Josiah Concept Ministries

Today was a day for housekeeping, or “blogkeeping.”  I tweaked a few things on my layout, most notable is dropping the image in support of Fred Dalton Thompson for President in 2008.  It’s not that I’m not going to vote for the former Law & Order star, it’s just that I don’t want this blog to become a political blog.  I want to keep this an apologetics blog.

Mike will be interested to know that I finished the critique of the founding principles of Geocreationism.  You’re a real sport, buddy!  I’m not converted, sorry, but you do have some really good ideas.  You’re welcome to keep trying to convert me, however.

Internally, I alphabetized the list of articles under my Articles tab, and placed a star next to all of the ones that aren’t done yet.  Readers won’t notice that, but it will help me.  That is when I noticed that I have three articles that I started but never finished.  So I will finish those over the next three to four weeks, in addition to my regular posts.  I’m going to start with finishing my answer to the Jesus Tomb documentary (better extremely late than never), followed by a critique of open theism, and finally a more satisfactory answer to this video than this guy (part 2).

I’m going to try to get back into a 4-6 post per week habit, as that is the only way to increase my blog’s rank, attract more readers, and retain the readers that I have.  If I were asked the secret to blogging success, I would have to say that regular posting is it.  Regular posting gets me more hits per day than any links that float out there.  Although I’m still going to try to collect those by interacting with some other blogs, and maybe by conversing on TheologyWeb.

That is a preview of what is to come on Josiah Concept Ministries.  Stay tuned!

Since I’ve been absent for a long while, I figure that a short explanation and a list of the priorities for this month are in order. But, first and foremost, I wanted to let everyone know that I am back, and hopefully for good this time! It’s been fun catching up on the conversations that I’ve missed these past few weeks by not having Internet access, and I’m ready to dive headlong back into the fold of the blogosphere.

I also wanted to thank everyone who kept faithful to the blog; by the third week I didn’t really expect any readership, but I see I’m still in the teens on my hits-per-day chart. That’s a very positive sign, and I thank God as well for leading readers to His truth presented here.

State of the Blog

At the present, I’m reading the actual book The Jesus Family Tomb by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. I will be taking careful notes and doing additional research as needed to expand the three blog articles I wrote already on the Jesus Family Tomb { 1 | 2 | 3 }. By the end of next month, I hope to have enough material for a book. Given the controversy is old news and my lack of scholarly credentials, I will probably not try to sell the book to a major publisher or enlist an agent, but instead I’ll try to use a low or no cost self-publishing company to market the book.

After a few months, I’ll publish the text online, under my Articles tab.

As for articles, I noticed that Mike over at Geocreationism.com has published a few things that I just have to address (most specifically this). I think I’ll write a series of articles, but that probably depends on how much material I end up getting. A series of articles has been the SOP for me in response to a particular website in the past.

I’m also going to do a small reorganization of the articles tab, grouping the articles by subject. I’m also going to mess around with the Debate tab, and modify the one and only debate that I have there into an easier format to read.

I’m also going to switch my feed to something that is more easily tracked, if I can. WordPress has a few quirks to it that make it difficult at times for serious blogging.

You know, I think that Mike and Brian are the closest people I have to “blogging buddies.” All three of us have such divergent ideas about the natural world. I’m the conservative theologian, Mike is the guy who tries to reconcile science and Scripture, and Brian is the guy who has given up Scripture in favor of science. And yet, despite our differences, I get along with both of these guys. Brian’s blog helps me learn about evolution: the enemy, the opposition, the Great Lie (as some call it). Mike shows me what happens when you try to compromise Scripture. I learn much by interacting with these two. Mike would agree that it is the will of God that brought us in contact. Brian not so much.

Thank you both for your blogs. I only pray that both of you have gained something by reading my blog.

Next on my plate for articles is to do some book reviews. With my first child (daughter probably, but we can’t tell on the ultrasound for sure) on the way in the first part of October, I don’t have a lot of money. Therefore, I will have to stick to best sellers (since I know that the library will have a copy). That only makes sense anyway, since those are the ones that will cause the most trouble anyway. I’m going to start with this gem, and I might do this one next, but I’ll keep my eyes open for a substitute since the library doesn’t seem to be carrying it.

By request, I’m going to try to fit an article on open theism into my schedule. Some new questions have come up by a reader, and I want to research it more carefully before I make a pronouncement.

I see nothing wrong with open theism as a philosophy, but as a theology it falls short when it comes to the issue of Exhaustive Divine Foreknowledge (EDF). In most cases, open theistic principles deny God EDF (since if we are truly morally free to do as we please, our actions cannot be known ahead of time) and that leads to serious problems when interacting with texts like Genesis 50:20 (see also here) and any prophecy of the Bible.

Latin Mass

It seems that Pope Benedict XVI is going to reintroduce the Latin Mass despite protests from upper-echelon clergy and Jewish community leaders. The Tridentine Rite–the Latin Mass from the sixteenth century, contains antisemitic phrases.

I’ve read a few articles about this document that will be released late this week or early next week, and the news media likes to accuse the Mass of antisemitism. The article that I link to actually explains what is considered antisemitic in the Mass, and I have to say that I am absolutely appalled by it. The Mass says:

. . . Jews live in “blindness” and “darkness”, and pray “the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ”.

How, exactly, is this antisemitic? It appears as though the Catholic Church is now heading more and more toward ecumenism. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes a very bad thing when one must sacrifice God’s truth in order to achieve it.

Jesus Christ Himself said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me” (Jn 14:6, emphasis added). No words have been minced, and there is nothing unclear about this passage. Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life–not a way, a truth, and a life. Jesus isn’t one path of many to God, He is the one and only path.

The text of the Mass isn’t denigrating Jews, it is proclaiming the truth of God’s Word: those opposed to Jesus are enemies of God (Mat 12:30, see also Jms 4:4 ). The text of the Mass is asking for the Jews to come to realize the truth and fullness of God’s revelation in Jesus.

Objective truth is taking a backseat, once again, to the rights of the individual to believe as he or she so chooses. Here in the US, we who believe in objective truth are increasingly being treated as outcasts. Those of us who dare proclaim the Word of God from the Bible are ridiculed and scorned. This is yet more evidence of it. The Catholic isn’t allowed to pray a prayer in a public service that infringes on someone’s religion.

James White had a similar piece, in which he responded to a reader who said that apologists like White should spend more time refuting cultists rather than arguing theology with fellow scholars. I have to agree with Dr. White:

If I demand that God’s Word be held as the highest standard, and that stringent rules of consistent exegesis be applied in responding to the claims of others, I cannot “give a pass” to my brethren who refuse to apply such stringent standards to themselves, and I must apply them to my own teaching and preaching as well.

It seems as if the Catholic higher-ups are once again looking at ideas invented by man–freedom of religion–to set the standards. The apologist like myself, then, must do as Dr. White does: call them out on it, with the Word of God as the highest standard. Rather than looking at this prayer as a sincere request for the Jews to embrace God’s truth, they are more concerned that it makes the Church appear to hate Jews by impinging on the Jewish person’s individual right to believe in a religion of his or her choosing.

I doubt that God will gloss over that at Judgment Day. The Catholics are embracing the values of the world, which is enmity with God (Jms 4:4). They aren’t gathering souls to Jesus; they are scattering (Mat 12:30). Mind you, these protests come from cardinals–allegedly the most learned of Bible scholars within the Church! If I, a Protestant layman with no formal theological training, can figure this out, surely they can, too!

Whatever happened to the Great Commission, Catholics?

It has been a long time in coming, but I am finally ready to post part 3 of my response to the Jesus Family Tomb documentary that aired on Discovery Channel last month. The reason for the delay is the lack of good source information about chemical patinas.

I have noted that there are essentially three prongs to the argument that the tomb discovered in the Talpiot suburb of Jerusalem is the family tomb of Jesus Christ. The first is the statistical grouping of the names. The second is that one of the names, Mariamne, is actually Mary Magdalene of the gospels. The third is that the patina evidence from the James ossuary matches the patina sample from the Jesus family tomb ossuaries, but more significantly, does not match 100 random patina samples from other tombs.

What, exactly, is patina evidence? Although I’m loathe to use Wikipedia as a source, here is the Wikipedia definition of a patina:

Patina is a chemical compound formed on the surface of metal. Patinas form on metal from exposure to the elements. They are often deliberately added by artists and metalworkers. Patinas may be used to ‘antique’ objects, as a part of the design or decoration of art and furniture. [source]

That means that the filmmakers are scraping samples off the surface of the ossuaries, and testing them against each other. The assumption is that if one has the same patina composition as another, then they must have resided in the same tomb, or at least in the same general area as the one they matched with.

Because the patina evidence allows Jacobovici and company to place the James ossuary in the Talpiot tomb, they can then add “James” to the statistical analysis and that makes the numbers jump through the roof. The James ossuary is thought to legitimately be the ossuary of James the brother of our Lord and author of the New Testament epistle bearing his name by many scholars. This evidence alone bolsters the case for this tomb beyond a reasonable answer by the Christian apologist.

But, there are a number of problems with accepting this answer as legitimate. Most of the experts associated with this film have since come forward and offered context to their comments on camera that usually torpedo that part of the case. Robert Genna, director of the Suffolk County New York State Crime Lab, the expert consulted on the patina evidence, is no exception. He had this to say about the patina conclusions quoted in the film:

The elemental composition of some of the samples we tested from the ossuaries are consistent with each other. But I would never say they’re a match… No scientist would ever say definitively that one ossuary came from the same tomb as another…We didn’t do enough sampling to see if in fact there were other tombs that had similar elemental compositions…The only samples we can positively say are a “match” from a single source are fingerprints and DNA. [source]

This alone is enough to refute the patina evidence offered in the film. This statement, from the film’s own expert, raises enough doubt to close the book on the patina evidence.

What about the entirety of the case of the Jesus Family Tomb? Well, we’ve seen that there are serious doubts about the methods used to obtain the names, using the gospel accounts on one hand and then dismissing them out of hand when they don’t support the case. The name “Mariamne” is never associated with Mary Magdalene, and that inscription was likely read incorrectly. The DNA evidence is almost completely useless. The patina evidence is questionable at best. The entirety of the case, I’m afraid, must be dismissed for lack of evidence.

I have begun to work on the initial research for writing the third and final portion of my response to the Jesus Family Tomb special that aired on the Discovery Channel last month. I have also begun footnoting a final article that will combine all three blog posts, supplemented with new information and theological perspective, that will permanently adorn my Articles tab.

In my research, I have noted that statistics expert Dr. Andrey Feuerverger, literary analyst Dr. Francios Bovon, and DNA expert Dr. Carney Matheson have all supplied the context in which their conclusions were given, and that shifts their meaning dramatically. All three experts were misrepresented by the filmmakers. The only scholar who remains firmly behind his conclusions is James Tabor, who insists still that this tomb is the tomb of Jesus Christ and His family.

But, in order to hold to a conclusion so flatly contradicted by the facts, Tabor has to resort to circular reasoning and fact-stretching. A blatant example, from a blog post on my birthday:

Although the names are “common” as is so often pointed out by so many, it does indeed seem to be the case that the statistical grouping of these particular names in this particular tomb is far from common. This is confirmed by the mathematical probabilities based on name frequencies, or more directly, by looking at the names in tomb after tomb of which we have record. Nothing like this occurs anywhere else.

Okay, the names are common. Got it. The grouping is the real issue. Got it. The next day, he posts this:

The name Jesus or “Yeshua” is a shortened form of the biblical name Joshua or Yehoshua. It is known of course, but to say it is common is incorrect. If you take all forms of the name Joshua known to us from inscriptions and literary sources as compiled by Tal Ilan (Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Palestine 300 BCE to 200 CE) one finds 100 examples of the name out of a total of 2538 male names, which is 3.9%. The specific shortened nickname “Yeshua” is of course much less common than that.

Okay, the name Jesus is . . . uncommon? Wait a minute! Yesterday, you said something different!

In order to remain in the argument, despite solid refutation from reputable scholars, Tabor has to resort to chasing his proverbial tail. It all stems from the initial rebellion in the Garden: now, instead of convincing us that God is simply wrong, enough time has passed and there are no eyewitnesses left to stop the enemy from convincing us that God just doesn’t exist. It started with the Father, but the Son has come under attack. Some deny His existence. Some deny His Resurrection. All deny His Lordship, and would try to convince us to do the same. They are unwitting pawns in a larger cosmic game, and they do not realize for whom they are fighting–nor where that leads.

They see death as the natural end to a natural life, not as the inevitable punishment for their sins against a just and holy God. We should pray for them, even though they persecute us. Perhaps thorough this mess they will see the truth.

Uber-Apologist James R. White of Alpha & Omega Ministries has finished his new book, From Toronto to Emmaus, which is a refutation of the Jesus Tomb controversy. Dr. White has written quite a bit about the controversy on his blog, and has spent quite a few sleepless nights–I imagine–putting this book together. It is available for pre-order here.

This is the official list of upcoming articles for this site:

• King James Onlyism
• Open Theism
• Part III of Response to Discovery Channel’s Jesus Tomb Documentary
• Resurrection/Empty Tomb evidence
• Update of In Defense of Trinity
• Updates and additions to The Significance of Water
• Shifting Writely Articles over to this server to maintain a consistent look and feel

No, I’m not going to write an article with that last title.  I’m actually going to do that. Just thought I’d clear that one up for the hyper-literalists in the group.

Okay, I haven’t been feeling well these past few days.  I won’t go into gory details; suffice it to say that I feel better now and will continue to work on my response to the nonsense that is the Jesus Family Tomb.

Next on that front is an article on the patina evidence that links the James ossuary with the actual tomb.  The problem that I’m facing there is twofold: 1) I don’t have the book, and that is where the bulk of this material is located; and 2)  I know next to nothing about patinas in the first place.  My plan to remedy this is to visit my local library branch and read some Archeology 101 primers that have information about patinas and patina evidence so that I can have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what I’m supposed to be seeing in regard to that.  Then, I can take a look at what information I can find about the patina evidence that they’ve collected.

From what I understand, the dimensions on the James ossuary do not match the dimensions of the ossuary missing from this tomb, which of course makes it very doubtful that this is the genuine article.  Of course, I’ll have more on this later in the week, hopefully by about Friday or Saturday.

In closing, I wanted to comment on this article.  Since starting this blog, I’ve become a bit more conservative where gay rights are concerned.  I think that, as Christians, we should be more accepting of the people, but not of the sin.  General Peter Pace has given us a perfect example of exactly what I’m talking about.  Why should we tolerate amoral sexual behavior?  I’m a sinner, but I don’t flaunt it for all the world to see.  It is a private hell for me; I know it’s wrong but I can’t stop.  And I hate myself for it.  I don’t want everyone to know about it, I don’t want everyone to see my shame.  But the thing I want to do the least with my sin is create a rubber justification for it and the flaunt it for all the world to see, to wear armbands, to have parades for it, to create civil rights groups to protect my right to sin!  No, I want to pray to almighty God to come inside my heart, my hardened, sinning heart, and to regenerate it and make it in His image, so that I please Him.

But gay people don’t want to do that.  They want to flaunt their sinful behavior.  They take pride in their sin.  They want everyone to know that they live in rebellion against their Creator!  And worse than that, they want hide behind the law and use the law to silence anyone who would dare speak out against what they do!

Well, I would like to offer Gen. Pace a hearty congratulations for having the courage to tell it like it is.  All of the flack that he has gotten over this is more proof that God is giving people over to their sins, and sending them a powerful delusion to justify rebellion against Him.  He certainly seems to be hardening more people than He’s saving these days, and I say thank God that He chose me to save.  Obviously, I don’t merit saving.  But I’m glad that He called me nonetheless.

It just makes the fact that I still do sin all the more reprehensible to me.  I need to pray harder for the guidance of His Holy Spirit, that I may walk away from temptation and live in His truth.

It’s especially sad that more people don’t think like that.  “God has a plan, and that’s all nice, but we can do it better.”  What all sin boils down to is that mentality.  Isn’t that what Original Sin itself was?  “God said not to eat that fruit, but we know better.”  How arrogant that we think we know better than Him that created us.

Either I am truly in the “Big Leagues” of the Christian apologists, or we simply have a skeptic with far too much time on his hands.

I received a letter from “John,” who accuses me of only quoting people that agree with my position and not keeping an open mind on the tomb issue.  I was going to respond to it here, but James White got exactly the same letter, and responded to it here.  White said exactly what I was going to, so read his response and, as John said, “Enjoy your day!”

In the first post in this series, I discussed the significance of names to the Jesus Family Tomb. The conclusion by the producers was that it is statistically unlikely for the cluster of names to occur in any other tomb than the Jesus Family Tomb (1 in 600 that it was anyone else’s tomb).

I have already discussed that the statistics can be made to say whatever a person chooses to have them say. What is really important is the underlying assumptions that drive the statistics. I have even demonstrated that by using a different set of assumptions that a person can show that it is more likely to uncover a tomb with that cluster of names than not. Also, this pdf document discusses a correct interpretation of those statistics.

The name that the documentary made the biggest deal about was Mary Magdalene. Everyone seemed to agree that the presence of that name was a slam dunk in identifying this tomb as the tomb of Jesus Christ.

I can’t disagree with them. If they could prove that Mary Magdalene was present in this tomb, while it may not be 100% proof positive, it would certainly create a very compelling case.

While this is the strongest evidence to bolster the case, it is actually the weakest evidential link. Mary Magdalene’s presence in the tomb is based on a theory by Francois Bovon, the Frothington Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard Divinity School. This theory is pure speculation, and it fits well with the conspiracy-laden “reality” presented by the Da Vinci Code. A brief news story is presented here, outlining some of the professor’s views of the early first century church.

The Acts of Philip was discovered in 1972, and appears to be a fourteenth century manuscript. Professor Bovon claims that it was originally from the fourth century. Do I dare dispute a Harvard professor? While I can’t dismiss the possibility, I submit humbly that a story of a dragon being slain fits better with medieval literature than fourth century literature. I submit, humbly, that a quest to slay the dragon fits better with Arthurian legend than with fourth century history.

There are examples of animals talking in the Bible, so I am not going to be so bold as to claim that the leopard and the kid speaking in this manuscript automatically discount it from being authentic history. Instead, I’m going to point to the fact that worship in the Bible was reserved for God alone, and that the only Biblical person accepting worship was Jesus. Then, we’re going to look at the Acts of Philip v. 101: “And they fell and worshipped [sic] Philip and Bartholomew and Mariamne; and all set out together praising God.”

Contrast that with this from the canonical Acts of the Apostles (10:25-6), when someone tried to worship Peter: “When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, ‘Stand up; I too am a man.’” There was no rebuke recorded in Acts of Philip. This is a sharp contrast to the canonical books, and it seems likely to be a later work because of the Catholic practice of praying to and venerating saints (Philip and Bartholomew, as apostles, were also canonized as saints of the Church). This practice would have been unknown earlier, and manuscript support for it would have been unnecessary.

All that said, there is still no support in the Acts of Philip to tie “Mariamne” with Mary Magdalene. Mariamne is identified as Philip’s sister, but nothing in the canonical gospels identifies Mary Magdalene as Philip’s sister. An indirect tie exists, when Mariamne is called “chosen among women” (v. 95). I could believe that Jesus would call the first witness to His resurrection “chosen among women.”

If the author intended Mariamne to be Mary Magdalene, why not just call her such? It seems to me that this is just another example of the producers of this film trying to make the facts fit their conclusion, when this is so clearly not the case.

Try again!!!

Find a very secular reply to the Tomb of Jesus here. Guess what? She arrives at the same conclusion that Christians do!