The Secular Frontier

CNN KFILE: GOP House speaker Mike Johnson once wrote in support of the criminalization of gay sex, calling it a "dangerous lifestyle" Get to know the new GOP speaker Mike Johnson, because being a superstitious fundamentalist Christian is still viewed as conducive to wise leadership: James Michael Johnson (born January 30, 1972) is an American politician who is the 56th and current speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Republican Party, Johnson is currently in his fourth term representing Louisiana's 4th congressional district, first being elected in 2016. Johnson is a graduate of Louisiana State University and of Louisiana State's Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Before entering politics, he worked as an attorney in private practice; worked for the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom; and founded Freedom Guard, a nonprofit legal ministry designed to represent Christian clients in lawsuits. Johnson was a member of the Louisiana House of ... Read Article

WHERE WE ARE Most of the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew were borrowed from the earlier Gospel of Mark. In Part 1 of this series, I provided some general reasons why we should doubt the historical reliability of any changes or additions to the stories about Jesus made by the author of the Gospel of Matthew to the stories about Jesus that came from the Gospel of Mark. One of the biggest and most obvious additions by the author of the Gospel of Matthew to the stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark is the addition of the birth story of Jesus, constituting the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. There is no birth story of Jesus at all in the Gospel of Mark. So, if the birth story in the Gospel of Matthew is historically dubious, then that would give us good reason to doubt the historical reliability of any other additions or changes to the stories about Jesus that the author of the Gospel of Matthew makes to the stories about Jesus borrowed from the Gospel of Mark. In Part ... Read Article

Jodi Magness talked about the archaeology evidence from Jesus' day. In some ways, the archaeological record contradicts the biblical record. The archaeological evidence contradicts the biblical record of the walls of Jericho falling down, for instance. If temples always had a commercial areas, why would Jesus have gotten so mad? Magness says perhaps Jesus was mad the temple tax increased, but this is a very debated passage because the text doesn't point in this direction. ... Read Article

Mark Goodacre was the next presenter and he raises the issue of the empty tomb. Interestingly, the idea of an empty tomb doesn't fit with what we know of burial practices at that time. All the tombs that have been unearthed from that area and period were communal tombs, and so for instance our earliest narrative account of Jesus in Mark doesn't say the tomb was empty. So, historically, if Jesus' body was discovered missing, there would have still been a lot going on in the tomb. The "empty tomb" is not a term that can be found in the New Testament! The first use of the term is late fourth century by John Crysostom. If this topic interests you, I encourage you to see the replay of Dr. Goodacre's presentation to hear how this relates to the resurrection accounts. ... Read Article

Our third speaker is Hugo Mendez, who is an expert on the Gospel of John and argues the gospel and the three letters of John are a lineage of literary forgeries. For instance, the gospel of John pretends to be written by Jesus' beloved disciple, even though this is false. John is full of cryptic teaching and esoteric knowledge, Jesus being the divine man revealing secrets that people don't quite understand. Certain key figures are given interpretive keys for his message. The most important is Jesus's farewell discourse to his disciples (John 13:31-17:26). Mendez argues in order to read John effectively, you must read it backward, starting from the farewell discourse. For example, Jesus says he is going to the father, and the disciples can't follow him now, but will later. Jesus has prepared dwellings for the disciples in his father's house. Jesus is going to the father and is himself the way to the father. Jesus is in the father and the father in him, the father dwells in Jesus. The idea of the ... Read Article

There is no story about the birth of Jesus in the earliest gospel: the Gospel of Mark. Although the Gospel of Matthew borrows most of its stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark, it does make one obvious and major addition: a story about the birth of Jesus. If this major addition to the stories about Jesus from Mark is historically dubious, then that would give us a good reason to doubt the historical reliability of other changes and additions made by the author of the Gospel of Matthew to the stories from the Gospel of Mark. Jesus Scholars View the Birth Story in Matthew as Historically Dubious Scholars who study the historical Jesus generally agree that the birth story in the Gospel of Matthew is a legend and that it is historically dubious: The clearest cases of invention are in the birth narratives. Matthew and Luke write that Jesus was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth. This probably reflects two sorts of 'facts': in ordinary history, Jesus was from Nazareth; according to salva ... Read Article

The Gospel of Matthew has something significant to offer scholars who study the historical Jesus in terms of the sayings, parables, and teachings of Jesus. The main reason for this is that whenever a saying, parable, or teaching of Jesus is found in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, but NOT in the Gospel of Mark, that saying, parable, or teaching probably came from an early source of the words of Jesus known as Q. Without the Gospel of Matthew, it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine the content of this early source of the sayings, parables, and teachings of Jesus. However, the stories about Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew might not provide historically reliable information about the life, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus. If the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable, then the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew are also historically unreliable (in general) because most of the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew c ... Read Article

The second speaker Candida Moss looks at Jesus’s parentage and that Jesus was seen as the stepson of Joseph in some of the gospels and the Son of God.  In our oldest gospel, Mark, Jesus does not have a biological relationship with God, but is adopted by God in the tradition of Julius Caesar adopting Augustus.  By the time we get to John, Jesus is a pre-existent divine being. Interestingly, the women in Matthew’s genealogy point to sex scandal, and so that may be offering some suggestions about Mary.  Perhaps Jesus was illegitimate, and Joseph just adopted Jesus.  Some Non-Christian sources from the second to the fourth century supposed Jesus was illegitimate.  Moss supposes that post Jewish War there were many women around without male protectors and a lack of a reference to Jesus’ earthly father just pointed to that.  In any case, that is a flavor of Candida Moss’s presentation and do order the replay of the conference as Moss has further interesting insights into the question of whe ... Read Article

In a recent post, Dr. Richard Carrier has claimed that scholars who affirm the historical Jesus have “no genuine interest in actually checking if Jesus’s historicity is something we should be confident in.” See: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/25689 Dr. Kipp Davis and Dr. James McGrath will be coming on the Potential Theism Youtube channel October 27 at 1pm EST to dispute Carrier's claims. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@potentialtheism ... Read Article

I agree with probably 90% of what President Joe Biden says in his speeches. But his recent speech about the attack of Hamas on Israel is one that I strongly oppose. Here are some of his statements that I find objectionable: You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.  The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.  This was an act of sheer evil.  More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered — not just killed, slaughtered — in Israel.  Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed. [...] The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism. [,,,] We reject — we reject — what we reject is terrorism.  We condemn the indiscriminate evil, just as we’ve ... Read Article

In his book The God Delusion (hereafter: TGD), Richard Dawkins ends the second chapter ("The God Hypothesis") with these words: ...before proceeding with my main reason for actively disbelieving in God's existence, I have the responsibility to dispose of the positive arguments for belief that have been offered through history. TGD, First Mariner Books edition 2008, p.99 Dawkins attempts to carry out this intellectual responsibility in Chapter 3: "Arguments For God's Existence". First up in Chapter 3 is the case for the existence of God made by Thomas Aquinas. According to Dawkins, the arguments of Aquinas on this issue are EASY to refute: The five 'proofs' asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, don't prove anything, and are easily--though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence--exposed as vacuous. TGD, p.100 If it were in fact EASY to refute the case for God made by Aquinas, then Dawkins has shown himself to have very little intellectual ability in the philosophy of religion ... Read Article

New Opinion Piece in The Washington Post From the article: "We need Americans who demand — as atheists do — that truth claims be tethered to fact. We need Americans who understand — as atheists do — that the future of the world is in our hands. And in this particular political moment, we need Americans to stand up to Christian nationalists who are using their growing political and judicial power to take away our rights. Atheists can do that." See the article here ... Read Article

As I mentioned previously, I attended the first annual NINT conference this year. On Day 1: The first speaker was Dr. Bart Ehrman and his introductory speech explained the various rubrics for understanding the text: Textual Criticism: trying to determine the original words in the text (eg What did the author of Mark actually write) Source Criticism: what sources do we have for learning about Jesus (Mark, Matthew, etc) and what sources did these authors base their writing on (eg M, Q, Paul, etc) Redaction Criticism: How the authors changed their sources (eg., Matthew used Mark and changed him in places.) Literary Criticism: seeing the texts as literary entities as you would a story or poem and approaching them from that lens, not worrying about sources Historical Criticism: What can we learn about history, like the historical Jesus, from the text The word "criticism" above doesn't mean "criticize," but is closer in meaning to assess and evaluate, and in this way for example philosopher ... Read Article

Pope Francis has expressed openness to Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, under the condition they are not confused with marriage ceremonies for men and women, in what could be a watershed moment for the global Catholic Church. Pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples, study of women's ordination. See HERE ... Read Article

The Reason For Pain is a set of apologetic Youtube videos aimed at responding to the problem of how a loving, powerful God (with a plan for your life) could allow terrible unnecessary pain. For example, if we consider childhood cancer Or even the pain of social ostracisation from cleft lip Does this seem "loving" to you? So, here is their first video framing the problem the way they want it addressed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iM58Jlhb-g&list=PL0f6_epwixV4NfkBdlb3rFur0vG6TO5BB Next time, we'll look at the first main video in the series and consider the arguments. Further Reading, The classic text in this field is Prof Bart Ehrman's "God's Problem," the topic that made Bart leave the Christian faith ... Read Article