Tag Archives: Christianity

New Testament Reliability

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 4

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Based on the previous post, we know that the NT documents were written soon enough after the events of Jesus’ life to prevent anyone claiming that they are largely tainted by myth or legend.  This fact was very important to establish, but we are still left with a nagging question.  Just because it was written soon after the events doesn’t mean that the writers didn’t make it all up.

Maybe the followers of Jesus fabricated this story about him dying and rising from the dead right after Jesus died, so that Jesus couldn’t correct them.  How can we trust them?  After all, don’t people start religions to gain power and wealth?  We certainly see many modern-day religious figures becoming quite wealthy.

One newspaper story from several years ago featured a man in Miami, Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who claimed to be the reincarnated Jesus himself!  He owns armored Lexus’ and BMW’s as well as several diamond-encrusted Rolex watches; he wields tremendous influence over his thousands of followers – everything a charlatan could dream of.  Maybe the disciples, the writers of the NT, were just like de Jesus Miranda.  Let’s find out.

We are going to ask questions of the NT writers that any court of law would ask of witness testimony.  It’s interesting to note that many famous attorneys who have studied the evidence of the NT became Christians because they understood how compelling the evidence is.  So let’s pose some of the questions that would be asked of a witness.

Question 1: Do the witnesses claim to be eyewitnesses or claim to have received their information directly from eyewitnesses?  This question is obvious since eyewitness testimony will always be more accurate.  With respect to the NT writers, all of them implicitly claim to be eyewitnesses of the events surrounding Jesus’ life.  They write as if they were there and they heard Jesus’ words themselves.

However, we have several instances in the NT where the writers explicitly claim to have eyewitness testimony.  They go out of their way to prove this point.  For example, Luke claims to have “carefully investigated” the accounts “handed down . . . [by] eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:1-4).  In 1 John 1:1-3, the apostle John makes it clear that he is writing about what he himself heard, saw, and touched.

In fact, in the span of three verses, he claims eyewitness credentials 8 times!  Here is a person that wants you to know he was there.  Not to be outdone by John or Luke, Peter reminds his readers in 2 Pet. 1:16-18 that “we were eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty.”  Time and again, the writers of the NT claim to be presenting eyewitness testimony, so question 1 is answered with a resounding “yes.”

We will continue with additional questions in the next post.

New Testament Reliability

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 3

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In the previous post, we started arguing for early dates for several NT books, but we didn’t finish the discussion.  So this post picks up where we left off!

It is generally agreed upon by scholars that the gospel of Luke was written before the book of Acts.  Dr. Luke wrote both of them and most historians believe that Acts was the sequel to Luke’s gospel (read the beginnings of Luke and Acts to see this).  If this is true, then the gospel of Luke was written before A.D. 62, just as Acts was, but probably a couple years earlier.

Many scholars believe that the gospel of Mark was written before the gospel of Luke because Luke seems to use the gospel of Mark as a source.  This fact would then place Mark even earlier, say, in the mid-50’s.  Keep in mind that both of these gospels record the miraculous life, and more importantly, the resurrection of Jesus.  These events are recorded as facts.

There’s more!  Not a single book in the NT mentions the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.  If, indeed, many of the books of the NT were written after A.D. 70 (as some liberal scholars claim), that would mean that nobody thought the destruction of the temple was important!  How could this be?  The temple was the single most important place in all Judaism.

When Jerusalem was sacked and the temple demolished, the Jews lost the geographical center of their religion.  Tens of thousands of Jews died in the war.  The books of the NT often refer to the temple and the on-going worship of God there (e.g., Heb. 5:1-3, Rev. 11:1-2), so it seems incredible that nobody would mention its demise, yet not one person does.

Can you imagine someone writing about the people of New York City and never mentioning the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001?  Ridiculous, right?  The best explanation for the events of A.D. 70 never being mentioned in the NT is that most, if not all, of the NT was written prior to A.D. 70.

We now have evidence arguing powerfully for early dates for Mark, Luke, and Acts (before A.D. 62) and early dates for most, if not all the NT (before A.D. 70).  Remember the time it takes for legendary development: it takes more than 2 generations.  We aren’t even one generation removed from the events, so the possibility of legend creeping in is virtually zero.

Hang on, though.  There are parts of the NT that we can date even earlier.  One of the most interesting passages in the NT is 1 Cor. 15:3-7.  First, we should note that the First Corinthians letter is dated by most scholars to A.D. 55 or 56.  Now, in the verses mentioned above, scholars have noted some peculiarities that indicate Paul is repeating an oral creed about the resurrection of Jesus that had existed for some time.

In fact, many believe that Paul received the information in this creed from James and Peter in Jerusalem around A.D. 36-38 (Gal. 1:18-19).  This would mean that we have information about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus within just a few years of the events themselves.  Even scholars who are unfriendly to Christianity admit this could be true.  If so, there is no chance that this creed could be legendary.

Let’s sum all of these facts up.  Early dates are important to establishing the historical truth of a document.  If we can establish that the documents were written before 2 generations had passed, there is very little chance of legend or myth sneaking in.  The historical books contained in the NT more than meet this criterion.

We have good reason to believe that Mark, Luke, and Acts were written prior to A.D. 62, well within one generation; we have good reason to believe that First Corinthians contains an oral creed that dates to a few years after Jesus’ death; and we have good reason to believe that most, if not all, the NT was written prior to A.D. 70.

Even if we grant that some of the books of the NT were not written until the late 1st century, it is still too early for legend to corrupt the core facts.  Now that we know the documents of the NT are early, we need to ask whether the writers of the documents are trustworthy and reliable.  We will deal with that in the next post.

Atheism, Evolution, Morality, Philosophy

Does Evolution Explain Morality? Part 7

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In the previous post, we found significant problems with survival ethics, the ethical theory which claims that “morality is easily explained by evolution and the tendency for biological life to survive and reproduce.”  But there are more problems.

Survival ethics are merely descriptive, not prescriptive.  They describe the behaviors of the past that led to survival of the human species.  I may be thankful that people followed these rules in the past, but how am I to decide whether I ought to follow these rules in the future? 

As Francis Beckwith explains, “After all, some people in the past raped, stole, and murdered. And I know of many people today who have feelings to rape, steal, and murder. Perhaps these behaviors are just as important for my existence and the preservation of the species as the ‘good’ behaviors.”  Unless there is an objective moral law that is over and above survival ethics, there is absolutely no possible way to determine which behaviors that have been produced by evolution are the good ones and which are the bad ones.

One response available to evolutionists is that those societies that have allowed atrocities, such as Nazi Germany, have not survived, and so evolution did indeed cull them out.  This response fails for two reasons.  First, brutal and tyrannical regimes have existed since the dawn of mankind and they continue to exist today.  People of the nineteenth century were basking in the afterglow of the Enlightenment and were confident that mankind’s scientific discoveries and progress were leading them to a golden age.  Yet within the first half of the twentieth century two world wars were fought when brutal regimes rose to power.  To argue that we are now reaching some sort of evolutionary nirvana where corrupt governments can no longer arise seems incredibly naïve, to say the least.  History is replete with dictators and despots and there is no end in sight, unless you are a Christian theist who knows that Christ himself will usher in the end of times. 

Second, if the evolutionist uses the failure of brutal regimes as evidence they are morally wrong, then this indicates that any brutal regimes that do survive are proved morally right.  In other words, only survival is a criterion for rightness, but this lands the survival ethicist right back in social Darwinism, which survival ethicists decry.

A second possible response to the point that evolution has produced those who rape, murder, and steal is to say that we should only rationally obey moral feelings that the majority of people hold.  A few bad apples are not to be heeded.  Here again, there are numerous counter examples that can be given. 

The majority of Europe was under Nazi rule during World War II, so by this criterion Europeans should have adopted the majority view of German nationalism. 

During the heyday of the Soviet Union, millions lived under its brutal hegemony, so it would have been impossible for anyone in that nation to hold the view that their government was behaving immorally. 

Slave ownership was an almost worldwide phenomenon just a few hundred years ago, so how could a person living during that time claim that owning slaves was morally abhorrent?  They could not unless there was an objective and universal moral law that was true for all people at all times; survival ethicists deny this view, however. 

More examples could be given, but neither moral truth nor any other truth is determined by a vote.  If everyone in the world believed that two plus two equals five, then everyone in the world would be wrong.  No philosophical theory can overcome the laws of mathematics or our intuitive knowledge of right and wrong, so we should always be cautious when we are told that whatever the majority says must be right.

Conclusion

Evolutionary ethical systems suffer from numerous problems that are not easily resolvable.  In stark contrast stands the ethics of Christian theism.  Christian theism holds that the universe was created to glorify God, that history has a purpose and that it is moving toward a climax where good will defeat evil once and for all. 

God created human beings to have intimate relationships with him.  Out of God’s perfect moral nature flow his ethical commands to love him and to love one another.  He is the transmitter of moral laws; he has the authority, as the ultimate standard of good, to demand obedience; he has placed an innate knowledge of morality in us; our conscience seers us when we disobey his laws; he knows our motives and intent even when other humans do not; he is spirit and has created immaterial souls and values for his creatures.  Every single moral intuition we have is explained logically by God’s existence.  In fact, if there is even one objective and absolute moral law, God must exist.

The nineteenth century German atheist Frederick Nietzsche pronounced that God is dead and he predicted that the twentieth century would be the bloodiest on record.  He understood that any ethic without God as its source would lead to moral chaos.  Fyodor Dostoevsky, the famous Russian novelist, has said that if God does not exist, then all things are permissible.  It was obvious to these men that without God, ethics have no foundation.  A house with no foundation collapses into rubble and morality is no different.  How can a perfectly holy, just, and righteous God be replaced with a mindless, irrational process such as evolution without devastating consequences?

The contemporary western world is unaware of the danger of evolutionary ethics because it is living on the borrowed foundation and capital of Christian theism.  Evolutionary ethicists maintain a following only because  their theories cloak themselves with a veneer of Judeo-Christian morality.  Take away that veneer and their ethical systems collpase.  Our only hope is to hold tight to the one who made us, the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[quotation references can be provided on request]

New Testament Reliability

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

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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.

New Testament Reliability

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In two previous posts, Darrell argued that the Greek New Testament (NT) that we have today is almost identical to the twenty-seven books that were originally written.  These two posts can be found here and here.  In this post and following posts, I want to establish an answer to the obvious next question.  If the NT we have today is almost identical to the one originally written, that’s nice, but how do we know that what was written originally wasn’t a bunch of lies?

In other words, did the NT authors record fact or fiction?  Were they trying to record real history or were they making up a story to convince people to follow them?  Maybe what was written was so far removed from the real events that myth and legend overtook the truth.  In order to get an answer to this question, we will use some of the same criteria that historians employ to determine whether a document is reliable – whether the authors can be trusted.

The first thing we want to know about a historical document is how close to the events it was written.  The NT authors were primarily writing about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, who died around the year A.D. 33 (this fact is well-attested by ancient non-Christian historians).  If we are to trust the accounts written about his life, then the closer the documents are to A.D. 33, the better we can trust them.

So dating the original NT books is extremely important.  Note that we are talking about dating the original writings, not the manuscript copies that exist today.  Even though we don’t have the originals, we can still use historical analysis to deduce roughly when they were written.

One additional reason that dating the books is important is due to the nature of legendary development.  We’re all probably familiar with the way legends can develop about an event, given enough time.  In fact, history is full of strange and outrageous stories of Jesus or the apostles doing bizarre things (e.g., Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and having a child).  The one thing these legends have in common is that they developed many generations and often hundreds of years removed from the time Jesus and the apostles lived.

For clarification, we are not talking about the development of lies or fabrications about an historical event, but the development of legend, which is defined as the outgrowth of a period of oral transmission of a tradition until the original facts have been lost.

In fact, historians have shown that it takes a minimum of three generations for legend to substantially corrupt core historical facts about an event.  Usually, more than 3 generations are required, but there are no examples of legend significantly crowding out truth in 1 or 2 generations.

Why is this?  As long as the eyewitnesses of an event are still alive, or their children, they will correct any legend that taints the true story.  When the eyewitnesses and their children start to die, there are fewer people left to correct falsehood, so legend can creep in.  This fact about history will prove useful in assessing the NT.

Next post, we will continue looking at this important question.

Atheism, General Apologetics, Morality, Profanity

What Do Political Liberals and Atheists Have In Common?

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According to an August 2008 poll by Barna Group, they are both far more likely than conservatives and evangelical Christians to engage in behaviors such as unmarried sex, viewing pornography, lying, getting drunk, and gossipping.   These results, sadly, are not surprising to me, as previous poll data and personal experience have proven these facts true over and over.

With regard to liberals vs. conservatives, here are the statistics when respondents were asked what behaviors they engaged in during the previous week:

On average, adults who describe themselves as “mostly liberal” on sociopolitical issues were twice as likely as those who describe themselves as “mostly conservative” to participate in activities that conflict with traditional moral perspectives. In particular, liberals were five times more likely to participate in unmarried sex (20% vs. 4%), more than three times as likely to view pornography (30% vs. 8%), more than twice as likely to lie (21% vs. 8%) and to get drunk (17% vs. 7%), and twice as likely to engage in retaliation (13% vs. 6%) and gossip (17% vs. 9%).

Atheists and agnostics don’t fare much better when compared to evangelical Christians:

Examining people’s faith perspectives revealed that evangelicals were the group most likely to follow traditional morality while atheists and agnostics were the faith segment most likely to reject those ways.

Among evangelicals, profanity (16%) and pornography (12%) were the most common transgressions. Fewer than 5% of evangelicals had engaged in gossip (4%), inappropriate sex (3%), gambling (2%), lying (1%) or drunkenness (less than one-half of one percent).

In contrast, among skeptics (atheists and agnostics) participation in the eight behaviors ranged from a low of 11% (retaliating) up to a high of 60% (using profanity). While evangelicals averaged 6% participation in each of the eight behaviors mentioned, skeptics averaged five times that level (29%). Other common acts among skeptics included exposure to pornography (50%), gossip (34%) and drunkenness (33%).

What to make of these results?  Although it is possible for atheists to live moral lives, they often do not, when compared to strong Christians.  Again, there is no surprise here for those of us who have come from non-belief to belief, as adults.  We remember how we were before Christ changed us from the inside out.  If Christ does not live inside you, you face an impossible battle.  Rather than gloat, as believers, we should humbly thank God for what He’s done for us.  The atheist lives just like we would without God’s grace.

General Apologetics

Are Christians Thinking About Christianity?

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No, not many of them.  I suspect that this just mirrors the fact that most people aren’t thinking about anything.  But it shouldn’t be that way for those who call themselves followers of Christ.  He called us to love God with our mind .  Read these quotes below and see if any of them apply to you or someone you know.  If so, what are you going to do about it?  (Hint: reading this blog might be a great start!)

“We are having a revival of feelings but not of the knowledge of God.  The church today is more guided by feelings than by convictions.  We value enthusiasm more than informed commitment.” – 1980 Gallup Poll on religion

“We live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of western civilization.”  – R. C. Sproul

“Ignorance is the mother, not of devotion, but of heresy.”  – Puritan Cotton Mather

“For many, religion is identified by subjective feelings, sincere motives, personal piety, and blind faith.”  – J. P. Moreland

“I’m always encouraged to use my intellect in how I approach my vocation, select a house, or learn to use a computer.  But within the sphere of my private, spiritual life of faith, it is my heart, and my heart alone, that operates.”  – J. P. Moreland

“Most Christians would rather die than think – in fact they do.”  – Bertrand Russell

Atheism, General Apologetics

Response to YouTube Atheist

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In a recent post, I asked our readers to watch the video of an atheist gentleman who addressed his video to “all Christians.”  In the video, he attempts to convince Christians that they are wrong to believe in the Christian God and Bible.

I wanted to make a few comments about what he said.

First, he badly misunderstands religious truth claims.  In his video he argues that since there are multitudes of religions in the world, that the chance that Christianity is the true religion is extremely small.  The problem with this argument is that it assumes that all ideas have an equal chance of being true.  But that is clearly not so.  The way we determine whether an idea is true is we assess the evidence for it. 

Religions make claims about the world that we can test.  If religion A makes a claim about the world that is false, we can safely say that religion A is not true, or at least that part of it isn’t.  For example, some religions make historical claims that are seriously lacking any evidence and, in fact, contradict known historical facts.  Those religions should be judged false.

Besides, his argument boomerangs back on him, because atheism is only one of multitudes of options, so his chance of being right is just as small as the Christian, by his own flawed logic.

He next compares God to unicorns.  He claims that there is no evidence for God or unicorns, and therefore he doesn’t need any faith to not believe in God or unicorns.  A couple things could be said. 

First, nobody argues that unicorns are real, except for a few kooks, whereas north of 95% of all the people that have ever lived believed in a god or gods.  Surely the atheist has to explain why that is.

Second, there are numerous evidences for the existence of God captured in books that fill up libraries.  Anybody heard of C. S. Lewis?  He may not be convinced of these evidences, but to say that there are none offered is false.  I am not aware of huge libraries filled with books offering evidence for unicorns.

Third, if it is so obvious that there is no evidence for God, then why do so many people not see it?  And really smart people?  I have an electrical engineering degree from GA Tech, and I think there is a difference between unicorns and God.  Unicorns are just concepts that do not exist in reality, but God exists in reality.  Why?  What is wrong with me?  How did YouTube guy figure it out?  He needs to consider these questions.

But perhaps the saddest thing about this video is that he doesn’t understand Christianity.  In a period of a few minutes, he mangles the gospel, he misunderstands the use of metaphor in the Bible, and he misinterprets the doctrine of hell (the Bible never teaches that God literally burns people alive for eternity; it is a figure of speech). 

Based on these gross errors, I draw the conclusion that he really hasn’t studied Christianity, as he says at the beginning of the video.

Dinesh D’Souza coined a term for people who believe in a childish form of Christianity.  He calls them crayon Christians.  These are people who never grow in their understanding of the faith, and are stuck in a childish belief system.  That describes our YouTube atheist.  His Christian beliefs never advanced beyond the crayon stage.

I pray that some day he puts the crayons aside.

Essential Beliefs, Mormonism, Theology, Trinity

Is the Trinity Biblical?

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Many non-Christian groups who accept some form of the New Testament – Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses – claim that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is false.  One of the arguments often used is that the concept of the Trinity cannot be found in Scripture, so the doctrine cannot be true.

This argument, however, will not fly.  The argument for the tri-unity of God is straightforward and well grounded in the biblical text.

The first premise of the argument is that God is one.  We know this from verses like Deut. 6:4 and 1 Cor. 8:4.

The second premise is that three persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – are all called God.

Concerning the Father, we read verses such as John 6:27 and Rom. 1:7.

Concerning the Son, we read a verse such as John 8:58, where Jesus uses an Old Testament name of God, “I am,” to refer to Himself.  We also read of instances where Jesus does things that only God would do, such as forgiving someone’s sins in Mark 2:5-7.

Concerning the Holy Spirit, we read a verse like Acts 5:3-4, where the Holy Spirit is called God.

Therefore, if the Bible teaches that God is one (and it does) and the Bible teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God (and it does), then the doctrine of the Trinity is established.  There are three persons in one God.  This is what Christians affirm and non-Christians deny.

Now I have to quickly state that there are far more verses than the ones I mentioned above that establish the doctrine of the Trinity.  I am only providing a tiny sampling in order to refute the claim that the Trinity is not based on the Bible.  It is biblical, but please don’t think that my evidence above is exhaustive.  If you want to dig deeper, then this study of the Trinity should more than satisfy you.

Religion, Salvation

Poll Says American Christians Don't Believe Jesus is the Only Way

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My response to this article might surprise some of you.

The article discusses a recent report which indicates that 37% of evangelicals rejected the claim that Jesus is the only way to heaven.  52% of American Christians agreed that religions other than Christianity can lead to eternal life.  But what does this data mean?  Should we moan and groan that Christians don’t understand the teachings of their own faith?  Maybe, but I think there’s another side to the story.

There is no doubt, from the Bible, that absolutely nobody gets to heaven without Christ’s death and resurrection, both of which were necessary to reconcile man with God.  The tougher question is this:  how is Christ’s sacrifice applied to people who never hear the gospel?

I, for one, do not like this line of questioning in a survey or poll because it puts the Christian in an awkward position.  The requirement that every person, whether they’ve heard the gospel or not, put their faith in Christ is a nuanced issue that requires some explanation and does not lend itself to multiple choice answers.  It’s like being asked to describe God in five words or less.  It can’t be done!

The truth is that we aren’t given specific knowledge of which other individuals are going to heaven and which aren’t because we don’t know other people’s hearts and minds.  God doesn’t tell us.  Many Christians act as if we do know, but we just don’t.

The New Testament teaches us that we should believe in Jesus for eternal life, and it says this over and over and over again (read the book of John if you don’t believe me).  So we have this positive command, to believe in Jesus, and it is a clear and plain teaching that the biblical authors wanted to make sure we understood.  Another clear teaching is that those who have heard of Christ and rejected Him are in eternal jeopardy.  We can be sure of these truths.

The New Testament, on the other hand, does not spend a lot of time talking about followers of other world religions who have never heard  of the authentic biblical Jesus.   Theologians have tried to explain what happens to those who never hear, but none of these proposals warrant dogmatism because of the scant biblical evidence.

I know that God wants people to believe in Christ.  I know that those who reject Christ will be separated from God.  The Bible teaches those things clearly, but I don’t know, for sure, what happens when a person is unable to hear or respond to the gospel of Christ.

I believe that many Christians know John 14:6 and they know Romans 10:9, but some pollster calls them and puts them on the spot: “Is Jesus the only way to heaven?”  Polls don’t allow for nuanced answers.  They demand black and white answers, and frankly, I can sympathize with those being asked this difficult question, most of whom are not theologians who study this issue every day.

A much better question to put to Christians would be: “Does the Bible teach that believing in Jesus leads to eternal life?”  I think the vast majority of Christians would answer “yes.”

A follow-up question could be: “Should Christians tell others about Jesus so that they, too, can have eternal life?”  Again, I think a great percentage would say “yes.”

Let’s focus on what we know.