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The Journal

2012-03 Summit Journal
IN THIS ISSUE: Worldview and Politics
» Cover Story | Politics, Government, and Worldview
» pg. 2 | Letter from the President
» pg. 7 | Summit Spotlight: Randy Hardman and Apologetics
* Economics, Politics, Marxism

Essays

Was The New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions? (via Equip)
uring the first half of the twentieth century, a number of liberal authors and professors claimed that the New Testament teaching about Jesus’ death and resurrection, the New Birth, and the Christian practices of baptism and the Lord’s Supper were derived from the pagan mystery religions. Of major concern in all this is the charge that the New Testament doctrine of salvation parallels themes commonly found in the mystery religions: a savior-god dies violently for those he will eventually deliver, after which that god is restored to life. Was the New Testament influenced by the pagan religions of the first century A.D.?

Was The New Testament Influenced by Pagan Philosophy? (via Equip)
Many college students still encounter outdated charges that first century Christianity and the New Testament were heavily influenced by pagan philosophical systems. Prominent among such claims are the following: (1) elements of Plato's philosophy appear in the New Testament; (2) the New Testament reflects the influence of Stoicism; and (3) the ancient Jewish philosopher Philo was a source of John's use of the Greek word logos as a description of Jesus. Each of these claims may be easily answered, a fact which challenges the badly outdated scholarship that continues to circulate these allegations in books and lectures.

Defending the New Testament Jesus (via Equip)
The historic picture of Jesus is under an intellectual onslaught from radical scholars, popular historians, television documentaries, feature films, bestselling authors, Internet bloggers, Muslim debaters, and atheist think tanks. They are capturing the public’s imagination with a radical new portrait of Jesus that bears scant resemblance to the picture historically embraced by the church; but how persuasive is this new image of Jesus?

The Jesus Seminar (via Equip)
The Jesus Seminar is a group of New Testament scholars who have been meeting periodically since 1985. The initial two hundred has now dwindled to about seventy-four active members. They initially focused on the sayings of Jesus within the four Gospels to determine the probability of His actually having said the things attributed to Him in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each scholar offered his/her opinion on each "Jesus" statement by voting with...

The Impossible Faith (via Tekton)
Over the years we have collected literally reams of information in defense of the Christian faith. In that time we have dealt with, and made use of, numerous sources informing of the social, literary, and other background of the NT world. Now the time has come to piece together some of these in a general defense of the faith. We have subtitled our piece, "How Not to Start an Ancient Religion." The background here is certain Skeptical claims that Christianity was a movement born of the adage that a sucker is born every minute, and Christianity collected about a year's worth of suckers to start with...

Evidence for the Resurrection (via Leadership U)
For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd. Many have chosen simply to ignore the central issue of the resurrection. Others have tried to explain it away through various theories. But the historical evidence just can't be discounted. A student at the University of Uruguay said to me. "Professor McDowell, why can't you refute Christianity?" "For a very simple reason," I answered. "I am not able to explain away an event in history--the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Recent Perspectives on the Reliability of the Gospels (via Equip)
The usual attempts to defend the historical reliability of the New Testament are often fairly general in nature. These arguments are typically based on the quantity, quality, and early date of the available New Testament manuscripts; the traditional authorship of the books; extrabiblical confirmation; and a few archaeological discoveries. This evidence for the trustworthiness of the New Testament is often contrasted with ancient classical Greek and Roman writings, which do not exhibit the same wealth of data. Lesser known among conservative scholars, however, are several, more recent and specific approaches that critical scholars apply to the Gospel texts. One of these approaches involves applying certain critical criteria of authenticity to particular texts, namely, to events and sayings that are reported in the four gospels. These contemporary techniques have mined many gems that indicate the historical richness of the Gospel accounts, while illuminating many aspects of Jesus’ life.

Biblical History (via Equip)
The new criticism of the scriptural record is corrosive and categorical from beginning to end. It claims, for example, that there is no evidence that any such person as Abraham ever lived or even could have lived in its new version of ancient Israelite origins. There was no migration from Mesopotamia to any “Promised Land.” Stories about the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it argues, were cobbled together out of various bits of early local lore. Moses was no more historically real than Abraham, for there was no Israelite sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus was a fiction; nor did Joshua conquer the “Promised Land,” since the ancient Israelites were an indigenous culture already living in that land. What about the monarchs Saul, David, and Solomon and their regional empires? Surely they were historical, weren’t they? No. According to this revisionism, Jerusalem priests in the eighth and seventh centuries BC probably invented them. In the words of Lazare, if David is historical, he was...

Biblical Archaeology (via Equip)
A Common Flood Story. Not just the Hebrews (Gen. 6–8), but Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Greeks all report a flood in primordial times. A Sumerian king list from c. 2100 BC divides itself into two categories: those kings who ruled before a great flood and those who ruled after it. One of the earliest examples of Sumero-Akkadian-Babylonian literature, the Gilgamesh Epic, describes a great flood sent as punishment by...

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History & Scripture