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 
I think this is a fair point. And I’m sorry if my long comment seemed directed solely at you — that’s not how I meant it. I think you get a bad rap from some of these guys sometimes, and I don’t think it’s warranted. I was a Christian long enough to know that you aren’t being dishonest or malicious. You have solid reasons for why you believe what you believe. I respect that, even though my beliefs differ from yours.
I don’t want to censor what anyone says here (unless I absolutely have to), and I also realize that my own personal standards of how people should communicate are just my own standards — I have to be careful projecting them onto other people. So sometimes things will be said here that I don’t care for or agree with. I’m sorry for that.
I do still think that the best way to handle it is to simply rise above it. I do think most people know when someone is speaking out of turn, or misusing evidence, or making a bad argument. But I also support each person’s right to stand up for themselves and give as good as they’ve gotten. So please don’t view what I wrote as hard and fast rules for commenting on this blog. It was just an appeal to both sides to not get bogged down in sideline issues.
By the way, thanks for continuing to stick in here and offer your comments. I think your perspective is very valuable. As I’ve said before, if more Christians were as thoughtful and moderate as you, I’d have fewer issues with the religion.
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@Laurie – I realize you’re probably out mucking out the barn or something, but if you could find a moment, please explain to me this contradiction I noticed today.
I couldn’t help noticing this in the KJV, near the end of John:
I found this strange on two levels – he didn’t “ascend” until quite some time later, and yet, despite the admonition, “Touch me not, for I have not ascended to my Father,” he allowed Thomas to touch him, and even thrust his hand into the spear wound (“Jeez, is that a LUNG? Ewww!”).
Further, in Matthew 28, Mary M and “the other Mary” were told at the tomb by an “angel” to go tell the others that “he is risen,” and on the way to do so, 28:9, “Jesus met them, saying, All hail, and they came and held him by the feet and worshiped him.”
So there are two instances of Yeshua allowing himself to be touched before his ascension (how, exactly, does one do it after?), INCLUDING Mary M, in Matthew, after admonishing MM not to touch him, in John.
What’s up with that? It really doesn’t seem to fit together all that well – I figured that as an authority, you could help me lay that one to rest.
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Arch, I am on my way to bed right now, but tomorrow I will give you a much more in depth answer. For now I will give you a super brief explanation. The biggest issue with the texts in question (imo) is that most people think he was nailed to the stake on Friday and resurrected on Sunday. Both of these assumptions are not correct. To understand what happened here you have to really have a solid understanding of Shavout and the wave sheaf offering. If you really want to know… I will be on in the morning, after mucking out the barn and giving out goat hugs of course;-)
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Laurie, I thoroughly enjoy our little get-togethers, but I’m beginning to wonder if you might be spending a little too much time with the goats – I didn’t say anything about what day the cruci-fiction took place, my comment had to do with, “To Touch or Not To Touch, That Is the Question.”
You might want to step away from the ammonia for a bit, take deep breaths of fresh air —
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Ha ha ha! I could never spend too much time with them, they are so cute and sweet!
The whole event is linked, so you have to back up if you want to understand it. Do you really care, or are you just trying to find another nail for the coffin?
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Whose coffin, the Bible’s? From where I stand, that ship has sailed.
Of course I want to know how theists worm their way out of that contradiction, it’s what I live for, well, that, and one of the compliments from your cornucopia —
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Don’t want to waste time trying to explain something that will obviously not make a difference.
If you really want to find truth, you have to go more than just surface deep. And that applies to most things today. You have 2 kinds of archeologist, those who are out to disprove the Bible and those who want to prove it. There are 2 kinds of scientists, those who want to prove and those who want to disprove. Under these circumstances you have to double check the work of people who are supposed to be the authority, to make sure they are truly being honest….. With us and themselves.
I’ll give you an example. Israel Finkelstien is one of the great archeologists of our day, and he is responsible for a huge dig in Megiddo. Then he published a book called the Bible unearthed, or something like that. In his book he offers a proof that the scriptures are just fairy tale, and he says that camels were not domesticated for some time afterwards. Looking into this claim, it is easy to see that this is untrue. Why lie about it? Because they want people to believe what they believe, no matter what the facts really show. Then you look at who funded the dig in Megiddo, and all of sudden things start to make sense.
Scientist are even worse with the theory of evolution. I do not have any problem with trying to figure out how we got here, but you need to be scientific, and you need to be honest, or your just wasting everybody’s time.
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Laurie, i would suggest there are three types, not two. I think you left out those whose only agenda is to find the truth – although, it will always be debatable as to which category one falls.
I wanted to make that correction or else one might assume that if someone finds fault with the bible it’s only because they wanted to, and because someone finds truth in the bible it’s only because they wanted to. Obviously this is preschool logic. Not that you’re using preschool logic – just clarifying your assertion.
Arch, interesting point on the “touch/do not touch” thing. When i finally realized the bible was not a work of god, it all became so much clearer. much of it was confusing and hard to understand because it was just flawed and incorrect. It still amuses me how knowing it’s made up (lack of a better description) makes the bible clearer.
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I am sure you know this applies to all sides in the discussion, right Laurie? I think it’s been shown fairly that there are things that Creationists distort or get wrong. This is unfortunately something we all have to deal with and weed through in our searches.
Just because we can find mistakes doesn’t declare that everything is wrong or may not even determine motives, although sometimes motives do seem to come clear. I think when inerrantists declare that they affirm the Chicago rules of inerrancy for the bible they are showing a clear bias and motive in their searches. If scientists declare that they affirm the doctrinal statement that “the bible is wrong in everything it writes” then they would also be people I would steer away from in trying to find truth.
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Yes I agree there are the type, but you seldom see the third. I actually considered going back to school for archeology when I realized the problem. But… I am a mother of two amazing girls, home schooling off the grid with 14 goats and 19 chickens…. Where’s the time?
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@Arch,
I loved your post about “touching.” I had long ago noticed most of this myself and even pointed out some of it in my book. Thing is, no good up-standing Christian is going to debate this with you. Instead, they will intimate that such things are trivial and the REALLY important thing is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior.
As we both know, they don’t have the answers so they’re not going near such stuff with a 10-foot pole. OR … they will go into some long-winded answer to try and lead the listener/reader away from the original question and towards an area they feel more comfortable with.
It reminds me of a discussion I had on my own blog with unkleE about the sleeping disciples while Jesus prayed in the garden. Taken at face value, how could anyone record his prayers if they were all asleep? Of course, believers can’t take it at face value because then there are no answers. Just like “To Touch or Not to Touch.” 😉
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I’m afraid, Laurie, that you may be a little confused about the difference between science and religion – science accumulates facts, then forms an hypothesis, which it then tests, and if successful and repeatable, forms a conclusion, whereas religion begins with a conclusion, then scrambles in its search for facts to support it.
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@ Laurie
“[Albright’s] central theses have all been overturned, partly by further advances in Biblical criticism, but mostly by the continuing archaeological research of younger Americans and Israelis to whom he himself gave encouragement and momentum … The irony is that, in the long run, it will have been the newer “secular” archaeology that contributed the most to Biblical studies, not “Biblical archaeology.”[13]
basically – he failed to find the proof he was looking for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Albright
Finkelstein and Herzog have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that Moses , the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan are all fiction.
Their findings (conclusions) after more than a rof a century of work are agreed upon by the consensus of archaeologists and relevant scholars across the globe.
The implications this has for Judaism, but more so Christianity and Islam is staggering, for if the biblical character of Jesus referenced the Law of Moses etc he was either a fraud or a fiction.
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The less said about Mohamed the better.
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“after more than a rof a century of work”
after more than a quarter of a century of work
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William G. Dever is the son of a fundamentalist preacher. From a small Christian liberal arts college in Tennessee he went to a Protestant theological seminary that exposed him to “critical study” of the Bible, a study that at first, he resisted. In 1960 it was on to Harvard and a doctorate in biblical theology. For thirty-five years he worked as an archaeologist, excavating in the Near East. In his book What Did the Bible Writers Know and When Did They Know It, he tells where scholarship regarding archaeology and the Bible has been in past decades and where it is now. Dr. Dever is no longer a theist, but he writes:
He adds:
He writes of archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as having been “discarded as a fruitless pursuit.” He is not saying that he believes that the biblical Moses never existed. He is talking about what can be gathered from archaeological evidence.
About the historical Moses he writes:
About Leviticus and Numbers he writes that these are,
“clearly additions to the ‘pre-history’ by very late Priestly editorial hands, preoccupied with notions of ritual purity, themes of the ‘promised land,’ and other literary motifs that most modern readers will scarcely find edifying much less historical.”
Dever further concludes that,
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@Nan
A ”discussion” with unklee? Isn’t this a contradiction of terms, Nan?
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@ archaeopteryx1
Yeah…what he said too… 🙂
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Regarding Dr. Dever’s statement that,
I have my own personal theory, upon which I expand on my website, “in His own image,” but first, a brief history lesson.
The Sumarians were the first recorded people to have occupied Iraq, or what was then the prime component of Mesopotamia. They had a theocratic civilization with a pantheon of gods, that survived for 4,000 years – let’s see any modern country match that.
Gradually, a group of Semitic nomads, known collectively as the Akkadians, filtered into Northern Mesopotamia during the third millennium, BC. As they increased in numbers and gathered strength, war broke out between the Akkadians and the various Sumarian city-states and between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC, the Akkadians gained control of all of Mesopotamia, and Akkadian replaced Sumerian as the language of the land. The famous Akkadian ruler, Sargon (2334–2279 BCE), united the entire area and cleared a passage of all obstacles between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, opening the first safe trade route, then went on to conquer all of the Levant, nearly to Egypt. (Sargon is believed to be the model for the Bible’s “Nimrod.”
However open trade routes are two-way streets, and between 1700 and 1500 BCE, another group of nomadic Semites known as the Amurrites, so named after their god, Ammuru, split in half, one group remaining nomadic, while the other, like the Akkadians had done centuries earlier, eased into Northern Mesopotamia, settling there and in Southern Assyria without green cards. History repeated itself – Sargon was the last, great Akkadian king, and after his death, Akkadian rule gradually declined, as the Amurrites gained strength, and eventually became the new rulers of Mesopotamia for the next 500 years. The KJV knows these people as the Amorites, and in fact, Mt. Moriah, where Abe allegedly tried to murder Isaac, was named after the Amorites.
The early period of the Amorites’ rule marks the alleged time of Abraham’s trek from Mesopotamia to Palestine and his introduction to his god, who called himself, “El Shaddai,” the god of the mountain.
Abraham is said to have come from Ur, which was a large, metropolitan city in Southern Iraq, near the gulf, but there was a smaller town, named “Ur-fa,” which to this day, celebrates itself as the birthplace of Abraham. Abe was said to have traveled from Ur, to settle in Haran, a distance of nearly 700 miles, while Ur-fa is located only 20 miles from Haran – which seems the more logical? Part of Abe’s family, his nephew, Laban, remained in Haran – both Haran and Ur-fa were located in what then was Assyria, home of Amurru – throughout Genesis, Abe’s nephew is known as “Laban the Syrian.” If Laban, Abe’s nephew, was Assyrian, what would that make Abe? Another interesting coincidence lies in the fact that Amurru, god of the Ammurites/Amorites, called himself, “El Shaddai,” the god of the mountain. I contend that whatever tribe of people, represented by the fictional character, Abraham, left Northern Mesopotamia for the Levant, they brought their god, Amurru, with them.
I maintain that the Hebrews followed the god Amurru, then, after a 400-year gap in Hebrew history, during which pretty much nothing noteworthy happened, they reemerged into history, if one can call the Bible that, when they merged with the Midianites, aka the Kenites, metalworkers of the Southern Levant. The Midianites/Kenites worshipped an obscure desert god they called YHWH – those people were so poor, they couldn’t even afford to buy vowels.
Early in Exodus, Chapter 3, Moses’ god informed him that his name was Yahweh, but confessed that he was known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel as “El Shaddai.” It is my contention, that at this point, the two “gods” were merged into one, for what would become the Hebrew people.
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Well, sending your girls off to public school, where they could learn about what’s going on with the rest of the world, then inviting us all over for a barbeque and fried chicken banquet, could really free up some time – just sayin’ —
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Nan, as Douglas Adams might have said, you’re a “cool frood”!
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Ark, I found this, from that link, particularly insightful:
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I like rof better, it has a Je ne sais quoi quality about it —
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Christians will try to deflect any discussion – unklee is a perfect example as I have raised this issue with him – about Finkelstein’s work and suggests it does not impact on Jesus or the Christian belief.
How does one deal with this level of mind-numbing stubbornness?
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I used to post on another site, having nothing to do with religion, under the name, “pg gargleblaster,” and they had an “ignore” button, that when you highlighted someone’s name, and clicked, “ignore,” all of their comments disappeared, sadly they don’t have that here.
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You may (or may not) know, Arkenaten, that the “ten” suffix to an Egyptian name, meant, “lord.” The god, Osiris, had an evil brother, Set, basically, “Loki,” to the Norse, “Thor,” and his personification, as “Lord Set,” or, “Seten,” became the basis, for the biblical Satan.
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