Tag Archives: James

Historical Christ, Jesus Christ, Skeptics, Top Ten Posts of 2010

Did Ancient Non-Christians Write about Jesus? Part 1 – #4 Post of 2010

13 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Recently I was in a discussion with a skeptic of Christianity, a man who had been Roman Catholic for 55 years, and then decided that he couldn’t believe Christianity any longer.  During our conversation, he asked what historical evidence I could provide that Christianity was true, so I immediately went into the material in the New Testament.  After listening to me for a few minutes, he told me that all of that material was mythical and legendary, and he wanted to know if I had anything outside of the New Testament.

Now, this is like saying, “Aside from your multiple eyewitnesses, do you have any good evidence?”  But nonetheless, I started to provide non-Christian sources that mention Jesus, only to be stopped cold.  He claimed that there was no extra-biblical, non-Christian evidence of Jesus’ existence in the first two centuries, and that he, in fact, doubted that Jesus ever existed.

I’ve spoken to many skeptics over the years and I have heard a few of them take this position, but it is rare.  From what I know, there are virtually no reputable historians who deny the existence of Jesus.  According to historian Edwin Yamauchi, the idea that Jesus never existed is indeed extreme.  “From time to time some people have tried to deny the existence of Jesus, but this is really a lost cause.  There is overwhelming evidence that Jesus did exist.”  But rather than just make that assertion, what is some of that evidence?

During my conversation, I mentioned the Jewish historian Josephus as one important example of non-Christian evidence, but my skeptical friend confidently told me that Josephus never mentioned Jesus.  Let’s take a look.

Josephus was a very important Jewish historian, born in A.D. 37, who wrote most of his four works toward the end of the first century.  Yamauchi explains, “His most ambitious work was called The Antiquities, which was a history of the Jewish people from creation until his time.  He completed it in about A.D. 93.”   Josephus writes about James, the brother of Jesus, and Jesus himself in The Antiquities.

In the first mention, Josephus recounts how a high priest, Ananias, takes advantage of the death of the Roman governor, Festus (also mentioned in the New Testament), to have James, the brother of Jesus killed.  With the previous governor dead, and the new one not yet arrived, Ananias could take the law into his own hands.

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them a man whose name was James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Here we have Josephus mentioning Jesus, James, and Festus, all New Testament characters.  We also have corroboration that some people were referring to Jesus as the Christ, which means Messiah, in the first century.  Yamauchi claims that no scholar “has successfully disputed this passage.”  Bottom line: my skeptical friend was mistaken.

There is more from Josephus, plus other ancient sources, and we’ll continue to deal with them in subsequent posts.  Make sure you come back!

 

Difficult Bible Passages, Faith and Works

What is James Teaching About Faith and Works?

8 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

If you’ve ever read James 2:14-26, then you’ve probably been confused.  Why?  Because James seems to be contradicting Paul’s clear teaching that eternal salvation is by faith alone, and not works.

Recently, through my seminary studies, I was introduced to a new way of interpreting this passage that has really opened my eyes.

The first thing to look at is James 2:26: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”  Notice that in this analogy, the body is equated with faith and the spirit is equated with deeds (works).  Since the spirit of a person is what animates his body, then James is saying that works are what animates faith!  This is just the opposite of the way many of us think about faith and works, but that is definitely what James is saying in verse 26, which is the conclusion of the passage.

But what does James mean by dead faith?  In verse 20, James says that “faith without deeds is useless.”  So now we know that dead faith is not faith that has disappeared or ceased to exist, but it has become useless.  It is not functioning in the way it was intended to function.

OK, but how was faith intended to function?  Here is where most everyone gets tripped up.  We read verse 14, which says, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?”  Ah hah!  We are talking about salvation from hell, about eternal life with God, right?  After all, any time the New Testament talks about being saved, it always means eternal life.  Wrong!!

The New Testament authors use the word save to mean several different things, and the only way we can determine which meaning is correct is by context.  According to Zane Hodges,

The Greek verb used in James 2:14 (sozo) has a wide range of possible meanings which run the gamut from physical healing and rescue from danger, to spiritual deliverances of various kinds, to preservation from final judgment and hell.  It is the interpreter’s duty to examine each text where this verb occurs to ascertain its exact sense.

When we look at James 1:21; 2:15-16; and 5:19-20, it certainly appears that the context dictates that James is speaking of being saved from physical death, and not being saved from hell.  Again, Hodges comments, “It has nothing to do with eternal destiny at all, but deals instead with the life-preserving benefits that obedience brings to the Christian and which cannot be experienced by mere hearing or by faith alone.”

Useless faith is faith which does not promote the life-saving qualities of God’s Word.  Sin brings pain, suffering, and finally physical death to those who practice it.  It is only by putting God’s Word to use through works that we gain the benefits of its life-saving capacity.  In this way, our works animate our faith.  They make our faith come alive in our earthly lives.  The Book of Proverbs is full of this theme (see  Prov. 10:27; 11:19; 12:28; 13:14; 19:16), and James is building on this Old Testament foundation.

“OK,” you say, “I can see your point, but what about James saying Abraham and Rahab were justified by works?”  The word justified does not always refer to legal righteousness in front of God.  It sometimes means that, but not always.  In this case, James is talking about the vindication of our faith during our spiritual walk on earth.  Abraham’s works perfected his faith.  Rahab was also vindicated by her works.  James is not speaking of the faith that saves from hell, but the faith that believers have after they are saved from hell.  Works animate, perfect, and mature that faith.

These verses are not talking about eternal life or salvation from hell.  They are not talking about the initial faith that saves a person from God’s eternal punishment.  They are referring to the faith of a person who is already destined for heaven.  For this person, their faith becomes useless in their earthly life if it is not animated by works.  If you don’t act out your beliefs, you get no benefit from them while you live this physical life.  This is very practical and wise advice that the readers of James needed to hear.

Our mistake is that whenever we read the words faith, works, save, and justification, we always assume the subject must be eternal life.  This assumption is not always correct.  The New Testament writers employed these words to convey several different concepts, and if we don’t carefully study the context, we will miss their point.

New Testament Reliability

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 2

12 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Continuing from part 1, let’s examine the evidence for dating the books of the NT, especially the books of the NT which contain substantial historical facts about Jesus and his followers.  First we should note that three leaders of the early church – Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp – quoted passages from 25 of the 27 books of the NT right around A.D. 100.  They could not have quoted from the books if they hadn’t been written, so the latest the books of the NT could have been written is A.D. 100.  But there’s strong evidence that many of them were written much earlier.

Several well-attested historical events occurred between A.D. 60 and 70.  First, the Jewish temple, the temple where Jesus and his disciples worshipped along with the rest of the Jewish people, was completely and utterly destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Roman army.  The Romans were extinguishing a significant Jewish rebellion and when they finally entered Jerusalem, they left no stones standing from the temple because they wanted the gold used in the contruction of the temple.

Second, both the apostles Paul and Peter were executed in Rome by the emperor Nero between A.D. 66 and 68.  Their deaths are recorded by church historians – Clement of Rome, in particular, who was alive when their executions occurred.  Their tombs are major historical landmarks in Rome to this day.  Third, James, the brother of Jesus, was executed in Jerusalem by the Sanhedrin (Jewish High Council) in A.D. 62.  This event was first recorded by a Jewish historian named Flavius Josephus in the first century.

Why are these three events important?  They help prove that the books of Acts, Luke, and Mark were written before A.D. 62.  Follow the logic.  Acts was written by the historian and medical doctor, Luke.  Luke was a companion of Paul and recorded many of the events of Paul’s life.

One odd thing about Acts is that it ends abruptly with Paul imprisoned in Rome; Paul is still alive at the end of Acts.  Luke also frequently mentions James, the brother of Jesus, and Peter, the apostle, in the book of Acts.  At the end of Acts, Peter and James are also alive (there is no mention of their deaths).

Now, if I were writing a biography of an individual, it seems like one of the most important events that would take place in the biography would be the death of the person.  It’s especially important because it ends the biography!  Luke mentions the martyrdom of Stephen, so he clearly has no trouble writing about the deaths of Christians, but we are left with the fact that Luke never records the deaths of three of the major characters in Acts.

There is only one good explanation for this fact:  they were all alive when Acts was written.  If they were all alive, then Acts must have been written before A.D. 62!  That means Acts was written within 30 years of Jesus’ death and not even a single generation had passed.

In part 3, we will continue to argue for an early dating of several NT books.