Revisiting Posts

I really don't like updating posts. Unless I just wrote it, my preference is to leave that piece of hard work alone and do stuff later. I wish to keep their original state and not add more, because not only did they take lots of effort, it would disguise what I did later and keep me telling what part of the post comes from effort put in on a different day. 

My purposes for this segment of adding more to previously written content in One Christian Thought vary by each subject. One is to cross-examine arguments. That way, I can feel more confident that my conclusions are true. Also, I sometimes come across more material on the subject, which could be more evidence or something else, or forgot to put something down in a post, or need to clear up any mistakes if I find them (I've only reviewed a little bit so far). 

Now, I must say there are times where I sit down and question what I remember from this blog, and the objections I come up with end up turning on their sides and rising to the top of the water like a dead fish. That's because for the most part I don't come up with any evidence to the contrary, just possible (as opposed to evidently reasonable) scenarios to doubt the conclusions I draw from evidence presented.

You see, I consider it vitally important to be able to consider alternative explanations which detract from my beliefs. If I want the truth, I shouldn't be one-sided and instead be open to the claims I come across from people of other worldviews, right? So of course I should be willing to answer my own questions, especially when they have been formed by information from unbelievers.

I can't think of any better example for when I needed to use clear-headed truth seeking than when I would come across in books (off the top of my head I only remember the ones from Ehrman; with all I have read, and in one debate, he hasn't allowed the reader to get away without the claim) that none of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. This would annoy me; I deny it! Usually right then and there he would say (does he think it's proof? I don't know) that the names were attached decades later, and there was no first-person narration in the first place. I hope this doesn't persuade people(1). It seems very vague to me: that doesn't mean there can't be other evidence, other historical documents parallel no first-person storytelling even when they could, and as 21st century beings we weren't there when they were originally penned, or weren't around in any other church to receive any oral tradition. We read about their apostolic authorship from early church fathers. After tradition do we see the names being attached to copies of the original manuscripts. This is history, not a complete picture by any means!

But of course I'm not saying there can't be more arguments. (I came across about nine others against John in Craig Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel.) My bias as a Christian leads me to be irritated by the claim because it's not true, and attacks the accuracy of the Bible. Speaking of which, I have already revisited two issues: evidence for Mark being the eyewitness material of Peter (there is more to come), and harmonizing all the Gospels empty tomb accounts.

With all this in mind, I invite you to question your side if you haven't already (atheism or Christian, etc.; although it already seems you are investigating the truth of Christianity). Ask, just how much evidence is there for it? If you were to try to invalidate my conclusions on this blog as the only reasonable option, would you be demonstrating that it is wrong, or just proposing other ideas? How plausible are the other ideas, how do they come from the evidence, if the evidence is potentially strong enough to prove my claim? I would be scared to be on a side which averts (or at least tries to reasonably avert) evidence from people of other belief systems, and lack a strong case that can put up with their objections.  

Basically I'm doing this because there is subject matter I wish to address again, for me to sort-of "make amends with myself" by including material which should have been there before, for your learning (and reading entertainment, if possible), and so we both can have more confidence in my pro-Jesus conclusions(2). I'm also planning to bring my "Where Does Jesus Get His Authority?" blog project to a close in the midst of everything else.

Citations/notes:

1. For a defense of Gospel authorship against Ehrman's arguments, see Andreas J. Kostenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible B&H Publishing Group: Nashville, TN. 2014), 131-45. I cannot find the specific place where I read that ancient historical documents didn't always use first-person when writing eyewitness testimony, although I know this as common knowledge as well.

2. I was going to end this post a month or so ago with something more intriguing, referring to the recently published huge 16 post blog project on Jesus's resurrection. I decided to finish it sooner rather than later first because it is so important, and second I wanted to keep my knowledge and excitement from being lost or becoming dull. Ironically, I originally said in the introduction that there is more notable material I came across when studying, which will be published sometime, but definitely isn't a priority since there is so little significance as one or two negative arguments which in some way were already dealt with. Indeed, I plan to work on that after revisiting so many other things.

Here is the original ending:

" ...oh, and once I have secured all subject matter in every previous post, I'm hoping to bring this blog to its final huge argument (which I won't spoil), before school starts and I can't focus so much on this anymore."