St. John Studies

“Harold Camping predicted that Jesus Christ would return to Earth on May 21, 2011, whereupon the saved would be taken up to heaven in the rapture, and that there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world” [Wikipedia “Harold Camping”].

I have mentioned Mr. Camping before [in a June 24, 2015 post]. Mr. Camping felt he was a prophet.  He believed he knew something the rest of us did not know.  God had given him the prophetic vision for the end of the world.

He revised his date of rapture to October 21^st and from that point on he avoided the press.  He suffered a stroke in June 2011 and never made public appearances.  He died on December 15, 2013 and sadly was labelled by the mainstream media as a “false prophet.”

What happened to this man?

His credibility was destroyed because his prophesy was incorrect.

What happens to the Bible when the standard of prophesy is applied to God’s Word? Well, something else entirely.

Paul Little says that prophesy in the Bible proves that the Book is the Word of God. There are literally hundreds of prophesies in the Bible and as you study the Bible and see the prophesies fulfilled it becomes clear that fulfilled prophecy is evidence of the supernatural Word of God.

The Bible is full of prophesies about the Jewish people, historical events, kings, nations and cities. There are too many prophesies to mention in such a limited discussion in this blog format.

To focus our discussion, let’s look at a sampling of prophesies regarding the life of Jesus. I remember the first time I became aware of some of these prophesies.  I was in a Disciple Bible Study with my pastor at that time and I was (to use a common expression) “blown away.”

Isaiah 7:14 says “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Concerning Jesus’ ministry and death—Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Psalm 22:16-18: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”

Likely the clearest prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

The “seventy sevens” prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 predicted the precise date that Jesus, the Messiah, would be “cut off.”

Isaiah 50:6 accurately describes the beating that Jesus endured.

Zechariah 12:10 predicts the “piercing” of the Messiah, which occurred after Jesus died on the cross.

We could go on and on, but I have vivid memory of my feeling the day I was reading some of the passages from Isaiah and we were discussing our reading in the Bible study class.

I thought truly this book is the word of God. How could all this be said in the Old Testament, written by a prophet [for example, Isaiah] in the mid to late 700’s B.C. and it be fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ?

There could only be one answer.

Harold Camping probably fell prey to the temptation that is out there for many who want to prophesy today. Maybe he had pride in his Bible knowledge.  Maybe he wanted to make money or promote his organization.  I don’t know.  I did not look into his heart while he was alive.  I can’t do that type of thing and we are not supposed to judge people as Christians.

But the poor man was wrong and he paid the price for being wrong.

When you hear someone question the Bible as the word of God, don’t let them do that without telling them about some of the fulfilled prophesies.

Those prophesies are there for a reason, not to destroy The Book’s credibility, but to get us to realize exactly what I realized in that Disciple Bible study…

Truly this book is the word of God.

Inerrancy is a topic that I have addressed before but Paul Little brings it up in his chapter “Is the Bible God’s Word” so we need to discuss it again [see St. John Studies November 17, 2015 for the earlier discussion].

What is it and why is it a concern for believers and non-believers?

Inerrancy means “that when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs [original documents], properly interpreted, will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether this has to do with doctrine or morality or with social, physical, or life sciences” [Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict].

As in yesterday’s discussion of the literal interpretation of Scripture, the inerrancy question is a “no win” question. If a believer asks you about it and you explain that you don’t ascribe to inerrancy, it may sound like there are weak spots in your Christian belief system.  For the unbeliever to ask you about inerrancy is to walk into a trap, a trap where you may find yourself denying contemporary knowledge of the social, physical and life sciences.  That will make you look stupid to the unbeliever.

Where are the sticking points that a believer needs to avoid in this debate?

Paul Little lays out some of those.

Let’s talk about phenomenology. If you are like me, that is not a word you use every day.   A simple definition of phenomenology is it is the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.  Let’s make it simpler to understand with some examples.  When the Bible was written, the people of that time described the world as they knew it.  Demonic possession occurs in many places in the Bible but today much of that can be explained by contemporary psychiatric and medical knowledge.  A convulsion caused by an epileptic seizure was a sign of a demonic possession but today we know the reason for the seizure.  It is not demonic possession of course.   Personality disorders are very real today but they were not “real” in Bible times because ancient peoples had limited knowledge of the human brain and human behavior.  What we would call schizophrenia today may have simply been called demonic possession in ancient days.  Were they wrong to label this behavior this way?  No, that is what they knew; that is what they were conscious of and their direct experience had to have some explanation.  Demonic possession seemed appropriate.

What happens when a believer says the Bible is inerrant? What they may be saying is that epileptic seizures are demonic possessions when we strongly suspect they are just epileptic seizures.  When an unbeliever tries to trap you with a question about inerrancy, it may be best to say the Bible was written in some instances to reflect the truth of the day.   Are we making a mistake to apply contemporary knowledge to a world many years ago?  I think so.  Some of the truth of Bible times may be surpassed by contemporary explanation. However much of the truth of the Bible is timeless. I am reading the Old Testament now and I can see a common theme in all the sacrifices that are offered to God: a sacrifice is only a worthy offering when it costs something of the giver.

As Paul Little says, “let’s not kill the goose that lays the golden egg.” Just because some contemporary knowledge may alter how we see the world, let’s not throw God’s Word away because we know more than the Bible authors knew when they wrote the Bible.  Very important truths are still in God’s Word.

Let’s talk about practical matters like transmissional errors. The doctrine of inerrancy also refers to the original copies of the Bible.  Let’s be “real”.  The original documents of the Bible do not exist but very old copies do and Biblical scholars have spent countless hours poring over very old autographs [manuscripts].  The scholars try to compare old autographs to detect errors in transcription.  Until the printing press was invented, the Bible had to be copied by hand for at least a thousand years.  It is entirely possible that transmissional errors crept into the text.

Wow, does that mean my Bible is full of errors?

No, it does not mean that.

Archeological discoveries and painstaking Biblical scholarship have confirmed that Masoretic Jews in charge of copying texts were amazingly accurate due to comparing fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with older text. Josh McDowell reports of the 40,000 fragments that exist, the oldest texts date back to a century before the birth of Christ [125 BC to 916 AD].  There is a 95% accuracy rate for the comparison of texts.

Let’s be realistic and let’s be fair.

It is not fair to apply today’s level of knowledge to Bible-time level of knowledge. What we know today definitely shapes the way we view the world.  What the writers of the Bible knew in their timeframe shaped the way they saw their world.

That does not mean they were wrong.

The Bible has a rich history as a document. It has been passed down to us from many sources as it has been translated to the language of the day.  That transmission through history does not mean that it was handled carelessly.  Unbelievable effort was made to present an accurate text to the Bible reader.

The “bottom line” is this. Do I or do I not have a Bible that is the inspired and inerrant Word of God?  Can I be confident that what I read in the Bible is truly from God?  The answer is yes, the Bible today is the inspired Word of God.   Truths like those found in Luke when Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son will always be relevant.  We need to recover the lost who have drifted away, we need to minister to the self-righteous, and forgiveness should be extended as one is restored to relationship with the Father God.

Let’s not get too anxious about our Bibles. “You can trust your Bible….The pollution which intruded in the transmission and translation of the Bible is minor, under control and diminishing” [McDowell, 349].

Read your Bible.

Your reading and study is definitely not a “no win” situation.

As Paul Little says, “The presence of problems does not prevent our accepting the Bible as the supernatural Word of God.”

I guess I have studied words all my life. I am not so great with numbers but I have always been fascinated with words.

Sometimes I hear a Christian ask another Christian “Do you take the Bible literally?” Sometimes I hear a nonbeliever ask the same question of the believer.  As Paul Little says, any way you answer this question you have problems.  If you say no, it calls into question your devotion to the Bible.  If you answer yes, it can lead to harder questions from the nonbeliever like “Did the trees literally clap their hands” in Isaiah 55:12?”  How do you defend your literal stance to a questioner like that?

How are we supposed to respond to the person who believes that the Bible is literal or the unbeliever who is “laying a trap”?

Well for me it goes back to the nature of words and before we go too far here, let me tell you that my knowledge of words does not get in the way of my belief in the inspired Word of God.

But what is a word?

A word is a symbol used to communicate a message [if you are reading this right now, you have a lot of symbols on your screen, of course].  What is a symbol?  Something used for or regarded as representing something else.

The Bible is full of words and consequently, full of symbols.

Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you my son to know whether you really are my son Esau or not” [Genesis 27: 21]. The whole sentence is a collection of symbols.

The writer [many attribute the author as Moses] writes the symbols in this manner to convey the interaction between Isaac and Jacob along with the idea of touching and the reason why Isaac wants Jacob to come near and be touched.

How “literal” is this passage?

I guess to the extent that the symbols call up specific images in the reader’s brain, the message is literal.  The writer hopes the images are the correct images that they intended to covey with their symbols.

If you are a student of words, you know that some words call up more images than others. Connotative words are common in language and they call forth more of a feeling response from the reader.  For example, the word “blood” makes most readers associate some blood-letting episode from their past and maybe even feelings associated with that event.  Language has its share of denotative words such as chair, which can summon up images of a thing to sit in.  The word has less feelings associated with it usually so the meaning is maybe more clear.

We have concrete words like axe, cup and ink pen. These words are specific and if I said to you “I picked up an axe” I think you could pretty clearly see my precise meaning.  We also have abstract words.  Jesus talks so much about love but have you ever thought about the imprecise abstract nature of love?  Love is what we call an abstract term.  Ask someone to give you a pound of love or go to the store to buy you a loaf of love.  Send the next door neighbor some love and you will get a strange look.  Why, because the word is abstract.  The definition of abstract is “expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance.”

Would our language be as effective without denotative and connotative words? Probably not.  Would we be able to get along without concrete and abstract words?  I guess so but we appreciate preciseness at times and if you have ever been around a tedious, detailed, descriptive person, abstraction is very nice at times.

Did the writers of God’s Word use these types of words? Of course they did.  Hebrew was the language of a lot of the Old Testament with Aramaic mixed in as Hebrew began to be used less around 200 BC.  Of course Greek was the primary language of the New Testament.  All languages use these types of words.

How are we to feel about the nature of words and the Bible as the Word of God?

I know that God spoke the Word to man. Man had to write it down.  In the New Testament, God spoke through Jesus and man had to record what Jesus said and did.

God inspired it all.

The big question is, “Is God’s inspiration just limited to the Scripture writers?” I don’t think so.  God is capable of inspiring me as a Scripture reader.

Depending on the ability of your brain and heart to comprehend the meaning of God’s Word, you are understanding God’s thought. Can some respond better to God’s Word than others?  Of course they can.  They have larger vocabularies, more experience as a Christian, more experience as a Bible reader and student of the Bible. Can one get better at understanding God’s Word over time?  Of course they can.

As we circle back to our original concern, the Christian who asks another Christian if they believe the Bible is the literal Word of God, the answer should be no, based on a good understanding of the word literal and a thorough understanding of how words work. It is not necessary for God’s Word to be literal.  It is almost like we are trying to put God in a box for the convenience of our own limited cognitive ability.  God can speak to us on many levels of language.

For the unbeliever who is trying to “lay a trap” for you to fall into with his question about literal interpretation, he probably knows how language works and he is wanting you to show your limited knowledge of how language works.

Don’t fall into that trap. Paul Little has an excellent response: “We believe that the Bible is to be interpreted in the sense in which the authors intended it to be received by readers….we need not insist on the historicity of Biblical events and records to enjoy and realize the truth they convey.”

The Bible does not have to be literal for it to be God’s Word.

This gives some “wiggle room” for God and His writers and it gives us growth room for our reading skills and for the development of sensitivity to God and God’s Word [also known as the ongoing development of Christian maturity].

And folks, that is a good thing.

I just don’t believe the Bible. I think the Bible is just like any other book. It is not special.  The Bible is full of contractions; that makes it unbelievable.  God inspired so much cruelty in the Bible; how could it be a good book to read?

This list could go on and on. Reasons that people reject the Bible as God’s special Word.

So many nonbelievers get “hung up” on the Bible before they even consider their relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul Little says they should be asking “What do you think of Christ?”  Instead they are focusing on this question:  “What is your view of the Bible?”

Let me get personal.

The Bible is not an easy “read”. I do not tell you that to discourage you.  I tell you that to support Paul Little.  An unbeliever who is focused on the Bible before making a commitment to Jesus will see the Bible as a real problem, a real stumbling block.

I have been a Bible reader off and on for many years. Off and on reading was not doing me much good.  Can a person focus on contradictions and raise personal doubts?

Yes they can.

But look at how an unbeliever approaches the Bible. Not only are they looking for contradiction but they are not allowing God to work in them as they read the Bible.  Hint: I never read my Bible today without asking for God to reveal Himself to me in the pages I am about to read.  I believe God does that.  It makes a big difference.

Off and on reading or reading bits and pieces robs you of the unity that you can see if you engage in concentrated effort to understand God’s Word.

Yes, you can “cherry pick” verses and pinpoint contradictions. Doubters point to Genesis 1:20 where it says that fowl were created out of the waters; Genesis 2:19 alleges they were formed from the ground.  What is the “real” story here?  The real story is in the use of the words and how we can parse our words and twist meanings.  Depending on your translation [mine is the New International] it says that the water “teems” with living creatures [1:20], the birds are an example.  Teem is not a word that we use much today; it means bring forth or produce.  Genesis 2:19 says that God formed “out of the ground all of the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.”

What do we have?

A contradiction.

What must we do?

Throw out the baby with the bath water.

Really?

The Old Testament is a collection of thirty-nine books written between 1450 BC and 400 BC. As you begin to understand the purpose of the Old Testament, you see that it is a story of God’s special relationship with one human family, the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  This family became the Jewish people.  These special people were God’s people and they were picked to show the world how the worship of God can save all mankind.  This was God’s plan to save all men from sin.

Are there contradictions in the Bible? I would imagine so.  But when one examines the contradiction examples, they seem pretty minor compared to the overall unity of the text.

But God inspired so much cruelty in the Bible. How can I believe in such a cruel God?

Yes, the Bible is full of instances of the Israelites destroying groups of people. An example is Deuteronomy 2:33-34:  “And the Lord our God delivered him over to us; and we defeated him with his sons and all his people. So we captured all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. We left no survivor.”

How can I believe a God who inspires people to do this? The history of this event is in God’s Word.

First of all man’s cruelty is not uncommon today. That’s not an excuse but we are not a perfect people.  We kill unjustly today and even in large numbers [Nazi Germany].

Secondly, God expected the Israelites to be a special people, set aside from other peoples. A practical way to prevent intermarriage from occurring was to totally destroy conquered peoples.  In the Old Testament the Israelites failed to destroy other people with horrible results [Psalm 106: 34-38] “They did not destroy the peoples as the LORD commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and learned their practices, and served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons…”

Thirdly, God demanded obedience and if He said destroy a people, He meant it. The Old Testament is full of examples of people who refused God’s direct command.  God spoke through Joshua to the people telling them to not have pity on the people of Canaan and not only destroy the people but destroy their possessions.  “But the people of Israel weren’t faithful to the Lord. They didn’t do what they were told to do with the things that had been set apart to Him in a special way to be destroyed. Achan had taken some of those things. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.” [Joshua 7: 1].  Because of this disobedience, the Israelites suffered horrible losses in the next battle.

Today I know I have focused on the Old Testament but Paul Little states the unbeliever should not pick apart the Bible as much as deal with the relationship he or she has with Jesus Christ. “What do you think of Christ?” is the first step, not plunging headlong into a doubter’s reading of the Bible.  The New Testament is the story of Jesus, and God’s effort to have a personal relationship with man through the gift of His Son.

It is a different approach at reaching out to man than the Old Testament.

But it is the answer to that question “What do you think of Christ?” that can open up a person today to God’s redeeming grace.

First things first and then the Bible will mean so much more.

My wife does not tell many stories about herself. She is a quiet person, who does not like drawing attention to herself.

Her father made a mistake many years ago. He told me a story that I would like to tell now, a story of her relationship to the Bible as a young kid.  His mistake was telling me.

One day she went to the family Bible in her living room. It happened to be on the coffee table.  She was surrounded by several adults at that moment; one of those adults was her Dad.  She opened the Bible and being a young child, she could see the words in the Book but she could not read them.  Her reading comprehension was not adequate at that young age.

Her father told me what happened next and to this very day I think it is so cute. I can imagine her doing this.   She looked up at everyone and pronounced the family Bible as “God’s Word.”  She paused for several seconds.   Then she closed the Bible and shook her head and said “God’s Word.  I can’t read God’s Word.”

There are many in this world who do not believe like my wife. They can read but they don’t. They doubt that the Bible is God’s Word.

What do we say in response to the unbeliever or doubter who says “Prove to me that the Bible is more than an ordinary book.  Prove to me that the Bible is the Word of God.”

You can cite the following Scripture 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

What does that mean? Sounds to me like it is saying that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

Will that be enough for the unbeliever? Probably not.

They may ask what does inspired mean? Well before we get into this too much and this post doubles and triples in size, “God inspired” means that God is the originator of the Bible but used man to write the Book.  God did not have a computer keyboard like me, writing directly to a screen and then working the text over until getting what He wants; then emailing an attachment to Moses, or some prophet like Jeremiah and they expressed His ideas.

The Old Testament tells the story. God spoke directly to people in the Old Testament.  There are numerous examples. I am reading the Old Testament now and in the book of Joshua, The Lord spoke to Joshua repeatedly, telling him how to take possession of the Promised Land, how to conquer Jericho and how to maintain the covenant between God and the Israelite Peoples.  God gave Joshua direct orders.

Sometimes the people who were directly addressed by God did what God wanted. Sometimes they did not.  The Old Testament is clear in so many places.  If you do what God wants, you will be blessed.  I you do not do what God wants, you will be punished.

What about Jesus? How did He feel about The Bible?  Jesus said in John 10: 35 “The Scripture cannot be broken”, in Matthew 15:3 He states the Scripture is “the commandment of God.”  In Mark 7:13 He refers to Scripture as “the Word of God.”  In Matthew 5:18 He says “Until Heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law, until all is accomplished.”

Certainly Jesus believed that Scripture was the Word of His Father.

Lastly, the Old Testament has connection to the New Testament and the New Testament writers obviously connect their works to the Old. Jesus’ birth seems to be referred to in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”  Is all this coincidental?  I don’t think so.

Paul writes in Galatians 3:8 “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’”   The writer of Acts speaks as if God is in the New Testament Scriptures in verses 24 and 25:  “And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and sea, and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, why did the Gentiles rage, and the people devise futile things?”

This post is just the intro. There is so much more to discuss.

When an unbeliever expresses doubt about the inspired Word of God, we have to defend this Book, not an ordinary Book by any means.

What will you do when the unbeliever casts doubt on the Bible?

Will you defend it or sadly admit “I can’t defend God’s Word.”

It is a special Book, our Book, it is God’s Word.

Human beings are funny aren’t we?

What does it take for us to believe?

For the unbeliever it takes a lot I guess.

Let me give you an example I used to use with my teaching in speech class. A key element in persuasive speaking is reasoning.  For us to believe, someone needs to reason with us.  For us to be persuaded, someone one needs to reason with us.

One of the most common ways for a person to be persuaded is to throw facts at them. Fact after fact after fact after fact can be delivered to the skeptic until they finally say “Ok, I believe.”  That is called making an inductive leap.

I get in the car to go to work and I am not sure about the time. I am supposed to be at work at 9:00 A.M.  I am not sure if I am going to make it on time or not.  I turn on the car and see on the car clock it is 8:56.  Oh Oh! I am going to be late.  Maybe not, the car clock is notorious about being inaccurate.  Then I pass Hucks on the road to work and I see they have a big digital clock in the window that says 8:57.  Oh Oh!  Maybe I am going to be late.  Then as I travel down the road, I go by a fast food restaurant and I see their big clock on the wall and it says 8:58.

I believe I am going to be late…I make an inductive leap.

How many pieces of evidence did it take for me to believe…three.

How many pieces of evidence does it take for an unbeliever to become a believer that Christ rose from the dead?

From the day of the Resurrection to the Ascension [a forty day period] Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in Mark 16:9 and in John 20:14, to the women returning from the tomb in Matthew 28:9,10, to Peter later in the day in Luke 24:34 and 1 Corinthians 15:5, to the Emmaus Disciples in Luke 24:13-33…. Are you beginning to believe?

I could go on to recount the dialogue Jesus had with the “show me” Disciple Thomas when Thomas had to touch Jesus’ hands. I could go on with the Luke 24 appearance when Jesus not only appeared but took fish from the Disciples and ate it.

How many appearances does it take for you to believe?

Some may say these are hallucinations?

Really?

I don’t know about you but most of the hallucinations I have heard about have occurred in situations where a person saw the hallucination alone. Maybe they are distraught, maybe they are lacking nutrition, maybe they are under the influence of some substance or maybe they are mentally unstable but the idea of hallucination is “a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind.” [from Dictionary.com].  In First Corinthians 15, Jesus appears to five hundred people.  Have you ever heard of five hundred people hallucinating the same image all at the same time?

I haven’t.

To say that hallucinations produced the appearances of Jesus is to ignore the evidence.

Something changed the group of frightened Disciples into men who were not afraid to speak out with courage and conviction. They did more than that; they became men who suffered for the message that they were inspired to deliver.  They became men who gave of their lives; being stoned, crucified, burned and clubbed to death.

They changed the world.

They believed.

They all made an inductive leap.

I don’t think their inductive leap was based on hallucinations.

I think it was based on facts.

Next week’s posts will deal with the following doubt:

Is the Bible God’s Word?

I guess I am lucky. I don’t remember ever swooning.  I have been knocked unconscious sliding into home plate at a baseball game but that is the closest I have come to “swooning.”

Doubters of Jesus Christ and His resurrection have put forth the swoon theory to explain their reluctance to accept the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. Here is the way it goes:

“Christ was indeed nailed to the cross. He suffered terribly from shock, loss of blood, and pain, and He swooned away; but He didn’t actually die.  Medical knowledge was not very great at that time, and the apostles thought He was dead…. He was taken down from the cross in a state of swoon by those who believed Him to be dead and laid in the sepulcher.  And the cool restfulness of the sepulcher so far revived Him that He was able to issue forth from the grave.  His ignorant disciples couldn’t believe that this was a mere resuscitation.  They insisted it was a resurrection from the dead” [J.N.D. Anderson].

Let’s examine this theory and try to debunk it. It basically claims that Jesus survived the exhaustion, pain and loss of blood to live.

First of all, He had to live three days without food and water and then be strong enough to escape the tomb. After the scourging that Jesus took and the abuse of carrying His cross to Golgotha and being in the elements with no food and water, He went for 72 hours in a tomb and then emerged under His own power.  That’s hard to believe.  It also counteracts the findings of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and the Roman soldiers at the crucifixion who thought He was dead when He was removed from the cross.  His side was pierced by a lance and His corpse made no motion.  From the wound, a mixture of blood and water flowed which revealed the state of decomposition of His vital organs.

Secondly, He was removed from the cross and wound in grave clothes. In preparing a body for burial, it was washed and straightened and bandaged tightly from the armpits to the ankles in strips of linen about a foot wide.  Spices were placed between the wrappings or folds which served as aroma and also as cement to glue the wrappings into a solid covering.  For a “swooned” man to get out of grave wrapping would be a miracle, much less a man who has suffered as much as Jesus.  Then of course a weakened Jesus who had swooned pushed aside a stone at the entrance of His tomb.  Historians say that it would take several men to move a stone like that.

Thirdly, there were Romans guard outside the tomb. How did Jesus get past them?  Roman soldiers were highly disciplined and they did not take guard duty lightly.  They were not weak as Jesus was and yet we are supposed to believe that somehow Jesus overpowered them and got away.  It seems implausible.

Fourthly, Jesus took off on foot. This part of the theory also seems unlikely.  The village of Emmaus was about seven miles from Jerusalem.  That was no small walk for a weak man; it was an impossible walk for a man who had His feet pierced with spikes.

Say all this did happen. What did Jesus do after He made His appearances and stirred up a frenzy about His resurrection?

He disappeared.

William Milligan in his book The Resurrection of Our Lord states that “He must have retired to some solitary retreat…while His Church was rising around Him, shaking the old Word to the foundations…. [While all this was going on] He was absent from it, and spending the remainder of His days, whether few or many, in what we can describe as no other term than ignoble solitude.  And then at last He must have died—no one can say where or when or how!”

When I “swooned” I remember sliding up under a big guy named Bobby Buckalew. Being a catcher I was told his leg protector came down and hit me right in the eye. Bobby’s weight was right on my head. I woke up after some time in my Dad and Mom’s car, a bit woozy but alive and able to carry on with life.

When Jesus “swooned” He was able to overcome the horrible injuries inflicted on His body like they did not even exist. The swoon theorists gave Him superhuman powers to do what He did [in their scenario].  As for me, I was very sore and bruised.

As for Jesus, He rose from the dead.

Swooning and recovering was just not possible.