My "old friend," Mr. Eric V. Snow of the Ann Arbor, Michigan United Church of God congregation, has produced yet another paper attacking the Holy Scriptures of Israel through my book, Mystery Babylon and the Lost Ten Tribes in the End Time (MBLTT). The 74 page paper is titled Is Christianity a Fraud? A Preliminary Assessment of the Conder Thesis. Eric writes in a preface: "This essay . . . attacks Darrell Conder's Mystery Babylon and the Ten Lost Tribes in the End Time, which advocates conversion to some type of Judaism." (Eric originally produced a paper against my book that carried the same title, which was posted on the web site of his local church, the United Church of God in Ann Arbor and Lansing, Michigan areas. The current paper is being distributed by both United Church of God on their web site, and Norm Edwards' Servant's News of Charlotte, Michigan.)1
In both editions of his paper Eric starts by quoting a few out-of-context portions of my book and comments, "As these statements show, Darrell Conder has converted to Judaism . . . " (Emphasis is mine throughout unless otherwise noted.) I have no doubt that these out-of-context quotations along with Eric's pronouncements were thrown out at the beginning of his paper to shock the average Christian reader. Such a tactic is often used by Christian fundamentalist to set a stage of prejudice before offering a critical assessment of a work with which they disagree. It was, in fact, the favorite tactic of my former church, which is, by the way, the parent organization of Eric's church.
However, Eric doesn't stop with accusing me of being a Jewish convert: he seeks to further prejudice his Christian readers by lumping me together with "Agnostics, atheists, and liberal higher critics . . ." I suppose that somehow Eric reasons Judaism, agnosticism, atheism and liberalism to be one and the same, when in fact they are the antitheses of each other.
Building on his false attack, Eric goes on to boldly hit his readers with the age-old Christian threat of eternal damnation if they read my book. After quoting Matthew 11:33 Eric comments on page 3 that "It is criminally foolish to commit yourself to fundamentally new religious beliefs (not just a mere change in fellowship groups) after listening to just one side that would cost you your eternal life." Have you ever heard the phrase "scare the hell" out of someone? Well, this Christian fundamentalist exercise defines that phrase.
Now what remedy to Darrell Conder does Eric offer his flock? His readers may find answers for their Christianity by absorbing the pages of a book by a born-again Christian fundamentalist named Josh McDowell.
Let's see, Eric opens his paper by accusing me of converting to Judaism (a detestable thought in Christianity), puts me (and Judaism) on par with agnostics, atheists, and liberal higher critics, seeks to prove Christianity and the New Testament by recommending his readers seek out the book of a born-again Christian fundamentalist, and then warns those who might seriously consider my arguments that they would die an eternal death in the "lake of fire," which is a doctrine of Eric's church. What a start! I'm glad to see that Eric is going to keep an open mind while reviewing my book!
By-gosh Josh!
Elsewhere I have written extensively about Josh McDowell's works, which I refer to as 'Christian joke books', and his so-called scholarship.2 Additionally, the over-use of McDowell by Christian fundamentalist, like Eric Snow, has caused me to label this excuse as "by-gosh Josh" because "mcdowellees" seem to swear by him. Actually Eric Snow might very well be at the top of the Josh McDowell fan club because I counted some 65 references to McDowell's books while reading through Eric's 74 page paper. Even when he doesn't cite McDowell as a reference, and offers some "independent" sources, it is easy to see where Eric Snow comes by these. Simply go to McDowell's books and you will see that Eric's "independent" sources—authors, book titles, page numbers, quotes and all—are often found there. In fact, having checked most of Eric's "independent" sources and finding them in McDowell's books, I have concluded that Eric Snow's paper is backed almost wholly by Josh McDowell. I will be noting a few of these examples through the course of this paper, after which I think the reader will agree with me that Eric could have saved himself a lot of trouble by telling people how to obtain copies of McDowell's works, since reading his paper and McDowell's books seem to be one and the same exercise.
My References Are Better Than Yours!
It is noticeable throughout Eric's paper that his rationale is plagued by one great fault: inconsistency. For instance, he accuses me of using the works of "higher critics" to back up my points, while he turns around and uses them when it suits him. I note for example that on page 10 of his paper Eric insults my use of Robin Lane Fox, but on page 24 he quotes "historian Robin Lane Fox" to make a point. On page 46 he says in a footnote that I bypass current scholarly consensus by using outdated references, specifically noting my use of T.W. Doane, whom he dates to 1882.
True, the work by Doane was first published in 1882, but it was updated by the author in 1910 and 1922. It was also put back into publication in 1971. Yes, it is an old book, but that does not invalidate the information it contains. Moreover, in criticizing me for using it we shall see that Eric suffers from that old malady called "talking out of both sides of your mouth."
On page 43 of his paper Eric "borrows" from Josh McDowell and quotes German scholar Adolph von Harnack concerning pagan mystery religions.3 Now Harnack was born in 1851 and died in 1930. Born and educated in Germany, he is at the top of the list of "higher critics" and "liberals" that Eric complains make up my sources. (Harnack's liberal interpretation of the New Testament made him an outcast in the established Christian Church of his day.) I invite Eric's readers to research the writings of Adolph von Harnack and then ask him why it is, in his opinion, wrong for me to use this type of scholarship but acceptable for him to do so? Also, why is T.W. Doane's work, in Eric's opinion, outdated, when he uses Harnack's, who wrote in the same time frame? On page 32 Eric quotes religious historian Philip Schaff who was also a theologian from Doane and Harnack's generation (one of Schaff's first publications was produced in 1888); Eric uses H.G. Wells, who was of this same generation; on page 16 he cites a book by Ellen G. White which she wrote in 1888; on page 9 he quotes the opinion of someone named Ezra Abbot "as cited in Benjamin B. Warfield, Introduction to Textual Criticism of the New Testament, 7th ed." which was published in London in 1907—a reference, by the way, that he picked up from page 43 of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
And talk about "out-of-date" sources Eric, how can you make the charge against me while citing Fox's Book of Martyrs, which was first published in the 1500's? Additionally, Eric makes use of Sir James G. Frazer's well-known works, and Sir James was of Doane and Harnack's generation. Noticeably when Eric cites Sir James' work, The Golden Bough, he uses a 1981 edition. However, Frazer produced his original of this work in 1890, which was updated and revised on several occasions on into the early twentieth century (it is still in publication). The use of Sir James Frazer by Eric is identical to my use of T.W. Doane, which leads me to ask Eric why Frazer's works are better than Doane's given that they both were of the same generation and both wrote on the same subject?
Because Eric almost entirely uses Josh McDowell as a reference to attack my book, let's date some of McDowell's sources. At the end of each chapter in his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, McDowell lists his references. By looking at only three of these bibliographies one can find cited works from the following years: 1840, 1859, 1866, two from 1868, 1874, 1881, 1883, two from 1893, three from 1898, 1903, 1905, 1906, two from 1907, two from 1908, 1909, 1910, 1912, 1915, and a number from the 1920's and 1930's. On page 260 McDowell cites Samuel Chandler's Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ which was published in London in 1744; on page 262 he list William Paley's A View of the Evidences of Christ (14th ed.) published in 1811; in this section he also lists books from 1847, two from 1867, 1868, 1870, 1878, 1879, three from 1888, 1896, 1897, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1909, two from 1910 and 1911. In light of the above, I wonder if Eric would like to revise his charge that I'm using "outdated" sources for my book?
According to fundamentalist Christian Eric Snow, Darrell Conder is using biased, one-sided scholarship. In a footnote on page 46 of his paper he says that I use sources from "people [that are] driven by such a deep unbelieving bias that they engage in careless comparisons and analogy (Walker)."
Let's look at Eric's complaint and analyze it for what it really says. What he is really complaining about is that my sources are not from born-again fundamentalist who uphold the infallibility of the New Testament by any means: The sources I use critically examine both history and the New Testament itself for accuracy and historicity, and they are not motivated by illogical Christian emotions—this is what Eric calls "unbelieving bias." (As we shall see later, even when I use Christian sources to make my points against the validity and historicity of the NT, Eric finds fundamentalist excuses to denounce them.)
Because Eric has accused me of using biased sources, let's take a brief look at some his sources—after all, a man who throws out such an accusation must surely have some impeccable references to back his work. Eric's sources come from such companies as Here's Life Publishers, Baker Book House (publishers of Christian books), Zondervan Publishing House (a Christian publishing house), The Worldwide Church of God, Inter-Varsity Press (a Christian publishing house), Bethany House Publishers (a Christian publishing house), Thomas Nelson Publishers (a Christian publishing house), Moody Press (a fundamentalist Christian publishing house), Tan Books and Publishers (a Catholic publishing house), Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York (the Jehovah's Witnesses publishing house), Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Global Church of God, Review and Herald Publishing Association (the Seventh-day Adventist publishing house) letters from a fellow church member, John H. Wheeler (I mention this because Eric quotes from his letters about a half dozen times), Messianic Publishing Co. (a Christian publishing house), John Knox Press (a Christian publishing house), and In Transition (a newspaper of Sabbatarian churches, mostly those that split off from the Worldwide Church of God). Additionally, on at least one occasion (page 12) Eric offers Josh McDowell's personal opinion for the reliability of the New Testament.
Considering that Eric's paper is really but a condensed version of Josh McDowell's books, again let us take a look at some of the publishers that make up his "unbiased" so-called scholarship. They include: Faith Press, Inc., the United Church Press, Westminster Press (a Christian publishing house), the American Tract Society, Good News Publishers, Inc., the magazine, Christian Century, Scripture Press Publications, Christian Heritage, Inc., Christian Culture Press, Sword of the Lord Publishers, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Back to the Bible Broadcast, Campus Crusade for Christ International, Christian Business Men's Committee International, American Indian Mission, Moody Bible Institute, The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Messianic Jewish Movement, and Contemporary Christian Acts, Inc.
The publications that make up some of McDowell's "evidence" carry such titles as, Worth More Than a Billion, How the Shaggy D.A. Became a Lamb, Three Steps from Darkness, She was an Atheist Until She Met a God of Love, On Patrol for God, Letters of C.S. Lewis, Xerox copy of personal testimony from Gon Kim Joon, How Jane Poitras Found God, Turned to Jesus and Gripped by Christ.
Perhaps we should also take a look at some of the authors that make up McDowell's expert testimony: a professor at the Oriental Seminary at Johns Hopkins University, the chairman of a division at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a professor of theology in the Free Church College, the head of a department at Nazarene Theological Seminary, a graduate in theology of Detroit Bible College, a vicar of St. Ippolyts, a principal of London Bible College, the Director of Evangelism for Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, the director of the Christian Research Science Center, a professor of theology at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a rector of All Souls Church, a graduate from Dallas Theological seminary, another one from Southern Methodist University . . ., etc.
I have to admit that my two favorites in all of the above "references" are the Sword of the Lord Publishers and Back to the Bible Broadcast! Now if I seem unnecessarily sarcastic and hard in my criticism of Eric's references it is because he denounces my sources as unscholarly, biased and one-sided!
There is one point on which I totally agree with Eric. People should never make up their minds by looking at only one side of an issue and I can only hope that Eric's readers will take this to heart. I also hope that people take this advice when reading my book. I sincerely wish people to read papers like Eric's and then research the issues raised by both of us. Please, please, please, read, research, compare and make up your own mind. Don't let any man or religion make it up for you.
Higher Criticism
Well, after noticing the extensive use of by-gosh Josh McDowell's books, one need not strain their gray matter too hard to see where Eric's defense of his beliefs will be based. As the paper progresses, he continues to slam me for using "higher criticism," which is a charge that his former Worldwide Church of God audience will understand.
It was a trade mark practice of the old WCG to consistently warn its membership about "intellectualism" and "higher criticism." This tactic, which was borrowed from mainstream fundamentalist Christianity (Josh McDowell uses it in his books), kept most of its members in bondage to the deceptions of Christianity by steering them away from works presenting evidence against its validity. By forbidding its membership to read the writings of the "higher critics" the Christian ministry is relieved of the impossible task of answering the questions such people raise. In my and Eric's former church if, for some reason, a member defied the ministry and read forbidden materials, which would immediately raise numerous unanswerable questions, they were ultimately silenced by being tossed out and publicly "marked" in the congregations. From that time on the marked heretic was a non-person in the eyes of the church's membership, which meant, of course, that their questions effectively died with them.
I can illustrate this by an incident that happened a few months after the publication of my book. Even though I wasn't a member of United Church of God (the church of which Eric Snow is a member), they nonetheless sent me an official letter of "disfellowshipment" (their term for excommunication). Additionally, their ministers stood up and "marked" me in their churches and warned people about my so-called heresy. Well, this attitude naturally spilled over to Kirk Gearhart because he was active in publishing and promoting my book.
A few weeks after my book was released Kirk was shopping at a supermarket when he ran into a member of the United Church of God's local congregation. He was amazed at this lady's reaction and stood there shaking his head as he watched her frantically trying to avoid coming into direct contact with him. Such a reaction is a sad reminder of the great lengths that Christianity has employed over the last two thousand years in their efforts to keep people from thinking for themselves. I reminded Kirk that, fortunately, we are not in the Middle Ages where the Christian Church had the power to murder anyone with an opinion. In those days the church would have burned us both, ensuring that our "heresy" didn't taint anyone. At any rate, Eric knows the right cords to pull with his readers and he doesn't miss one of them in his criticism of me.
The Book of Daniel
Eric's first real argument is against my assessment of the book of Daniel. I won't argue the specifics of Daniel in this paper, as I've already done that in my book. There my criticisms are outlined and backed up by scholars who have spent, in some cases, their entire adult lives studying the so-called Old Testament. I will note, however, that Eric's assessment and defense of Daniel is basically the same as that put forward by Herbert W. Armstrong and his old Worldwide Church of God, which, by the way, goes against the consensus of mainstream Christianity.
Instead of addressing the specifics, what I will do in this paper is to answer some of the personal and misleading criticisms that Eric levels against me under the heading of the book of Daniel.
Eric precedes his book of Daniel argument by warning his reader that my views will open the door to either deism or agnosticism. On page 5 he writes: "He evidently doesn't fully realize that the way he repudiates the New Testament by citing higher critic scholarship on it means that the same can be done with the Old. Right now the train Conder and his followers are on is (arguably) marked 'Judaism.' But it would not be surprising to see [in ?] a few years down the road that locomotive Conder [is ?] pulling [coming ?] into a station labeled 'deism,' 'agnosticism,' or 'atheism.' What would his followers do then? . . . In MB he uncritically uses commentaries that employ higher critic theories about the OT without rebuking them."4
Once again Eric is seeking to lay a foundation of prejudice before actually criticizing my points. What he's trying to do here is to warn people away from my book by noting that "higher critic scholarship" could lead them on to critically examine the so-called Old Testament, after which they might wind up becoming an atheist. All I can say to Eric's observation is, yes, I fully realize the implications of "higher criticism" when applied to the Holy Scriptures. And Eric, I can say that if I find that the Holy Scriptures can't withstand the light of truth, then you are right, I will end up wherever that leads.
After noting my use of "higher criticism" in regards to what I wrote about the book of Daniel, Eric notes that "Drinking from such poisoned wells leads to poisoned results."5 Because I use religious "encyclopedias" to back my points, he says that I'm getting my scholarship secondhand. Eric writes: "He does not cite the 'big names' in liberal scholarship, such as Bultmann, but uses such works as encyclopedias, showing he is largely getting the liberal, higher critic scholarship second hand."6
Well, I must take my hat off to Eric. I didn't realize that he had personally perfected the Hebrew and Greek languages and translated the Bible; I didn't know that he had undertaken personal excavations in the "Holy Land" to prove his points on biblical archeology. I guess I failed to see his name on the list of scholars studying the Dead Sea Scrolls. "Darrell Conder is citing secondhand information by using encyclopedias?" Can you imagine? Eric Snow, who uses Josh McDowell and his born-again joke books like another New Testament Gospel, accuses me of being biased and relying on secondhand information! Where in the world does Eric's church come by its scholarship? More to the point, where does Eric get his information? Almost every criticism he makes of my book is backed by someone else's work. In fact, Eric offers numerous third generation quotes, as the following demonstrates: "Laurence J. McGinley, Form Criticism of the Synoptic Healing Narratives, p. 25, as cited by McDowell, More Evidence, p. 211."7 This not the exception in Eric's paper, but, it seems, the rule as I counted some twenty or so such "references" in ten consecutive pages.8
I can also demonstrate the secondhand bias that foreshadowed Eric's paper by noting an admission he made in a personal letter written to one of our supporters.9 Eric admitted that there were two fundamental influences in his Christian life. One, needless to say, was (and still is) Josh McDowell. (I think citing Josh McDowell as a reference 65 times in his 74 page paper certainly backs up that admission). In fact, when reading "scholar" Snow's paper and then reading Josh McDowell's book, More Than a Carpenter, I noticed that he seems to have borrowed some thoughts almost word-for-word from this book. In his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell has a chapter entitled "The Trilemma; Lord, liar or lunatic?"10 As "evidence" for his argument he quotes Christian ministers C.S. Lewis and Philip Schaff. On page 32 of his paper Eric has a subsection entitled: "The Great Trilemma of Jesus Christ: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?" As "evidence" for his argument Eric offers two quotations from Christian ministers: they are from C.S. Lewis and Philip Schaff and are the same quotes found in McDowell's book.
I think one can begin to understand my advice at the beginning of this review that Eric could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he'd simply told people where they could buy copies of McDowell's books. And speaking of Josh McDowell, I'd like to note that many of his quotes come from authors who are quoting someone else. That means Eric's use of McDowell as a source often puts him in line for offering "fourth-hand" information to back his assertions. If I'm not mistaken, we are seeing a classic example of a double standard in Eric's "secondhand" criticism of me.
By the way, the encyclopedias from which I got my "secondhand" information are The Encyclopedia Britannica, The Catholic Encyclopedia, and The Jewish Encyclopedia. Notwithstanding Eric's opinion, I think most would agree that these publications represent quite a diversity of scholarship. And before I leave this alone, let me point out to Eric that his hero and mentor Josh McDowell also offers information from The Encyclopedia Britannica as evidence, which means that when Eric uses McDowell's books as references he is inadvertently using a source he says is "secondhand."
The other fundamental influence on Eric's Christian life, and someone with whom he credits for his New Testament understanding, was Herbert W. Armstrong via his The Plain Truth magazine.11 In regards to Herbert Armstrong's The Plain Truth magazine staff and his Worldwide Church of God ministry, they, like all other ministers and researchers, used "secondhand sources" to back their doctrines. (They were particularly fond of quoting from The Jewish Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Britannica and The Catholic Encyclopedia.)
However, in regards to Armstrong's "scholarship," as someone who once worked for the ministry of the old Worldwide Church of God I can attest that the only true scholars associated with that church were long ago booted out for being too intellectual. As to the remaining "doctors" and "professors" I could write a book about the laughable so-called scholarship of some of these men. By simply digging out the old writings of the WCG I could demonstrate how, over the years, the church and college had to withdraw many points of their "scholarship" from publication as information was revealed proving them wrong.12 As I've pointed out recently, I intend to publish a history of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel in which I will detail how I checked on one of the Worldwide Church of God's sources only to find that it was a historical novel! Yet the information from this book was produced in one of the church's Ambassador College textbooks and was taught to virtually all of the church's ministry as fact.
Let me also give an example of Herbert W. Armstrong's scholarship by citing his book, The United States and the British Commonwealth in Prophecy. (I offer this one example because Eric uses it to back up several points in his criticism of me.) Mr. Armstrong, who rarely if ever offered a reference source for his information, declared on page 118 of this book that the Irish town of Londonderry derived its name from the Israelite tribe of Dan having placed their name there over 2,500 years ago.13 The problem with this "information" is that the name was given to the town by English Protestants only a few centuries ago.14 Needless to say, when critics pointed this error out to the WCG the information was dropped from subsequent editions of the book!
Isaac Asimov
Eric criticizes my assessment of Daniel by specifically attacking my reference to Asimov's Guide to the Bible, which he slams as being written by an atheist science fiction writer. This criticism put me in mind of Herbert W. Armstrong, the patriarch of Eric's church. Prior to "being called" into the ministry he was a salesman with a high school education, yet this didn't stop Mr. Armstrong from founding a religious college, teaching in the unaccredited institution, conferring doctorates on his carefully selected ministers and writing the un-referenced books that Eric Snow now cites as reliable sources "proving" Christianity.
For the record, Dr. Isaac Asimov had a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Columbia University with over two hundred published books to his credit. They include best-selling factual books on science, history, religion, literature and geography. I used Asimov's not because it is the best authority on the subject of Daniel, but because Dr. Asimov puts the overall picture of Daniel in words that all can readily understand. The clarity of his commentary comes from the fact that he was not reared by religious parents and therefore had no religious doctrinal bias when researching and commenting on the Bible.
In my opinion, Eric and company could take lessons from Dr. Asimov. You see, Eric approaches New Testament study not from a desire to know the truth one way or the other, but to be reassured that his faith is valid. My assessment on this point can be demonstrated by a June 14, 1997 e-mail letter he sent to one of our supporters, who goes by the on-line name of "Paul."15 In his e-mail, Eric wrote "This man [Conder] is bad news, and so I would avoid what he would write in the future, unless he repents, unless you are one like me who has read his arguments in order to refute them using modern traditional Christian apologetics."16 So Eric didn't approach my book to find the truth of Christianity, which would have been an un-biased approach, but he read it in order to find ways to attack it. This is precisely why he sought out Josh McDowell's unscholarly Christian joke books.
To be honest in any situation one should assemble all of the facts and weigh the matter without prejudice. Only then will the truth be evident. If Eric was accused of a crime and found himself on trial for his life he assuredly would want no less. Yet, when it comes to being honest and objective in weighing the matter of the New Testament's validity, he had his mind made up before the fact and went out to find books from Christian ministers to back up his position. I can make this assessment because I was once in the same boat as Eric. There was a time when I would read only carefully selected Christian works while dismissing real scholarly works as "Satan-inspired" conjecture—without, I should add, ever bothering to read and assess the works. My first book amply demonstrates the one-sided biased fundamentalistic Christian approach I had in favor of the New Testament, particularly in the area of my own church's doctrines. To illustrate this beyond doubt I would like to mention that the ministry of Eric's church once highly recommended my first book to their congregations as a "scholarly" work.
On page 5 of Eric's paper he offers a lengthy footnote about Dr. Asimov wherein he says that, "Conder's use of Asimov's commentary on the Bible illustrates the slipshod scholarship that characterizes Mystery Babylon."
The fact is that I used Dr. Asimov's commentary sparingly (four times in the whole of my book) and when I did use it, I backed it by several other highly respected sources. In fact, in my discussion of Daniel, I used Dr. Asimov's commentary only once, backed by The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Jewish Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Britannica, The Collegeville Bible Commentary, Halley's Bible Handbook, Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Peake's Commentary on the Bible, and The Encyclopedia of Religions. Although I didn't cite it in my book, I can add to this impressive list The Oxford Companion to the Bible, which was edited by Dr. Bruce Metzger and contributed to by Dr. F.F. Bruce, two of Josh McDowell and Eric Snow's quoted expert Christian sources.17
I might also add that some of the references I cited are the same ones used by Eric's own church in defense of their pet doctrines, although I'm sure this is a point that Eric doesn't want his fellow Christians to focus on. Such information is hardly convenient for his support of a crucified pagan god. Oh, and accusing me of "slipshod scholarship" while citing Josh McDowell, Herbert W. Armstrong, Seventh-day Adventist prophetess Ellen G. White, and the Jehovah's Witnesses as scholarly references makes me wish that someone would remind Eric of that old saying about throwing stones while living in a glass house!
Eric ends his assessment of the book of Daniel by essentially asking if I would accept the scholarship of my "liberal higher critics" when they pointed out flaws with the "Old Testament?" The answer to that Eric is yes. After careful consideration, which would include an exhaustive study into the accumulated scholarship on the matter, I would believe what the evidence told me: I would choose hard fact over you, Eric, Herbert W. Armstrong and Josh McDowell anytime!
By-Gosh Josh! A Closer Look
Even though I've already taken Josh McDowell on in Masada Magazine, perhaps I should illustrate here my criticism by quoting from one of the books that Eric Snow recommends in his paper. In Evidence That Demands a Verdict Josh offers the following gem as proof of Jesus' Messiahship and New Testament authenticity: "A coed at the University of Pittsburgh says: 'Whatever joys and gladness, all put together of my past experience, these can never equal that special joy and peace that the Lord Jesus Christ has given me since that time when He entered into my life to rule and to guide."18 McDowell's frequent use of such nonsense in his books, which he offers as "evidence," should tell any thinking person what Eric Snow and his church consider reliable. Actually, we can see that Josh's use of this material must have been an influence on Eric because on page 53 of his paper he cautions fellow church members that "We have to remember our religion is one of emotion, not just of reason . . . "
Even when Josh isn't offering such gems as "evidence" he completely skirts an issue by taking his readers on a wild goose chase. For instance, in his so-called proofs for the virgin birth of Jesus, he has a subsection on page 112 of Evidence That Demands a Verdict entitled "IF GOD BECAME MAN, THEN WE WOULD EXPECT HIM TO HAVE AN UNUSUAL ENTRANCE INTO THIS LIFE." Would we? That's Josh McDowell's opinion. If God were coming to earth as God, I would expect Him to have an unusual entrance; but if He was coming in the disguise of a man—to live and die as man—then I'd expect Him to simply be born of a man and a woman through sexual intercourse, as indeed the ancient Christian tradition once said. Further, I say that if Jesus wanted to prove to everyone that he was God in the flesh, then he shouldn't have relied on a "virgin birth" claim since that is virtually impossible to prove.
The "Historical Proof" of the Virgin Birth
Josh offers yet another subsection called "Historical Evidence Surrounding the Virgin Birth Other Than the Gospel Accounts."19 What is that "historical" evidence? It is Christian Church tradition backed by the assertion that the early Christians accepted the virgin birth story as fact.
There are two problems with this so-called evidence: 1) if the early church accepted the virgin birth story that doesn't prove a virgin birth: 2) the assertion that the early Christians accepted the virgin birth of Jesus cannot be proven outside the traditions of the Christian Church itself. All I can add is that biased Christian tradition might be "proof" enough for Josh McDowell, who, throughout his books seems to have an aversion to fact, but it's not enough for me. (Remember 1 Thes. 5:21 Eric?—"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.")
While we're on the subject of Christian tradition, that same source also says that not all early Christians believed the virgin birth accounts. According to the second century writings of Justin Martyr the Ebionites (a first century Christian sect) believed that Jesus was simply the son of Joseph and Mary, conceived by sexual intercourse.20 If we apply Josh McDowell's reasoning to the story of the Ebionites (i.e., that church tradition is proof), then we have historical proof that there was no virgin birth.
Josh McDowell's reasoning about the so-called virgin birth reminds me of a letter I read many years ago in a newspaper advice column (probably "Dear Abby" or "Ann Landers" as I used to read both). A lady wrote to warn young girls about the dangers of swimming in public pools. She claimed that her daughter, who was a virgin, was swimming in a public pool with a group of young men. One of them, she said, must have "emitted" sperm into the water that somehow floated over and impregnated her daughter. "Granny" assured Abby that her new-born grandchild was born of a virgin. (If mom could have convinced enough people of this story she might well have had the beginnings of a religious movement!)
Well, I can accept that the daughter could have become pregnant in a swimming pool, but it didn't happen the way her poor ignorant mother was telling. Likewise, Mary may well have been a virgin right up until the time she had sexual intercourse with a man and conceived Jesus. If some ancient pagan Gentile converts took their version of the virgin mother-goddess story, infused that with the teachings of a Jewish sage name Jesus, and eventually wrapped it all up in a neat little package called the New Testament, so be it.21 However, the fact remains that neither Josh McDowell nor any other Christian can prove the claim of a virgin birth, and they know it.
Josh and His Virgin Testimony
Josh has another section in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, that reads, "Testimony Concerning the Virgin Birth," which gives the reader the impression that something historical will at last be presented to back his claim of the virgin birth. What is this testimony, according to Josh McDowell? He says that "The main body of testimony concerning the virgin birth occurs in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke." To shore up the nonsensical claim that the NT stories prove the NT stories, Josh is quick to add that "Thus, a study of [the Gospel's] reliability and their agreement is very important in considering the miraculous birth of Jesus. . . . The reliability of the Gospel accounts should also be based on their historical accuracy."
In chapter ten of his book, He Walked Among Us, McDowell essentially argues that if the Gospels mentions actual persons, places, or things, like Caesar, Herod, the Temple, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, etc., then they have to be reliable—hence the story of Jesus' virgin birth can be proven reliable because it is mentioned in the same writings. Well, there are several ancient religious works that proclaim a man-god as savior. These works make many of the same claims as Christianity. Further, they are, in the sense that Josh McDowell is asserting, reliable. But does this mean that the Egyptian god Osirus, for example, can be proven to have been a savior god in human form because the Book of the Dead is historically accurate? According to Josh McDowell's reasoning it does.
The Resurrection
On page 34 Eric complains, "Remarkably, Conder really spends very little time in debunking the resurrection. He apparently thinks that by writing off the Gospels as myths, and claiming the resurrection accounts are full of contradictions, he needn't pay them any serious heed to the historical facts found therein and attempt to explain them."
Notwithstanding his criticism of me, in the pages that follow, Eric, backed as usual by Josh McDowell, offers absolutely no historical proof of the resurrection. He writes: "If Conder's thesis is a live question for you, consider seriously reading McDowell's material on this point and see if Mystery Babylon pp. 65-69, can really withstand such an assault." After this unsurprising recommendation, Eric proceeds to answer the questions of the resurrection, as he notes, by "freely" drawing from McDowell's material—which he does.
To accomplish their objective of "proving" the resurrection, both McDowell and Eric first need their readers to agree with that the Gospel narratives record accurate and truthful information about the resurrection.22 Hence Eric quotes extensively from the Gospels as though there is no question about their authenticity—on page 35 alone he cites some 23 NT scriptures to back his points. (By the way Eric, it is untrue that I spent "remarkably little time" in answering the questions raised in the Gospels about the supposed resurrection of Jesus, which indeed your own paper proves when you attack, point by point, some of my arguments!)
Considering that Eric is basically quoting from Josh McDowell in this question, I think we can dispose of Eric's arguments for the historicity of the resurrection claim by discussing some of Josh's standard excuses. However, before noting these, I'd like to point out that the only "historical" facts about the supposed resurrection of Jesus are 1) that the Gospels contain the story, 2) that the Christian Church fathers repeat these stories and tell us that they believe them to be true, and 3) that Eric Snow and Josh McDowell tell us that they believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
Having noted these facts, let us now take a look at Josh McDowell's so-called evidence. One of Josh McDowell's trademarks is that he sets his own stage by proposing absurd arguments against the historicity of Jesus that are almost never seen or heard. Hence when he answers these juvenile questions Josh is made to look like the sensible one while the scholarly critics are made to look like a bunch of fools—even though they've never asked the questions that McDowell throws out. For instance in the resurrection chapter of Evidence That Demands a Verdict McDowell seeks to prove Jesus' resurrection from the dead by raising questions like, "did the women go to the wrong tomb," "the body stolen?," "the swoon theory," and "were the resurrection appearances hallucinations?"
The reader may want to consider that for these questions to be raised the person doing so would have to at least partially accept the Gospel accounts as historically accurate. They'd have to accept that Jesus did appear alive after his crucifixion and entombment—something that a true skeptic would never do. A true historian wants more than the Gospel stories backed by the word of biased Christians declaring their belief in the resurrection stories.
In the past two years I've engaged in an intensive study of the New Testament's validity. In the hundreds of books I read on the subject I have to say that the only time I've seen the questions raised by Josh McDowell and Eric Snow is in their writings.23 In fact, McDowell admits on page 94 of his book, More Than a Carpenter, that the so-called swoon theory was "popularized" by someone named Venturini "several centuries ago." He notes that this theory is "often quoted today." By whom Josh? Again, the first and only time I've ever seen this "theory" is in your books.
On that last note let's address here the question of story reliability. The same early Christian Church legends that assure us of Jesus' resurrection also tell of great miracles involving the so-called saints. In one story a bishop, St. Denys was supposedly beheaded for the faith, after which he supposedly got up, picked up his head, and walked to his grave. My question here is do you believe such a tale? Why not? For many centuries (the office of "St. Denys" was abolished in 1789) millions of Christians did and it was written up in church histories as fact. Moreover, such a tale is backed by the same Christian Church that Josh and Eric use as "proof" of the resurrection.
I will carry this example further by mentioning the dozens of surviving "un-canonized" Christian Gospels and some of the absurd details offered there about the lives of Jesus and his disciples. For instance why not accept as historically accurate The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which has a young Jesus torturing some children because he was angry? Why not believe some of the absurdities mentioned in the other surviving "uncanonical" Gospels? All of these are ancient and were once backed as authentic by the same Christian Church that proclaims the authenticity of the so-called canonized Gospels. Folks, when studied closely one will find that these sources are just as reliable as those put up by Josh and Eric!
Before he gets into his so-called evidence for Jesus' resurrection (the swoon theory, etc.), McDowell first throws up a smoke screen by asking and then answering questions such as the "Importance of the Resurrection of Christ," which is a meaningless fundamentalist Christian exercise. He then proceeds to quote Christian ministers and professors as to the spiritual meaning of Jesus' supposed resurrection. In the following subsections he offers comments on "the importance of the [resurrection] claims," and "The Claims as Given by Jesus," which, to say this again, is a totally meaningless exercise.
Following this nonsense, on page 224 of Evidence That Demands a Verdict McDowell offers a list of eyewitnesses to the "resurrection" of Jesus. They are Mary Magdalene, the women returning from the tomb, Peter, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the apostles at various times, a multitude of 500 plus believers, James, etc. Again McDowell offers the New Testament as "evidence" to prove the New Testament. That's like an evolutionist citing the works of Charles Darwin to prove evolution!
As if all of this nonsense wasn't bad enough, McDowell seeks to answer the resurrection question by offering the opinion of Christian men and women.24 This is followed by personal testimony: "Professor E.F. Kevan says . . . Le Camus puts it this way . . . Wilbur Smith says . . . A.B. Bruce remarks . . . Professor Albert Roper says . . . Professor David Brown remarks . . . Paul Little says . . .", etc.
What are all of these Christians saying? It can be summed up in the words of one Dr. A.C. Ivy, whom McDowell quotes as saying, "I believe in the bodily resurrection Jesus Christ."25 To this observation, McDowell himself adds, "The fact that I'm alive and doing things I do is evidence that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead."26 Need I mention here that an atheist could make the same claim—but in reverse—for his case? Now I ask, would you accept such a statement as evidence of evolution?
At any rate, this "evidence that demands a verdict" is typical in McDowell's books, and is, therefore, what Eric Snow is offering his readers for "proof" of their faith. I have to say that I agree with one man on the Internet who wrote of Josh McDowell's book that it should be called, Evidence That Demands A Verdict, But Can't Even Justify A Search Warrant!
Following this nonsensical journey, Eric Snow puts up his own version of McDowell's silly arguments: "Did the Disciples Steal the Body?"27 "The Swoon Theory Weighed and Found Wanting," etc. The problem here is that Eric includes these idiocies in a paper attacking my book, which probably gives the reader the impression that I've raised such questions. Even though I never once considered these points when researching and writing my book, let me quote Eric's question on page 35 of his paper followed by my answer: "Anyway, could have the women or the disciples have all gone to the wrong tomb? Would have they forgotten where their loved one lay?"28 (Eric's silly question, by the way, comes from McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, page 255.)
Let me say this to you Eric: IF I believed that the Gospels were genuine and historically accurate, then I'd have to say no! I would think it highly unlikely that a crowd of women and eleven disciples would have gone to the wrong tomb. Neither do I think that the women and apostles all hallucinated and just thought they saw Jesus. I also believe that if Jesus was nailed to a cross by the Romans, that the efficient Romans finished the job and he died there and then; I don't believe that Jesus "swooned" on the cross. So Eric, forget about Josh's "swoon theory," his "hallucination theory," and his "empty tomb" theory.
Eric, I give you McDowell's nonsensical arguments. I've never in my life argued for such silliness, so please drop the deception. The effort that you and Josh expend in this area is simply a pure waste of time and paper and is meant solely to draw the reader's attention away from the true issue, which is that you have absolutely no evidence that Jesus rose from the dead outside the Gospels!
The Tomb Guards
On pages 34-35 Eric writes: "Furthermore, statements by hostile or unsympathetic witnesses in the NT (which is the strongest kind of historical evidence there is—concessions to the enemy) show the Jewish leadership knew the tomb was empty, and that they didn't know where the body of Jesus was. Why else would they have bribed the guards at the tomb to spread the story that (Matt. 28:11): 'His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep'?"
Here is another Eric Snow special. He asks his readers to uncritically accept the Gospel accounts as beyond question after which he simply declares them to be "the strongest kind of historical evidence there is." All I need do here for logic to prevail is to ask Eric to prove that statement by some means other than the Gospels and his own faith. By what authority, Eric, do you make this claim? Where is your proof, outside of the anti-Jewish traditions of the ancient Christian Church? Your "hostile or unsympathetic witnesses" are all characters out of a Christian story—a story that I say (and you cannot prove otherwise!) is unhistorical, meaning it is worthless!
This would be a good place to offer a relevant comment from Farrell Till, the editor of the magazine Skeptic Review, about Christian writer John Wenham's book Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Accounts In Conflict?: "Wenham cited the guards' reporting to the chief priests and their accepting a bribe to tell their officers that the body had been stolen while they had fallen asleep on duty as major improbabilities in the story. So did Wenham find the improbabilities too hard to swallow? Certainly not, because the aim of his book was to defend the accuracy of the resurrection narratives despite their 'apparent' inconsistencies. [Wenham writes] 'It is a worthless piece of Christian apologetic at whatever date it was written, unless it happens to be undeniably true.' So there you have it. 'It is so absurd that it just has to be true,' Wenham was arguing. Well, I hope he will forgive me for saying that it is so absurd I cannot believe it, and that is a much more rational reaction to an implausible story like this."
Speaking of Bible "difficulties" in general, Farrell Till offers this comment on a book by George DeHoff, Alleged Bible Contradictions Explained: "[it] is yet another 'published volume of far-fetched, how-it-could-have-been explanations to what DeHoff sanctimoniously calls 'alleged Bible discrepancies,' the implication being that the discrepancies aren't real but only 'alleged.' Yet DeHoff 'apparently can't see the absurdity of preaching the 'amazing unity and beautiful continuity' of a book that has required the publication of so many volumes and periodicals to defend it and explain harmony."
Perhaps it would be of interest to also read Mr. Till's comment about Gleason Archer, a man on whom both Eric Snow and his hero, Josh McDowell, heavily rely in their defense of NT contradictions: "I have challenged Dr. Gleason Archer to debate [but] ... he refused the challenge. Why would a vociferous inerrancy spokesman like Gleason Archer refuse to defend publicly what he writes in books and publishes in papers?"
I can answer that one for Mr. Till: Gleason Archer has to strain the imagination in his attempts to explain those few contradictions that he takes on in his so-called encyclopedia. However, it is very noticeable that he overlooks numerous scriptural contradictions in his book (as does Eric's paper). Aside from the fact that in a public debate you'd point out the illogic in the supposed answers that Archer does present, he surely knew that you'd zero in on the contradictions that he purposely left out of his book—in front of an audience no less. Archer undoubtedly had no stomach for such a humiliating experience.
This same thing happened to me some time back when I e-mailed Eric Snow challenging him to a public debate on the New Testament in front of his congregation. The web master for the United Church of God's web site (where Eric's 74 page paper is posted) wrote back in response that it would be "inappropriate" to discuss these problems in public and suggested that I take them up with Eric in private. I responded by asking him why it was, in his opinion, quite acceptable to publicly misrepresent my book and attack me on United Church of God's worldwide web site, but "inappropriate" for me to publicly defend myself and my book? I received no answer to that question.
By the way, Eric's argument against what I wrote about the "tomb guards" is from Josh McDowell's two books, Evidence That Demands a Verdict pages 210-214, and Resurrection Factor pages 54-55, which leads us back to a closer look at good old by-gosh Josh.
The Empty Tomb: A Silent Testimony?
McDowell declares on page 226 of Evidence That Demands a Verdict that "The empty tomb is that silent testimony to the resurrection of Christ which has never been refuted", hence Eric Snow addresses this question. What pure lard! If an empty tomb is a proof of Jesus' resurrection, then so are the empty tombs that litter half the landscape of the Middle East, notably in Egypt where the tombs of many pharaoh god-kings are empty. It must also mean that an empty grave of an Indian that was uncovered near my home when I was a boy meant that the former occupant was resurrected from the dead!
McDowell goes on to declare that "Everyone knew that Christ's grave was empty—the real issue was how did it get that way?"29 In his statement Josh emphasizes the words "knew" and "how" as though he had just proposed the greatest fact of history, followed by the greatest question in history. Did everyone know any such thing? There is no record of this outside the Gospel accounts and the traditions of the Christian Church—the same church that adopted and adapted countless pagan traditions from several major competing pagan religions (specifically Mithraism) as their own—and these pagan religions featured as a cornerstone the belief in a virgin-born, crucified savior son-of-god!
Josh also exclaims that neither the Romans nor Jews could produce Jesus' body. Neither, he says, could they explain where it went. Whose word do we have for these supposedly historical observations? In fact, how do we know that any of his contemporaries even cared about the death and burial of this first century Jewish man? We don't know! We only have a statement to that effect from Josh McDowell based on Christian tradition.
Eric, who is ever trailing behind McDowell, adds his own questions, such as "would have the Romans guarded the wrong tomb?" If either I or any other New Testament critic had used such a flimsy tactics to question the Gospels, McDowell and his disciple, Eric Snow, would pounce on us. Relying as usual on McDowell, Eric cites J.N.D. Anderson on page 34 of his paper, who says that it is "almost meaningless to talk about legends when you're dealing with the eyewitnesses [to the resurrection] themselves."
After reading through hundreds of pages of what I've written, I still don't think Eric gets it! He doesn't seem to realize that my evidence has undermined the validity of the New Testament. It is simply amazing that he continually quotes Christians, who, in turn, use the New Testament, to make his observations. Anyway, Eric asks: "So now, it's time for the rubber to meet the road: Which one of the standard 'explanations' by the higher critics for the resurrection should Conder believe in? Each one of them has serious flaws, and cannot be sustained against objections, which means the miraculous is the only sensible explanation for the empty tomb come Sunday morning."
First of all Eric, I don't believe that the Gospel accounts are eyewitness reports. Further, you didn't cite the evidence of the so-called higher critics, you only cited the nonsense spouted by "Swoon" McDowell. So if you are asking which of these silly little fundamentalist exercises I accept, I've already answered that. I've never raised these questions, so drop it already, and answer my objections to the resurrection stories by addressing the authenticity and historicity of the Gospels themselves. I'm surprised that you and Josh McDowell don't offer the Shroud of Turin as "proof" of Jesus resurrection.
Well, let's leave Eric for the moment and return to his hero to see what other thoughts he has put into Eric's head. Assuredly relying on the preconceived Christian prejudice that most of his readers will be packing, good old Josh goes on to quote a number of present-day Christians who declare that the empty tomb of Jesus was proof of his resurrection.
On page 225 of Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh declares in a headline: "THE ENEMIES OF CHRIST GAVE NO REFUTATION OF THE RESURRECTION." Reading on we find that once again McDowell's proof is from the New Testament (the book of Acts), shored up with his own peculiar brand of "evidence," which is quoting fundamentalist Christian writers professing their belief in Jesus and the New Testament. However, the above declaration by Josh isn't entirely correct. It is known that some early critics did dispute the claims of the resurrection (and Christianity as a whole), and for all we know they may have well proved it to be a hoax. But that is something that we'll probably never know because any such evidence was likely destroyed a long time ago by a church that had virtual control over what could be spoken, written, or thought in much of the Western world for over 1500 years!
We know that there were those who disputed Christianity from fragmentary evidence preserved in the writings of the Christian Church fathers. For instance there was Celsus, one of early Christianity's greatest opponents. In circa 200 AD he wrote something called the Logos Alethes, which means "word of truth" or "real story" about Christianity. This work was probably destroyed by the church father Origen, who answers some of Celsus' arguments in his famous Christian works.30 I could also point out that the ancient Jews disputed the claims of Christianity, specifically the supposed resurrection, but needless to say these historical accounts are dismissed by Christian fundamentalist as worthless—as if the writings of the Christian Church fathers, by virtue of their being Christian, are beyond question.
Transformed Behavior
Eric comes up with another of McDowell's arguments in his paper, which he puts up in a subtitle: "How Is the Transformed Behavior of the Disciples to Be Explained Otherwise?" Eric writes, "In any attempt to explain away the resurrection, the transformed behavior of the disciples must always be reckoned with." Does it Eric? By whose word do you make this declaration? Well, I'll answer this for you; this declaration comes from page 227 of Josh McDowell's book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. McDowell, who has few, if any original thoughts of his own, quotes one John R.W. Stott: "Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection . . . "
Eric's "proof" that the disciples were "transformed" follows that of Josh McDowell's, which is that the New Testament stories are unquestionable. So, once again the McDowell twins use the New Testament to prove the New Testament. By the way, Josh maintains that a changed life even today is a proof that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive: "The established psychological fact of changed lives, then, is a credible reason for believing in the resurrection. . . . For only a risen Christ could have such transforming power in a person's life." Oh yeah! In my life I've known "transformed" alcoholics, whose lives changed when they gave up the bottle; I knew a "transformed" convert to Buddhism; I knew someone whose life was, she said, transformed by Krishna. I've met so-called New Agers, whose lives have been transformed by their belief in the mother-goddess. Do you care to attempt an explanation of this Eric?
Dying For the Truth
Although on page 36 Eric address the next question in the "proof" of the resurrection, we will skip him and go right to the "horse's mouth," as the saying goes.
On page 118 of He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell asks, "who would die for a lie?" He makes the assertion that it isn't logical to assume that the original apostles all died for something that they knew to be a lie, i.e., the resurrection of Jesus: If the apostles died a martyr's death then that alone proves that the resurrection had to be fact. (On page 61 of More Than a Carpenter McDowell also addresses this question, where he list the twelve apostles and the means by which they were supposedly martyred—without, I should add, any references to back up his information—which is convenient since history doesn't offer any evidence that these men ever existed, let alone the details of their deaths!)
Well, this sounds convincing, but again I say we should consider who originally made the claim that the twelve apostles died for Jesus. I want to drive this point home: Outside the Gospels themselves, there is no historical evidence that the apostles ever lived. The legends that tell of their post-Gospel lives and subsequent martyrdom can be traced only to the Christian church fathers. The real question here is can the writings of the Christian Church fathers be relied upon as historical evidence? The answer to that is one of those "yes" and "no" cases, meaning it depends on the church father.
On pages 71-72 of his book, He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell declares that the church father Eusebuis (260-340 AD), who supplied much of the information about the apostle's supposed martyrdoms, is considered to be "generally accurate" in what he reports. But was he? The answer to that depends on who offers an assessment of Eusebuis' writings. A number of critical scholars, who have no religious doctrine to sell, consider Eusebius' writings to be either faulty, or completely unreliable. I go further than that; in my book I noted that Eusebius is one of Christianity's greatest liars, which can be seen, in one instance, by his forging a work called Letters. Declaring that he had found original letters sent between Jesus and someone named Abgar (probably a king of Osrhoene), he gives a "translation" of these in his famous work, Ecclesiastical History—the same work that tells about the supposed martyrdom of the apostles.31
The famous historian, Edward Gibbon, wrote: "Eusebius himself indirectly confesses that he has related that which might redound to the glory, and suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion."32 In his Encyclopedia of Religions Dr. Forlong writes: "Baronius was a sincere Christian, yet he calls Eusebius a 'falsifier of history, a wily sycophant, consummate hypocrite, and time-serving persecutor.' Eusebius heads one chapter (Proep. Evang., xii, 31) with the monstrous title, 'How far it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehoods, as a medicine for the advantage of those who require such a method.' . . . We search in vain for reliable chronology in regard to this father of history. . . . Yet we depend mainly on him for the history of Christianity before his time; and without him we should know nothing of Papias, Polycarp, John the Elder, and other early Christian worthies: or of synods and councils down to 325 A.C., which decided for us the creeds, canons, and dogmas of later ages."33
Now, let me point out that even if Eusebius' works were 100% reliable, no questions asked, then we are still dealing with someone who is merely reporting Christian tradition and who was himself 300 plus years removed from the time of Jesus. Let me offer a personal example to put this in perspective.
As a profession genealogist I've naturally done a good deal of research on my own family's history. One of my favorite ancestors is John Roberts, who was murdered by Indians along with almost all of his family a little over 250 years ago. I know the stories of his life well and have written them down in a history, but the problem is that there are no public records in existence pertaining to John Roberts. I got my stories about him from elderly family members. Are these stories factual? I don't know. I can't prove any of the details. All I know for sure is that John Roberts lived and died and had a son named James who was my ancestor. I also have to take into consideration that the elderly relatives who were telling the stories about John Roberts were doing so from memory and that they were repeating things that had been told to them by relatives from the preceding generation, who, I should add, were also repeating stories. None of these people had first-hand accounts of the details they related. With this background, I had to further keep in mind that on more than one occasion I'd heard stories about other ancestors that when followed through weren't anywhere near the truth. As a professional genealogist I do know this: Within genealogy the stories told by my elderly relations are not considered to be evidence. I couldn't use them to join an organization like the Sons of the American Revolution. As a respectable historical organization the S.A.R. requires documented proof, not legends.
In the case of John Roberts I really don't doubt that the stories about his life are basically factual. But what if one of my relatives had declared that John Roberts rose from the dead after his murder some 250 years ago? What if they claimed he performed miracles? What if there was a story about him walking across the surface of the Ohio River on a summer afternoon? What if they told me that he claimed to be a god? In that case I think you would agree that I should reject the stories unless I had some way to prove them to be true.
This is the same situation with the early church fathers, specifically Eusebius. Even if Eusebius could be judged to 100% reliable he is still only repeating the stories that were circulating in the Christian Church at the time in which he lived. He simply wrote down 300 year-old legends offered from people who had no first hand knowledge of what they were telling. Further, I want to drive home the fact that the original writings of these church fathers are no longer in existence. What we have today are copies of countless copies.
Now, just like my ancestor John Roberts, I don't doubt that a Jewish man named Yeshua lived sometime near the first century of this era. As in the case of the dozens of other would-be Messiahs, I don't doubt that he was ultimately crucified by the Romans for sedition. But that he was a god, rose from the dead, sent his disciples out to perform the miracles ascribed to them, and that they were ultimately "martyred for the faith," is something that I say to Josh McDowell that he has yet to prove. To Josh I say that I don't want you to use the biased totally untrustworthy legends from the Christian Church to back up your claims. After all, a church that has claimed to have three or four skulls of Matthew, the wing of the archangel Gabriel, the bones of Peter and Paul, the foreskin of Jesus, Mary's breast milk, dozens of hands, feet, arms, legs, fingers and various other body parts of any one of the "original" apostles, a sack full of the "original" crucifixion nails, enough pieces of the "original" cross to build a small house, etc., is hardly my idea of a legitimate source of information.
However, to be fair and for the sake of argument, let us supposed that the apostles of Jesus died in the manner the church claimed. Does this prove Jesus rose from the dead? No! There have been many charlatans in history and many of them have died as the result of some shenanigan they were attempting to pull off. Obviously they didn't think they would die for what they were doing or they wouldn't have done it. So, if there were original apostles who died for the Christian religion they were preaching, what does that prove other than the fact that they were seized by the authorities and put to death. Once they were arrested, it was too late!
When the Mormon Church founder, apostle and saint, Joseph Smith, died at the hands of a lynch mob, he wasn't expecting it. But does this "martyrdom" prove his religion is the truth of God? It does according to Josh McDowell. When the priests of Baal were all killed for their faith during their confrontation with Elijah, they weren't expecting it. Does this "martyrdom" prove their religion to be the truth of God? It does according to Josh McDowell!
In a subtitle that reads, "HE IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED," Josh McDowell sums up his resurrection "evidence" on page 259 of Evidence That Demands a Verdict by quoting one G.B. Hardy, who says, "Here is the complete record: Confucius' tomb—occupied—Buddha's tomb—occupied Mohammed's tomb—occupied Jesus' tomb—EMPTY."34 Indeed! Let me ask Josh if the Christian Church fathers, if they had discovered Jesus' tomb and found human remains therein, would have left them laying there? In fact, there isn't the slightest shred of evidence that the tomb now shown as Jesus' grave is authentic. They surely know that there is a controversy surrounding "Jesus' tomb."
At any rate, so concludes another important "proof" from Eric V. Snow (via Josh McDowell) that my book is "characterized by slipshod" scholarship!
Conder's Evidence That Demands a Verdict:
After spending hours reading through Josh McDowell's book and following that up with Eric Snow's paper, the thought struck me that I should follow their example and offer the same kind of evidence against the resurrection of Jesus. So here, in brief, is Darrell Conder's "mcdowellian evidence" against the resurrection:
EVIDENCE OF JESUS' NON-RESURRECTION FROM PERSONAL TESTIMONY:
Former Christian Dr. Gumption Radraker says, "I just cannot get through a day without that emotional feeling that Jesus is dead and buried." The world's leading Christian skeptic, Professor Tadwell McBarnicle notes: "Oh the stories I could tell about how Jesus has failed to work in my life." Mr. B.O. Stinkard, a born-again agnostic, writes, "After a thorough study of history and the New Testament my own person conviction is that Jesus never rose from the dead. The fact that I'm alive and feeling the way I do is proof of that." Former Christian minister Josh Birdturd tells us, "Jesus resurrected from the dead? Yeah, right!" And notice what an unnamed co-ed from Darwin University had to say: "Nary a Sunday morning goes by that I don't lie in bed, give thanks for not being a Christian, and then roll over and go to sleep."
THE EARLY CHURCH FATHER'S EVIDENCE OF JESUS' NON-RESURRECTION:
Jaundice, a third century church father, says, "Wow, what a business I've discovered! All I have to do is to convince the pagans here that this guy Jesus rose from the dead and they pay my salary, and all I need is a little ink and paper!"
In a personal letter to a friend, Eubquietess, a fourth century church historian wrote, "I've got two whole pages to fill up in my Christian Church history and I've run out of material. You don't suppose anyone would believe me if I tacked that old tale about the sun-god's resurrection onto Jesus?"
Tomatoian, another prominent church father, tells us in the second century, "I met a man who told me that his cousin was married to a lady whose mother knew a woman who cleaned the house of a Christian man, who was told by his grandfather that he once met a monk in Athens who saw a book that someone had written about a disciple of one of the original students of an acquaintance of one of the original apostles of Jesus. According to that source, this Jesus, a Jew who was crucified in during the time of Tiberius, never rose from the dead."
Another Christian father, Ominous (who died of ink poisoning), wrote to the pope: "Never mind that thorn in the butt Celsusmus, the church can now prove that Jesus rose from the dead—I've just written it in over 5,300 Greek manuscripts."
EVIDENCE FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT OF JESUS' NON-RESURRECTION:
According to the New Testament, at most some 550 people claim to have seen a resurrected Jesus. However, that leaves at least two million people in first century Judea who did not see him. That is quite an impressive number of people who give evidence that Jesus never rose from the dead!
Originality
On the same page that Eric "highly recommends" another of Josh McDowell's books (He Walked Among Us), he tells his readers, "Conder's originality mainly consists in citing various liberal, higher critic works (such as commentaries, encyclopedias, etc.) in service of Judaism . . . "
My question to Eric is this: sitting there surrounded by Josh McDowell's Christian joke books and quoting from them repeatedly to make your weak points, and also citing "encyclopedias," such The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, which you cite on pages 11 and 19, the Cyclopeida of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (cited on page 16), The Encyclopedia Britannica 14the ed. (cited on page 19), Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, (cited on page 19), Encyclopedia of Bible difficulties (cited almost 20 times), The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, (cited on pages 27, 30), etc., would you like to reconsider your slur concerning my lack of originality because I use encyclopedias and commentaries?
Animal Sacrifice
The question of animal sacrifice has always been a major argument of Christianity in their promotion of Jesus's "sacrifice for humanity." They like to point out the problems with the "Old" Testament commands about animal sacrifice, and then quote from the New Testament (as does Eric on page 29 of his paper) about this being abolished by Jesus' death on the cross.
Eric notes that there are not too many "OT" scriptures that discuss "gaining the Spirit and being forgiven."37 He says that "The Old Testament's prophets and believing patriarchs were saved by Jesus' death after they themselves had died. Note Hebrews 11:13, 39-40:"
According to the writings of Paul a person is saved by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus for their sins—although this contradicts Jesus' own formula, at least according to Matthew 19:16-21: "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." Which is it? To have eternal life do you accept the blood of Jesus, or keep the commandments? But back to the other question.
So how did the "saved" "Old Testament" patriarchs and prophets come to accept Jesus before his birth? There's no mention of this anywhere in the Tanakh. On top of that, I'd like to point out that Eric's interpretation of Hebrews 11 isn't what the scripture says; Hebrew 11 says that the patriarchs and prophets died in "faith." What faith did these prophets and patriarchs die in? Well if you go back to what Christians call the Old Testament you will find that they died in the faith that was delivered to Abraham—long before the world had heard of Jesus!
After offering Hebrews 11:13, 39-40 as "evidence" for his position, Eric writes: "Here Conder faces a major problem: How are he and those who accept his beliefs going to be saved? The OT, taken alone, certainly requires animal sacrifices for sins to be forgiven. Are Conder & Co. going to start making burnt offerings of bulls, goats, and sheep?"
Well, ha, ha, ha, Eric! You sure have me there, don't you? Seeing how you pride yourself on being a Christian, why not tell the truth here and explain my answer to your sarcastic aside, which I take from the Holy Scriptures—the book that you and Christianity declares to be a foundation for your New Testament? Why not quote the so-called Old Testament scripture wherein God declares that He alone is the savior and no other? Why don't you tell your readers how He's going to accomplish salvation, considering it is clearly spelled out in the so-called Old Testament? (All without Jesus, I might add!)
Speaking of animal sacrifices, in his attack on me it is quite noticeable that Eric doesn't mention the scriptures I cite from Hosea 6:6, Psalms 40:6, 51:16-17, Micah 6:6-8, Jeremiah 7:22-23, Ezekiel 36:25-26 or Isaiah 1:16, 18, all of which deal with animal sacrifices after what Christianity calls the second coming of Jesus. By failing to mentioning these scriptures his readers are left ignorant of my arguments (which means that Eric doesn't have to try and explain them) and he is left free to attack me. (Of course, I fully understand that if he had mentioned these scriptures Eric would have no answer for them, which would hardly shore up his faulty declaration of Jesus' messiahship and supposed sacrifice for humanity.)
After briefly preaching about the love and mercy of Jesus' blood atonement for sins, Eric quotes my book, where I say that God doesn't require blood to cleanse humanity of sin.38 Eric takes exception to this by quoting Leviticus 17:11, and undoubtedly feels that he has me in a no-win situation here. He writes: "Under the Old Covenant, animal sacrifices were necessary for God and men to be reconciled, or made at-one. So, if you really believe the Old Testament alone is sacred Scripture, you should be sacrificing animals today instead of ignoring God's law to perform them, or thinking some substitute action will do when God doesn't want anything added or taken away from His law (Deut. 4:2; 12:32)."
I wonder if Eric ever has an occasion when he doesn't suffer from one dimensional thinking? Does he see what he's actually admitting in the above statement? He is declaring that, by God's own word, nothing can be added to or taken away from His commands in Leviticus while at the same time attempting to use this word to shore up his Christian beliefs—which have taken away from and added to the above command by offering a substitute sacrifice!
If nothing can be taken away from the command of God, as Eric argues, then the New Testament teachings about the abolition of animal sacrifices is, by God's word, illegitimate. This means, according to Leviticus and Eric, that nothing can replace the animal sacrifices. Likewise, if nothing can be added to this command of God, as Eric admits, then the substitution of Jesus' blood and body as an atonement for sins is a direct affront to God.
Which is it Eric? You can't run and hide behind your contradictory New Testament here: Either you believe that God spoke the truth in Leviticus, that He meant it when He said "For I am the Lord, I change not," or you must cling to your New Testament and admit that we really can't rely on His word.39
You might also want to consider Eric that if God did offer his supposed son as a sacrificial replacement for a burnt animal offering, then why does His word condemn offering one's first-born son as a sacrifice? Why does 2 Kings 16:3, for instance, call such a sacrifice an abomination of the pagan nations. Why does Micah 6:6 offer a sarcastic reference to this practice? Would God do something that He Himself considers an abomination?
Further, I notice that your mention of Leviticus 17:11 stopped short; why didn't you go on to explain verses 12 through 14 to your readers? Here is a direct command from God not to consume blood, which is what your New Testament writers command their followers to do in their so-called Eucharist.
As I've explained countless times, the Holy Scriptures tell us that animal sacrifices are suspended for the present, not abolished, until the time of the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. This is why we cannot physically keep the commanded Holy Days, but can only commemorate them. Hence we have the explanation as to why the prophets speak of the future restoration of the Temple sacrifices, after the coming of the Messiah.40
I would like to also comment that for decades I've asked Christian ministers why it is that the prophets tell of a time when the sacrifices will be restored, which occurs, according to Christian doctrine, after the so-called second coming of Jesus? To date, I've not received an answer to that question. I also noticed that Eric Snow doesn't bring it up in his paper, probably because neither Josh McDowell or Gleason Archer offers an explanation. Such a prophecy delivers a blunt slap in the face of Christian doctrine, specifically the declaration that Jesus was the ultimate sin sacrifice.
Outdated Scholarship
"Outdated scholarship" is how Eric criticizes my presentation about the composition and canonization of the New Testament. To back his weak defense of New Testament authenticity he claims that there were "nine fragments of the NT" found in a cave by the Dead Sea in 1972. Among those, Eric says, were fragments of Mark, dated around 50 "A.D.," Luke, 57 "A.D." and Acts from 66 "A.D." On page 9 he says of my presentation and sources: "Therefore, when Conder writes . . . he is relying on outdated scholarship." In the paper I have, Eric failed to give a reference for his Dead Sea cave NT discoveries. Keeping in mind that he criticizes my use of what he termed "secondhand" information because I used encyclopedias, maybe it's fair to speculate that Eric dug up these New Testament fragments and dated them by himself! At any rate my "outdated" sources are here on the shelf beside me and they include books written by Christians scholars upholding the NT dated 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996. Not one of these books mentions the "fragments" that Eric carelessly tosses out as proof of his New Testament.
For instance, on the matter of dating the Gospel of Mark, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, copyright 1993, doesn't mention the fragments, which Eric dates from 50 "A.D."41 You'd think that a highly resourceful work like Oxford's would be aware of such a sensational discovery some twenty-one years before its 1993 publication date. On top of that, F.F. Bruce, a Christian authority often quoted by those defending the Christian religion (Bruce's works are included in both McDowell and Eric's own list of recommended Christian reading), says that the oldest fragment of the Gospels is a papyrus codex of the first half of the second century. This statement is from page 171 of Bruce's book, The Books and the Parchments, which was last updated and copyrighted in 1984—twelve years after the 1972 "discovery" mentioned by Eric.
Maybe Eric is referring to Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede, a papyrologist, who has made the claim that a fragment of Mark was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. For those of you who don't know him, Thiede made a sensational splash in the news media some time back for the claims made in his book, Eyewitness to Jesus—which, by the way, was co-authored by a London newspaper reporter. He claimed that papyrus fragments of the Gospel of Matthew in the collection of the Magdalen College in Oxford, England, could be dated to 50 C.E. His findings were laughed to scorn by his colleagues, but heralded by the ignorant and uninformed, including Eric's own church, as "proof" of New Testament authenticity. Eric's church, the United Church of God, gave Thiede's book a big write-up in their church publication, The Good News magazine.42 The Good News magazine's evidence of Thiede's claims comes, not from respectable conservative scholarship, which Eric demands from me, but from an interview with Carsten Thiede himself. Eric's church uses Carsten Thiede's own words to proves Carsten Thiede's claims of New Testament authenticity! How's that for reliable evidence?
As an aside, one can find a refutation to Thiede in Biblical Archaeology Review for January/February 1997 (article entitled "The Battle Against Junk Scholarship"), and especially in the May/June 1997 issue, in which Dr. Hershel Shanks, BAR editor, answers Carsten Thiede's letter of criticism about his earlier article. One can also consult Dr. Burton L. Mack's new book, Who Wrote the New Testament.43 Dr. Mack is the recently retired John Wesley Professor of the New Testament at the School of Theology at Claremont, and his assessment of Thiede's theories makes short work out of this so-called scholar. After presenting the evidence against the findings of Thiede, here are his concluding remarks: "Critical scholars will not be impressed. The fragments are easily explained as second-century texts . . . Thiede's Dead Sea Scrolls scenario is preposterous; his theory about the Markan fragment among the Dead Sea Scrolls has been discredited; and the mass of detailed scholarship on the origins and history of early Christian movements and their writings has simply been swept aside in the eager pursuit of chimera [i.e., an impossible or foolish fantasy]. From a critical scholar's point of view, Thiede's proposal is an example of just how desperate the Christian imagination can become in the quest to argue for the literal facticity of the Christian gospels." (Did you read that Eric? You have been saying that this is the kind of current scholarship on which I should be relying!)
Dr. Mack goes on to say, "Others, however, including the media, may think the 'discovery' sensational. It does not seem to matter that the 'hard external evidence,' as an article in Time called it (Ostling 1995), amounts to the vague redating of three questionable fragments buttressed by flimsy argumentation. Apparently, a fragment in the hand is worth a hundred years of learning packed away in the dusty books of scholars. It is as if the gospels must be 'historical,' to agree with Christian persuasion, and thus any artifact will do."44
As to the Dead Sea Scroll fragment of "Mark" that Eric touts as proof of the New Testament's authenticity, it consists of 20 letters. Now, I don't mean 20 letters as in the epistles of Paul, I mean 20 "abcdefg's." Out of these letters the only complete word is translated "and!" In a review of Carsten Thiede's Dead Sea scenario, The Institute for Higher Critical Studies at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey issued this statement about the so-called "New Testament" fragment: "In order to make [the Dead Sea fragment] match Mark 6, Thiede has to justify a spelling variation, an entire missing phrase, and special reconstruction of broken off letters."45 Dr. Bruce Metzger, who is cited by both Eric and Josh McDowell as a reference, is considered by many to be America's leading New Testament textual critic. Dr. Metzger also backs up Dr. Mack, Dr. Shanks, and the Institute for Higher Critical Studies: "[Thiede's] book is characterized by 'dubious . . . slack scholarship' mixed with 'journalistic sensationalism."'46 By the way, before we leave Carsten Thiede, I want to note that he is one of McDowell's cited "experts."47
If Eric isn't referring to Carsten Thiede, then perhaps he is citing the thesis of one Jose O'Callaghan who suggested in 1972 that some papyrus fragments found in Cave 7 at Qumran contained texts from the New Testament. The assertion is that these have to be dated before AD 68, which, if O'Callaghan's hypothesis is correct, would make these "NT" fragments the earliest known texts of the Christian bible. The fact that no modern Christian authority includes O'Callaghan's assertions in their discussion on the age of the NT is sufficient to understand what the scholarly community thinks of his conclusions. Only a person who is desperately trying to salvage his Christianity would use such nonsensical claims to back up their position. The sad fact in this situation is that most people will read Eric's claims without bothering to check on his references.
Anyway, I think I'm on solid ground when I say that my sources are anything but "outdated" as Eric Snow has accused. However, all the above is a moot point. I have said repeatedly that it doesn't matter if tomorrow morning in Jerusalem someone dug up the original book of Matthew with Matthew's signature on it. What matters is if the book contains the truth. (We have Charles Darwin's original works, but does this make his theory of evolution true?) The Christian claim is that the New Testament is based on an "Old" Testament foundation, so my argument is that we must look at Matthew or any book of the New Testament and prove the claims found there from the Holy Scriptures of Israel. Stop throwing up smoke screens by discussing papyrus fragments.
The New Testament Proves the New Testament!
Eric continues to bolster his claim of New Testament authenticity by citing the New Testament itself, which means that his claims for the eyewitness to Jesus and his miracles are based solely on a book that has for almost 2,000 years been filtered through countless unknown editors, and is today proclaimed inerrant by men who derive a profit from it. (If this "evidence" sounds ridiculous, don't blame Eric—as I've noted, it is one of Josh McDowell's trademark practices that he uses the New Testament as proof of the New Testament.)48
As if this futile exercise isn't bad enough, Eric mentions that Jesus' mother survived for many years after the crucifixion and was therefore a witness to the truth of Christianity.49 Is this last point really proof of the New Testament's authenticity? It is only if one is willing to accept the NT as authentic in the first place and to also deem the non-scriptural legends of the early Catholic Church as reliable and truthful, because that is where the post-Gospel information concerning "St. Mary" is found.
In other words, in Eric's reasoning one can prove New Testament authenticity and historicity by quoting the NT and the writings and legends of biased second, third, and fourth century Christians fathers. The problem with the latter source is that when Darrell Conder uses the same early church legends to call into question the authenticity of the NT scriptures, I am slammed by Eric for using unreliable sources.50 That folks is called "circular reasoning" and it is used on a consistent basis by those, like Eric V. Snow, in defense of their New Testament.
By the way, the title to this subsection in Eric's paper is "The Historicity of the New Testament Defended." His major reference work for this section is Josh McDowell, whom he shores up with Herbert W. Armstrong and Christian fundamentalist minister, C.S. Lewis.
Original Greek
The next point Eric tackles is the question of whether or not the apostles wrote the New Testament in Greek. He was forced into this question because I say in my book that it is doubtful that the Jewish fishermen-apostles of Jesus could have produced the present "original" Greek New Testament. Eric responds by proclaiming, based on Josephus, that Jesus and his followers spoke and wrote in Greek. He backs this claim on page 13 by noting that Josephus had to learn Greek in order to write his famous works, which is certainly true: "I have also taken a great deal of pain to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language . . . " Josephus complained that he was so used to speaking his native tongue that he could not speak Greek "with sufficient exactness." He explains: "For our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods." Eric doesn't give a reference for these quotes, but they are from Antiquities of the Jews, Book XX, chap. XI:2.
To answer the assertion that Josephus' statements are proof that Jesus could have spoken Greek, all I can say to Eric is that you're right! Jesus could have spoken Greek and written in Greek, just as did Josephus. However, Josephus had sufficient reason for learning (at great difficulty and against the custom of his people) the language of a pagan nation; he was being paid to produce a book by his Roman patrons and Greek was the official language of the Roman Empire.
Jesus and his disciples, on the other hand, had little motivation for doing so. They were preaching to the Orthodox Jews of their homeland and, like any good Orthodox Jews of their day, they would have hated Gentile customs, and above all they would have despised their Roman overlords. With this background I ask what reason would they have had for quoting from the Greek Septuagint to their Aramaic-speaking Jewish brothers and sisters, which is the source of the "Old" Testament scriptures quoted in the New Testament?
Now Eric, because you quote from the New Testament as proof let's consider the Gospel accounts concerning Jesus' attitude toward Gentiles, whom he compares to dogs (Mark 7:27). Jesus supposedly told his disciples not to go unto the Gentiles with the gospel because it was meant for Israel. This statement, by the way, is in keeping with the function of Israel's Messiah. (Of course, in one of those famous NT contradictions we find a different story at the ending of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark where a "resurrected" Jesus supposedly tells his disciples to "go ye therefore into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." This command, as I mentioned in my book, is surely the work of a later interpolator seeking to uphold the authority of a thoroughly Gentile church.)
At any rate, I'll ask the same question here that I asked in MBLTT. Considering that Jesus and his fisherman disciples were ordinary Aramaic-speaking Jews of the first century, steeped in what we now called Orthodox Judaism, and considering that these were men who had absolutely no use for pagan Gentiles, and further thought that their messianic mission, as the Nevi'im commanded, was only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, what reason would they have to go out and learn to speak and write Greek?51 I'll answer that question for you: They had none, but the Greek-speaking Gentile church fathers certainly had a motive for producing a book to uphold their authority and draw members to their money-making organization.
To shore up his point, Eric quotes a favorite source for Josh McDowell, biblical archeologist William Foxwell Albright. In fact, he lifted the following quote from page 110 of He Walked Among Us: "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and eighties of the first century."52 Eric inserts this in Albright's statement: "[Luke presumably would be an exception—EVS]". Unbelievably, while using a one paragraph statement from Dr. Albright via Josh McDowell to prove his point, Eric interrupts the quote to dispute him! First of all, Dr. Albright's remark is simply his Christian opinion, but in Eric Snow's own opinion, Dr. Albright's opinion is not entirely correct. How's that for evidence folks?
The reason that Eric disputes his own quoted authority is obvious: It was because I asserted in MBLTT that the apostle Luke was probably a Jew and questioned the highly polished Greek vernacular "he" supposedly used in composing the Gospel of Luke. I maintained in my book that this was certainly evidence of a later Greek-speaking Christian Church father composing the entire book. Hence, we see the reason behind Eric's little aside and his criticism of Dr. Albright.
By the way, for the record I'd like to state that I didn't come to my conclusion about the Gospel of Luke on my own, but rather I relied on the consensus of the majority of New Testament scholars. This leads to a statement on page 13 of Eric's paper wherein he seeks to distort this fact by writing the following: "[Robin Lane] Fox, no friend of Christianity, pours could water on [Conder's] assertion: '[Paul's] companion, the author of Acts, has also been mistaken for a Hellenistic historian and a man of considerable literary culture; in fact, he has no great acquaintance with literary style . . . "
What Eric isn't telling his readers is that the author of Acts, whoever that was, is not considered by most NT critical scholars to be the same man who wrote a book we now know as the Gospel of Luke, so Robin Lane Fox's statement has no bearing on what I wrote (Fox's use of the word "companion" indicates that he follows the majority and doesn't accept a common authorship for the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts).
However, Eric throws his own citation into complete confusion when he writes: "While Luke was humanly capable of writing in a high literary vein at times, such as in the parable of the prodigal son, this didn't mean this was the only way he wrote, or that he could do so consistently." It doesn't seem that Eric carefully reads what he writes or he'd surely see that he is admitting that more than one person was involved in writing the books that the Christian Church has assigned to "Luke." He is essentially admitting that there was the "Luke" who wrote the Gospel of Luke, and that there was another man, said by Christian tradition to be Luke, who wrote the book of Acts. One wrote in highly polished Greek vernacular while the other wrote in a backward clumsy style, as Robin Lane Fox noted.
Eric sums up his "Lukian" criticism with this gem: "The Holy Spirit allows the different literary styles of different writers to shine through, even as it protects them from writing errors or contradictions." Is that so Eric? Then the Holy Spirit wasn't inspiring "Luke" because "his" book is noted for error and contradictions!
Textual Criticism
In a subtitle, Eric exclaims, "The science of textual criticism can eliminate most New Testament variations." What a paradox for Eric to make such an observation! The "higher critics" and "intellects" whom Eric denounces in his paper use textual criticism to arrive at their conclusions.
Textual criticism seeks to reconstruct the original text of the Bible using different manuscripts and outside sources, such as the works of the church fathers.53 Accordingly, it is the science being used by the famous "Jesus Seminar" which is so widely denounced by fundamentalist Christians, including those in Eric's own church. Using this method the Jesus Seminar has denounced and removed large segments of text from the New Testament.
Under normal circumstances Eric and his church would surely charge that using textual criticism as a method of Bible study is deadly poison. Yet, if that same science is used to produce information that can be in any way used by Eric and company to uphold their "validity of the NT" argument, then the science is treated with respect. Which is it, Eric? Is the science of textual criticism an evil of "higher critics," such as those in the Jesus Seminar, or is it a useful tool for Bible study? Well the answer to this lies, as do most of Eric's arguments, in the fact that Josh McDowell uses textual criticisms as an excuse for New Testament validity in his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
New Testament Manuscript Variations
Josh notes on page 39 of Evidence That Demands a Verdict that there are more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament along with over 10,000 Latin Vulgates and 9,300 "other early versions" manuscripts. He says, "No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation." Of course, what Josh is arguing here is that sheer numbers proves the validity of the New Testament.
So that we can move on with this discussion, let us ignore several facts about Josh's observations. First of all let's ignore that the only thing that 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament attests to is that there are 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Let's also ignore the reason that no other document of antiquity survives in such numbers is because the Christian Church burned them by the hundreds of thousands; let us ignore the fact that works, such as those by Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Herodotus and Julius Caesar didn't form the nucleus of a religion, which would eliminate the need for the mass production of their writings. In other words, no one claimed that Pliny the Younger rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and that we mortals can have salvation if we believe in him through the words of his book. (Had this happened Josh McDowell and Eric Snow might well have been writing a defense of their savior-god Pliny and his infallible "bible" while pointing out that my example of Jesus is unprovable mythology based on a fourth century writing.)
The fact is that the early Christian Church, which was eventually known as the Holy Roman Empire—the greatest, most feared empire the world had ever seen—had need of the New Testament and they established countless monasteries to produce them by the hundreds of thousands. With the mass production of what we now call "ancient manuscripts of the New Testament," is it any wonder that so many would survive, especially given the fact that the Christian Church is still a major influence on the world scene? I say no! I say that it is only natural that so many abound. So the argument that the number of surviving New Testament manuscripts somehow proves the authenticity and validity of the New Testament is absurd. If book numbers were really all that one needed to prove truth, then all I'd have to do to prove my arguments would be to produce a few million copies of my book!54
Eric mentions my quote from Forlong's Encyclopedia of Religions that there are 150,000 variations in the different known ancient Greek MSS. of the New Testament. In response to this Eric quotes C.F. Sitterly and J.H. Greenlee, without any reference,55 as saying: "Such a wealth of evidence makes it all the more certain that the original words of the NT have been preserved somewhere within the MSS." The problem with that quote is that fundamental Christianity maintains that all scripture is infallible.56 What Eric's two experts are saying is that somewhere in all the jumble of the surviving New Testament manuscript variants there must be some originality! This is hardly comforting to a dye-in-the-wool "the New Testament is infallible" advocate.
To throw fuel on the fire, Eric discusses one of his sources which says that there are 200,000 variations in the existing New Testament manuscripts. Eric notes that this higher number is the result of "another, more recent count." After this notation he proudly announces that "Scholars Geisler and Nix, building upon the work of F.J.A. Hort, said only about 1/8 have weight, with 1/60 being 'substantial variation.'" (This quote is from page 11 of his paper, which is taken from McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, page 44.)
Okay Eric and Josh, let's get out our handy pocket calculators. Take 200,000 NT variations and divide by 8. We have 25,000 NT variations that your quoted scholars, Geisler and Nix, said have weight. Now, let's divide 200,000 by 60. We come up with 3,333 New Testament variations that your two scholars said were substantial! Taking the low number of 3,333 substantial variations, we still have a major headache for those who uphold the infallibility of the New Testament. This is especially so when there have been great debates and divisions in Christianity about the "original" meaning of a certain Greek word or a verse.
With this information in mind, let's take a look at the New King James Version of the bible. When reading this version the more astute will immediately notice the countless footnotes, as found on almost every page, that informs the reader how many words (and in many cases whole or parts of verses) are not found in the most ancient text. This is quite a problem when applied to the Book of Revelation. The famous ending in 22:18 warns that it would cost someone their eternal life to add or take away from the book. But notice what the publishers of the New King James Version say in a footnote to 20:14 and 21:2: "20:14 NU-Text and M-Text ADD the lake of fire. 21:2 NU-Text and M-Text OMIT John." ("M" = Majority Text; "NU" = Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament and the third edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek NT) These noted additions and omissions are not isolated cases in the book of Revelation: The entire book is littered with these footnotes. So much for the warning of adding to or taking from the book Revelation!
"God's True Church"?
Finally moving away from Josh McDowell's works, Eric jumps over to the arguments of his other hero, the late radio evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong. Eric dismisses my findings that the Catholic Church decided the final canon of the New Testament by following the so-called historical scholarship of the Seventh-day Baptist Church. This group, which found its way to America in the late 1600's, has tried to connect itself with various historical groups or men, whom they claimed kept the seventh-day Sabbath, going back to the time of the "original" apostles. Naturally, other Sabbatarian groups have picked up this claim of an "apostolic succession" and, as the saying goes, made hay out of it.
In the 1800's the claim of apostolic succession was picked up and expanded on by some Seventh-day Adventists; in turn it was used and expanded by Adventist offshoot, the Church of God, Seventh-day. It was ultimately revised and further expanded by one of the latter's dissident ministers, Herbert Armstrong, who went on to found the Radio Church of God (now known as the Worldwide Church of God). Having isolated themselves into what they term as "God's true church," the ministry of the Worldwide Church of God portrayed mainstream Christianity as having left "God's true church" sometime in the late second century CE. According to Armstrong, this "heretical" church and its doctrine became known as Roman Catholicism. Because Roman Catholicism is the mother of virtually all Protestant churches, Protestantism is, in Sabbatarian history, designated as the daughter of the "great whore" of Revelation 17.
All of the above is simply wishful thinking. The fact is that the early Christian Church and what developed into the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same. This is an opinion that is almost universally held because it can be substantiated by history. That same history also tells us that the above Sabbatarian churches can be traced directly or indirectly to offshoots of Protestant churches, which, in turn, have their foundations in Roman Catholicism. This is the history behind my statement that what we now call the Roman Catholic Church decided the final canonization of the Christian bible. That is the consensus of virtually every mainstream Christian scholar. However, Eric surely scoffs at this by virtue of his own church's assertions, by which I mean the claims of his church's self-proclaimed apostle, Herbert W. Armstrong.
As a member of a Christian Sabbath keeping church that proclaims itself to be "God's true church," Eric Snow undoubtedly believes that there was a true apostolic Sabbatarian Church of God from which his church descends, and it was this church that preserved the original Greek Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. (See page 359 of Josh McDowell's A Ready Defense for his discussion and denunciation of Herbert Armstrong's claim.)57
In Eric's church's teaching the apostolic line of succession passed from "St." Peter to numerous men until it was finally conferred by Jesus Christ on Herbert W. Armstrong back in the 1930's. As proof that the Catholic Church didn't decide the final canon of the New Testament, Eric offers a booklet from Herbert W. Armstrong, "Who is the Beast" (who is identified there as the Catholic Church), an article from the Global Church of God (founded by Herbert W. Armstrong protégé, Roderick C. Meredith), "God's Church Through the Ages," and Seventh-day Adventist prophetess Ellen G. White's plagiarized book, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan.
Although Eric doesn't come right out and say so in his paper, by using these works he is assuring his readers that this "evidence" is proof that God has used his "true church" to preserve the New Testament in its "original" form. Well, having once been a Sabbatarian and also having once decided to write a history of the "true Sabbath-keeping churches of God," I beg to differ with Eric and company.
At the risk of getting too far afield here, I will bring up my experiences when I decided to write a history of the "true church of God." Having been brought up in a church that made the claim of being descended from the only true Christian church, I naturally started my project by using my former church's evidence, which was produced in one booklet and countless articles in their publications. After spending three weeks tracking down the cited references and also seeking out others, I was completely disillusioned. Specifically, I'm referring to Herman L. Hoeh's booklet, A True History of the True Church.
In his booklet Herman Hoeh had essentially followed the information laid out by Church of God, Seventh Day's A.N. Dugger and C.O. Dodd in their book, A History of the True Church.60 To get to the point, much of the information cited in this book as fact would have been laughable if the consequences weren't so tragic. This is why one of the top ranking ministers of the Church of God, Seventh Day told me bluntly (in a telephone conversation) that his church does not recommend anyone to read Dugger and Dodd's book. Yet even when Herman Hoeh strayed from Dugger and Dodd's work the independent sources he cited were really no better that those of his predecessors. When I followed them through I found that many were useless. I sincerely wondered how, if Herman Hoeh had actually looked at these works, he could have honestly used them?
The hodgepodge of "selective history" thrown together to produce a conjectural history of "God's true church" is one of the tragic legacies of the old Worldwide Church of God because it was used to uphold Herbert W. Armstrong's dictatorial grip upon the lives of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people. In the end I had to abandon my history of "God's true church." The only outcome was my controversial article on the Waldensians, which was discussed in the August 16, 1996 issue of the Sabbatarian newspaper, In Transition.
I do find it interesting that no small number of ministers in Eric's church have argued against the conclusions that "God's true church" preserved the New Testament. In one taped sermon I listened to, a minister told his congregation that "God's true church" was so persecuted that they couldn't have preserved the New Testament. He explained this by saying that God used the Catholic Church, in spite of their pagan doctrines, to copy and preserve the New Testament. He also proposed that, even though it is historically true that the Catholic Church decided the final canon of the New Testament, that it was God who allowed them to do so. He clarified this by saying that God forced the Catholics to settle on the books that He wanted preserved. Of course all of this was backed by no more than this minister' opinion and his church's so-called true history—a history that neither he nor his church could prove true.
I have to comment that I've often been amused to hear all the different and conflicting explanations coming from Christian ministers in the same church to answer the questions raised by my book. Taking this situation back to the first two or three centuries when Christianity was developing might very well answer why it is that the New Testament scriptures are so contradictory in nature—they were written by men who didn't know what their colleagues were saying and writing in some other far away place.
By the way, in looking over Eric's sources for his findings (Herbert W. Armstrong, the Global Church of God and prophetess Ellen G. White) the thought struck me that at least he didn't use the "slip-shod" references that he says I used, like The Encyclopedia Britannica, The Catholic Encyclopedia or The Jewish Encyclopedia!
The Genealogies
After numerous pages of criticism, which he shores up by citing the usual Josh McDowell books, Eric moves into that never-ending Christian debate on the New Testament genealogies of Jesus and their unanswerable contradictions. He starts by trying to justify the problem raised by the Gospels in dating Jesus' birth. That is, he tries to explain Matthew's declaration that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great and Luke's mention that he was born during the time of a Roman census when Quirinus was governor of Syria—two historical events that were at least ten years apart. This information is important as it forms part of the NT chronology of Jesus' conception and birth. (Eric's information and subsequent excuses are from pages 112-114 of McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict.)
If, as Matthew says, Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great, then he could not have been born when Quirinus was governor as Luke says because Herod died ten years before the latter event. There is no reason to reargue this here because the fact is that the overwhelming consensus of present-day scholars declares that whoever wrote the Gospel of Luke erred in this detail.
To be expected, Eric dismisses the consensus of the majority and opts instead for the excuses of fundamentalist Christian minister, Gleason Archer (on whom Josh McDowell also relies), and ends his criticism by asserting that "Conder has mistakenly placed too much credence in a certain atheistic science fiction writer's historical knowledge of the ancient world." Of course Eric means Dr. Isaac Asimov.
Even though Eric knows that I cited more than Dr. Asimov's work to back my points, his readers will not, which allows Eric to make a dishonest argument seem convincing. For those who care, let me here add the assessment of Harper's Dictionary of the Bible, which I select because it is the latest edition, it is near at hand, and it typifies the scholarly consensus on the matter. Concerning the problem with the census under Quirinus, the latest edition of Harper's says: "Various possible solutions to these problems have been proposed, but none has received general acceptance. The problems simply underscore the uncertainty of the historical information available to Luke regarding the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus."61
Moving into the question of the genealogies themselves, Eric attempts to answer my criticism that the pedigrees contradict one another by declaring that the one in Luke belongs to Mary and the one in Matthew is Jesus' "legal" descent. Because he relies on the works of born-again Christian fundamentalist for information, Eric may not know that this argument is directly from ancient Roman Catholic doctrine, as indeed are most of the arguments put forward for New Testament scriptural "difficulties."62 Well, Eric can find all the Roman Catholic-backed McDowells and Archers he wants for comfort, but my original complaint still stands, i.e., that both Gospels specifically say that the genealogies are Joseph's, which makes for some confusion given the fact that they not only contradict one another but Jesus is said to have been fathered by the Holy Ghost.
Undaunted by the truth, and backed by his born-again fundamentalist team, Eric really shoots himself in the foot by using Old Testament examples to "prove" Luke's pedigree actually belongs to Mary. For instance, he cites I Chronicles 2:16 and the inclusion of David's sisters in the family of Jesse as proof that a woman could be included in a genealogy. Specifically he points out that David's sister, Zeruiah, is recorded as being the mother of Abisha, Joab and Asahel.
he fact is that there was no problem with mentioning the female ancestress of a man in the OT when the need to explain an important relationship arose—such as in the case of Zeruiah, who mothered the famous (or infamous) Joab. The point is this: Following the example of the Old Testament, why didn't the New Testament writers simply say that Luke's genealogy is Mary's, if indeed it was? I mean, we find this in I Chronicles 2:16—and elsewhere, by the way. On top of this the husband of Zeruiah, and therefore the father of Joab, is never mentioned in the OT, which sets a perfect precedent for the composer of "Luke's" Gospel to simply name Mary as the "daughter" of Heli instead of naming Joseph as his son.
Furthermore, just like King David's sister, Zeruiah, Mary's relationship to both King David and Jesus is certainly important to subsequent events (which is undoubtedly why Zeruiah's pedigree is given and not that of her unnamed husband.) According to Christian theology a proven relationship of Mary and Jesus to King David is essential! If the Old Testament gives us ample precedent for including the female ancestresses in the genealogy of a man when the need arose, what excuse can be offered for the supposed Jewish apostles excluding Mary when they supposedly wrote the Gospel genealogies? Could it be, as a number of Christian scholars have noted (such as the highly respected Dr. Ferrar Fenton), that the genealogies are simply the uncoordinated efforts of later Christian writers and that there is indeed a contradiction?
We can also dispose of the Christian argument that Matthew's genealogy was Joseph's and thereby preserved Jesus' "legal" descent from King David, whereas the genealogy in Luke was Mary's and provided a physical lineage. As Jesus wasn't Joseph's real son, and according to the Gospels, Joseph had other sons by Mary, then there is no "legal" matter to prove. Simply stated, Joseph's "legal" heritage from David would have passed to his first born son, who would have been a half brother to Jesus. And, if someone wants to claim that Joseph adopted Jesus (as do Archer Gleason in his book, The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 316, and Eric on page 31 of his paper)63 thus providing him with a claim to the Throne of David, the editors of The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia tell us: "The legal concept of adoption finds no place whatsoever in Biblical or Talmudic jurisprudence."64 The editors explain this situation by noting that adoption would have been solely for the reason of providing an heir. More to the point, they note that in Hebrew custom if a man's wife was barren then he simply took another wife to solve the problem. This is seen in the case of Abraham and Sarah and with Jacob and Rachel.
However, these points are all moot, because, to repeat this again, even if the concept of adoption was known in Judea, Joseph would have no need to adopt Jesus because according to the Gospels he went on to have legitimate sons by Mary. Furthermore, because Eric doesn't seem to have a problem with Christian Church tradition, let me recall to him the ancient Christian Church tradition that the brothers of Jesus, who are mentioned in the Gospels, were sired by Joseph from a supposed first marriage (he being a widower when he married Mary). If that is really the case, then the "legal" heritage from Joseph had already been passed on to another before Jesus was born.65
While discussing the genealogies we should consider another biblical legal point that some have raised: "If a man die, and have no sons, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter." (Num. 27:8) Relating this command to Mary, as some have proposed, we would have to consider that even if we want to believe that the genealogy in Luke belongs to her, then there could be no direct male descendants of David living if she were indeed David's legal heir.
According to the Old Testament prophecy, God had promised that David would never lack a MAN to sit on the throne of Israel. This is understood to mean a continual unbroken line of male heirs from David to the Messiah. The right to David's throne would have to come through a father-to-son descent unless all male lines had died out. In other words, we'd have to believe that Heli (who is conjectured to be Mary's father) had no sons and was the last surviving direct male descendant of King David living in the world before he could have passed the inheritance of David on to Mary. Of course we know from history (and, if we want to accept it, from the New Testament itself) that this wasn't the case.66 So, Jesus could not have inherited the throne of David through his mother, he only could have inherited the throne of David through Joseph, which is why Christian ministers, like Archer Gleason, proclaim that Joseph provided Jesus with a legal claim to David's throne. However to again make this plain, this was impossible because Joseph wasn't, according to the Gospels, Jesus' real father and had no reason to adopt him.
By the way, Eric criticizes me for using Fenton's translation of the bible—specifically citing Dr. Ferrar Fenton's denunciation of Luke's genealogy. Yet, his own church has used this bible for decades to prove certain points of their unique doctrine (specifically that there are two Sabbaths in the Passover week). Eric accuses Dr. Fenton of being motivated by "higher critic bias" because of his translation of the first chapter of Genesis, and asks if I would accept his translation in this case?
The answer to that question, Eric, is yes I would if what Fenton translates can be proven as fact. My question to you is do you accept the old WCG's use of Dr. Fenton when it suited their purpose? I assume you would because you quote authors to back your position who would generally not support most of the unique doctrines of your church. Now Eric, I'm not saying that you are wrong in using authors or sources with whom you may at times disagree. My point is that you are being hypocritical when you denounce others who employ the same methods that you yourself use.
The next point Eric attempts to answer in the genealogy question is the obvious missing generations in Matthew's pedigree. (27 generations in Matthew compared to 41 in Luke, which represents about a 300 year gap in time.) He writes: "Conder also complains that some generations are left out in Matthew's account compared to Luke's . . ." To account for this Eric offers that Matthew's genealogy is really but a shortened version and offers the Torah lineage of Moses to Levi as an example. Eric particularly notes that Moses' mother, Jochebed, is said to be the daughter of Levi although she, literally speaking, was not. This is true. But carefully notice the wording in Numbers 26:59. There was no long list of ancestors offered for Jochebed. It simply states that she was the daughter of Levi, which, as all scholars agree, is meant to convey her tribal origin. This is the same when Matthew 1:1 says that Jesus was the son of David the son of Abraham, which is meant to convey that Jesus was of the House of David and Abraham's seed. Such statements are clear in meaning and all authorities recognize them for what they are—brief outlines that are meant to simply convey an important detail, such as the tribe or house from which one descends.
However, let us consider Matthew's genealogy. The fact of this pedigree is that it is tracing, generation by generation, the descent of Jesus from Kings David and Solomon—an important aspect in the Christian-proclaimed Messiahship of Jesus. Moreover, the meaning of Matthew's genealogy as that of a literal generation-by-generation pedigree is quite clear from the three separate divisions of fourteen generations.
Over the centuries there have been countless debates concerning the meaning of Matthew's three divisions of the Jesus genealogy, but there still isn't a consensus among Christians. However, the meaning of these divisions is not an issue here. What is important is that the three divis