- Overgeneralization: Evidence for Pilate or Hezekiah doesn’t automatically validate Abraham, Adam, or the serpent. The chronological and evidential gaps are vast.
- Genealogical assumption: Lineages in biblical texts do not guarantee historicity; they often serve theological rather than strictly historical functions.
- False dichotomy: Adam frames it as either the Bible is wholly historical or it collapses into meaninglessness, overlooking traditions (Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant) that see deep theological meaning even in symbolic or mythic texts.
- Circular reasoning: He assumes the salvific significance of Christ’s death depends on the historicity of all biblical events, rather than on Christ’s own life and resurrection.
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LOL! Somebody says the salvific significance of Christ’s death depends on the historicity of all biblical events. But every big-name YEC—from Ken Ham to Henry Morris—has admitted that the Gospel does not depend on a Young Earth. They’ll even say openly: “You can be saved without believing the earth is 6,000 years old.”
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So which is it? If every biblical event has to be literal history for salvation to matter, then by your logic the Gospel already collapsed for YECs the moment they conceded that point. If, on the other hand, salvation does not depend on every single event being historical, then your whole argument against “alternative views” is just a house of cards.
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Including many fake sayings. It’s not hard to see that the agenda of Thomas was to change Jesus into a Greek philosopher.
Incorrect on both counts.
Great point!
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That’s not so much circular reasoning as bad Christology and thus bad hermeneutics.
Paul told that if Jesus did not resurrect, our faith is pitiful misunderstanding - we would still be condemned sinners (1 Corinthians 15).
Jesus told to his disciples that it was good that he left them because the Holy Spirit would come after Jesus left (John 16).
The Holy Spirit would lead the disciples to know the truth - the disciples were not ready to receive all the truth when Jesus was with them.
About miracles: if there is just the visible material university, miracles would be difficult to accept. If there is God and He is involved in what happens, then miracles become understandable and logical.
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Looks like you know your Bible well. Thanks for the info.
Thanks you for the comments. You and Richard G are truly dedicated contributors to Biologos. You might want to read the Gospel of Thomas. When I first was introduced to it 40 years ago, I was amazed.
In Jesus always,
Doug, the biochemist and perhaps a disciple too
I’ve read it in the original. It’s propanganda for Greek philosophy, trying to make Jesus palatable by ditching His real claims. It was plainly written late by someone who wasn’t there.
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Im not sure what you mean by created. Your original statement implied one or both of the genealogies in Matthew and Luke may have been simply made up. I would suggest that is not the case, but they differ due to the different emphasis each author had. Matthew, for example, appears to view Jesus as the second Moses. Luke meanwhile views him more in the priestly tradition, like Samuel, and this is reflected in his genealogy. Hence each author included the names of ancestors they viewed as relevant.
Being amazed does not mean what youre reading is true. Why would you choose to believe something written mid to late 2nd century instead of the Gospels, the earliest of which could very well have been written in the 50s or 60s, well within the lifetime of eyewitnesses?
There were reasons why the majority of scholars and believers rejected the gospel of Thomas from the gernerally accepted Cannon (Without going into hyperdetail about controversial inclusions). I am not a scholar in that sense although I am a believer, obviously. Perhaps my vanity does not stretch as far as to overide those reasons, or preume i know better.
I am sorry, but my faith sees no reason to go searching through such documents. I see it as no more valid than the book of Mormon or even the Koran, although the latter has other reasons for its existence, and claims for relevence are cultural.
IOW, sorry. I am not interested in the Gospel of Thomas, amazing or not.
Richard
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There is almost no overlap between the two genealogies between Jesus and David, and no indication in either genealogy that any names have been left out.
If all the names in both genealogies are genuine but missing from the other one, then even if all Jesus’s ancestors are considered relevant by one of Matthew/Luke (which is unlikely) that would still result in more than 60 generations between Jesus and David, which would mean David must have lived some 500 years before our current estimates.
I dont want to get into a to and fro about the genealogies as it’s off topic, but Ill just say that Matthew appears to have left out, for example, 3 kings between Jehoram-aka-Joram and Azariah-aka-Uzziah, his great-great-grandson. So he left out generations for whatever reason. This seems to be a common feature of ancient Near Eastern genealogies, where for example particular names may be included to highlight them, while others are left out. Clearly today we tend to do things differently (we insist on precision in timing of events for example), but that is the challenge - to get in the minds of people from a culture 2000 years ago.
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Probably has to do with getting to the numbers 14, 14, and 14, as in: it was 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to exile, and 14 from exile to Christ - as Matthew himself goes to the trouble of pointing out at the end of that text! So yeah, the symbolism was more important to Matthew than strict inclusion of everyone (much less trying to use such texts to tally up years - the greatest exercise of all time in missing the point!).
The importance of symbolism - imagine that! (or don’t, and just deny Matthew and most of all literature, sacred and otherwise, if you’re into flat modern literalism along with the clouded YEC mindset.)
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Three sets of 14 isn’t particularly noteworthy if it’s achieved by missing out some names, possibly inventing others, and then (IIRC) miscounting anyway.
Again … an exercise in missing Matthew’s point. Obviously he didn’t think the genealogical fastidiousness to be any ‘noteworthy’ pursuit; but instead was making a different point to a different (Hebrew) audience that apparently found other things more noteworthy than you do. I’m not saying you should think differently, or that you need to find the same things noteworthy that they did. Feel free to take Matthew seriously, or dismiss him on those grounds. That’s fine. I’m just pointing out that ancient Hebrew authors in many cases had priorities that obviously don’t exactly match our favorite priorities today. [I do take your point, though, that it seems cheaper to find significance in an ‘imagined’ fourteen than in a literally accurate fourteen. I’ve grown up in the same modernist stew that you did.]
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yes I know all about the 14, but as I said I didnt want to get into a to and fro so I chose to leave out the nitty gritty (I seem to be copying Matthew!).
Ah – the error of cultural imperialism, or worldview imperialism.
They didn’t think the way we do.
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