Tag Archives: Flavius Josephus

Flavius Josephus, a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian

Who Can See the Resurrection? (A meditation)

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The risen Messiah is revealed to Mary Magdalene

Jesus reveals himself to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. “The Bible”, Ep 10 “Courage”

A resurrection day meditation 

In the palm Sunday service this past Sunday, the pastor at my church mentioned that “the great crowd” (John 12.12) that had come out to see Jesus was huge. He mentioned it was likely multiple tens of thousand of people, something I hadn’t considered before. That’s a staggering number. So like a good Berean (Acts 17.11), I got out my Bible history to check.

Sure enough, in “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus” in an excursus on the number of visitors to Jerusalem during the Passover, Bible historian Jeremias summarizes: Continue Reading

Knowledge of the Holy One Part 1: Jesus – the Holy One Revealed

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“Who do you say I am?”

This is one of the most well-known questions Jesus asked his disciples. Perhaps because it is arguably the most significant. Significant not just for his disciples, but for everyone – because at some point everyone must answer that question.

Amid the cacophony of false idols, false religions, false gods, false ideas, hearsay and slander against Jesus everyone must answer the question Jesus puts to them: “Who do you say I am?” (Matt 16.15)  It was no different for the disciples or the people of Jesus’ day. Consider the context in which Jesus asks his disciples the question:  Having just fed more than 4,000 people, Jesus was approached by the unbelieving and treacherous Pharisees and Sadducees who came “and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.” (Matt 16.1) So right off the bat there’s a clear indication that they would not have believed any sign he gave them because he had just performed a miraculous sign. No, they weren’t looking for reasons to believe. They were looking for reasons to justify unbelief, and put him on trial so they could sentence him to death. Continue Reading

Are young earth evidences needed to defend Christian Faith?

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10 Young earth evidences and why they’re needed 

Does the age of the earth matter to your faith? The witnessing approach known as Evangelism Explosion was known for its diagnostic questions[1], so let me take that approach and ask a few diagnostic questions. Answer yes or no to the following:

Question 1: Does the account of the creation of the universe as presented in Genesis depict literal events in a historical manner the way the gospels present the life of Jesus in a historical manner?

Question 2: Is it important to stand up for a “literal” understanding of the creation of the universe as depicted in Genesis the way we stand up for a “literal” understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus?

Question 3:  Are you as proud and willing to stand for and defend the doctrine of creation  as depicted in Genesis – in 6 days – as you are to stand for and defend the resurrection of Jesus on the third day?

Continue Reading

Do Ancient Chronologies Challenge the Bible? Part 2: Egyptian Chronology & the Pharaoh of the Exodus

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Pyramids at Giza

In part one, on the way to determining how far off standard Egyptian Chronology is, I pointed out 3 ways scientists and non-believers use time or Chronology to cast doubts on biblical time frames:

1. Scientist think the Biblical account is too young (e.g. age of the earth/universe) 2. Scientist can’t find evidence of the event in the time period they think it happened (e.g. The Exodus) or 3. Scientists believe they have found evidence that disproves the Biblical time line (e.g. Biblical artifacts like the Dendera Zodiak (below) or the Egyptian pyramids (above). Continue Reading

Why have so many humans seen dinosaurs?

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The full title of this article is too long to use for a blog article (which is why the shortened version appears), so let me put the full title here:

If dinosaurs died out 63 million years before humans existed
Why have so many humans seen dinosaurs?

Evolutionary theory claims that the age of dinosaurs began about 250 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago when they were wiped out by what many secularist believe was a huge asteroid strike. Humans, the theory claims, only came on the scene 2 million years go. (For a pictorial, see this timeline.) So according to evolutionary theory, the last dinosaurs died out some 63 million years before humans existed, and no human should ever have seen a living dinosaur. If that is the case why have so many  humans in all countries in all ages persistently claimed to have seen dinosaurs? This article suggests that the reason is two fold: 1. The earth is not that old, it is about 6,000 years old so the evolutionary time frame is entirely off, and 2: Humans and dinosaurs were both created on day 6 (Gen 1.24-26; 31) when God made all the other land creatures. We will examine the evidence for item 2: that humans and dinosaurs were created on the same day, and thus have lived together concurrently on the earth for as long as the earth has existed.

But before we get started, let’s clear the path of  red herrings. Continue Reading

Is Faith Rational?

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The Declaration of IndependenceThe Declaration of Independence – a permanent testimony to the establishment of the United States of America Rejecting the Bible because it’s an “ancient” document and we didn’t witness any of it is as foolish as rejecting the Declaration of Independence because it’s ancient and we didn’t witness the signing.


Is faith rational? If one took this question at face value,  the answer is quite simple: yes, faith is rational. How do we know that?  We merely need to understand the terms and see if “faith” fits within the bounds of “rational.”  That’s a simple academic exercise handled in the sidebar below. Of greater interest is what people usually mean when asking the question. What’s commonly being asked is either:

1.  How can faith be rational, when faith means believing in something with no evidence?

Or:

2. Is Faith/belief in God/belief in miracles  compatible with science?

 

Starting with the second  question – Faith in God and belief in miracles are compatible with science because faith and science are complimentary; not contradictory. There are questions that science is not equipped to handle. In such cases it doesn’t mean the item the question isn’t real; it simply means that science is incapable of answering the question.  One such item, as author, scientist and theologian Alistair McGrath points out is this:

 “What is the meaning of life?” This is clearly an important question. But can science answer it?[1]

The answer clearly is no, science can’t answer it. And why not? Famous evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould suggests it’s because science and religion deal with different spheres of knowledge – “magisteria” as he called them – and they do not overlap. Science and religion are thus Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)[2] – so the one can not comment on the other. This formulation is close. Science can not see or measure the spiritual world, so it can not comment on it; but God, who is spirit (John 4.24) sees both the spiritual and material world, and thus can comment on both as an eye witness. Thus regarding the creation of the world, what you have in Genesis 1 is an eye witness account of the creation of the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and recorded as evidence – a testimony for all time.

In passing, God as an eye witness to the creation is something science can not disprove. They can disagree with his testimony,  (which they do) and disbelieve he even exists (which they do), but they can not prove he does not exist. Neither can they provide an eye witness to their version of creation – the big bang.  They say believing God’s testimony can only be done by faith. Okay, so what is it when you believe George Washington was the first president? No one alive today was there to see it. All we have are testimonies. Is that not then, also faith?  Yet no one asks scientists to prove George Washington was the first president, or prove that he existed. They take both to be true on the word of historians. Biblical testimony is no different. So why is faith in God’s written testimony any less rational than believing written testimonies that George Washington was the first president?

If doubters of the Biblical account still want “proof” one can say creationists have higher quality “proof” than scientists – since in addition to scientific evidence,  creationists have an eye witness account by a perfect witness while science merely has a of highly disputed theory – the big bang[3] which is backed by highly disputed evidence. Indeed the more we learn, the more the big bang is discredited.  The universe is both too young for the theory to be true (for more on that see  Saturn’s Rings are Young!)  and recent discoveries like the Higgs Boson (the so called “god particle”)  contradict the Big Bang theory. (For more on that see Testimony of the Higgs Boson.)

So faith expressed as belief that God exists is rational; it is consistent with how we use “faith” in other spheres, and it is consistent with science. But some people don’t agree with that assessment for reasons that take us back to the first question:

“How can faith be rational?” (implied: when science can’t see the evidence to prove it). This is perpetuated by a chorus of acolytes echoing the refrain:

“Faith is believing something for which you have no good, objective, rational reason to think is actually true.”[4]

What’s always amusing about these statements is the claim there is no evidence. Because the first thing they typically do is list the evidences then explain why they refuse to believe it. First off they want to eliminate the Bible as evidence because it’s well – the bible – a holy book.  They never seem to realize they are committing the fallacy of a false analogy when they compare the Bible to a book of mythology or even other holy books. Unlike mythology and other “holy” books the Bible is full of verified history, fulfilled prophecy (we’ll note one below), known, verified historical people, and geographical locations that exist to this day that you can visit. That makes it a reliable source of information. In fact regarding reliability of  the key section of the Bible that records the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – the New Testament – author and apologist Josh McDowell states:

“There is more evidence for the historical reliability of the new testament than any 10 pieces of classic literature combined.”[5]


Objective scholars regard the Bible as a reliable historical record, it’s people with an atheistic agenda who object to using the testimony of the Bible. But let’s look at a few of these objections. Typical of those stating faith is not rational, is the blogger above[6] who states faith is believing something which you have no good reason to believe is true. He has 3 main objections: Continue Reading

GULO and other Irrational Atheist Arguments – Part 2

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7 Popular, but Fallacious Arguments by Atheists

Evolution uses circular arguments to support the supposition that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.
More arguments used by atheists that upon inspection are clearly wrong and fail to support atheistic or
evolutionary doctrine.
 
In Part 1 of this article I discussed problems 1 and 2: GULO and LUCA respectively and why they are irrational arguments. In closing the discussion  on LUCA I noted that evolutionists and atheists are blind to evidence of intelligent design. This leads into our next irrational
argument:
3. “There’s no evidence”Atheists and Evolutionists alike tend to use this argument for anything they don’t believe. They don’t believe in God, so they say there’s no evidence of God. They don’t believe in intelligent design, so they say there’s no evidence for it. They don’t believe in miracles, so they say there’s no evidence of them. This argument is particularly common in the twitter world:

 

Notice the above person states no “verifiable” evidence. This means there is no evidence you can present that will meet his standard for “verifiable.” (An illicit shifting of the burden of proof.) The problem with saying “there’s no evidence” is you must then explain away  all the sites with evidence – like this one,  or creation.com or answersingenesis.org or a host of other sites and books (including the Bible) which provide the evidence against evolution and for God and intelligent design which they claim doesn’t  exist.  Brian Auten provides a list of such sites on his  Apologetics315  here.  In light of the  overwhelming evidence, one is tempted to say they’re simply  lying. After all, it’s one thing to say the evidence is misunderstood; quite another to say that none exists. But there are at least two other dynamics likely at play here.
First, in an attempt to strengthen the case for evolution and atheism they could simply be attempting to suppress the evidence, but really – that is just using the language  of logic as another way of saying they’re being deceptive (read – lying) .  A second real and likely option is that they are so brainwashed by evolutionary propaganda that they have become blinded to the truth and actually can’t see the  evidence – even when looking right at it. As scripture says:

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of
Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Cor 2.4

Part of the light of the gospel is the fact that God exists and God created. The god of this age – Satan – doesn’t want you to believe that; so those following atheistic or evolutionary beliefs have unwittingly fallen for yet  another lie of the father of the lies, which keeps them captive to false philosophies. We must pray for such people in hopes that  “they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” (2 Tim 2.26)

 

4. “Dinosaur fossils are millions of years old

“Everyone knows what wiped out the dinosaurs. Sixty five million years ago it came from outer space.”1  So begins a documentary entitled “What really killed the dinosaurs?” It perpetuates the supposed date which scientists have settled on as the date for when the dinosaurs became extinct: 65 million years ago. Scientists also use fossils to verify that date – a date which supports an old earth theory of earth history instead of a young one. But as Kent Hovind is fond of pointing out the fossil evidence argument is a circular one. He relates the story of a visit he took with his daughter to the School of Mines & Technology Museum of Geology, Rapid City S.D. His daughter asks the tour guide” Continue Reading