The convoluted Resurrection accounts

Gary said:
This story is more convoluted that a Mexican tele-novela!

I agree it's not the most straightforward account I've ever seen.
1) Truth is often stranger than fiction.
2) It's hard to empathise since I've never given up everything to follow a guy around for 3+ years, watched Him silence the most learned people of His day with a word, cast out demons and heal people by the hundreds, teach me with crazy authority I've never heard, predict His own death, then get tortured, die in the most humiliating way possible, get buried, and then start to understand that He may well have risen from the dead. I have no idea how I'd react, how logically, how many times I'd go back to the tomb to check again, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

A few questions for Bart Ehrman

Riffing off of my last post and Bart Ehrman's recent appearance on the Unbelievable? radio show, I'd like to transcribe here something that Ehrman said, at minute 44:12.

This isn't the biggest argument against Jesus having been raised from the dead, but one always has to look at what kind of witnesses you have, and when you look at the Gospels of the New Testament, it's striking just how many differences there are in their accounts of the resurrection.  I have my students do an exercise, my undergrads; I have them simply do a careful study of what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all say about what happened on the morning of the resurrection, the alleged resurrection, and compare their notes, and they're struck at just how different they are. Who actually goes to the tomb that morning? Is it Mary Magdalene by herself or with other women? If with other women, how many other women? What are they named? It depends on which Gospel you read.  Was the stone rolled away before they got there or after they got there? It depends on which Gospel you read. 

So, given that, I have a few questions for Dr Ehrman.

Where in your writings, scholarly or popular, or your lectures, have you interacted with harmonisations of these 4 accounts proposed by others who are a bit better educated in Bible exposition and exegesis than undergraduate students at a secular university, and demonstrated that they are insufficient?

Do you commend the practice of having undergraduate students at a university that is not set up to appeal to the best and brightest of a given course of study perform a "careful study" of a topic as a decisive test for truth?
(After all, one would expect to find a much higher percentage of gifted and focused Bible exposition students in the PhD program at Reformed Theological Seminary or Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, not in New Testament 101 at UNC Chapel Hill.)

Since you apparently do, would you accept as a definitive conclusion that "Darwinian evolution as described by modern science did not happen, and the Earth is ~6-8000 years old" if I were to have 19 year old Bible college students perform a "careful study" of it? Would you nod in agreement or shake your head in bemused "What were they thinking?" dissent if I were to take that conclusion to a worldwide podcast, in conversation with a PhD-holding, leading proponent of Darwinian evolution like Richard Dawkins?  Should anyone expect that Dawkins would take such an assertion seriously?

I harmonised the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection

Some time ago, I shared two harmonisations of the four Gospels' resurrection accounts that I'd found elsewhere, but for one thing I find them a little bit hard to follow, especially the one from Answering Islam.

So as a bit of a personal devotional exercise, I decided to see if I could figure it out more or less on my own, and here's the result. If nothing else, it helps me make sense of the accounts since it's undeniable that these four different accounts with different foci can be sort of confusing.

Before we launch in, it's instructive to recall that "these four resurrection accounts are mutually contradictory" is still a popular objection to biblical Christianity. In last week's edition of the Unbelievable? radio show, Bart Ehrman mentioned that very thing a few times, specifically at minute 34 and again at minute 44. As I was listening to it yesterday, I found myself shaking my head and smiling - once again, Ehrman demonstrates he is very poorly versed in biblical exegesis, or is simply unwilling to put forth the effort or perhaps to allow for harmonisation at all, which is a sign of severe bias. 

For the charge of contradiction to stick, the skeptic would have to demonstrate there is no possible harmonisation of the texts, not merely that it's difficult or that you don't understand it. And as I show here, this charge has no teeth. Glory to Jesus Christ.

1)  Angel, earthquake, stone is rolled away, soldiers faint.
Matthew here provides a bit of background information before continuing with his story of the women, begun in verse 1.

Matthew 28:2And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. 3And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men.

2)  Jesus exits tomb while soldiers are flattened.

Not specifically mentioned, but obvious deduction.

3)  Soldiers wake up, find tomb empty, scatter. 

Taken from later references, like:

Matthew 28:11Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. 

4)  Still early in the morning, Mary M, other Mary, Joanna, Salome, and probably other women come to the tomb. 
Matthew 28:1Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.

Mark 16:1When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. 2Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 

Luke 24:1But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.
John 20:1a Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark...

5)  They find the stone rolled away.

Mark 16:4Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.

Luke 24:2And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

John 20:1b ...and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. 

6)  Mary M at least runs to tell Peter and John that the stone is rolled away.
John 20:2So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

7)  Peter and John run to the tomb.

John 20:3So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb.

8)  John gets there 1st and doesn't go in. Peter gets there 2nd and does go in, sees the cloths lying there.
Notice that they only see the stone rolled away and the gravecloths lying in a heap and do not see an angel or Jesus.

John 20:4The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; 5and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.

9)  John then goes in and believes but neither of them fully understand.

John 20:8So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. 9For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. 

10)  Peter and John return home.

John 20:10So the disciples went away again to their own homes.

11)  Mary M at least is at the tomb weeping, and the other women may or may not be around.

John 20:11But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb

12)  The other women come back at some point it would seem, though, and they all look into the tomb. They see two angels inside and they ask why they're crying and announce the resurrection.
A few notes here:

--Where there's two angels, there's always one. 

--In biblical angelophanies, they virtually always appear as men.

--There is no good reason to think that all of the conversations noted here did not occur.

Matthew 28:5The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. 6“He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. 7“Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

Mark 16:5Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. 6And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. 7“But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’”

Luke 24:3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; 5and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living One among the dead? 6“He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” 8And they remembered His words.

John 20:12and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

13)  Mary at least turns around, coming out of the tomb, conceivably drying her eyes, and encounters Jesus, Who talks to her.
A few notes:

--She doesn't understand right away that it's Jesus because she's been weeping hard this whole time and is still composing herself, and also she wasn't turned His direction when He first talked to her.

--There's also no indication of how far He was away, whether He was sort of calling to her from across a few dozen feet or behind a tree or bush or something.

--There's no indication of whether the other women are present. I think maybe they were, but John's account merely focuses on Mary M. Maybe He spoke to the other women too and it simply wasn't recorded.

John 20:14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” 

14)  Looks like many or all of the women run off first of all and are so blown away by the experience that they don't say anything for some time.

Matthew 28:8a And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy...

Mark 16:8They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

15)  They eventually recover and go to tell the disciples that Mary M at least (and maybe the others were there too, standing around or something) actually met and talked to Jesus. 

Matthew 28:8b ...and ran to report it to His disciples.

Luke 24:9and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

John 20:18Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and that He had said these things to her. 

14b) or 15b) Jesus greets them on the way and they worship Him.

It's unclear whether they were on their way to tell the disciples and then Jesus met them and that really overwhelmed them, or whether they were overwhelmed first and went to tell the disciples and then were met (again) by Jesus, or whether they were already overwhelmed and on their way to recover and Jesus met them then.

Matthew 28:9And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

16)  The disciples don't believe the women's report (presumably, the report of actually seeing and talking to the risen Jesus).

Luke 24:11But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. 

17)  Peter runs to the tomb and goes inside, sees the cloths.
Looks like this is his 2nd time to run to the tomb, probably b/c the 1st time he went, recorded in John, he'd only heard that the stone was rolled away and gone and seen only that and the cloths, but not Jesus Himself. Maybe he wanted to see if Jesus was still hanging around there, and though He wasn't, Peter still took another look into the tomb.

Luke 24:12But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened. 

Another errantist shows his stripes

OK, so I couldn't stay away. Having dissected part 5 of Mike Beidler's critique of the Truth Project yestuhday, I went ahead and read the other 4 preceding parts. Parts 1-3 weren't worthy of much comment, or not nearly as much as part 5. Part 4 had some interesting tidbits worth a good once-over, so here's the comment.

I wasn't going to say much as I've said quite a lot in part 5 of this series, but this piece is just too delicious to pass up.

Even though the authorship of the Torah is attributed to Moses by Jesus himself, is Tackett really willing to claim that Moses wrote of his own death and burial (cf. Deuteronomy 34)?

So...you're OK with correcting Jesus, are you?
Could it just possibly be that Moses wrote that prophetically? You know, supernaturally aided by God to write something that would come to pass later? Kinda like half of Isaiah, most of Jeremiah, Joel, Habakkuk, Nahum, Obadiah, Daniel? Jesus even, with the whole "the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be killed, and then rise on the 3rd day" thing?
It seems that your mind is far too stuck in naturalistic categories. Why think along the lines of an atheist and thus be inconsistent with the Lord and Savior you claim, Who IS supernatural, Who DID and DOES supernatural things? What possible benefit could there be to this?


Even the concept of inerrancy runs into a problem: a phone book can be free of error, but such a quality says nothing about whether it was God-inspired.

So... to what verificatory process are you going to submit the revelation from the God of the universe? Does He need to show His ID before you so graciously let Him into your personal "You're OK" club? I'll bet He'd be thrilled if you did!


to restrict the Christian faith to an extremely narrow intellectual path

You know, that reminds me of something I read somewhere...
Ah, I remembered! Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
(That was Jesus, BTW. Was He too narrow for you, too? Not liberal enough?)

Peace,
Rhology

Two harmonies of the Resurrection accounts

Just a quick note on the problem of reconciling the various accounts of the Resurrection of Christ from the four Gospels. Often it is claimed that the events and timelines are irreconcilable with each other. I've recently come across two good resources that go a long way toward putting that claim to rest.

Pastor Stephen Kingsley's Easter Answer
Harmony of the Resurrection Accounts from Answering Islam

What errancy yields in the East

David (not David Bryan), I'm simultaneously gladdened and saddened to see your comment about mission work.
Gladdened b/c I believe your Gospel is a false one and I don't want it proliferated.
Confused b/c there are hundreds of people groups out there who've never heard the name of Christ. Do you think that they'll be "attracted...to Christianity (by) the fact that Christians (act) like, well... Christians" when there aren't any anywhere near them?
Also, since when has "well, it didn't work" been a valid excuse for disobeying a direct command (Matthew 28:19-20) by Jesus Christ?

Another David, more errancy

One of David Bryan's readers, David W, made some more comments in support of biblical errancy. I guess it's not only the Roman church that has problems with encroaching liberalism.

this nothing injures the truth of what they have said.

Except this: They got stuff WRONG. And it becomes simply a question of fideistic special pleading to say, "Well, they got some things over there wrong, but on the stuff that's really important to me, they totally got it right!"

AKA reshaping God's Word in your own image. Usually mainline American evangellyfish like to rewrite it to write out the things that make them uncomfy, so they can believe in their Word of Faith confess it and possess it type stuff. But you're doing the same thing toward a different end.

that God became man

Maybe. Unless that part was errant.

that He wrought miracles

Unless those parts were mistaken. Don't forget, a lot of the miracle accts don't match!

that He was crucified

Or maybe He wasn't, maybe they got that part wrong. After all, only one of the Gospels mentions Simon of Cyrene. The accts of the thieves on the crosses differ. etc.

I think that Scripture itself also argues against inerrancy.

But maybe those parts are errant, so your case is self-refuting.

Jeremiah 8:8.

You do realise there were multiple copies and lines of transmission of the Scr, don't you?

Or is this another case of special pleading - you're just SURE that THIS passage is inerrant. Somehow.

It's like one of the elders of my church says: It's inspired in spots, and you have to be inspired to spot the spots.

Jeremiah 7:22

Context, my friend. Context.

22 “For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 “But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.

1 Corinthians 7:10-14 makes very clear that he is stating his own opinion

Paul usually referred to Jesus Christ as "Lord". He was saying he had no clear command from Jesus' own mouth. But that's not the only way God inspires Scr.

He goes on to say:

25 Now concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy.

40 But in my opinion she is happier if she remains as she is; and I think that I also have the Spirit of God.

Further, once again we have to check the context. This is a letter from Paul. Not everything in the letter is straight command. It's what he said. If he intended to command, OK, it's a command. If he intended to dispense advice but not enjoin the advice with a "you MUST do this", then it's advice. This is the latter. We can tell by reading it with a heart and mind disposed to understand it, not to prove a point that is totally foreign to it.

Finally, how do you know he really said what you think he said? Maybe that part was errant.

2 Tim 3:16...is here referring to what we call the Old Testament

Which you just called out as errant in your comments on Jeremiah.

One thing we're seeing clearly, that humans, devoid of the Spirit, can be VERY errant.

Comparing the Islamic ideas regarding the Koran (that it is entirely inerrant and has existed in heaven with God since before Creation) is a little unsettling.

The Islamic doctrine of the Qur'an is better matched to the Christian doctrine of the Logos, Christ, just FYI.

David Bryan said,

I fail to see how, but I do not possess all knowledge, obviously.

You seem to be vacillating when it suits you - you were just SURE that the Cross inscription accts were irreconcilably inconsistent, I pointed out you don't have all knowledge, Seth explained it, and you didn't say "I do not possess all knowledge, obviously" or anything like that. Why the change now?

John said,

The question then becomes, is one of the gospels in error because it isn't laid out in the order I want it to be laid out?

EXCELLENT question, and one that David Bryan and his errantists comrades need to, and (according to what I've seen, fail to) grapple with.

Holy Fire

Lucian, one of the weirdest characters I've ever run across on the Internet, and my friend David Bryan, have commended the Holy Fire of Jerusalem to me as testament to the Eastern Orthodox Church's validity. Their comments take place in this thread. I have several thoughts.

1st, thanks much for the vid. It's far from clear what's happening though. At first it's dark, then some regular joes come running out into the crowd with two candles aflame. And the miracle is...?

2nd, such an occurrence seems to be just a bastardised mishmash of out-of-context Bible accounts. A temple (from the OT, but unknown to the NT). A priest (from the OT, and unknown in the NT). A holy place (more like the pagan practice of the high places in the OT). By a church that doesn't preach the Gospel. Fire occurring spontaneously, that doesn't consume (which happened one time at the burning bush and was a sign of YHWH's direct presence).

3rd, EOx appeal to this occurrence as substantiating their church's authority from God. Maybe they should focus on getting the Gospel right first? Just a suggestion.

4th, most of the other vids I attempted to view didn't work. Of the ones that did, what are they supposed to prove? That the Holy Fire doesn't burn people? Have you even watched these? Take a look at this one. I could go home and do the same with my own candle and a Bic lighter. The vids are purported to be evidence for the miraculous origin of the fire, but they're just not any good. So it's not like I accept only video evidence of divine miracles or something like an atheist would demand, but since the site offers video evidence to back up its claims, I'll critique it. If they really want to be convincing, they should hold it up to their faces for minutes at a time instead of just waving it around a 6 inches from their beards so the heat can dissipate.

5th, demonic activity is more probably the origin of this occurrence. A group that claims a perverted Gospel with a perverted sense of church gov't with a perverted authority and perverted expectations and perverted Christology finds "evidence" for itself by a spectacular "supernatural" occurrence? What does that sound like?

6th, I certainly have my doubts that God would grace the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with a display of Holy Spirit glory. For one thing, are the people in the vid in church or at the circus? Sheesh. For another, I know for a fact that said building is the site of incessant fights and territorial squabbles between the various ethnic Orthodox and the Romanists who have planted their flags in the various niches and alcoves. If the reps of a given church leave their alcove, not one minute goes by before it is taken over by one of the others, and not returned willingly.

7th, I find it highly ironic that David Bryan seems to think that this is a true sign from God, and yet it is virtually content-less. And the Scripture, which has tons of content, is errant. What's wrong with this picture?

Eastern errancy

I'd like to respond to this comment about the inerrancy of the Scripture from my Eastern Orthodox friend David Bryan, and as always, to ask him please to correct any misconceptions I've incorporated about EOC. I understand whenever you have to cut this off; moving cross-country is no easy task. But I think the problem for your position is deeper than you realise, I really do.

Men wrote the thing, yes, but "men carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Don't you believe that your church is guided by the Holy Spirit? Why can't someone turn the same objection back on your church? I mean, it's made up of MEN.
What's really funny to me is that it's your church that believes in theosis, faithful believers' partaking in the divine nature. These 4 Evangelists were, I'm sure you'd agree, much, much farther along in their being conformed to the image of Christ than you or I will ever be (until we die). Thus they would have been much closer to God, better, deeper partakers of the divine nature than you or I. And yet, here you are
1) correcting them according to your far-removed, 21st-century perspective.
-The irony here is that EO-dox are usually the ones criticising Reformed believers for looking at early writers and the Scr from a far-removed, future perspective.
2) making a powerful distinction between man and God.
-The irony here is that EO-dox are usually the ones who, from a Reformed perspective, shrinks and blurs the distinction between man and God.

All that to say, in this line of reasoning, you are acting like a liberal Protestant. That's not a good thing, but unfortunately it's not the only area in which EO-dox do so.

Maybe it's not as apparent to you for another reason. I've asked both you and Anastasios about the role that evangelism and apologetics play in the life of the semi-serious and serious EO layman, and you've told me that the former is inadequate and the latter is barely existent. Anastasios in particular let me know that he'd never heard of an EO apologist engaging, say, an atheist in public debate. I could be wrong, but I'm not at all sure you have encountered many atheists or skeptics and really talked turkey with them about stuff like this. So let me come at it from another angle.

You're talking to Joe American Skeptic. You tell him you believe that Jesus Christ instituted a church while He was walking the Earth, and entrusted it to His disciples, and His disciples spread the good news of Jesus all around the world and appointed other people to take their places when they died in the churches and to celebrate the sacraments of Christ, like baptism and the Eucharist. So, this church has come down to us through the years with successions of bishops, which is kind of like what you'd call "pastors".

You tell him you believe the Bible, that you believe what the Bible says and also what the church has always believed down through the centuries. You know, b/c the guys who were handed down the tradition of the church from the apostles and then on down through their successors, they all taught the same things.

So he wonders if it is true? For example, what would you say the sign above Christ on the Cross actually said, in its entirety? Each gospel account stated something explicitly regarding what the sign said, when in reality only one of the four was actually right, at best, and the other three (or all four) were (in some cases drastically) in error as to what the sign actually said after all, right? (He hadn't read Seth's comment, which clears up the misunderstanding.)

You'd say you're fine with one gospel saying one inscription and another saying sthg else, because men wrote the thing. Inspiration doesn't necessarily produce airtight, factual data synchronization. There's still far and away enough agreement as to the major events (Nativity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost) that Scripture very strongly stands as a faithful witness to the Advent of Christ and the reality of His Church.

He wonders if inspiration doesn't necessarily produce factual data, how do you know that the Resurrection, for example, actually, factually happened?
You'd answer that you have the faithful witness of the church down thru the centuries. It's a lot of people.

Here's where it gets sticky. He thought that "a lot of people" is what caused the problem in the first place - multiple ppl write these varied accts of what was written above the Cross. But suddenly more people is a good thing?

So, what will you say? That you have a succession of people who heard from the teachings of the apostles themselves, no?

But hadn't the Gospel writers also heard from them? Weren't at least a couple of them eyewitnesses? Why do you rely on early church writers when the earliest ones are untrustworthy?
Or do you trust them for SPIRITUAL truth but not other kinds of truth? How do you make the distinction when the truth in question is not only spiritual in nature, such as
1) the Crucifixion
2) the Resurrection
3) the promised Parousia
4) the new Heaven and the new Earth
5) the theosis of the faithful
etc.

On what basis do you assert that those are indeed faithfully transmitted, while other things, such as the Cross inscription, were not? Is it just b/c you don't understand how the Cross inscription accts could fit together (even though Seth explained how)? Why is it better to ascribe error to a production of the Holy Spirit rather than to admit that you don't understand how it could all work together, but God knows and, while often He does make that knowledge and understanding available to humans, sometimes He just doesn't. You talk about mystery an awful lot in EOC; why do you abandon it in this arena? Where does the Bible itself distinguish between "OK, here's some spiritual truth, so this is really the real truth, for real," and "Here's some other stuff about, you know, the physical surroundings, the historical narrative. This isn't really a big deal. In fact, you could probably skip over it, b/c 21st-century archæologists will be able to totally reconstruct the whole thing WAY better than I'll be able to tell it here. So yeah, just fuggedaboudit (2 Maccabees 15:38-39)"?

The same questions go for early church authors. Only, there were alot more of them! You think the 4 accts are irreconcilable, but 40 different early church authors all saying different things is a better situation? Will you retreat to "oh, well, ____ was just speaking as an individual, private theologian, and the church's reaction to it over time bore out that he was mistaken"? But when all the church fathers hold the Scr in highest regard and ascribe no error to it thru hundreds and hundreds of years and thousands of pages, somehow *you* know better, with your 21st-century wisdom and insight?

Is this where following EO tradition leads someone? Is it really that far out of the vein of EOC tradition to hold to the inerrancy of the Bible?
And of course, we must ask, if it is, how would anyone know for sure? After all, if God-breathed Scripture is errant, what hope have non-theopneustos writings from men who were *not* "carried along by the Holy Spirit"?

(Cross-posted at Beggars All)

Progressing? Regressing? Dunno!

Dr Eric Reitan has graced us with another post in his series: Authority Without Inerrancy?

Oy, where to begin?
Here is the comment I left:

Hello Dr Reitan,

-Rather than viewing the Bible as the very Word of God, the progressive Christian views the Bible as a seminal human testament to divine revelation.-

One hopes he'll deal, then, with the fact that Jesus thought very differently.


-in profound mystical encounters-

Which are anything but objective.


-in providential events-

Which don't communicate much of anything specific, w/o a framework already in place thru which to interpret said event.


-through our relationships with one another-

Which are sometimes good and reflect holiness and are very often evil, disgusting, harmful, and sinful. "Progressives" live in happy-happy-land.


-In many of these cases, the actual writers were probably not striving to express their own experience of divine revelation so much as striving to faithfully put to writing stories that expressed the religious experiences of earlier generations.-

Even when they specifically state that they're writing the very revelation of God? All those "thus saith the Lord"s are "their own experiences" and "stories"?


-this means that approached on a verse-by-verse basis, one cannot confidently say, simply because the passage appears in the Bible, that it truly expresses the will of God or offers us an accurate understanding God’s nature.-

Leaving the "progressive" completely and utterly in the lurch. If God has not spoken clearly, we have nothing, no objective way to tell right from wrong, holiness from sin, Heaven-bound-ness from Hell-bound-ness. In short, it sucks to "progress".


-Witnesses-

This really seems just to beg the question. Numerous fallible witnesses lead sometimes to what we think are correct verdicts and sometimes lead to the OJ Simpson trial. What about INFALLIBLE witnesses, inspired specifically by the final, infallible God?


-The revised belief system, while still imperfect-

You mean "while still imperfect, ***I THINK (without any standard outside of myself to distinguish whether I'm right)***".


-But the process is ongoing and, in philosophical terms, "dialectical." -

So we could still be in our sins, and we'd have no idea. Heaven could be a fantasy.
Progressing towards...whatever...is purpose-less and w/o a goal or destination. You're bowing before the mirror.


-If every claim about God is taken to be a perfectly accurate description of the divine, then the reader will suppose there is no trajectory of development to look for.-

And how do you know that "development" is a good thing? This is apparently your fundamental presupp, and I can't question this more strenuously.


-Instead of seeing earlier biblical images of God as stages in a process of fuller and truer understandings of the divine-

Well, it depends on what you mean. We inerrantists recognise the reality of progressive revelation. But it's up to YOU to point out precisely how our understanding is a mishmash and doesn't work. And we all know how much progressives love actual substantive debate! (Not very much.)


-the process of refining our understanding of God probably didn't end in biblical times. -

We agree there, but you're not just talking about refining our understanding. You're functionally downgrading our primary source of info about God to the same level as the clueless pundits of today. It's foolish.


-in an evolving tradition through which God is still revealing Himself. -

I'd love to see a theory of what it means that God reveal Himself, on your view. It is apparently alot like ME revealing MYSELF. What's special or authoritative about that?


-A source can be authoritative without being inerrant--as is the case with our senses, a point I made in the first post in this series.-

And I invite anyone to see how we interacted in that combox and at my blog on that topic.
This supports my contention that God revealing Himself = me revealing myself. And what special insight do I have on the ultimate nature of reality, about sin, about good and theodicy, about eternity?



-in a way, the progressive Christian's willingness to question the perfect accuracy of the biblical account of Jesus' story reflects the seriousness with which they take the resurrection story.-

That's so rich. We think it's full of holes, and that just means we RESPECT it that much more!
This is exactly like the wife-beater who cooes to his bleeding, semi-conscious wife: "I hit you like that b/c I love you so much!"


-Jesus is someone with whom we can have an experiential relationship now, today. -

And maybe that contention is supported from the errant part of the text. You have proposed no objective way to know that. It would appear you'd say that we can have a relationship with Jesus if we THINK we can. Happy-happy-land, like I said. Wishful thinking, pixie dust, "Think of a wonderful thought, any happy little thought" and you can fly, first star on the right, straight on till morning. How this kind of thinking appeals to anyone who is seriously considering the truth (or not) of whether God has anything to say to us and anything to do with us is completely beyond me.
Give me Romans 8 any day, not this happy-pill crap.

Peace,
Rhology

Well, *some* of My words might pass away...

Eric Reitan has begun what should be an interesting series of posts on his theories of how the Bible can be errant and still authoritative. I call horseapples on that, but we'll see how it plays out. This I address to him directly in response to this initial post.


Hi Dr Reitan,

I understand that these last few weeks are finals week and much grading for you, so don't worry about trying to hurry thru this stuff.

I read most of your book last wknd, just FYI.

I appreciate the way you've laid out the dispute here. My initial impression is that you've laid out the case quite accurately. That is essential to the advancement of any debate, so I am thankful to see it as well.
It occurs to me that these 4 are all based on presuppositions and logical inference. I should think that a very strong case must be made on the evidence found in Scripture itself, especially from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself.

Matt 4:4 - But He answered and said, "It is written, ' MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"
Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
Matthew 7:12
"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7:24
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Matthew 13:23
"And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty."
Matthew 24:12
"Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.
Matthew 24:35
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mark 13:31
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Luke 21:33
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mark 7:13
"...thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."
Luke 2:23
(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, " EVERY firstborn MALE THAT OPENS THE WOMB SHALL BE CALLED HOLY TO THE LORD"),
Luke 6:47
" Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like:
Luke 10:26
And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
Luke 16:17
" But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
Luke 24:44
Now He said to them, " These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
John 5:38
"You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.
John 5:47
"But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
John 6:63
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
John 8:31
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, " If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
John 8:51
"Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death."
John 10:35
"If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, " If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
John 17:17
" Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.


Notice among other things:
1) Christ holds the Law - yes, the barbaric, evil, intolerant Mosaic Law - in highest regard. It cannot be broken, it is not to be invalidated for the sake of human tradition, it is truth, it will never pass away, etc.
2) Christ came to UPHOLD AND FULFILL that law, not to abolish it.
3) Love and keeping the law are held in inviolable connection. This speaks directly to your hermeneutic, Dr Reitan; you would do well to keep close track of this.
4) Same with holiness and purity, like in Jn 17:17.
5) It is the law OF THE LORD, as in Lk 2. Not the law of Moses only. It is divine in origin.
6) Christ Himself often appeals to the Law to settle disputes and answer questions. He quotes it to Satan; why didn't He just "love" Satan, or write (as it were) His own Scripture by speaking His own authoritative words to Satan to defeat him?


Now, few things you said:
-I have argued that a loving God would want us to pay loving attention to our neighbors, and that a so-called “inerrant book” would likely lead many of us to stop listening to those neighbors whose lived experiences were judged to be at odds with the pronouncements of this book.-

I know we need to flesh this out and my response is one of the 4 arguments you outlined above: you don't know love apart from what God has revealed. Besides that, let me say that the whole "lived experiences were judged to be at odds" is the very problem at hand! Over and over again in the Scr we see the sinfulness of man contrasted with the holiness of God. The lawlessness of man contrasted with the holy law of God. What happened in the Garden of Eden? Did man fall UP or something? God sent OT Israel into captivity in Assyria and Babylon b/c they were failing to follow their consciences, or was it b/c they were neglecting the law of God? Did Christ ever call us to figure out the right thing by appeal to our lived experiences, or was it to the law of God?
This is seriously, seriously wrong, quite properly speaking, a damnable heresy - one that will damn you.


-There are several reasons why I think so: first, because relationships with persons teach us more about love than do books-

Relationships with persons also teach us about hate, vengeance, temptation, lust, greed, envy, murder, rape, and theft.


-To discourage idolatry, God would therefore ensure that terrestrial artifacts that testified to Him could not be mistakenly identified with Him. -

I'll let you know the next time I see anyone bowing down before a Bible and offering incense to it. If we didn't believe it was the inerrant word of the all-powerful God, we would pay as much attention to it as we do the Catcher in the Rye - not much. This is a typical liberal canard, and it's beneath you, sir.



A brief word on your personal experience, if I may, though I obviously know few of the details. I too have traveled, and I've lived in France and Japan for extended periods. I have interacted with many diff people of many diff origins and worldviews. My approach to evaluating a worldview is more holistic than yours, apparently - I take into acct the good AND the bad of the worldview and its history and doctrine. How does an honest study of human history reveal anythg other than a highly flawed, deeply screwed up group? Your surrender of a solid grasp of a biblical worldview (if indeed you ever had one) shows that you never took sin and its effects seriously, and that you are indeed your own highest authority. How else can one eat off the buffet table of another worldview? For when one adds this and that from here, this and that from over there, etc, you create your own mishmash. Indeed that is what liberalism is - a mishmash of things that modernists and postmodernists have hodgepodged together to assemble their own horrible monster.
But let me say this - a trembling, ecstatic baptismal experience won't save you from the wrath of God that your sin has earned you.

Finally,
-I endeavor to live my life in the faith that the universe was fashioned by a personal God of love,-

Which you have believed in thru an apparently blind leap in the dark. Maybe 1 John 4:4, etc, is errant.


-this God redeemed the world by living among us and dying at our hands-

But the crucifixion accts are highly contradictory and indicate a God who would put His own son to death for other people, for crimes He didn't commit. This is divine child abuse, you know. Besides, maybe these accts are errant too.


-I take seriously the radical and astonishing love ethic of Jesus, with its call to help the poor and work for justice.-

Which could well be errant.
That should be sufficient. Anyone can see the self-defeating nature of the half-in, half-out liberal stance. I'd much rather Dr Reitan were a Dick Dawk- (or at least Shermer-) type who would reject the whole thing than for him to remain in his self-imposed dark grey world, where he thinks he is God, until death comes for him and he learns to his eternal chagrin how wrong he was.
Revelation 3:14 The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:
15'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
16'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.'

Yet another liberal professor

One Dr Eric Reitan has chimed in here and here at Dr McGrath's blog.
He is apparently nothing more than another dime-a-dozen liberal religion professor type who likes to talk like an Emergent. Probably b/c "Emergent" usually just means "old-tyme liberalism wearing a soul patch and thick black-frame glasses, a progressive and awesome hairstyle, and typing his blog on a Mac".
But it really is remarkable how he has eviscerated any thought of a meaningful religion given to humanity from God. Rather, he apparently thinks the "man trying to reach God by means that man chooses" is the way to go. Yeah, good luck with that.

Dr Reitan said:
The gist of it is this: a God whose essence is love would not choose, as His primary vehicle of revelation, a static text.

Right off the bat, you are setting yourself up as an authority over the Bible, just like Dr McGrath.
Which means you don't accept the Bible as God's primary means of self-revelation. What will you put in its place? From reading the rest of your comment, you will put "people" in its place. Nice theory, but it only works when people are sorta like you, nice people who don't want to kill you and your kids for fun, who don't want to steal your car and use it for drug and drive-by shooting raids, who don't want to foist all sorts of legalistic requirements for salvation on others, who would never give up their Macs for Lenovos, who would never dream of attempting to subjugate the entire human race under one racist régime.
I don't know if you're a part of the Emergent Church, Dr Reitan, but what you have said here falls directly in line with their worst elements, and that's an awful shame. One of their fundamental problems is their backhanded ethnocentrism. You will no doubt swear up and down that it's actually those awful fundies who are racist, but wait a second. Our message, from the Bible, remains consistent. We call ALL people to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, b/c ALL people are equally filthy and equally dead in their sins. You want this squishy "community" wherein people are able to "express themselves", but you only want some of that. You won't include the conservative Reformed person like me. You won't include the unrepentant jihadist or the Hindu church bomber, or the loner, or the repentant homosexual who is now happily married to a woman and has 4 kids and wants to help others to leave the homosexual lifestyle, or the sociopath, or the wife-beater. And you know what? There are an awful lot of people like that out there. They are sinners. We are sinners. We need a Savior. Our problem is not that we need community. Our problem is that we are sinful.

One of the points of that is that humans are wildly inconsistent and don't agree on much of anythg, but you naively make humans your yardstick. This boils down to nothing more than happy-happy subjective relativism, and it will fail you in the hard (or even moderately difficult) cases. Ground your morality in humans? What do you tell the guy who wants to murder you? You can't say it's morally wrong to do so! You might tell him it's wrong FOR YOU, but maybe it's perfectly right for him!

OK, back to a point by point refutation of your foolish premise.
a God whose essence is love would not choose, as His primary vehicle of revelation, a static text.

How do you know anything about God apart from His self-revelation in the Bible?
Also, you never interacted (much like your colleague Dr McGrath) with my questions. I invite you with all possible urgency to do so.


We learn most about love through loving and being loved.

Apart from God's revelation of the nature of love in the Bible, how do you know:
1) what love is, and
2) what loving looks like?
See how you've set yourself up over God, set yourself on the throne?


Christianity affirms this when it maintains that God's most fundamental revelation in history was in the PERSON of Jesus.

And if the biblical text is errant, you have a strong defeater for ANY proposition you might make about Him.
"He told us to love our neighbor." No, the text was errant at that point.
"He told us to turn the other cheek." No, the text was errant at that point.
You've cut yourself off from the source and you're left floundering. This is the fruit of liberalism.


He made disciples--PERSONS--whom He sent out into the world.

And you know nothing about them either apart from the Bible.
Will you appeal to church tradition? It looks nothing like what you're proposing here, sorry to say. In fact, it doesn't look like much of anythg - it's a mishmash of elements we'd today identify as Romanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, with all sorts of other elements thrown in the mix. One thing is for sure, it doesn't look like what you're expressing here. So I guess that appeal is right out for you, and we're right back to what is, in effect, "But I'm Eric Reitan, yo. Trust ME."


But it will cease to be valuable if we come to pay more attention to this text than we do to our neighbors.

This has ceased being an argument for an alternative foundation for epistemology and morality and is evolving into a complaint that modern conservative Christians can be meanies. And who denies that? We're sinners.
If the text is errant, I'd like to know why I *SHOULD* pay attention to my neighbor. Can you tell me?


the place where Christ is present, embodied, on Earth today. Not in a book. In persons.

Persons who have no knowledge of the historical Christ outside of that book.
It's not like I'm denying the importance of people or the church, but the church is cut off from her moorings without God's guidance.


When the biblical witness is treated as the proxy voice of persons who lived long ago,

Oh, like a history book is a "proxy" of dead guys who fought wars, drew borders, made peace, etc?


the biblical witness becomes an invaluable partner in our efforts to understand what God is saying to us

Even though Jesus Christ Himself taught us to test all things by the standard of His Word? Mark 7:1-13.


it trumps the voice of the neighbor and is used as a conversation-ender.

Precisely. Let all human voices cease before the voice of God. Let Him, in His infinite love and wisdom, define the universe for us and let us bow before our Sovereign Creator.
HE defines sin. HE defines righteousness. HE provides for our salvation. HE commands. HE is the final authority. This is Christianity. I wish you were part of it.


It becomes an excuse not to listen to the lived experience of the neighbor.

Oh, I'll be happy to listen all day long if necessary. But for actual finding the answer to tough questions, God has defined them, and our puny human efforts fail miserably. I'd be willing to bet you only think that "human experience" is important when most things are going right for you in the world. What happens when you're faced with a church split? A divorce? The murder (God forbid) of a family member? Temptation to do something and you can't decide which way to go? Death? What does "human experience" have to say about the question of life after death?


And since compassionate listening is one of the most essential acts of neighbor love

Which you have no way of knowing outside of an objective revelation from God.
In closing on this, you have no case. Your mouth is closed before the Lord. Submit yourself to God.


But why pay attention to fallible people when you think you've got an infallible book?

Maybe b/c I love those fallible people? And b/c the infallible book told me to?
What am I listening to them FOR? You'd say I should go to them for EVERYthing. The Bible tells me to give TO them from the truth that God has already given. See how God would have us be generous, and on your view more selfish?


The tendency is to silence them by quoting chapter and verse: "It's (sic) says so here. It's never wrong. So you must be wrong. Now shut up."

Depends on what we're talking about. If this person wants to know the truth and the Scripture speaks to that issue, yes, God is right and you're wrong. You are obligated to agree, and furthermore, agreeing with God is right in and of itself. That doesn't mean I say "shut up" to people. I only say that to false teachers (much like Dr McGrath) and other destructive influences in the church who are willfully distorting the truth. Not to people who just have questions. And not on every question, either. The Bible allows for diversity of belief on many, many issues. Dr Reitan would lump all questions in under the same category, and he should know better.


the anguished cries of gays and lesbians who are excluded from full participation in the life of the community are ignored in favor of Romans 1:26-27.

And what of when the anguished cries of thieves and child molesters who are excluded from full participation in the life of the community are ignored in favor of Revelation 22:15? You would judge them?!?!?!?!
The church of Jesus Christ is for REPENTANT SINNERS, not unrepentant sinners who want to turn a nation to greater perversity and acceptance of sin. But see again how Dr Reitan is focusing on the loud, gay-agenda, "We're here, we're queer, get used to it" type crowd and ignoring the many homosexuals and former homosexuals in the world and in the US who neither want "civil rights" nor support the gay rights political agenda, nor want to destroy the institution of marriage for everyone else, nor even want to keep being homosexual. Doesn't mean they'll all be able to overcome their same-sex attraction, but it does mean they have actually repented of their sin.
Wow, imagine that - people who honestly and authentically realise they are sinful and bow the knee before a perfect Savior and His revelation.

Dr Reitan will never see that as long as he continues in his stubbornly unChristian views.

I'm a big meanie, or Priorities, people!

Well, the Internet hate for me is approaching white-hot levels since I dared tangle with the sacred cow of the large-university liberal religion professor (or is that professor of liberal religion?) a few days ago.
Credit where credit is due, first of all. McGrath declined to identify me by name (or handle) in his post on this incident. That's being a stand-up guy. I, also being a stand-up guy, have identified myself as the tattle tale, and this has led to a few humorous comments about my identity.
My favorite comes from the very rude blog of Dr Jim West, who first said this in the post:

I have no time for the coward, hiding, as he does, behind anonymity. I’ll not engage the person since it would be an utter waste of time.

Then, in the combox:
ashrebg Says:
Why is this guy a coward and NT Wrong a hero?

Jim West Says:
gee i dont recall ever saying wrong was a ‘hero’. as ive said now countless times, i know wrong. hence, he isnt anonymous.

NT Wrong is apparently a frequent commenter on West's blog. This is hypocrisy in action, absent a retraction from West. Dr McGrath knows my name, where I'm from, and other details such as the name of my church, and has had the decency not to broadcast such, just as I haven't broadcasted the name of his church or of his pastor. So he "knows" me. West castigates me for being anonymous (which I'm not, really), but gives a pass to his buddy NT Wrong b/c he knows him. I'm a coward; NT Wrong is alright.

Moving on, yesterday I had pressed a commenter hebrewandgreekreader to substantiate his accusations that I've been "unloving". He responded.
Before I take it point by point, let me register my vexation and naïve (by now) surprise at the screwed-up priorities exhibited by this commenter and by most others who have reacted to my actions toward Dr McGrath. Here we have a patent, obvious heretic and denier of the most central of definitive essentials of Christianity - the bodily resurrection of Christ - sitting in a position of authority and teaching in an ostensibly evangelical church. Apparently the widespread idea is that a Baptist Sunday School is better meant to be a weekly interfaith dialogue, the crunchy, flaky exterior of Baptist with a gooey, chewy Unitarian Universalist middle. So...one would certainly expect them to be open to Wiccan, Muslim, Hindu, Branch Davidian, Satanist, atheist, Moonie, and Mormon teachers too, right? Anything except a conservative Reformed teacher, no doubt.
The New Testament (and Old, now that I think about it) condemns such welcoming of wolves into the sheep pen in the strongest possible terms, and this blind, biblically illiterate church is letting it happen.
Finally on this point, Dr McGrath is bound for eternal condemnation as it stands now. Unless he repents of his sin and bows the knee to the biblical Jesus, "you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (John 8:24). And hebrewandgreekreader and the rest of these libs are concerned that I'm not being nice? Priorities, people!

On to his points:

"Turns out he is a typical liberal, substituting hand-waving and politically-correct bloviating for actual arguments." - If you've never met him, this is unfounded and rude.

I've met him...on his blog. Is the man not responsible for what appears on his blog, from his own keyboard? If you don't think I've fairly characterised his comments, can you explain his neglect of my actual questions?

"...requesting that he recognise that McGrath is a heretic who doesn't belong as a member of any church that claims to hold to the Bible as its final authority, let alone as a Sunday School teacher." - Again you've never met him and never sat in one of those classes.

I give Dr McGrath the benefit of the doubt, that he teaches and believes what he says on his blog. If the two are inconsistent, there's something perhaps even more problematic going on. I'm doing McGrath less a disservice than you are - I give him credit for meaning what he says, whereas I'm not at all sure you do.

"Boo-hoo; no doubt he wants us all to bear with him as he works them out, to come to an "honest" and "authentic" (to use the liberal buzzwords) faith." - This dismisses the liberal Christian view. It does not critically engage it. And again, just sounds rude.

It stands dismissed w/o substantive answers to the numerous questions I've been raising and which Dr McGrath did not interact, b/c liberalism is just plain silly and a clear ad hoc syncretism between Christianity and modern naturalism, and b/c it's indeed a different religion altogether, dishonestly attempting to veil itself in the veneer of Christianity, much like the Watchtower and the LDS Church. I certainly invite anyone to interact with them.
Did you know that Jesus was frequently rude to false teachers who kept up the veneer of true religion while denying its foundations? Let me commend Matthew 24 and John 5 to you, not to mention John 6.

"Sadly, he is most dangerous to the lemmings who should be sheep under a kindly and godly shepherd but whose ears are being tickled by this false teacher." - Not only have you once again said something rude about your brother (which 1 John doesn't like), but also his students, who are not lemmings. You should apologize to this class of people you've never met.

Dr McGrath is no brother in Christ. I've already asked this commenter at least once for an argument that McGrath is a Christian; I am still waiting.
His students are clearly lemmings, as they have not recognised the biblical teaching regarding their responsibilities towards false teachers and towards the church as a whole. The pastor stands chiefly condemned, sadly.

I'm glad your post ends with your wanting the best for them all, but following remarks like the ones I've noted, its hard to believe.

Perhaps b/c our priorities are different. I'm concerned with the state of their eternal souls, even it means I have to be a little harsh and blunt in the short-term. You're apparently more concerned that everyone play nice, even if it is with poison. You're a tool of political correctness in the church, ironically, I say, b/c you are probably also a proponent of church-state separation (I presume, perhaps wrongly).

It seems your greater problem is not with James, but the pastor who has him teach and those who sit in his class.

Absolutely right. The pastor stands condemned for his failure to lead his flock in truth and to exercise the church discipline he is clearly called to do on Dr McGrath and anyone else who stubbornly holds to heresy in the midst of his church. The case of the pastor is indeed the saddest of all.

Tattle-tale

I recently found myself on the blog of one Dr. James McGrath and found a topic worth discussing - whether the Bible is worth even paying any attention to if it is errant.
We had a discussion of decent length here, but he dropped out of it prematurely for whatever reason, without answering most of my questions, which is a shame.
Said questions included:
(link) How do we judge which parts are right and which are wrong?
(link) You seem to offer "wrestl(ing) with what is right and wrong" and "love for others and the Golden Rule" as the standard of comparison for knowing good and evil. But perhaps "love one another" is part of the UNinspired, errant text of the Bible? How would you know? How does "wrestle with it" give any guidance? I'm asking whether I'm right to do this or that - I'm looking for something external to myself. Does God speak with authority on right and wrong, or not?

(link)So, it looks like your answer to the question "How do I know which parts are good and which are bad?" is "wrestle with it, go with what is loving", more or less? How does this escape my charge of the elevation of yourself as authority over the Bible that I expressed in my previous comment?

(link) if I pick and choose what to believe and follow, I am de facto a higher authority than the Bible. Why even bother reading it?

(link) Again I ask what moral standard we should use to judge what God has said. Please supply it.

(link) The Bible says do this or that, you say no. It's as simple as that. I'm just wondering why you bother listening to the rest of it, or better yet, why you would cite it for any moral authority for some other question. Why not just cite yourself, since you know better?
Why follow Luke 14:33, and why cite it? Are you saying I *should* follow it? Why?

You get the idea. I invite anyone to read just how well Dr. McGrath interacted with these questions. Turns out he is a typical liberal, substituting hand-waving and politically-correct bloviating for actual arguments. Not that I expected anything different.
Anyway, I was dismayed to learn from his blog that he is a Sunday School teacher, and a friend pointed out to me which church he attends, a Baptist church whose statement of faith was quite short but also orthodox. In my experience, a short statement of faith is not ideal, but I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Bottom line - Dr. McGrath denies the authority of Scripture, as should be clear from the above-cited thread. He denies the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, for poorly thought-out reasons. Worst of all, he denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
I shouldn't have to point out 1 Corinthians 15:14-19, but I will:

...if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. ¹⁵Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; ¹⁷and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

There is no code here, no obscurity. Why would Dr. McGrath continue to hold to the label "Christian" AND deny the resurrection, given what Paul says here? It's because he is committed to the authority of himself to pick and choose as he likes. He has no great need to be consistent with himself, and that's why he wouldn't answer my questions.

I emailed some of my concerns to the pastor of the church Dr. McGrath attends, requesting that he recognise that McGrath is a heretic who doesn't belong as a member of any church that claims to hold to the Bible as its final authority, let alone as a Sunday School teacher. I was and remain concerned for the class he teaches and the church as a whole. One day later, the pastor emailed me a courteous and pitiful reply, informing me that he was taking all this under "serious consideration" and he was "sure that you understand the strength of the Baptist faith in its diversity of beliefs and practices" and promising to discuss this with Dr. McGrath. Sigh. Of course, glaringly absent was any "Oh my gosh! We'll DEFINITELY be asking him to repent, for his own good, removing him from his post immediately for his own good and the good of the class, and we'll be exercising church discipline on him in the hopes that he will repent of his sin and unbelief."

Yesterday Dr. McGrath posted a complaint about my actions. A brief look at one quote from the post:

Such concerns often lead doubts to be denied publicly, perhaps even denied to ourselves. In such circumstances, being a Christian often becomes a matter of appearance, of pretending to be more certain than one really is, or simply refusing to ask certain kinds of questions.

We're talking about a guy with a Ph.D in religion-related fields who is teaching Sunday School to a group of people in an allegedly-evangelical church. And he has "doubts". Boo-hoo; no doubt he wants us all to bear with him as he works them out, to come to an "honest" and "authentic" (to use the liberal buzzwords) faith. But he wants to be a teacher to others while he does so.
A few passages come to mind:
Romans 2: ¹⁷But if you bear the name "Jew" (or "professor of religion and Sunday School teacher in a Baptist church) and rely upon the Law and boast in God, ¹⁸and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, ¹⁹and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, ²⁰a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, ²¹you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? ²²You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? ²⁴For "THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU," just as it is written.

Matthew 15: ¹³He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. ¹⁴Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."

Maybe in HIS church, they don't ask questions. Maybe he could do that as a guest, not a member, and for sure not a teacher. In my church, we ask all kinds of questions, and answer all kinds as well. We host atheist organisations for atheist-theist debates, we bring in ID-evolution debates, we go out on campus for anti-baby-murder educational exhibits. Perhaps McGrath would like us better if we just asked his kinds of questions, and answered them only the way he would like us to. Yeah, that's my guess too.

Also from him:

A conservative blog recently described me as "dangerous"

Just for the record, I can't take credit for that, but I certainly agree. Sadly, he is most dangerous to the lemmings who should be sheep under a kindly and godly shepherd but whose ears are being tickled by this false teacher.

Moving on, what cracks me up the most is the other blogposts tracking back to that post, like #1, #2, and #3.
I love it - I'm some nobody blogger from flyover country, and I'm the "Thought Police"!
Let's take a look at this frothing from the mouth of #2.
-I'm a "cowardly offender who believes himself to be the thought police, and justified in reporting McGrath’s wicked views to his poor unsuspecting Parson."
I am a concerned observer, concerned for the pastor's church. The ideal situation is for the pastor to realise what's going on and discipline McGrath, and that McGrath would repent and be saved. I want the best for them all.

- "Shut up."
Mmm, nah.

-"it’s none of your business what McGrath blogs. Ever heard of freedom of speech? Or (as James pointed out) has it ever occurred to you that his Pastor already reads James’s blog?"
Of course it's my business - it's a public blog. And do you see me asking Blogger to shut his blog down? Or siccing the ACLU on him? Of course not. Rather, I'm concerned that the name of Christ and His church may be pure and unequivocally defined. I want this church to be holier than it is, the same as I want for my own church. And I couldn't believe that his pastor reads his blog, but maybe he just skimmed it sometimes, maybe he needed a wake-up call, maybe he didn't read it recently. I didn't know. Why would Dr. McGrath object (for the record, he never did so) to my contacting his pastor? All his thoughts are out there for the world to see.

-"to ‘report’ him to his Pastor is just the most droll sort of childishness I’ve ever heard of... what did you hope to accomplish?"
See above.

-"Shame on this transgressor. He or she should consider him or herself anathematized."
So now I'm a transgressor. Looks like I'm too intolerant for this author, but it's OK to be intolerant of me. McGrath denies the resurrection of Christ, I tattled on him to the pastor, and I'm the one guilty of an excommunicable offense. Not only did this lib forget his own talking points when convenient, he needs a little priority adjustment.

Finally, #1 accuses me of wrongfully sending an anonymous hit-piece. Not so, I post under the same handle as is my email address. There could be no doubt who I was. What would have been cowardly would be to create a false email address - ilikejesus452w9380438590845@hotmail.com or something - and send the message that way.

Liberal tolerance at its finest.

Primer on the Bible's infallibility

I've been asked to present why I believe the Bible is infallible.
I had inquired after the questioner's worldview so I could know how to answer, since he commented on the Beggars All blog which is usually aimed at those of the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox persuasions. I have extrapolated that he's not RC but more like an agnostic/naturalist. That will be fine - see? I'm not asking much. ;-)
And he agreed with me in what I was saying about worldview presuppositions, so I'm glad that's out of the way.

The infallibility of the Bible is not dependent on someone's worldview, true, but where I start to defend that idea is dependent on that person's worldview.

And he's wrong to suggest that I just "presuppose that some book from the Middle east is some got the authority of God, is the very word of God Himself, and then go from there" (sic).
I DO presuppose, however, that a theistic God exists. Why? Well, I want to be able to use logic and reason to examine the world around me, for one thing. And in particular, you're asking me to present a rational defense of the infallibility of the Bible. A naturalistic worldview can't provide the foundation for using reason to defend anythg, so I start the only place I can - theism.

Now, given theism, why is the Bible infallible? Several reasons.
1) Only 3 major theistic religions exist - Christianity, Islam, Judaism. Islam's Qur'an says the Bible is to be relied upon, so OK, I will, thanks.
Judaism and Christianity believe that God is the One Who breathed out the words of the Bible.
2) The Bible claims itself to be breathed out by God, and on theism, God is perfect and omniscient, does not make mistakes. How then could what He says be a mistake? 2 Tim 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20, 2 Peter 3:16, the very numerous "Thus saith the Lord"s.
(EDIT): This is why I mentioned the presuppositions first of all. We believe that God is and that He is 100% trustworthy (being the Way, the Truth, and the Life and all that), that He knows everything, and that He does not lie. How could His breathed-out Word, His communication with mankind, then, contain an error or falsehood?
3) The Bible's purpose is to reveal God, His commands, and His character and dealings with humanity.
4) Jesus Himself believed it was God talking (Matthew 22:31) and that it was the standard by which all human tradition must be judged (Mark 7:1-13).
5) Jesus Himself quoted Scripture to refute the devil (Matt 4, Luke 4).
6) The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies which have since been fulfilled, perhaps most notably in the book of Daniel.
7) The Bible accurately describes reality, including history as verified by archæological study.
8) Many of the biblical authors (especially Jesus' apostles) were in a position to know with certainty that Jesus was NOT raised from the dead, committed secret deception, or something else. Yet though they would have known their message was false (if indeed it were false), they turned back on their lifelong beliefs to cause a major disruption in their own social lives and that of their families and to risk (and eventually succumb to) an ugly death for the sake of teaching that same message that they would have known was a lie.
9) The Bible is consistent with its own thought and ideas and information on every point despite its having been written over the course of centuries by ~40 different authors.
Some of the authors were ignorant men.
Others wrote eloquent poetry and were peerless military leaders (David). Others were kings, celebrated worldwide for their wisdom (Solomon). Others were highly-educated Pharisees (Paul). Others were sophisticated advisors to kings (Isaiah and Daniel). Some were brought up as the prince of the most powerful and learned nation on earth (Moses).
Yet others were simple fishermen (Peter and John). Others were indeed goatherders from Nowhere, Israel (Amos). Others were probably-disobedient Jews (author of Esther). Some exposed ruthlessly the flaws of their nation and leaders (the author of Kings and Samuel). Others were more cheerful (the author of Chronicles). Some were traitors to the Jewish nation, converted (Matthew). It is the variety of authorship and yet the beauty of the consistency of thought that are striking.

That's a good start. If you have any questions about the details about my beliefs on the Bible, please check here first.

One more note: InvisibleDude says

I'm not questioning the RC's because I know what they'll tell me about their infallible human being of the pope, and from what I read here, that position don't look so good, so, no dude in Rome to confirm it for you, how since he's not infallible, and you're not infallible, and your list is not infallible, what makes the books themselves infallible, and how does the individual Christian know that?

I agree 100% that the Roman Catholic position doesn't look very good.
No, we don't have any dude in Rome to confirm the Scripture for us. Why would we? He's the one relying on the Bible to prop up his authority claims. What then? Turn right around and claim he's the one who can tell us what the Bible is? Maybe that works for some people...
How we know this, however, deserves a little bit more fleshing out. I told you that we don't know infallibly that the Bible is infallible, nor do we know infallibly what books belong in the Bible (ie, the Canon of Scripture). But infallibility is not equivalent to a sufficient knowledge, to knowing with sufficient basis the answers to these questions. We present our arguments and examine counterarguments to that purpose.

Edit: See also Vox Veritatis on this issue.