Fistbump of the Day: Yes, We Are Still Fighting Gnosticism

The past several weeks I've head of a manuscript fragment that people are suggesting sheds light on the early history of Christianity. It's just a scrap of papyrus written in coptic but what is putting the world up in arms is one of the phrases written on it:

Jesus said to them, my wife,

This is basically making people remember that some people believe that Jesus was married. Before people tried to use the gnostic text "Gospel of Thomas" to substantiate the claim but the text itself does not explicitly say that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene people infer it. The interesting thing is that neither this scrap of papyrus or the Gospel of Thomas have either the historical evidence or validity of the four canonical gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are people who don't see the Gospels as historical true or that there is historic and identifiable Christianity and they seem to want to give alternate gospels and texts equal weight.

[Dr Karen] King said that it was not until around 200 A.D. that claims started to surface, via the theologian known as Clement of Alexandria, that Jesus did not marry.

"This fragment suggests that other Christians of that period were claiming that he was married" but does not provide actual evidence of a marriage, she said.

"Christian tradition preserved only those voices that claimed Jesus never married. The 'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' now shows that some Christians thought otherwise." [Source]

Dr King and others are clear in telling that this does not prove that Jesus did indeed have a wife. However they think that there were Christians [the Gnostics] who did think that Jesus had wife and the reason why traditional Christianity does not is because the poor Gnostics were silenced. It's amazing to me that people would even try to make Gnostics Christians. The Mormons have more in common with historic traditional Christianity than the Gnostics did!  I mean really. The only way you could really think that the Gnostics would have been recognized as Christians by Peter, James, John, Paul, and the other first century Christians is if you don't know what the Bible teaches and/or what the many Gnostic flavors taught.

Added to this Dr Dan Wallace has posted the following piece of information:

Dan Wallace just posted this:

“News flash: Harvard Theological Review has decided not to publish Karen King¹s paper on the Coptic papyrus fragment on the grounds that the fragment is probably a fake.” This from an email Dr. Craig Evans, the Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia University and Divinity College, sent to me earlier today. He said that Helmut Koester (Harvard University), Bentley Layton (Yale University), Stephen Emmel (University of Münster), and Gesine Robinson (Claremont Graduate School)–all first-rate scholars in Coptic studies–have weighed in and have found the fragment wanting. No doubt Francis Watson’s comprehensive work showing the fragment’s dependence on the Gospel of Thomas was a contributing factor for this judgment, as well as the rather odd look of the Coptic that already raised several questions as to its authenticity.

It's a forgery. 

What I find interesting is that while we have people trying to water down Christianity and say things about Jesus that they cannot prove over a forgery and no Christian killing over the situation, we have three countries protesting and killing over a movie on YouTube  that insult Muhammad based on Islamic sources! God is straight up showing us a difference between those who follow Christ and those who follow Muhammad.

It's nothing but the hand of God. The best thing is that God has called up brothers in Christ in every generation for when this kind of crap gets raised up. Here is a list of links regarding the way Dr James White, Mariano Grinbank, and Matthew Dowling have addressed this issue. Fistbumps to them all.

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife and Update: The Gospel of Jesus' Wife by Matthew Dowling

Was Jesus married? Manuscript says yes by Mariano Grinbank

Check these out by Dr James White
Get Ready for A Wave of Gnostic Looniness Once Again
A Note to the Secular World: Do Your History
Calling the MSM---Anyone Home?

Sunday Quote: Ben Witherington on the Historical Resurrection of Jesus - Apologetics 315

Brian Auten has posted a great quote from Dr Ben Witherington on the important of the fact of Jesus' Resurrection. His comment flies in the face of scholars like Dr. Dominac Crossan who I heard once say that Jesus' physical resurrection plays no part in his Christianity.

“Any position in which claims about Jesus or the resurrection are removed from the realm of historical reality and placed in a subjective realm of personal belief or some realm that is immune to human scrutiny does Jesus and the resurrection no service and no justice. It is a ploy of desperation to suggest that the Christian faith would be little affected if Jesus was not actually raised from the dead in space and time.

A person who gives up on the historical foundations of our faith has in fact given up on the possibility of any real continuity between his or her own faith and that of a Peter, Paul, James, John, Mary Magdalene, or Priscilla. The first Christian community had a strong interest in historical reality, especially the historical reality of Jesus and his resurrection, because they believed their faith, for better or for worse, was grounded in it.”

- Ben Witherington

I agree with Dr Witherington. Without the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, there is no Christianity (1 Corinthians 15).

Sunday Quote: Ben Witherington on the Historical Resurrection of Jesus - Apologetics 315

Common Sense Is Tingling: Debunking Christianity: My Responses to a Christian Scholar

I have not seen very many posts from John Loftus where he takes something written by a Christian Scholar and respond to portions of it. To be fair, he doesn't say who the scholar is but that doesn't really matter. I'd suggest reading the post to see how Loftus thinks and argues. Your common sense should be going off like fire alarms.  He doesn't raise anything new or interesting to object or argue about because his points have already been answered elsewhere. Instead I'd like to comment on something he says at the end. Quoting the scholar, and then making his comments (in bold), Loftus posted:

If it was not the remarkable person of Jesus of Nazareth himself, culminating in his death and resurrection, what was it? They shrug and say they don't know. Something happened.

This is a gross mischaracterization. Plenty of views have been suggested, as I do. The visionary basis for the view Jesus arose from the dead beginning with either Peter or Mary Magdalene works just fine. But non-believers emphatically do not have to propose an alternative scenario at all. A historian can look at an argument purporting to show what happened at Custer’s Last Stand and say that scenario is improbable without having to suggest a better one. It could well be that there isn’t enough evidence to say one way or another after showing one such scenario is improbable.

Loftus suggests that as long as non-believers can show that Jesus' Resurrection is improbable, they don't need to propose alternate scenarios to explain the historical facts that we do have. We don't have a single account of Peter seeing Jesus when he was alone. And last I checked there is proof of groups of people experiencing the same vision or dream at the same time and most of the accounts we do have of people seeing the risen Christ it was in groups of two or more people simultaneously. The only glaring exceptions are Mary Magdalene and Apostle Paul. I point this out because I wonder if Loftus and other non-believers think that they don't need to offer better plausible explanations for the historical evidences of the Resurrection, why do they keep falling all over themselves offering alternate scenarios other than the one the Bible gives? The other problem is none of the alternate explanations are good explanations! It something is not improbable then it can't be miraculous. Something can really happen and be true yet seem improbable or even seem impossible. If you ever seen what happen to liquid helium in room temperature, you'll have an idea of what I mean. Loftus and other non-believers have failed to offer alternate scenarios to explain what happened the Sunday after Jesus' crucifixion and calling the Resurrection improbable adds nothing to the discussion because all miracles are improbable and tells us nothing about whether or not it happened. That is why such events are called "miracles".

Debunking Christianity: My Responses to a Christian Scholar