Dr Paul Allen

English: Illumination of Christ before Pilate Deutsch: Jesus vor Pilatus (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) He did not leave us that option: he did not intend to." Thus C. S. Lewis closes out his famous "Trilemma" argument on the impossibility of Jesus being a great moral teacher and nothing more. The argument is beautiful in its simplicity: it calls for no deep familiarity with New Testament theology or history, only knowledge of the Gospels themselves, and some understanding of human nature. A man claiming to be God, says Lewis, could hardly be good unless he really was God. If Jesus was not the Lord, then (to borrow Josh McDowell 's alliterative version of the argument), he must have been a liar or a lunatic. Christian apologists have responded with arguments hinging on the correct dates for the composition of the Gospels, the identities of their authors, external corroborating evidence, and the like. All this has been enormously helpful, but one could wish for a m

Image via Wikipedia There seems to be some type of general consensus among many people that the New Testament documents were written many years after the events took place and hence do not contain reliable information. However, the fact of the matter is that the life of Jesus was written by eyewitnesses or people who recorded firsthand testimony. The writers were all living at the same time these events transpired, and they had personal contact either with the events or with people who witnessed the events.  There is strong internal testimony that the Gospels were written at an early date. The Book of Acts records the missionary activity of the early Church and was written as a sequel by the same person who wrote the Gospel according to Luke . The Book of Acts ends with the apostle Paul being alive in Rome, his death not being recorded.  This would lead us to believe that it was written before he died, since the other major events in his life have been recorded. We have some rea

Cover via Amazon A common misconception is that the text of the Bible has not come down to us the way in which it was originally written. Accusations abound of zealous monks changing the biblical text throughout Church history. This issue is of the utmost importance, since an altered text would do grave damage to the credibility of the story.  As F. F. Bruce says, “The historical ‘once-for-all-ness’ of Christianity which distinguishes it from those religious and philosophical systems, which are not specially related to any particular time, makes the reliability of the writings which purport to record this revelation a question of first-rate importance” ( The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? p. 8).  Fortunately, the problem is not a lack of evidence. There are three different types of evidence that are to be used in evaluating the New Testament text. These are the Greek manuscripts, the various versions in which the New Testament is translated, and the writings of the Ch

Image via Wikipedia A question we hear often is, “Does it really matter what I believe as long as I believe in something?” Or, “As long as your belief helps you, isn’t that all that matters?”  The idea behind statements such as these is that there is no absolute truth to believe in, and thus the act of believing is all there is. We all believe in something, as Edgar Sheffield Brightman states, “A thinker cannot divest himself of real convictions, and it is futile to pose as having none” (E.S. Brightman in H.N. Wieman, B.E. Meland (eds.), American Philosophies of Religion, New York, Harper & Brothers, 1936).  The idea of finding any truth or meaning to life has escaped modern man. This statement reflects the inability to conceive of something outside of one’s self: “There are no rules by means of which we would discover a purpose or a meaning of the universe” ( Hans Reichenbach , The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, p. 301).  Even though we live in a day in which we all have defi