnamed intelligence. I think we can point to evidence showing how the Bible and science agree and the science points specifically to the Bible and not to other beliefs.

Some examples of things in the Bible that are supported by science:

  • Ceremonial washings and isolation of people with diseases in ancient Israel laid down some practices that were very healthy for preventing the spread of disease in the community. This was in the Law of Moses long before there was medical knowledge to motivate it. It was put in the context of God’s laws for Israel but it still had health benefits. (See Leviticus 13 for example.)
  • Solomon wrote about the hydrologic water cycle in Ecclesiastes 1:7. This was a very astute observation for someone of his time. Isaiah 55:10-11 also alludes to it.
  • Job 26:7 says God suspends the Earth over nothing. An accurate statement from very ancient times.
  • Genesis chapters 6-8 describe God’s judgement of the Earth in the global Flood of Noah’s day. Jesus reaffirms it in the gospels and the Apostle Peter also mentions it in 2 Peter 3. Scientific evidence for a global Flood that covered the Earth and formed great layers of rock and many many fossils of living things has been documented by creationists. (See this blog article on some of this Flood evidence.)
  • Jeremiah 33:25 alludes to God setting down fixed laws of heaven and Earth.
  • Genesis chapter 1 describes living things reproducing “after their kind.” This is realistic in that it allows for limited adaptation to the environment but implies basic types of organisms that cannot change from one to the other. This is a realistic description based on modern biology and genetics.
  • The Bible implies that dinosaurs lived from the time of creation only thousands of years ago, then they died later. The soft tissue and unmineralized stretchy organic material found in fossils today supports this from science. I have a short handout about this.