A Long Overdue Review

About a year ago, Ed Komoszewski was kind enough to send complimentary copies of his new book, Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You.  We agreed to review it in turn, and any review has been so long in coming that the delay borders on breaking our word.  So, with sincere but terribly insufficient apologies to Ed and the other authors (there's just no good excuse for taking so long), I hope to remedy the situation with this post.

Today, every Christian faces a torrent of myths, rumors, and criticisms about the Bible and the origin of the Christian faith.  While not comprehensive -- they could only squeeze so much into a popular format -- Reinventing Jesus goes a long way toward an antidote to that situation.  Without question, it is one of the top books I would recommend on the subject matter.  Like every good book, this one is worth returning to again and again for the treasures it houses (as the dog-eared pages in my copy testify).  The material covered should be part of every contemporary Christian's education in the faith.

This book is particularly strong on, and (in my experience) unique in, it's explanation of the origin and reliability of New Testament texts.  The authors devote five full chapters to the discussion.  As one example, I found the breakdown of variants in the manuscripts and their relative significance (pp. 54-63, including a nice pie chart) to be extremely helpful.  My one disappointment related to this section was that I was hoping to find details about a classroom experiment in textual transmission that I had read in an online interview with co-author Daniel Wallace:

For the past twenty-five years I have done a seminar in churches and schools on textual criticism. The seminar includes the audience becoming scribes and creating six generations of copies of an ancient text (all in English). Each scribe is given specific instructions. Then, the textual critics enter the room (the rest of the audience). Several of the manuscripts have been destroyed or lost by the time they get there. So, they’re working with partial data and big gaps in the genealogies. But with absolutely minimal instruction in how to do textual criticism, they all have to work back to the original wording. And once they reconstruct the original text, I put on screen what the real original text says. Every time, without exception, the group is amazed at how close they got to it. Except for one occasion, they have been able to reproduce the text within two words (once they were three words off). Often they get it exactly right. Yet the extant manuscripts for this project are generally in much worse shape than our late Byzantine manuscripts. It’s a fun activity of discovery and debate, suitable for a postmodern age. When we get all done I can then speak about principles of textual criticism, manuscripts, internal evidence, you name it. They understand because they’ve just experienced it. And they appreciate how the Bible has come down to us.

I'd love to do something like this in our church, but without more information, I'm afraid that -- just being introduced to the discipline -- I might make some procedural or interpretive mistake and do more damage than good.  'Sounds like it would be an excellent exercise for laypeople to get a handle on the subject.

Even in other areas, Reinventing Jesus disclosed unexpected information and arguments to complement what I had already read.  For example, having read Richard Bauckham's God Crucified, Gary Habermas' The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, and other materials on Jesus' divinity, I thought the chapters on scriptural support for Christ's deity would yield nothing new.  I was pleasantly surprised. These authors really know their stuff!  The new evidences they supplied will add to the lectures I had already prepared on the subject.  And it goes without saying that experiences like this -- running across additional reasons to believe what the historical Christian faith has always taught -- are real faith-builders, especially in an environment hostile to the proposition that Jesus is Lord of all.

The other thing I appreciated about the book was it's interaction with a variety of skeptics and critics, ranging from Dan Brown (author of the ridiculous Da Vinci Code) to more academic minds like Bart Ehrman (author of Misquoting Jesus).  The authors do have some serious, if limited, criticism's of Ehrman's thinking, which were fun to read -- fun because Dr. Ehrman strikes me as so aggressive in promoting his own skepticism.  I can only hope that the authors or other Bible scholars of their caliber will take up the task of more detailed refutations or rebuttals of critics at Ehrman's level.  Dr. Wallace's remarks (during the aforementioned interview) about "a widening chasm between the church and the academy over biblical studies in general and textual criticism in particular," and taking up the task of closing that chasm, are encouraging toward that end.

Reinventing Jesus is an important book for the church today.  It will inform, and by informing, strengthen the conviction of those who read.  While critics of the Christian faith and Scriptures can sometimes make contributions to our understanding, many of their claims simply don't hold up under examination.  Reinventing Jesus makes this clear in a format accessible to the layperson.  It is a fantastic first step in the right direction.

(Special thanks to Ed Komoszewski for providing us with the book and for his patience...)

Beckwith's Tenure?

Those who follow the work of Dr. Frank Beckwith - who have come to appreciate his rapier wit and logical mind - will be interested in a recent article (9/8/06) in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The appeal for tenure, it's hard to believe, has been drawn out this long (it started back in March).  Why? 

One nice thing, at least, is to see the support that Beckwith is getting from colleagues like C. Stephen Evans, professor of philosophy at Baylor. 

I'm a graduate student at BIOLA University with interests in philosophy, theology, and political theory.  I'm on track to graduate with highest honors after Spring 2007 semester.  If I were to pursue a Ph.D., Baylor's Church-State program under Beckwith would be a main attraction.  Frank Beckwith has done extraordinary work, and from the interactions I've been fortunate enough to have with him over the past few years, I know he's an extraordinary person as well.  Baylor needs to pay attention to these things.

Another thing to consider is that Frank is currently President-Elect of the Evangelical Theological Society.  What does it say about Baylor if they can't properly recognize him, given that position? 

I'm hopeful that the folks at Baylor who have an influence on Dr. Beckwith's tenure will show their better selves by awarding Frank the tenure he rightly deserves.  Do what is right, and smart for the school, and put this mess behind Baylor once and for all.

New LTI Blog Site

About a week ago, the Life Training Institute blog that both Steve and I had posted on suffered some severe technical problems.  It seems that he situation is now terminal: the LTI blog at that address is no more.  Scott has set up a new blog for Life Training Institute here.  If you previously had a link to the LTI blog, the new address can be found at http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/.  Thanks for changing your links.

Governor Ehrlich's Exclusive Inclusivism

Last week the governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, fired his appointee to the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority, Robert Smith, for remarks he made about Homosexuality. Smith was confronted in a regular panel meeting of the Trransit Authority by board member Jim Graham, who is openly homosexual.  Smith was asked to disavow his comments that homosexuality is a sexually deviant lifestyle. Smith reaffirmed that this is his position and was fired by the governor.

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NAF Report: An Affront to Intelligence

Today the National Abortion Foundation released their report regarding their investigation into crisis pregnancy centers.  They sought individual stories from women who had been "deceived" by CPCs.  It can be read here, with a summary here.  I just finished reading it, and I am greatly underwhelmed.  If I was a NAF supporter, I would wonder what the heck they did with the money I gave them.

Far from being "an affront to choice", most of the report shows that CPCs offer women free services and information that they don't receive from abortion clinics.  I believe only someone deeply committed to the pro-abortion choice ideology would be convinced by anything in this report.  I would be embarrassed by many of these quotes.

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Are Sex-Selection Abortions Wrong?

It seems a great injustice is being done in India.  Women are making private decisions with their doctors to terminate their "products of conception", and the government is interfering with this decision.  They are even criminalizing the doctors who are facilitating the woman's right to choose.  In fact, they are using terms like "feticide" to describe the practice.  Why is this being done in a country in which abortion has been legal since 1972 and an estimated 5-6 million are done each year? 

Because it is female children that are being killed. 

Question: If it is right for a mother to abort her child for any (or no) reason, why is it not right for Indian women to abort their female children in order to advance in society?

No Prison for Short Molester

In most amusement parks they have a little character that hold out his hand to show whether a child is tall enough to go on the ride.  In this judge's courtroom, maybe they should have one to indicate whether or not a man guilty of repeatedly molesting a twelve year old girl over a two month period should see the inside of a jail:

A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.

His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.

"You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child," she said.

But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category."

Maybe I Spoke Too Soon

Another day, another interesting euphemism.  This is from the comment section of a naturalist blog:

As far as abortion is concerned, I can speak for myself in that the killing of a pre-sentient fetus does not equate to murder, any more so than the killing of a fly amounts to murder (and I can actually make the case that killing a fly is MORE heinous a moral act than permanently interrupting the development of a potential being).

I'm not killing you, I'm merely permanantly interrupting your development!

Bad Euphemism of the Month

According to this site entitled Useless Eaters, Germany called its campaign to kill children with disabilities the Committee for the Scientific Treatment of Severe, Genetically Diseased Illnesses.  It seems human beings have a great capacity to justify the killing of innocents in order in the name of good health.

The latest case in point: the name of the group that is fighting very hard to keep abortion legal in South Dakota calls itself:

The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families

"Its Not Me You're Dying For"

I was looking through National Review Online's 50 greatest conservative songs when I saw this song on the list:

23. “Brick,” by Ben Folds Five.  ; buy CD on Amazon.com
Written from the perspective of a man who takes his young girlfriend to an abortion clinic, this song describes the emotional scars of “reproductive freedom”: “Now she’s feeling more alone / Than she ever has before. . . . As weeks went by / It showed that she was not fine.”

I have never heard a song that captures the emotional rawness of the pain of abortion.  Listening to it reminds me that there are real lives that are affected daily by their decisions that they may later regret. 

Continue reading ""Its Not Me You're Dying For""

"Misquoting Jesus" Update

I posted earlier on Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus.  Since then, New Testament professor Dan Wallace responded to Ehrman with a lengthier review, "The Gospel according to Bart". 

Dr. Wallace is one of three scholars who have come together to author a newly-released work, Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You, which addresses the arguments of Ehrman and other contemporary skeptics.  'Lord willing, Serge and I will be offering revews of the book in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, be sure to check out Dr. Wallace's review.

When We Will be Gods

He believes that  researching a recent paper, I ran across this book entitled What We Believe but Cannot Prove : Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty.  In this book a number of leading scientists give their opinions (usually 1 or 2 pages) about topics that they have inadequate empirical evidence for.  It was a very interesting read - sort of like a glimpse into the worldview of a number of scientific thinkers.  I may post regarding a number of these in the future, but this excerpt by leading cosmologist Sir Martin Rees was very interesting (all emphasis mine)

There's an unthinking tendency to imagine that humans will be around in 6 billion years to watch the sun flare up and die. But the forms of life and intelligence that have by then emerged will surely be as different from us as we are from a bacterium. That conclusion would follow even if future evolution proceeded at the rate at which new species have emerged over the past 3.5 or 4 billion years. But posthuman evolution (whether of organic species or artifacts) will proceed far faster than the changes that led to human emergence, because it will be intelligently directed rather than the gradual outcome of Darwinian natural selection. Changes will drastically accelerate in the present century -- through intentional genetic modifications, targeted drugs, perhaps even silicon implants in the brain. Humanity may not persist as a single species for longer than a few more centuries, especially if communities have by then become established away from Earth.

But a few centuries is still just a millionth of the sun's future lifetime -- and the universe probably has a much longer future. The remote future is squarely in the realm of science fiction. Advanced intelligences billions of years hence might even create new universes. Perhaps they'll be able to choose what physical laws prevail in their creations. Perhaps these beings could achieve the computational ability to simulate a universe as complex as the one we perceive ourselves to be in.

My belief may remain unprovable for billions of years. It could be falsified sooner -- for instance, we or our immediate posthuman descendants may develop theories that reveal inherent limits to complexity. But it's a substitute for religious belief, and I hope it's true.

Continue reading "When We Will be Gods"

Contraception Misconception

The latest tactic from the pro-abortion choice groups has been to attempt to link the pro-life agenda (to stop the killing of innocent human beings) with an attempt to ban all forms of contraception.  I believe there are two reasons behind this new emphasis.  The first is to generate fear among women on the fence about the issue of abortion ("Give them this, and they'll be after your pills next!"), and to cause a division amongst those who share a concern about protecting innocent human life.  They are not opposed to using deception to accomplish these goals.

Here is a classic example.  This piece from the NYTimes is attempting to argue that the "real" pro-life agenda is to take away all contraception.  It quotes prominent evangelical Al Mohler who begins his piece:

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Additional Egregious Effects of The Da Vinci Code

A slide from my recent talk on Dan Brown's novel:

The Da Vinci Code - Why Bother?

It's a best-selling novel.  It's been highlighted on TV.  It's a cell phone game, a video game, and is opening in theatres on May 19th.  It's everywhere.

But why bother with it?  One newspaper columnist (who shall remain nameless) puts the objection this way:

“The Da Vinci Code”: People are reacting to this novel, and the upcoming movie version, like it’s Armageddon — and I don’t mean the lousy movie with Bruce Willis. They actually take seriously the allegedly sacrilegious overtones of this story.

Here’s some facts, people, and I’m using caps to make this as easy to understand as possible:

“The Da Vinci Code” is a NOVEL. It is a work of FICTION, created by an AUTHOR using his IMAGINATION. “The Da Vinci Code” has as much to do with reality as “The Blair Witch Project” or “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”

Why are you getting bent out of shape over this work of fantasy? Are your religious beliefs so fragile they’re threatened by a pulp writer’s story?

Continue reading "The Da Vinci Code - Why Bother?"