Not long ago, fellow blogger John Zande wrote an excellent post titled “Jesus Christ: Just Not Worth a Sheet of Paper.” It’s actually not as derogatory as the title suggests. Some apologists have suggested that the reason we have no contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life is that paper was so expensive. That’s the argument John deals with in his post.
His post is great — you should read it. But what I actually want to write about is one of the comments that someone left on it. Diana of NarrowWayApologetics.com left a lengthy comment that I decided to include here in its entirety. I identified with it a bit. It reminded me of some of the thoughts I used to have as a Christian:
One of the main reasons people believed Paul was because he explained the reason for Jesus coming into the world. His teachings were amazing. They explained how Jesus “fulfilled the law and the prophets.” I wrote this comment in response to John Zande’s comment on my blog last night. Forgive me for posting it here. Just ignore if you don’t want to read it.
“This passage about Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17-20) is one of the main reasons I believe the Gospel message. The incredible ways that Jesus did this are beyond human ability to create. I don’t think any mystery writer could have weaved together the incredible ways Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets.
I know this post is long, so if you want to skip the parts between the dotted lines, I understand. I just wrote it for anyone who might be interested.
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First of all, there are many ways Jesus fulfilled the law. In fact, believers are constantly astounded by how intricately Jesus fulfilled the law.One way he fulfilled the law was by fulfilling the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the seventh day of rest that the Jews were commanded to obey. Jesus fulfilled the law of the Sabbath by becoming our rest for us. (Hebrews 4:9-11) He said his burden was light and his yoke was easy. Christians no longer practice the Sabbath. They worship on Sunday, rather than Saturday. They enter into his rest and no longer do religious works for salvation. (They are saved by grace through faith.)
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. His death on the cross was similar to the Exodus story, which described the lamb, whose blood would be placed on the doorposts of the home, causing the death angel to pass over that home. (Hebrews 9)
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became the unleavened bread of the Exodus story. Leaven is a symbol of sin and false teaching (1 Cor. 5:6-8, Matt. 16:12). Jesus fulfilled this feast by being sinless and being the TRUTH.
Another way that Jesus fulfilled the law was by becoming a tithe (firstfruits) for us. (Leviticus 23:10) He fulfilled the tithe by becoming the firstfruits from the dead when he was resurrected. (1 Cor. 15:20) Christians are no longer bound by a tithe, instead we are told to be cheerful givers. We are also promised that there will be a resurrection for us because of what Christ did for us.
Jesus fulfilled the law when he became a light to the Gentiles. In the law of Moses, the people were commanded to leave behind the gleanings (or leftovers) of the harvest for the poor and aliens. (Lev. 23:22) This would be fulfilled at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down and the gospel was preached in all languages, offering salvation to all, not just the Jews. (Acts 10:34-35)
These fulfillments of the law were actually the first 4 feasts that would be celebrated every year by the Jews. They would be celebrated according to the seasons. The feasts celebrated during the early rains were the fulfilled at the time of the early church. Three more feasts are waiting to be fulfilled at the end of the age (or at the time of the latter rains). These three feasts are the feast of trumpets (representing the return of Jesus), the feast day of atonement (representing the salvation of the Jews), and the feast of tabernacles (representing the time when we will all be with the Lord).
There are so many other ways in which Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. And none of it has to do with Jesus expecting or commanding Christians to obey the law to perfection. It has to do with how it’s impossible for anyone to keep the law. That is why Jesus came. How could any human conceive of a way to have even a made-up, fictional character fulfill all these things? And I’ve barely scratched the surface of the way Jesus accomplished these things.
The greatest concern I feel burdened about is how to convey the magnificence of what I’m trying to explain. He was the manna from heaven. He was the living water. He was the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. He is the “I AM.” He is the Word become flesh. He became a slave for us. (Philippians 2:7) He became a curse for us. He became sin for us, so we could become righteous before God. He offers us mercy because his blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. All of this is explained in the scriptures.
I haven’t even begun to explain the way Jesus fulfilled the prophets.
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The story of Jewish history and the giving of the law is actually a way to PROVE the reality of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity through Jesus Christ. One random fact doesn’t prove anything, but the cumulative effect of ALL the fulfillments makes the Bible a miraculous book. This is why some of the brightest and best minds in the history of the world have loved and received Jesus. It isn’t a decision based on emotion alone, but a decision based on knowledge. And the more I learn, the more I am in awe of what God did and how he accomplished it.”
To say that the story of Jesus was just created by pasting together myths, fictional narratives, sayings, and borrowed phrases (as Ken Humphreys does) is a ridiculous claim because only a Christ could have conceived of a Christ. Who could have created the amazing Jesus portrayed in the Gospels and explained further by Paul?
Of course, I now see that there are several problems with this line of thinking. In 2015, Star Wars Episode 7 is supposed to hit theaters. Will it shock anyone if the movie syncs up perfectly with the previous 6? The thing is, when there is already an established back story, it’s not impossible to construct a narrative that builds upon it. The fact that we as readers see the parallels between the stories of Jesus and events in the Old Testament is not an accident. The authors intended for us to see those parallels, and there’s no reason why they couldn’t have invented them — even if Jesus was a real person.
Matthew is one of the best books to look to for evidence of this. Matthew is the only book that tells of Jesus’ family fleeing to Egypt to escape Herod’s infanticide. Both events, fleeing to Egypt and the infanticide, seem to be inspired by Matthew’s reading of the Old Testament. Hosea 11:1 says, “out of Egypt, I called my son.” Matthew says that this prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus’ family returned after fleeing to Egypt. But when you read the entire chapter of Hosea 11, it’s very evident that the passage has nothing to do with the Messiah, but is simply talking about Israel’s period of captivity in Egypt.
Matthew also claims that Herod’s slaughter of infants in Bethlehem was to fulfill this prophecy:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
But once again, when we read all of Jeremiah 31, this was no prophecy at all. The chapter is talking about Israel’s captivity in Assyria. Nothing else.
The author of Matthew took these passages and used them to add parallels to the story about Jesus’ birth. It didn’t require magic or divine inspiration to do that — it only took knowledge of these passages. Just like the people working on Star Wars 7 don’t need divine intervention to let them know about Darth Vader.
Diana ends her comment by asking who could have created such a compelling story. Who could have created Christ? But why couldn’t we ask this about anyone? Who could have created Darth Vader? He’s quite a compelling character himself. Who could have created someone as magnificent as Santa Claus? Or Paul Bunyan? Or Achilles? Or King Arthur? Just asking this question doesn’t really mean anything. If Jesus never existed, then someone did just create his story. Or if he was a real person, but not divine, then his story was embellished. We have to draw our conclusions about Jesus based on the evidence, including the fact that Matthew seemed to feel the need to create “prophecies” to give Jesus credibility.
Finding Truth 
Sorry I’ve been away the last couple of days. Thanks to everyone for keeping the conversation going.
Laurie,
You’re right that Coyne’s understanding of junk DNA in his book is out of date — but that wasn’t the case when he wrote it. He wrote the book in 2009, and I think it was 2011 when strong evidence came out showing that pseudogenes still had important functions:
This is a Christian site
This is a scientific paper about it
It’s interesting information, but I don’t think any scientists have considered it a blow against evolution.
As to evolution being a theory, that’s true, but as you probably know, a scientific theory is different from the way we use “theory” in every day speech. A scientific theory is an explanation of a collection of facts. It’s not meant to imply uncertainty, though it’s always open for adjustment as new evidence comes in.
You mentioned 3000 year old tyrranosaurus remains, but I wasn’t able to find anything on that. If you can provide a link (once your pc is back up), that would be great.
However, I did find the information you were referencing about live tissue from a tyrranosaurus fossil. It even mentioned that creationists were saying it showed dinosaurs didn’t live millions of years ago. But the researcher who found the tissue (and is a Christian), completely disagrees:
and later in the article:
You can read more here.
You also mentioned that the sun would have been so large in its earlier stages that our planet couldn’t be here. But I haven’t found that substantiated anywhere. Consider this article from Cornell U. And here’s a handy image I found to help show the evolution of a star like our sun:
Look, evolution is not why I stopped being a Christian or believing in a god. But it’s a fact that the current consensus of scientists is that evolution is true. There are always going to be new discoveries that further tweak our understanding of it, but it’s hard to imagine a day where the entire theory will be overturned. Of course, if that day ever comes, then the new consensus of science will be opposed to evolution. Either way, it seems counter-productive to go against scientific consensus.
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I meant to add that evolution doesn’t teach that we should find fossil evidence of cross species like a frog-cow, croco-duck, or giraffe-monkey. The changes are small and gradual, and in fact, the fossil record does support that kind of trajectory. As I understand it, the theory goes like this:
Imagine that you could pick an individual and line up every one of his ancestors all the way back. If you walked up and down the line, you would see little to no difference between between one individual and the ones to either side of him/her. In fact, you’d only see the kinds of differences that you see between parents and their children.
If you took one person from that line and compared him/her to a person 10 or 20 spaces back, then you might see more differences between those particular points in the line. If you took one individual and compared him/her to an individual 30,000 places down the line, you might see some striking differences — in fact, you might see a different species altogether.
This kind of evolution is micro-evolution, which you said you accept. It’s simply spread out over an unimaginable length of time. So no individual from that line ever gave birth to a child that was a different species — you only see the different species when you compare individuals from varying points in that line. So the lines between species would be fuzzy if we could examine every fossil in an unbroken line of ancestry. But of course, we can’t do that. It’s hard to find fossils. When we find different fossils, we typically have gaps of hundreds of generations between them. This is why creationists often claim that we have no transitionary fossils, when in fact, every fossil is transitionary.
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Nate – If you could post this jpeg for me, I think it would illustrate your point —
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Yeah, I’ve used that before too. It’s a great illustration!
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Actually, she’s right – the sun would have been slightly larger during the early days of the young earth, and it is still condensing, as it burns off it’s hydrogen supply – then, and the balance shifts between the remaining hydrogen and the helium produced as a byproduct of hydrogen fusion, the sun will begin to grow, to ultimately engulf the Earth and possibly as far as the orbit of Mars.
However, the younger, slightly larger sun would not have been as hot, so the sun’s size at the time would not have been a factor in the abiogenesis process.
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I can’t wait for Laurie to get back to me on that Moses thing – I’d be curious as to whether Moses being born before Abraham makes him his own grandpa —
And I’m sure she’s going to tell me how “Evolution goes against scientific law,” but somehow, creation doesn’t —
See, I’m keeping a list (checking it twice), Laurie, of all the things you’ve not responded to, and I’ll keep asking until you answer!
@Nate – you might should have reduced that image to 600 pixels – you probably still can.
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Arch,
It may sound funny I know but it really is so; I’m my own grandpa. (2 can play at your game although I’m not near as good as you are at it. 😉 )
Good point about the scientific law thing. Creationists seem to have this kind of view: “the consensus of scientists affirms that there is the law of [fill in the blank – we still don’t know what law Laurie was referencing] so from that consensus we know that this law is true. Even though the consensus of scientists affirms evolution, it looks like it violates this law (even though scientists have responded many times to that critique) so we know that we cannot trust them because they just have a bias against God”. This is a somewhat common trend among creationists – don’t trust the consensus of scientists only when they say things that go against your particular belief about reality. If the consensus of scientists is that reincarnation is not true (just a made up example) then creationists would likely be all over that one.
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I’m curious as to where she gets her information, it’s so all over the place, I can’t identify a particular source.
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I’m also curious about her sources, but I don’t want to disparage her. Like the rest of us, she thinks her beliefs are correct. Though we may disagree, I’ve got to give her credit that she seems to know why she believes what she believes. That’s more than I can say for many people.
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Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Laurie, quite the contrary – I dislike anyone who buckles at my first bark, and she doesn’t do that, she stands her ground and I like that. My complaint is that I wonder if her sources are sometimes selected on the grounds of confirmation bias.
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Yeah, I wonder that too. It’s easy to fall into. There are a lot of creationists working double-time to propagate a whole lot of nonsense. Granted, there are non-believers who do the same thing. But to me, it seems especially insidious when religious people do it, since they should be holding themselves to a “higher standard.”
Norman Geisler is one of the apologists I think about when it comes to that kind of thing. After reading so much material from all sides of the issue, I find it hard to believe that guys like him honestly believe the arguments they put forth. And if someone is only reading points from that side of things, then they aren’t going to know how bad the arguments really are.
One of the fallacies that people fall into is they think most non-religious scholars and scientists are trying to disprove Christianity and will alter their findings to fit their agenda. I just don’t think that’s the case. When people don’t already believe in something, they don’t tend to put forth tons of energy trying to disprove it. Most of us don’t believe in unicorns, but we don’t waste a lot of time trying to prove they don’t exist.
Are there some non-religious fanatics that might twist their findings to fit a particular agenda? Sure, there probably are. But they’re going to be the exception, not the rule. And that’s why I think scientific consensus tends to be reliable. I think it goes past agendas.
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Those are good points Nate. I also think it is important to note that about half of scientists believe in some kind of higher power. There is a good deal of religious diversity in the scientific community at large, and yet consensus for evolution is in the high 90’s last I saw.
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Arch, it’s too late to answer your check list tonight, but I will answer your question on Moses, since I have answered it once already. But for the record, if you would read my posts i wouldn’t have to repeat myself so frequently! 😉
Not every scholar is correct. Not every scientific paper ever written remains accurate. New evidence is being found every day, and we need to be flexible if it doesn’t conform to what we believe to be true and correct. I assume you are getting your dates from Ussher? I do not agree with any of his theological beliefs, and therefore our conclusions on scriptural matters are not inline with each other. It doesn’t change the order of events, it only change the time in which they happened. You may choose to side with him, because you all obviously find my ideas crazy, but archaeology line up perfectly with what I believe. Sorry i lost my phone for a bit. I will try to get back to all your other statements tomorrow evening.
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Yes, you’re right, it is WAY too late, in fact, I was just doing one quick message-check before I put it away for the night. I have an appointment tomorrow, a 150-mile round trip, and will be gone most of the day, what with that and shopping, so don’t think I’m ignoring you if I don’t get back with you before tomorrow evening.
If you mean that you told me that Moses left Egypt before Abraham came to the Levant, yes, I do believe you did. I’m still chuckling.
Not really, got them from Sir John Lightfoot (1602-1675), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. Of course you know that I believe all of those dates to be false, as the majority of the men named, likely never existed, and if they did, they certainly didn’t live for the incredible lifespans the Bible claims – in fact, the idea for the incredible lifespans are yet another Jewish plagiarization, this time, from the “Sumerian Kings List.” But the problem is that – forget Bishop Ussher and Vice-Chancellor Lightfoot – the Bible maintains that they’re true.
Goodnight, Laurie! Goodnight, goats! Goodnight, chickens! Goodnight, John-Boy!
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I honestly don’t know why I try to discuss anything with you Arch. I am starting to think, your only purpose is to get my goat…. Ha ha he he he! Yes, I think I am pretty funny lol! 😉
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But you have so MANY! Don’t tell me you’d miss just ONE – I’ve still got a few warm days left, and a Fall Bar-B-Que would be SO appreciated!
Don’t tell me, let me guess – you’ve named every one of them —
See, this is why I like you so much, great sense of humor! Your biblical sources, however, are like tuning in to Fox News, to find out what’s REALLY going on in the world.
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Yes all of my goats have names, and they are dairy goats, not meat goats.
My “biblical sources” come from the Bible, something you clearly know little about. And for your info, I don’t watch the news… Lol 😉
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As America’s early pioneers used to say, “Meat’s meat!”
Oh, come on! You’ve already said you don’t believe much of the Bible, you’ve said you’re not a theist, and you’ve said that Moses existed hundreds of years before the Bible says he did – please don’t throw away all of your credibility now, just when you’re on a roll!
Please answer my challenges, and almost more importantly, don’t say, “What challenges?”
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Seriously! I never said any of that.. Lol! You are just trying to antagonize me.
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Moi?
PLEASE don’t make me go back and dig up all of your comments, because I will!
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Maybe you should go back and read my comments. I may have said that I wasn’t a christian, but I didn’t say that I don’t believe in the scriptures.
Any ways, if you thought I believed what you believe, than why are you always razzing me?
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Tomorrow I will tell you exactly what I believe, so there won’t be any more confusion. Stop bringing up the Moses thing, apparently it is over your head, and I really hate having to repeat myself.
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I will not only go back and re-read your comments, little lady, I will read them back to you, and show you that you said what I said you said.
Never said you believed as I do, I don’t believe Moses ever existed, and you believe he existed hundreds of years before Abraham. I maintain the Exodus never happened, and you think it did. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by earthquakes, not god. No Lot, no Abe, no Ike, no Jake, no Joe, no Mose, all fiction. Yet you believe I think as you do? Not so much —
But it IS 2 am here, so it won’t happen tonight. Again, go hug all of the goats goodnight for me —
Hugs!
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I have an IQ that qualifies me for MENSA, nothing is over my head that is expressly stated, but your Mohammed Ali, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” form of “Rope-a-dope” throws me, because you will never come out with a definitive statement.
If you truly are going to tell me, “exactly what I believe, so there won’t be any more confusion,” I would greatly appreciate it. I would do nip-ups in the street, whatever nip-ups are!
Great big, slobbery goat-kisses —
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Arch, I believe in the Holy scriptures. That does not mean I believe what has been canonized.
I believe in the Way, the Truth, and the Life, which is the Torah.
I believe that Yeshua was the prophecied redeemer, and the BRANCH.
I believe that Paul was the fulfillment of Genesis 49, the ravenous wolf, and the false apostle of Revelations 2.
All of these things can be easily proven, even if you believe it is all just a story, I can show that this conclusion was the authors intent.
I believe that every word, every place name, every number, was designed for our learning, and is deeper than it outwardly appears.
This is the most basic explanation I can give you.
By the way, the scriptures do not give a date for the Exodus. 😉
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