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At the February 20 Willow River school board meeting, the board updated Policy 903, which covers visitors to school district buildings and sites. One of the main changes dealt with keeping better track of visitors for safety reasons.
According to the policy, all visitors are required to enter their entrance time in the visitor’s register and may be subject to verification of identity and issuance of a visitor’s or identification badge. Visitors cannot enter the building without first receiving permission from the office of the administrator in charge of the school building or the superintendent.
Peel explained they are now requiring that all visitors come back to the main entrance and sign out before they leave. Visitors often leave through another door instead of the main entrance, which makes it difficult for staff to keep track of where they are.
Board member Bruce Bohaty gave a brief summary of the February Facilities/Activity meeting. The committee discussed the installation of water refilling stations for water bottles within the school and considered several locations.
The committee will check with the school parent teacher organization to see if they could purchase one for the district. If they agree, the school will install the station in the school cafeteria where there are already drinking fountains. If all goes well, they will discuss options to purchase one or two more systems.
Bohaty also reported the district is working on coming up with a better system for managing keys throughout the building. “The elementary and high school administrative assistants have a good handle on staff keys, but questions remain regarding custodial and transportation keys. If you think about the number of doors, cabinets, desks, trophy cases, electrical panels, and other items with locks, that equates to a large number of keys,” explained the Facilities/Activity committee report.
Board member Aziz Al-Arfaj, also on the Facilities/Activity Committee, briefly discussed the school’s softball field. He noted that in years past, the softball field was leased from Wildstar Properties Inc. to the city. Last year, however, the city was no longer interested in continuing the lease, and the school took over.
Since the district is the sole lessee, the field becomes an extension of school property and its use must follow school policy which dictates that no alcohol or tobacco products may be used on the property. The district intends to follow the school policy (zero tolerance for alcohol or tobacco use) for the softball complex.
Members of the Facilities/Activity Committee had questioned how they could enforce this during the summer months if adult organizations request to use the field. It was decided that Bohaty would inform the adult organizations that have used the field in the past of the policy and recommend they find a new location.
The board observed School Board recognition week; Superintendent/Elementary Principal Bill Peel personally thanked the school board members and presented them with certificates of appreciation from the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) for their dedicated leadership and continuing service to the students of the community. Board member Susan Grill was also given a certificate for completing phase 1, 2 and 3 of the workshop series for the MSBA.

lowercased:
at the february 20 willow river school board meeting, the board updated policy 903, which covers visitors to school district buildings and sites. one of the main changes dealt with keeping better track of visitors for safety reasons.
according to the policy, all visitors are required to enter their entrance time in the visitor’s register and may be subject to verification of identity and issuance of a visitor’s or identification badge. visitors cannot enter the building without first receiving permission from the office of the administrator in charge of the school building or the superintendent.
peel explained they are now requiring that all visitors come back to the main entrance and sign out before they leave. visitors often leave through another door instead of the main entrance, which makes it difficult for staff to keep track of where they are.
board member bruce bohaty gave a brief summary of the february facilities/activity meeting. the committee discussed the installation of water refilling stations for water bottles within the school and considered several locations.
the committee will check with the school parent teacher organization to see if they could purchase one for the district. if they agree, the school will install the station in the school cafeteria where there are already drinking fountains. if all goes well, they will discuss options to purchase one or two more systems.
bohaty also reported the district is working on coming up with a better system for managing keys throughout the building. “the elementary and high school administrative assistants have a good handle on staff keys, but questions remain regarding custodial and transportation keys. if you think about the number of doors, cabinets, desks, trophy cases, electrical panels, and other items with locks, that equates to a large number of keys,” explained the facilities/activity committee report.
board member aziz al-arfaj, also on the facilities/activity committee, briefly discussed the school’s softball field. he noted that in years past, the softball field was leased from wildstar properties inc. to the city. last year, however, the city was no longer interested in continuing the lease, and the school took over.
since the district is the sole lessee, the field becomes an extension of school property and its use must follow school policy which dictates that no alcohol or tobacco products may be used on the property. the district intends to follow the school policy (zero tolerance for alcohol or tobacco use) for the softball complex.
members of the facilities/activity committee had questioned how they could enforce this during the summer months if adult organizations request to use the field. it was decided that bohaty would inform the adult organizations that have used the field in the past of the policy and recommend they find a new location.
the board observed school board recognition week; superintendent/elementary principal bill peel personally thanked the school board members and presented them with certificates of appreciation from the minnesota school board association (msba) for their dedicated leadership and continuing service to the students of the community. board member susan grill was also given a certificate for completing phase 1, 2 and 3 of the workshop series for the msba.


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So Christianity is full of miracles. The gospels say that Jesus performed many miracles, like healing people of their diseases and walking on water. Christians today believe that God can work miracles in response to their prayers. And, of course, the central event in Christianity – the resurrection of Jesus – is a miracle. So if miracles can’t happen then Christianity is in trouble.
But why think that miracles can’t happen? After all, if there is a God then surely miracles are the sort of thing you’d expect him to be able to do. (What sort of god would he be, if he couldn’t perform miracles?) And yet many people, even those who believe in God, struggle with the idea that miracles can happen.
One worry that people can have about miracles is the vague sense that this is too mythological, too supernatural, for rational, scientific, modern people to believe in. Turning water into wine might seem like magic trick, or else hocus-pocus, and we’re smart enough to know that magicians deal in illusions, not realities. But this kind of objection is rather vague and its not immediately clear what the problem is. Of course, if someone comes to you and says “I can make a rabbit appear in my hat”, you have every right to suspect that the rabbit is just hidden away somewhere and isn’t going to appear from nothing. But that doesn’t mean miracles are impossible, it just means we’re rightly suspicious of those trading in illusions. And there is a danger that simply dismissing miracles as myth or magic: we’re simply engaged in snobbery not proper rational enquiry.
Perhaps a more sophisticated objection is that miracles break the laws of nature. From our repeated experience, and from scientific investigation, we know that the universe behaves in ordered and regular ways. The sun rises every day, things fall down (not up), and dead people don’t come back to life. These are laws of nature – exceptions do not occur, else they wouldn’t be laws.
And that is all well and good but it suggests that the laws of nature have priority over everything else – that the laws of nature were before everything and overrule everything. Now even for the atheist, this is not the case. Because if you believe that the universe came into being from nothing, then it is not the laws of nature that were before everything else but nothing – if this were true, the laws of nature would be as arbitrary as the rest of existence. So the atheist has no particular reason for suspecting that the laws of nature will continue to operate, except that they have so far. But for the believer, the laws of nature do not have priority either. Because if there is a God, who created the universe, then he is responsible for the laws of nature. Now he is God such a sloppy creator that he made rules and laws that even he couldn’t change? Is it credible to think that God could create gravity and yet be unable to change it when necessary? If that idea just seems too silly to be true, then the objection to miracles evaporates.
the atheists assumes the high ground and asks Christians to prove the creation of the universe, but the atheist has no more ability to explain the beginning of the universe than the Christian. The atheist accuses the Christian of something he is guilty of himself, namely belief without empirical evidence. The atheist berates the Christian for something which he has no better answer. In fact, the atheist answer would seem to ultimately assume that the effect of the universe resulted without a cause, an absurdity.
A pseudoscience is a set of beliefs or practices that pretends at being science—that puts forth evidence and arguments which it says are scientifically sound, but in fact are not. Pseudoscientists argue in support of new fundamental forces (e.g., Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance) and even entities (e.g., ancient aliens). The TV show Ghost Hunters is a prime example; they even have instruments—like voice recorders, EM meters, laser thermometers (and deluxe carrying cases)—which seem scientific, but of course do nothing to detect ghosts. But all pseudosciences have one thing in common: The arguments and reasoning they put forth violate basic rules of scientific reasoning.
Whether it be Gnostic mysticism, or German Liberal Rationalism, throughout Christian history there have been numerous attempts to separate the effects, or “inner truth” Christianity from it’s concrete grounding in the narrative of God’s interaction with Israel and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. In other words, we want the value of “loving your enemies” and “forgiveness” without grounding it in the Cross where the Godman concretely loved his enemies and forgave them with his own blood. We want the sense of gratitude and joy on a sunny day without grounding it in the Creator God who gives it to us and currently sustains all things in things in being.
idea that science is logical, purely rational, that it is detached and value-free, and that it is, for all these reasons, morally superior.
The Gospels on which Christianity relies were written hundreds of years after the fact and are mostly reinventions of other pagan traditions?
Each of these propositions is not only false but easily proven to be so, as even the most minimal exertions show. Yet believing any, and many more like them, are touted by “New Atheists” as marks of superior intelligence, as enlightened thinking, even as commonsense reasonableness. To these infinitely self-assured folks, disbelief is a synonym of rational. It’s just a guess, but perhaps this irrational belief is why it is so hard to persuade New Atheists of their errors?
The presence within us of an objective moral law ‘written on our hearts’ points instead to the existence of an eternal Goodness and Intelligence which created us and our universe, enables us to think, and is the eternal source of our best and deepest values. In other words, Lewis argues, atheism cuts its own throat philosophically, because it discredits all human reasoning, including the arguments for atheism. “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.” (Mere Christianity). Only by acknowledging that there is a God, he concludes, can we hope to make sense of human existence, the world we inhabit, and, paradoxically, the problem of evil.
Am I arguing that “miracles happen too often?” Yes, but Gilson misses my point. It had nothing to do with science, it had everything to do with god. Gilson argued in True Reason that god wants his creationsto be “responsible moral agents;” and god also wants his creations to learn from experience. All of these things would not be possible if we lived in a world “of constant supernatural intervention” because “if there isto much chaos (“noise”) in a transmission, the message (signal) can’t get throughto be clearly understood.” (130)I argued that, at least according tonumerous Christians around the world, their god intervenes in the affairs of the worldon a daily basis and I provided one, among other examples, of a Christian friend who thanked god for coming across a set of chairs in someone’s yard.I also argued that far from being opposed to constant supernatural intervention the entire basis of Christianity is built upon supernatural intervention, including god coming down in human form as Jesus to the creation of the world out of absolutely nothing, which are in fact acts of the supernatural, unlike what Gilson stated in his reply (“it’s more than slightly difficult to see how God violated natural law by creating natural law (as creation ex nihilo indicates).”). Gilson’s argument makes no logical sense. Christians argue all the time that “something cannot come from nothing” but for Christians apparently it’s OK. And I suppose a man rising from the dead or a god-man coming down from heaven isn’t a supernatural event? Gilson says nothing about these core beliefs of Christianity.
The embrace of a specific belief has rather a lot of do with your geographical location, and nothing at all to do with what is and is not actually true. It is those around you that draw you in.
Derren Brown, the illusionist, did a series on Channel 4 in the UK called Fear and Faith. During this at one point he gave somebody a camera to record a video diary and told her that for the next two weeks they would be manipulating events in her life so that she could learn life lessons, and that she was to record those lessons on her video diary. Darren Brown is well-known for doing the hidden camera thing and so this idea, once planted, was embraced as factual. One week later she had a video crammed full of the lessons she had learned during the events that they had staged. The reveal was that they had done nothing at all except give her the idea and a camera – everything that happened was her reading meaning into random events. – This is exactly the same psychology at play in the “born again” experience where Jesus is with you and helps you out each day.
Me neither. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to go to suffer everlasting torment, however bad they were in life, and I don’t like the idea of a god would want that either. The idea of unending pain is not only intolerably cruel but to pretend that in any sense someone could deserve that fate so unjust as to be positively wicked. Regardless of how bad someone behaved, regardless of how many crimes they committed, no-one could do enough evil to justify an infinite punishment. Even worse is the suggestion that anyone who misses out on salvation will end up with the same punishment; petty crook and genocidal dictator alike, they all must endure an eternity of pain and suffering. A god who behaved in this way could not be described as “merciful“, could not even be described as “just”. Such a god could only be described as wicked. But the God I believe in is both merciful and just, so I can’t believe that He would send anyone to hell.
Leave aside for a moment what Jesus meant by “soul” and “hell”, it is clear that Jesus did not think of hell as many Christians do. For Jesus, hell is not a place where the soul suffers eternal conscious torment. Instead hell is a place where the soul is killed, destroyed, finished, done.
Jesus promises eternal life. The opposite of eternal life is not eternal conscious torment but eternal death. Jesus makes this clear in the words considered above. Whoever rejects the offer will “not see life”. They don’t go on living in torment and agony for all eternity. They just stay dead. That’s the fate of the wicked, that’s the fate of those who reject Jesus’ offer of life, they stay dead.
The question then is why do so many Christians believe in hell, given that is a horrible idea and not what Jesus taught? For some people, though they call themselves “Christian”, just use the doctrine of hell as a stick to beat their neighbours. There also probably some truth in the claim that the historic church used the threat of hell as a way of controlling its followers. But there are also many sincere and well-intentioned Christians who still believe in hell. This is because they are used to reading the Bible a certain way and have never been shown that it was written differently.
Many Christians believe that the soul is immortal, that it not only survives death but can never die. This is not what Jesus or the early Christians taught, but if you believe that the soul cannot die then you must believe it goes somewhere after death. You wouldn’t want to belief that wicked people end up in a good place (a lot of Christians believe they go to heaven when they die), so there must be a bad place for the bad people to go to. Once you’ve got this idea in your mind then you read the Bible to fit that idea. For example, whilst Jesus never talks about eternal conscious torment, he does talk about “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46). If you already believe that bad souls go to a bad place when they die, it is convenient to read “eternal punishment” as though it said “eternal conscious torment”. That’s not what Jesus said, but that’s what many Christians think.
It also does not help that Christians today have forgotten what Jesus meant when he used the word “hell”. When Jesus talks about hell he is usually using the word gehenna, which literally means “Valley of Hinnom“. This was a place in ancient Israel where the worshippers of the pagan god Molech would perform human sacrifices, including burning children (e.g. 2 Kings 23:10). This practice is condemned by God through the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 32:35). Jeremiah uses the imagery of being burnt in the Valley of Hinnom to portray the fitting punishment for those who practiced such evil (Jeremiah 7:31-32). This is the background to the word gehenna in the New Testament where it represents the fate of the wicked. When Jesus talks about the ‘fire of hell‘ (Matthew 5:22) he is using the word gehenna, using this imagery for the destruction of death. The other word used by Jesus for hell is hades. Though in greek mythology hades was both the abode of the dead and the god of the dead, in the New Testament hades simply refers to the grave. In either case Jesus was not referring to a place of eternal conscious torment for the wicked, as many people now think about hell.
As you can see from this overview I do not think that Christians should believe in hell and as such I do not think that hell provides any obstacle to believing in God. Jesus does not teach that the wicked go to hell and I do not know of any other part of the bible that teaches this idea. Wherever people got the notion of hell from it was not from God and not part of his message to mankind. I can understand that you would not want to believe in a god that condemned people to hell, though your personal dislike would not determine whether or not such a god existed. But the notion of hell is inconsistent with everything we know about the God who does exist; inconsistent with his goodness and inconsistent with his message to mankind.
Because of the symbolic nature of the language, some people question whether hell consists of actual fire. Such reasoning should bring no comfort to the lost. The reality is greater than the symbol. The Bible exhausts human language in describing heaven and hell. The former is more glorious, and the latter more terrible, than language can express.
In Christian tradition it is usually associated with the notion of eternal punishment, especially by fire. This idea appears in Isaiah. 66:24, but it is not clearly associated with a place. Jewish writings from the third century B.C. onward, speak of places of punishment by fire for evil spirits and the wicked dead (1 Enoch 18:11-16; 108:3-7, 15; 2 Esdras 7:36-38). The book of Revelation describes a lake that burns with fire and brimstone in which the wicked will be eternally punished (Revelation 19:20; 20:14-15; 21:8).
One aspect of the great controversy about hell, and about Bell’s thesis, is the meaning of the word Gehenna in the New Testament. Most English translations contribute to the confusion by replacing the word Gehenna with hell, instead of leaving it untranslated, as it should be, since it is the name of a specific geographical place on earth.
The scriptures indicate that hell is nothing more than mankind’s common grave. Proof of this is provided by a verse of scripture in the Bible, which no hellfire-believing Christian can explain away. I’m referring to the scripture that says Jesus Christ–the epitome of a perfect, sinless, and obedient man–died and went to hell.
When most people think of hell, they think of Satan in that red suit with two horns and a pitchfork somewhere in the depths of the Earth where souls are tormented day and night on some kind of giant char broiler. Do something wrong in life and you’re condemned to an eternal damnation of flames. None of this could be further from the truth, and we should know better, “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices” (II Corinthians 2:11).The English word hell comes from the Anglo-Saxon hel, or in the genitive case helle, which means a “hidden place”, from the Anglo-Saxon word helan, meaning “to hide”.
Whether it’s the word sheol in the Old Testament, or gehenna or hades in the New Testament, they all mean either the grave or the state of death.
In their disputes about the meaning of Gehenna, both men overlooked the significance of Gehenna as a topographical feature in the land of promise, and one of the valleys which Isaiah said will be filled, as John the Baptist proclaimed. [Luke 3:5]From Gehenna, one views Jerusalem as an outsider; the teachings of Jesus encourage us to get into the kingdom of God, and obtain life.
+The sayings of Jesus about Gehenna also apply to the present age. Gehenna is a judgment. [Mat. 5:22, 23:33] Jesus referred to it as something we should avoid at any cost, even if it means loss of our right eye, or our right hand, or our right foot. [Mat. 5:29, 30] Jesus said God is able to destroy “both soul and body” in Gehenna, and that we should fear him. [Mat. 10:28, Luke 12:5] This suggests that the warnings about Gehenna apply to our present lives; being cast into it represents the spiritual condition, of being outside the holy city.Being cast into Gehenna contrasts with entering into life. [Mat. 18:9] Scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites are called “children of Gehenna.” [Mat. 23:15] Balfour correctly pointed out “no Gentile is ever threatened with Gehenna punishment,” as that threat applies especially to those in Jerusalem. One must be in the holy city, in order to be cast out of it. While the threat of “the damnation of Gehenna” applies only to Jews, the heirs of salvation, who are “in Christ,” are called Jews, and “the circumcision,” in a spiritual sense; Jesus used the threat of Gehenna figuratively and metaphorically to warn the saints who dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Thus, sheol and hades were the same place and must have been occupied by the redeemed since the Messiah was there while His body lay in the grave. That the lost were also there, but in a separate area, is clear from Christ’s statement that when the rich man died, “in hades he lift up his eyes, being in torment….” That in his torment he could see Lazarus and Abraham in comfort (Luke 16:19-31) further indicates that the redeemed were also in hades yet distinct from the damned. That part of hades, which Christ referred to as “Abraham’s bosom,” must have been the “paradise” in which Jesus promised to meet the believing thief on the cross that very day (Luke 23:43).
If God is so loving why doesn’t He universally forgive everyone? Love is only part of God’s character. He is also infinitely and perfectly just. How can God forgive someone who admits no guilt? How can He forgive those who insist that there is nothing for which He needs to forgive them? And would it not be the utmost folly to do so? If in His mercy and grace God simply passed over human rebellion, would that not be condoning evil and even encouraging it? Would that not in itself undermine God’s control of His universe?
Philosophy – What Is Hell?
To Hell with HellIs Punishment Eternal?
Imagine there was a man who went around claiming that he had a special message from God and that part of this man’s message was that he would be killed and come back to life. And then imagine that this man did indeed come back to life. Surely that is the sort of person you’d want to pay attention to. We have seen that there is good historical evidence that Jesus is that sort of person – that he claimed to have a special message from God and that he died and came back to life. So we would want to pay attention to what Jesus said about the Bible.
Now for the purposes of this essay we are using the gospels as historical sources, not yet as scripture (otherwise our argument would be circular). But this does not prevent us drawing some conclusions about Jesus’ view of the Bible. For instance, as a first century Jew it would expect Jesus to believe that the Old Testament was inspired by God (just as Jews do today). And the gospels corroborate this. For example, when Jesus says “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44), he is referring to the three sections into which the Jews divided their scriptures. It is also clear that Jesus regarded the Old Testament books as messages from God. For example, he refers to the Psalms being written by the Holy Spirit (Mark 12:36).
But what about the New Testament? None of the books of the New Testament were written during Jesus’ lifetime on the Earth. Most written between twenty and forty years after his crucifixion. This being said, there are indications that Jesus expected there to be these books. We know that Jesus was a teacher, that he appointed disciples and that after his resurrection it was these disciples that started telling everyone about Jesus. The gospels say that Jesus selected the disciples for this role; for example, “you are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48). And those who wrote the NT recognised that they were specially selected as witnesses (e.g. 1 Pet 1:12; Heb 2:3-4). In effect, Jesus says “there are going be witnesses” and the NT writers claim to be those witnesses.
So Jesus accepted the Old Testament as scripture, and it seems likely that the New Testament was written to fulfil Jesus’ instructions. Therefore the testimony of Jesus is gives us good reason for thinking the Bible is a special book and should encourage us to look for further evidence.
Obviously not all predictions are going to be as convincing as others. There seem to be three criteria: (1) that prediction is made before the event it predicts (otherwise its not a prediction), (2) that predicted event can be verified with reasonable certainty (otherwise how would you know if the prediction was successful), and (3) that the predicted events is sufficiently unlikely to make the prediction significant (predicting rain in England is hardly surprising).
The Bible contains numerous prophecies. Some are short term prophecies so aren’t easy to verify historically, but there are plenty of long term prophecies to look at it. Here we’ll just look at one group of prophesies to make the point. These are the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, which accurately predict many of the events of Jesus’ life. These include being a descendant of King David (2 Sam 7:12-13), being born in Bethlehem (Mic 5:2), being betrayed by a friend (Ps 41:9), being valued at thirty pieces of silver (Zech 11:13), having no bones broken in his execution (Ex 12:46), having hands and feet pierced (Ps 22:16; Zech 12:10), having his clothing divided by lot (Ps 22:18), being buried in the grave of a rich man (Isa 53:9) and being raised from the dead (Ps 16:9-11). What is interesting about these prophecies is these predictions al converge on the person of Jesus.
There is one further prophecy worth mentioning. In Daniel 9:24-27 a prophecy is made about set period of time in the history of the Jewish people. It is described in terms of weeks but all scholars agree that these weeks are periods of seven years. The interpretation of the prophecy can be technical because of some unusual Hebrew words and the fact that Daniel was using 360 day years (as opposed to the 365 ¼ day years that we use). But in essence what the prophecy says is that from command to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah would be 69 “weeks”. And if you do that maths, the time between the Persian command that the wall of Jerusalem should be rebuilt to the time of Jesus is exactly the period specified by Daniel 9. Even if you wanted to quibble about the exact year of the command or the exact year of Jesus’ ministry, the timing is still so accurate that it cannot be ignored.
Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity.At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this view, a “historical Jesus” became mythologized.
While much of the New Testament prophecy points to a distant future, many of the claims of Jesus can be assessed now. Jesus’ accuracy is so compelling, many skeptics have altered their dating of the New Testament in response. Acknowledging the accuracy of the prophecy related to the Temple destruction, skeptics typically date Luke and Matthew after 70AD to account for the inclusion of this statement. In doing so, these skeptics recognize the power of Jesus’ prophetic ability. They would rather deny the evidence for early dating than accept Jesus’ accuracy. Critics and skeptics of the New Testament recognize the power accurate prophecy has to demonstrate the Divinity of the New Testament.
The only religion in the whole world, that believes in Jesus [ʿĪsā] (Upon Whom Be Peace) and testifies to Christianity is Islām. Muslims believe, that Jesus (Upon Whom Be Peace) was one of the mightiest Messengers of Allāh; that he was born miraculously ― without any male intervention; that he gave life to the dead by Allāh’s permission, and that he healed the born blind and the lepers by Allāh’s permission. A person is not considered a Muslim, unless, he or she believes in Jesus (Upon Whom Be Peace). Muslims believe, that Allāh delivered the Gospel ― Injeel to Jesus (Upon Whom Be Peace), just as He did Torah ― Taurāt to Moses [Mūsā] (Upon Whom Be Peace), the Old Testament ― Zabūr to David [Dāwūd] (Upon Whom Be Peace) and The Mighty Qur’ān to Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).
During the years of Christ and His death and resurrection a great transition was made between the Old and New Covenants. The Holy Scriptures at that time were Old Testament records and were used as a basis for Israel’s faith. During the first century the Four Gospel’s and the New Testament Epistles were being written and were not published until the 3rd century and after. The Old Testament records (the Holy Scriptures) were Israel’s primary written words of God.
Both the Old Testament and New Testament books were immediately recognized and treated as scripture, though we have no formal statement about the New Testament until the fourth century.
How did the early church judge which books were scripture and which were not?
The test of authority: Who penned the book?
The test of internal evidence: Does the book penned or authorized by a genuine prophet or apostle bear the internal evidence of being God breathed?
The test of God’s people: Did genuine believers from the penning of these books to the present recognize them as scripture?
Oftentimes when we study end times bible prophecy, we tend to focus on the Old Testament prophets like Joel, Isaiah, Zechariah, and on our apostle Paul in the New Testament. But Peter has a treasure trove of scripture for us to consider as well.
The more frequently you read and study the Bible, more of it will get into your mind and you won’t have to memorize it. It will just be there waiting to be used. It will also give you a greater understanding of God and His ways to “search the scriptures” because in doing so, you will be learning about God more and more.
With one-fourth of the Bible prophetically future when it was written, the interpretation of prophecy is one of the most challenging areas of biblical study. Too often preconceptions have led interpreters to draw from the biblical text doctrines that were quite removed from what the text actually states. Because prophecy is scattered from the early chapters of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation and deals with so many different situations and subjects, interpreters of prophecy have too often abandoned any detailed interpretation and reached only general conclusions.
The central event of the Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus stayed dead then his own predictions proved false – he was nothing more than a good man with some interesting teaching. But if Jesus rose from the dead then he is someone really special – someone worth believing. What’s more if Jesus rose from the dead then perhaps death isn’t the end – perhaps there is a way for others to overcome death too.
Firstly, Jesus died on the cross. This is not particularly controversial. It was accepted by non-Christians like Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian and the writers of the Talmud. It is, of course, also the unanimous testimony of Christian sources, like the gospels and the letters. Modern medical appraisals of crucifixion have concluded that Jesus could not have survived what he suffered and, in any case, the Romans had ways of ensuring their victims died.
14th century Byzantine Icon of the Descent from the Cross from the Church of Saint Marina in Kalopanagiotis, Cyprus. St. Joseph of Arimathea is the figure standing in the center, in blue-green robes holding the Body of Christ.Secondly, Jesus was buried in a tomb. This is also not particularly controversial. The earliest Christian preachers described Jesus being laid in a tomb (Acts 13:28-29). The gospels record how Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus and laid it in his tomb (Mark 15:46; Matt 27:59-60; Luke 23:53; John 19:41-42). The early reverence of a tomb in Jerusalem (whether or not this is actually the tomb of Jesus) is another witness of the type of burial given to Jesus. And no ancient critic of Christianity – whether Jewish or pagan – ever suggested that Jesus was buried somewhere else.
Thirdly, three days later the tomb of Jesus was empty. This is important because for both Jews and pagans “resurrection” (anastasis) meant bodily resurrection – if Jesus was alive again, his tomb must be empty. Again this is a feature of the earliest Christian preaching (cf. Acts 2:29-32) and the gospel records (Mark 16:1-8; Matt 28:1-10; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-10). But it is also a feature of the early Jewish accounts of Jesus – from the first century onwards they claimed that the disciple stole the body (Matt 28:11-15; Justin, Dialogue 108; Tertullian, De Spectaculis 30; Toledoth Yeshu 9-10). This story presupposes that they thought the tomb was empty (they would hardly tell such a story if Jesus was still in the tomb). The fact that Caesar issued a decree against moving bodies from sealed tombs and had it inscribed on a stone in Nazareth probably indicates that he too had heard the story that the tomb of Jesus was empty (this decree is known as The Nazareth Inscription).
Fourthly, the early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. When writing a letter to the church at Corinth in the mid-50s, Paul lists those who saw Jesus after his resurrection, including the twelve disciples and Jesus’ brother James. He even says there are over five hundred other witnesses, many of whom were still alive when he wrote (1 Cor 15:5-8). These claims are also a feature of the earliest Christian preaching (Acts 2:32, 3:15, 10:39-40), the gospels (John 20:11-18; Luke 24:34; Matt 28:15-17, etc.), other New Testament texts (e.g. 1 Pet 1:3; Rom 1:4; Phil 3:10; Heb 13:20; Rev 1:18) and other first century Christian texts (Didache 10:2; 1 Clement 24:1; Barnabas 5:7).
This evidence is early, based upon eyewitness testimony and has a consistent core – that Jesus died, was buried and rose again. The resurrection of Jesus is, by far, the simplest explanation of the historical evidence.
What about the alternatives? Well, a number of alternative theories have been suggested to explain the evidence but none has managed to convince the majority of scholars. Those scholars who deny the resurrection generally tend to not give a verdict on the evidence. But, for completeness, let us consider briefly just one oft-repeated alternative. It goes something like this: the disciples stole the body and then pretended Jesus was alive again to promote their new religion. After all, the first century Jews claimed that the disciples stole the body.
However, this alternative theory just does not work for a number of reasons. Firstly, if this was a conspiracy then it was a huge conspiracy (over 500 witnesses). Secondly, the disciples had no motivation for the deception – when other Jewish cult leaders and “messiahs” had met gruesome ends their followers had just disbanded. The early disciples gained neither money, status or fame from their preaching. Thirdly, the disciples had everything to lose from such a deception. They were persecuted, imprisoned and executed by both Jewish and Roman authorities. Early witnesses, like Peter and Paul, met their deaths refusing to renounce their faith. Would you die for a lie?
The simple fact is that the historical evidence is clear and consistent. And if the event in question wasn’t so controversial then I don’t think anybody would doubt it. Unfortunately it is controversial. Because if the resurrection is false then Christianity is false. And if the resurrection is true then Christianity (or at least its core claims) are also true. So a lot hangs on this question. And at the end of the day you’re going to have to make up your own mind for yourself. But if you think that resurrection is possible and if, like me, you think the historical evidence is strong, then you have good reason for thinking that Jesus rose from the dead.
Moving from historical data to the best explanation of that data Crossan and Ehrman robustly rejects resurrections hypothesis. Their rejection is not based on historical data, but on what best explain these data. It is not a historical based rejection but a philosophical one, the impossibility of miracles.
Gerd Ludemann is actually an atheist new Testament historian, and he has even debated Dr. Craig on the resurrection – not once, but twice. That’s the kind of evidence Dr. Craig uses in his case. Not just what your pastor will give you, but what atheists will give you. We need to learn to debate like that.
The religious leaders would certainly have had enough reason for doing so. They had heard that Jesus had talked of resurrection, and were afraid of hanky-panky. So the argument runs, in order to forestall trickery, they took the precaution of confiscating the corpse. But when this is put into scrutiny, this conjecture also falls into pieces.Having placed the guards at the tomb, what would be their reason for moving the body of Jesus? If the authorities moved the body of Jesus, why didn’t they bring it when the apostles were boldly preaching about the resurrection in Jerusalem? The religious leaders did everything in their power to suppress the preaching on the resurrection. They even arrested Peter and John (Acts 4) and beat them, and threatened them in an effort to silence them.A few weeks of Jesus’ death, the disciples were boldly proclaiming the resurrection. The news spread rapidly. The new Christian movement threatened to undermine the stronghold of Judaism and disturb the peace of Jerusalem. The Jews feared conversion and the Romans detested riots. The authorities had before them one course of action. The Religious leaders could have produced the remains of the corpse of Jesus and published a statement of what they had done. They could have paraded the body of Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem, if indeed, they had it, and that would have smothered Christianity in its cradle.
Why would Matthew fabricate a Jewish cover-story and falsely suggest that it “has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” (Matt 28:15 NIV)? He wouldn’t. Clearly his Jewish audience would have already heard the cover-story. This is probably why Matthew seeks to rebut it.
It is wholly implausible that Jesus’ disciples stole his body. They were broken and confused. Their Messiah was dead and they had nothing to gain from stealing his body and then claiming he rose from the dead. Indeed, they suffered greatly for this claim.No amount of cognitive dissonance could possibly motivate every disciple to claim their Messiah was alive when they knew he wasn’t. We might at most expect them to find a new Messiah, but they didn’t.The second suspects are grave robbers hoping to make a profit. However, the Gospels of Luke and John record that Jesus’ grave clothes remaining in the tomb. Why would any grave robbers leave the clothes behind? Moving a body by itself would be incredibly messy. Those looking for burial spices would almost certainly simply have carried off the wrapped body and removed the spices in a safe place. Even the clothes themselves could have been sold later on.Perhaps instead the robbers wanted body parts for magic practices. This is unlikely since there is no evidence that stealing bodies for magical purposes was much of a problem in first-century Palestine.

lowercased:
so christianity is full of miracles. the gospels say that jesus performed many miracles, like healing people of their diseases and walking on water. christians today believe that god can work miracles in response to their prayers. and, of course, the central event in christianity – the resurrection of jesus – is a miracle. so if miracles can’t happen then christianity is in trouble.
but why think that miracles can’t happen? after all, if there is a god then surely miracles are the sort of thing you’d expect him to be able to do. (what sort of god would he be, if he couldn’t perform miracles?) and yet many people, even those who believe in god, struggle with the idea that miracles can happen.
one worry that people can have about miracles is the vague sense that this is too mythological, too supernatural, for rational, scientific, modern people to believe in. turning water into wine might seem like magic trick, or else hocus-pocus, and we’re smart enough to know that magicians deal in illusions, not realities. but this kind of objection is rather vague and its not immediately clear what the problem is. of course, if someone comes to you and says “i can make a rabbit appear in my hat”, you have every right to suspect that the rabbit is just hidden away somewhere and isn’t going to appear from nothing. but that doesn’t mean miracles are impossible, it just means we’re rightly suspicious of those trading in illusions. and there is a danger that simply dismissing miracles as myth or magic: we’re simply engaged in snobbery not proper rational enquiry.
perhaps a more sophisticated objection is that miracles break the laws of nature. from our repeated experience, and from scientific investigation, we know that the universe behaves in ordered and regular ways. the sun rises every day, things fall down (not up), and dead people don’t come back to life. these are laws of nature – exceptions do not occur, else they wouldn’t be laws.
and that is all well and good but it suggests that the laws of nature have priority over everything else – that the laws of nature were before everything and overrule everything. now even for the atheist, this is not the case. because if you believe that the universe came into being from nothing, then it is not the laws of nature that were before everything else but nothing – if this were true, the laws of nature would be as arbitrary as the rest of existence. so the atheist has no particular reason for suspecting that the laws of nature will continue to operate, except that they have so far. but for the believer, the laws of nature do not have priority either. because if there is a god, who created the universe, then he is responsible for the laws of nature. now he is god such a sloppy creator that he made rules and laws that even he couldn’t change? is it credible to think that god could create gravity and yet be unable to change it when necessary? if that idea just seems too silly to be true, then the objection to miracles evaporates.
the atheists assumes the high ground and asks christians to prove the creation of the universe, but the atheist has no more ability to explain the beginning of the universe than the christian. the atheist accuses the christian of something he is guilty of himself, namely belief without empirical evidence. the atheist berates the christian for something which he has no better answer. in fact, the atheist answer would seem to ultimately assume that the effect of the universe resulted without a cause, an absurdity.
a pseudoscience is a set of beliefs or practices that pretends at being science—that puts forth evidence and arguments which it says are scientifically sound, but in fact are not. pseudoscientists argue in support of new fundamental forces (e.g., rupert sheldrake’s morphic resonance) and even entities (e.g., ancient aliens). the tv show ghost hunters is a prime example; they even have instruments—like voice recorders, em meters, laser thermometers (and deluxe carrying cases)—which seem scientific, but of course do nothing to detect ghosts. but all pseudosciences have one thing in common: the arguments and reasoning they put forth violate basic rules of scientific reasoning.
whether it be gnostic mysticism, or german liberal rationalism, throughout christian history there have been numerous attempts to separate the effects, or “inner truth” christianity from it’s concrete grounding in the narrative of god’s interaction with israel and the life, death, and resurrection of jesus the messiah. in other words, we want the value of “loving your enemies” and “forgiveness” without grounding it in the cross where the godman concretely loved his enemies and forgave them with his own blood. we want the sense of gratitude and joy on a sunny day without grounding it in the creator god who gives it to us and currently sustains all things in things in being.
idea that science is logical, purely rational, that it is detached and value-free, and that it is, for all these reasons, morally superior.
the gospels on which christianity relies were written hundreds of years after the fact and are mostly reinventions of other pagan traditions?
each of these propositions is not only false but easily proven to be so, as even the most minimal exertions show. yet believing any, and many more like them, are touted by “new atheists” as marks of superior intelligence, as enlightened thinking, even as commonsense reasonableness. to these infinitely self-assured folks, disbelief is a synonym of rational. it’s just a guess, but perhaps this irrational belief is why it is so hard to persuade new atheists of their errors?
the presence within us of an objective moral law ‘written on our hearts’ points instead to the existence of an eternal goodness and intelligence which created us and our universe, enables us to think, and is the eternal source of our best and deepest values. in other words, lewis argues, atheism cuts its own throat philosophically, because it discredits all human reasoning, including the arguments for atheism. “if the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. dark would be a word without meaning.” (mere christianity). only by acknowledging that there is a god, he concludes, can we hope to make sense of human existence, the world we inhabit, and, paradoxically, the problem of evil.
am i arguing that “miracles happen too often?” yes, but gilson misses my point. it had nothing to do with science, it had everything to do with god. gilson argued in true reason that god wants his creationsto be “responsible moral agents;” and god also wants his creations to learn from experience. all of these things would not be possible if we lived in a world “of constant supernatural intervention” because “if there isto much chaos (“noise”) in a transmission, the message (signal) can’t get throughto be clearly understood.” (130)i argued that, at least according tonumerous christians around the world, their god intervenes in the affairs of the worldon a daily basis and i provided one, among other examples, of a christian friend who thanked god for coming across a set of chairs in someone’s yard.i also argued that far from being opposed to constant supernatural intervention the entire basis of christianity is built upon supernatural intervention, including god coming down in human form as jesus to the creation of the world out of absolutely nothing, which are in fact acts of the supernatural, unlike what gilson stated in his reply (“it’s more than slightly difficult to see how god violated natural law by creating natural law (as creation ex nihilo indicates).”). gilson’s argument makes no logical sense. christians argue all the time that “something cannot come from nothing” but for christians apparently it’s ok. and i suppose a man rising from the dead or a god-man coming down from heaven isn’t a supernatural event? gilson says nothing about these core beliefs of christianity.
the embrace of a specific belief has rather a lot of do with your geographical location, and nothing at all to do with what is and is not actually true. it is those around you that draw you in.
derren brown, the illusionist, did a series on channel 4 in the uk called fear and faith. during this at one point he gave somebody a camera to record a video diary and told her that for the next two weeks they would be manipulating events in her life so that she could learn life lessons, and that she was to record those lessons on her video diary. darren brown is well-known for doing the hidden camera thing and so this idea, once planted, was embraced as factual. one week later she had a video crammed full of the lessons she had learned during the events that they had staged. the reveal was that they had done nothing at all except give her the idea and a camera – everything that happened was her reading meaning into random events. – this is exactly the same psychology at play in the “born again” experience where jesus is with you and helps you out each day.
me neither. i certainly wouldn’t want anyone to go to suffer everlasting torment, however bad they were in life, and i don’t like the idea of a god would want that either. the idea of unending pain is not only intolerably cruel but to pretend that in any sense someone could deserve that fate so unjust as to be positively wicked. regardless of how bad someone behaved, regardless of how many crimes they committed, no-one could do enough evil to justify an infinite punishment. even worse is the suggestion that anyone who misses out on salvation will end up with the same punishment; petty crook and genocidal dictator alike, they all must endure an eternity of pain and suffering. a god who behaved in this way could not be described as “merciful“, could not even be described as “just”. such a god could only be described as wicked. but the god i believe in is both merciful and just, so i can’t believe that he would send anyone to hell.
leave aside for a moment what jesus meant by “soul” and “hell”, it is clear that jesus did not think of hell as many christians do. for jesus, hell is not a place where the soul suffers eternal conscious torment. instead hell is a place where the soul is killed, destroyed, finished, done.
jesus promises eternal life. the opposite of eternal life is not eternal conscious torment but eternal death. jesus makes this clear in the words considered above. whoever rejects the offer will “not see life”. they don’t go on living in torment and agony for all eternity. they just stay dead. that’s the fate of the wicked, that’s the fate of those who reject jesus’ offer of life, they stay dead.
the question then is why do so many christians believe in hell, given that is a horrible idea and not what jesus taught? for some people, though they call themselves “christian”, just use the doctrine of hell as a stick to beat their neighbours. there also probably some truth in the claim that the historic church used the threat of hell as a way of controlling its followers. but there are also many sincere and well-intentioned christians who still believe in hell. this is because they are used to reading the bible a certain way and have never been shown that it was written differently.
many christians believe that the soul is immortal, that it not only survives death but can never die. this is not what jesus or the early christians taught, but if you believe that the soul cannot die then you must believe it goes somewhere after death. you wouldn’t want to belief that wicked people end up in a good place (a lot of christians believe they go to heaven when they die), so there must be a bad place for the bad people to go to. once you’ve got this idea in your mind then you read the bible to fit that idea. for example, whilst jesus never talks about eternal conscious torment, he does talk about “eternal punishment” (matthew 25:46). if you already believe that bad souls go to a bad place when they die, it is convenient to read “eternal punishment” as though it said “eternal conscious torment”. that’s not what jesus said, but that’s what many christians think.
it also does not help that christians today have forgotten what jesus meant when he used the word “hell”. when jesus talks about hell he is usually using the word gehenna, which literally means “valley of hinnom“. this was a place in ancient israel where the worshippers of the pagan god molech would perform human sacrifices, including burning children (e.g. 2 kings 23:10). this practice is condemned by god through the prophet jeremiah (jeremiah 32:35). jeremiah uses the imagery of being burnt in the valley of hinnom to portray the fitting punishment for those who practiced such evil (jeremiah 7:31-32). this is the background to the word gehenna in the new testament where it represents the fate of the wicked. when jesus talks about the ‘fire of hell‘ (matthew 5:22) he is using the word gehenna, using this imagery for the destruction of death. the other word used by jesus for hell is hades. though in greek mythology hades was both the abode of the dead and the god of the dead, in the new testament hades simply refers to the grave. in either case jesus was not referring to a place of eternal conscious torment for the wicked, as many people now think about hell.
as you can see from this overview i do not think that christians should believe in hell and as such i do not think that hell provides any obstacle to believing in god. jesus does not teach that the wicked go to hell and i do not know of any other part of the bible that teaches this idea. wherever people got the notion of hell from it was not from god and not part of his message to mankind. i can understand that you would not want to believe in a god that condemned people to hell, though your personal dislike would not determine whether or not such a god existed. but the notion of hell is inconsistent with everything we know about the god who does exist; inconsistent with his goodness and inconsistent with his message to mankind.
because of the symbolic nature of the language, some people question whether hell consists of actual fire. such reasoning should bring no comfort to the lost. the reality is greater than the symbol. the bible exhausts human language in describing heaven and hell. the former is more glorious, and the latter more terrible, than language can express.
in christian tradition it is usually associated with the notion of eternal punishment, especially by fire. this idea appears in isaiah. 66:24, but it is not clearly associated with a place. jewish writings from the third century b.c. onward, speak of places of punishment by fire for evil spirits and the wicked dead (1 enoch 18:11-16; 108:3-7, 15; 2 esdras 7:36-38). the book of revelation describes a lake that burns with fire and brimstone in which the wicked will be eternally punished (revelation 19:20; 20:14-15; 21:8).
one aspect of the great controversy about hell, and about bell’s thesis, is the meaning of the word gehenna in the new testament. most english translations contribute to the confusion by replacing the word gehenna with hell, instead of leaving it untranslated, as it should be, since it is the name of a specific geographical place on earth.
the scriptures indicate that hell is nothing more than mankind’s common grave. proof of this is provided by a verse of scripture in the bible, which no hellfire-believing christian can explain away. i’m referring to the scripture that says jesus christ–the epitome of a perfect, sinless, and obedient man–died and went to hell.
when most people think of hell, they think of satan in that red suit with two horns and a pitchfork somewhere in the depths of the earth where souls are tormented day and night on some kind of giant char broiler. do something wrong in life and you’re condemned to an eternal damnation of flames. none of this could be further from the truth, and we should know better, “lest satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices” (ii corinthians 2:11).the english word hell comes from the anglo-saxon hel, or in the genitive case helle, which means a “hidden place”, from the anglo-saxon word helan, meaning “to hide”.
whether it’s the word sheol in the old testament, or gehenna or hades in the new testament, they all mean either the grave or the state of death.
in their disputes about the meaning of gehenna, both men overlooked the significance of gehenna as a topographical feature in the land of promise, and one of the valleys which isaiah said will be filled, as john the baptist proclaimed. [luke 3:5]from gehenna, one views jerusalem as an outsider; the teachings of jesus encourage us to get into the kingdom of god, and obtain life.
+the sayings of jesus about gehenna also apply to the present age. gehenna is a judgment. [mat. 5:22, 23:33] jesus referred to it as something we should avoid at any cost, even if it means loss of our right eye, or our right hand, or our right foot. [mat. 5:29, 30] jesus said god is able to destroy “both soul and body” in gehenna, and that we should fear him. [mat. 10:28, luke 12:5] this suggests that the warnings about gehenna apply to our present lives; being cast into it represents the spiritual condition, of being outside the holy city.being cast into gehenna contrasts with entering into life. [mat. 18:9] scribes, pharisees, and hypocrites are called “children of gehenna.” [mat. 23:15] balfour correctly pointed out “no gentile is ever threatened with gehenna punishment,” as that threat applies especially to those in jerusalem. one must be in the holy city, in order to be cast out of it. while the threat of “the damnation of gehenna” applies only to jews, the heirs of salvation, who are “in christ,” are called jews, and “the circumcision,” in a spiritual sense; jesus used the threat of gehenna figuratively and metaphorically to warn the saints who dwell in the heavenly jerusalem.
thus, sheol and hades were the same place and must have been occupied by the redeemed since the messiah was there while his body lay in the grave. that the lost were also there, but in a separate area, is clear from christ’s statement that when the rich man died, “in hades he lift up his eyes, being in torment….” that in his torment he could see lazarus and abraham in comfort (luke 16:19-31) further indicates that the redeemed were also in hades yet distinct from the damned. that part of hades, which christ referred to as “abraham’s bosom,” must have been the “paradise” in which jesus promised to meet the believing thief on the cross that very day (luke 23:43).
if god is so loving why doesn’t he universally forgive everyone? love is only part of god’s character. he is also infinitely and perfectly just. how can god forgive someone who admits no guilt? how can he forgive those who insist that there is nothing for which he needs to forgive them? and would it not be the utmost folly to do so? if in his mercy and grace god simply passed over human rebellion, would that not be condoning evil and even encouraging it? would that not in itself undermine god’s control of his universe?
philosophy – what is hell?
to hell with hellis punishment eternal?
imagine there was a man who went around claiming that he had a special message from god and that part of this man’s message was that he would be killed and come back to life. and then imagine that this man did indeed come back to life. surely that is the sort of person you’d want to pay attention to. we have seen that there is good historical evidence that jesus is that sort of person – that he claimed to have a special message from god and that he died and came back to life. so we would want to pay attention to what jesus said about the bible.
now for the purposes of this essay we are using the gospels as historical sources, not yet as scripture (otherwise our argument would be circular). but this does not prevent us drawing some conclusions about jesus’ view of the bible. for instance, as a first century jew it would expect jesus to believe that the old testament was inspired by god (just as jews do today). and the gospels corroborate this. for example, when jesus says “everything written about me in the law of moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” (luke 24:44), he is referring to the three sections into which the jews divided their scriptures. it is also clear that jesus regarded the old testament books as messages from god. for example, he refers to the psalms being written by the holy spirit (mark 12:36).
but what about the new testament? none of the books of the new testament were written during jesus’ lifetime on the earth. most written between twenty and forty years after his crucifixion. this being said, there are indications that jesus expected there to be these books. we know that jesus was a teacher, that he appointed disciples and that after his resurrection it was these disciples that started telling everyone about jesus. the gospels say that jesus selected the disciples for this role; for example, “you are witnesses of these things” (luke 24:48). and those who wrote the nt recognised that they were specially selected as witnesses (e.g. 1 pet 1:12; heb 2:3-4). in effect, jesus says “there are going be witnesses” and the nt writers claim to be those witnesses.
so jesus accepted the old testament as scripture, and it seems likely that the new testament was written to fulfil jesus’ instructions. therefore the testimony of jesus is gives us good reason for thinking the bible is a special book and should encourage us to look for further evidence.
obviously not all predictions are going to be as convincing as others. there seem to be three criteria: (1) that prediction is made before the event it predicts (otherwise its not a prediction), (2) that predicted event can be verified with reasonable certainty (otherwise how would you know if the prediction was successful), and (3) that the predicted events is sufficiently unlikely to make the prediction significant (predicting rain in england is hardly surprising).
the bible contains numerous prophecies. some are short term prophecies so aren’t easy to verify historically, but there are plenty of long term prophecies to look at it. here we’ll just look at one group of prophesies to make the point. these are the old testament prophecies about jesus, which accurately predict many of the events of jesus’ life. these include being a descendant of king david (2 sam 7:12-13), being born in bethlehem (mic 5:2), being betrayed by a friend (ps 41:9), being valued at thirty pieces of silver (zech 11:13), having no bones broken in his execution (ex 12:46), having hands and feet pierced (ps 22:16; zech 12:10), having his clothing divided by lot (ps 22:18), being buried in the grave of a rich man (isa 53:9) and being raised from the dead (ps 16:9-11). what is interesting about these prophecies is these predictions al converge on the person of jesus.
there is one further prophecy worth mentioning. in daniel 9:24-27 a prophecy is made about set period of time in the history of the jewish people. it is described in terms of weeks but all scholars agree that these weeks are periods of seven years. the interpretation of the prophecy can be technical because of some unusual hebrew words and the fact that daniel was using 360 day years (as opposed to the 365 ¼ day years that we use). but in essence what the prophecy says is that from command to rebuild the wall of jerusalem to the coming of the messiah would be 69 “weeks”. and if you do that maths, the time between the persian command that the wall of jerusalem should be rebuilt to the time of jesus is exactly the period specified by daniel 9. even if you wanted to quibble about the exact year of the command or the exact year of jesus’ ministry, the timing is still so accurate that it cannot be ignored.
most antiquities scholars think that the new testament gospels are “mythologized history.” in other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial jewish rabbi named yeshua ben yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into christianity.at the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the ancient near east, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. in this view, a “historical jesus” became mythologized.
while much of the new testament prophecy points to a distant future, many of the claims of jesus can be assessed now. jesus’ accuracy is so compelling, many skeptics have altered their dating of the new testament in response. acknowledging the accuracy of the prophecy related to the temple destruction, skeptics typically date luke and matthew after 70ad to account for the inclusion of this statement. in doing so, these skeptics recognize the power of jesus’ prophetic ability. they would rather deny the evidence for early dating than accept jesus’ accuracy. critics and skeptics of the new testament recognize the power accurate prophecy has to demonstrate the divinity of the new testament.
the only religion in the whole world, that believes in jesus [ʿīsā] (upon whom be peace) and testifies to christianity is islām. muslims believe, that jesus (upon whom be peace) was one of the mightiest messengers of allāh; that he was born miraculously ― without any male intervention; that he gave life to the dead by allāh’s permission, and that he healed the born blind and the lepers by allāh’s permission. a person is not considered a muslim, unless, he or she believes in jesus (upon whom be peace). muslims believe, that allāh delivered the gospel ― injeel to jesus (upon whom be peace), just as he did torah ― taurāt to moses [mūsā] (upon whom be peace), the old testament ― zabūr to david [dāwūd] (upon whom be peace) and the mighty qur’ān to prophet muhammad (peace be upon him).
during the years of christ and his death and resurrection a great transition was made between the old and new covenants. the holy scriptures at that time were old testament records and were used as a basis for israel’s faith. during the first century the four gospel’s and the new testament epistles were being written and were not published until the 3rd century and after. the old testament records (the holy scriptures) were israel’s primary written words of god.
both the old testament and new testament books were immediately recognized and treated as scripture, though we have no formal statement about the new testament until the fourth century.
how did the early church judge which books were scripture and which were not?
the test of authority: who penned the book?
the test of internal evidence: does the book penned or authorized by a genuine prophet or apostle bear the internal evidence of being god breathed?
the test of god’s people: did genuine believers from the penning of these books to the present recognize them as scripture?
oftentimes when we study end times bible prophecy, we tend to focus on the old testament prophets like joel, isaiah, zechariah, and on our apostle paul in the new testament. but peter has a treasure trove of scripture for us to consider as well.
the more frequently you read and study the bible, more of it will get into your mind and you won’t have to memorize it. it will just be there waiting to be used. it will also give you a greater understanding of god and his ways to “search the scriptures” because in doing so, you will be learning about god more and more.
with one-fourth of the bible prophetically future when it was written, the interpretation of prophecy is one of the most challenging areas of biblical study. too often preconceptions have led interpreters to draw from the biblical text doctrines that were quite removed from what the text actually states. because prophecy is scattered from the early chapters of genesis to the last chapter of revelation and deals with so many different situations and subjects, interpreters of prophecy have too often abandoned any detailed interpretation and reached only general conclusions.
the central event of the christian faith is the resurrection of jesus. if jesus stayed dead then his own predictions proved false – he was nothing more than a good man with some interesting teaching. but if jesus rose from the dead then he is someone really special – someone worth believing. what’s more if jesus rose from the dead then perhaps death isn’t the end – perhaps there is a way for others to overcome death too.
firstly, jesus died on the cross. this is not particularly controversial. it was accepted by non-christians like josephus, tacitus, lucian and the writers of the talmud. it is, of course, also the unanimous testimony of christian sources, like the gospels and the letters. modern medical appraisals of crucifixion have concluded that jesus could not have survived what he suffered and, in any case, the romans had ways of ensuring their victims died.
14th century byzantine icon of the descent from the cross from the church of saint marina in kalopanagiotis, cyprus. st. joseph of arimathea is the figure standing in the center, in blue-green robes holding the body of christ.secondly, jesus was buried in a tomb. this is also not particularly controversial. the earliest christian preachers described jesus being laid in a tomb (acts 13:28-29). the gospels record how joseph of arimathea took the body of jesus and laid it in his tomb (mark 15:46; matt 27:59-60; luke 23:53; john 19:41-42). the early reverence of a tomb in jerusalem (whether or not this is actually the tomb of jesus) is another witness of the type of burial given to jesus. and no ancient critic of christianity – whether jewish or pagan – ever suggested that jesus was buried somewhere else.
thirdly, three days later the tomb of jesus was empty. this is important because for both jews and pagans “resurrection” (anastasis) meant bodily resurrection – if jesus was alive again, his tomb must be empty. again this is a feature of the earliest christian preaching (cf. acts 2:29-32) and the gospel records (mark 16:1-8; matt 28:1-10; luke 24:1-12; john 20:1-10). but it is also a feature of the early jewish accounts of jesus – from the first century onwards they claimed that the disciple stole the body (matt 28:11-15; justin, dialogue 108; tertullian, de spectaculis 30; toledoth yeshu 9-10). this story presupposes that they thought the tomb was empty (they would hardly tell such a story if jesus was still in the tomb). the fact that caesar issued a decree against moving bodies from sealed tombs and had it inscribed on a stone in nazareth probably indicates that he too had heard the story that the tomb of jesus was empty (this decree is known as the nazareth inscription).
fourthly, the early christians claimed to have seen the risen jesus. when writing a letter to the church at corinth in the mid-50s, paul lists those who saw jesus after his resurrection, including the twelve disciples and jesus’ brother james. he even says there are over five hundred other witnesses, many of whom were still alive when he wrote (1 cor 15:5-8). these claims are also a feature of the earliest christian preaching (acts 2:32, 3:15, 10:39-40), the gospels (john 20:11-18; luke 24:34; matt 28:15-17, etc.), other new testament texts (e.g. 1 pet 1:3; rom 1:4; phil 3:10; heb 13:20; rev 1:18) and other first century christian texts (didache 10:2; 1 clement 24:1; barnabas 5:7).
this evidence is early, based upon eyewitness testimony and has a consistent core – that jesus died, was buried and rose again. the resurrection of jesus is, by far, the simplest explanation of the historical evidence.
what about the alternatives? well, a number of alternative theories have been suggested to explain the evidence but none has managed to convince the majority of scholars. those scholars who deny the resurrection generally tend to not give a verdict on the evidence. but, for completeness, let us consider briefly just one oft-repeated alternative. it goes something like this: the disciples stole the body and then pretended jesus was alive again to promote their new religion. after all, the first century jews claimed that the disciples stole the body.
however, this alternative theory just does not work for a number of reasons. firstly, if this was a conspiracy then it was a huge conspiracy (over 500 witnesses). secondly, the disciples had no motivation for the deception – when other jewish cult leaders and “messiahs” had met gruesome ends their followers had just disbanded. the early disciples gained neither money, status or fame from their preaching. thirdly, the disciples had everything to lose from such a deception. they were persecuted, imprisoned and executed by both jewish and roman authorities. early witnesses, like peter and paul, met their deaths refusing to renounce their faith. would you die for a lie?
the simple fact is that the historical evidence is clear and consistent. and if the event in question wasn’t so controversial then i don’t think anybody would doubt it. unfortunately it is controversial. because if the resurrection is false then christianity is false. and if the resurrection is true then christianity (or at least its core claims) are also true. so a lot hangs on this question. and at the end of the day you’re going to have to make up your own mind for yourself. but if you think that resurrection is possible and if, like me, you think the historical evidence is strong, then you have good reason for thinking that jesus rose from the dead.
moving from historical data to the best explanation of that data crossan and ehrman robustly rejects resurrections hypothesis. their rejection is not based on historical data, but on what best explain these data. it is not a historical based rejection but a philosophical one, the impossibility of miracles.
gerd ludemann is actually an atheist new testament historian, and he has even debated dr. craig on the resurrection – not once, but twice. that’s the kind of evidence dr. craig uses in his case. not just what your pastor will give you, but what atheists will give you. we need to learn to debate like that.
the religious leaders would certainly have had enough reason for doing so. they had heard that jesus had talked of resurrection, and were afraid of hanky-panky. so the argument runs, in order to forestall trickery, they took the precaution of confiscating the corpse. but when this is put into scrutiny, this conjecture also falls into pieces.having placed the guards at the tomb, what would be their reason for moving the body of jesus? if the authorities moved the body of jesus, why didn’t they bring it when the apostles were boldly preaching about the resurrection in jerusalem? the religious leaders did everything in their power to suppress the preaching on the resurrection. they even arrested peter and john (acts 4) and beat them, and threatened them in an effort to silence them.a few weeks of jesus’ death, the disciples were boldly proclaiming the resurrection. the news spread rapidly. the new christian movement threatened to undermine the stronghold of judaism and disturb the peace of jerusalem. the jews feared conversion and the romans detested riots. the authorities had before them one course of action. the religious leaders could have produced the remains of the corpse of jesus and published a statement of what they had done. they could have paraded the body of jesus through the streets of jerusalem, if indeed, they had it, and that would have smothered christianity in its cradle.
why would matthew fabricate a jewish cover-story and falsely suggest that it “has been widely circulated among the jews to this very day” (matt 28:15 niv)? he wouldn’t. clearly his jewish audience would have already heard the cover-story. this is probably why matthew seeks to rebut it.
it is wholly implausible that jesus’ disciples stole his body. they were broken and confused. their messiah was dead and they had nothing to gain from stealing his body and then claiming he rose from the dead. indeed, they suffered greatly for this claim.no amount of cognitive dissonance could possibly motivate every disciple to claim their messiah was alive when they knew he wasn’t. we might at most expect them to find a new messiah, but they didn’t.the second suspects are grave robbers hoping to make a profit. however, the gospels of luke and john record that jesus’ grave clothes remaining in the tomb. why would any grave robbers leave the clothes behind? moving a body by itself would be incredibly messy. those looking for burial spices would almost certainly simply have carried off the wrapped body and removed the spices in a safe place. even the clothes themselves could have been sold later on.perhaps instead the robbers wanted body parts for magic practices. this is unlikely since there is no evidence that stealing bodies for magical purposes was much of a problem in first-century palestine.


text:
I am beyond excited that you have decided to check out JUDAH Fellowship Christian Church. This ministry was birthed out of the vision that we would be a safe and welcoming place for everyone. Please take this opportunity to learn about our history, understand what we are all about, and even potentially learn something about yourself as well.
A voice in the community.
A beacon of hope & love for the wounded.
A true witness of the gospel message of Jesus the Christ.
Please know that God wants relationship with you, God wants you to be connected to a church family that will nurture you, feed your spirit, and love you unconditionally. Thanks be to God, you have found that in JUDAH Fellowship Christian Church.
Rev. Shanea D. Leonard, M. Div.

lowercased:
i am beyond excited that you have decided to check out judah fellowship christian church. this ministry was birthed out of the vision that we would be a safe and welcoming place for everyone. please take this opportunity to learn about our history, understand what we are all about, and even potentially learn something about yourself as well.
a voice in the community.
a beacon of hope & love for the wounded.
a true witness of the gospel message of jesus the christ.
please know that god wants relationship with you, god wants you to be connected to a church family that will nurture you, feed your spirit, and love you unconditionally. thanks be to god, you have found that in judah fellowship christian church.
rev. shanea d. leonard, m. div.


text:
Bathroom Renovation Guys is here for all your needs concerning Bathroom Renovation in Brohman, MI. Our workforce of skilled contractors can provide the solutions that you require with the most sophisticated technologies available. Our materials are always of the very best quality and we have learned to conserve your costs. We will make it easier to make decisions for your project, reply to all your questions, and prepare an appointment with our experts when you call us at 888-341-7776.
Saving money is an integral part of your task. On top of that, you need the most effective and finest standard of work regarding Bathroom Renovation in Brohman, MI. You can expect the best quality even while still saving you money. When you deal with our team, you'll get the benefit of our practical experience and quality supplies to guarantee that your project can last even while saving your time and funds. We will achieve this by delivering the most suitable savings in the market and steering clear of pricey errors. Save time and money by simply contacting Bathroom Renovation Guys now. You're able to contact us by dialing 888-341-7776 to get started.
You will need to be well informed concerning Bathroom Renovation in Brohman, MI. We be sure you understand what to expect. You're not going to encounter any sort of surprises if you hire Bathroom Renovation Guys. The first step is to give us a call by dialing 888-341-7776 to begin your work. We're going to discuss your questions as soon as you call and get you set up with a meeting. We consistently appear at the appointed time, ready to work with you.
If you are considering a project for Bathroom Renovation in Brohman, MI, there are several good reasons to prefer Bathroom Renovation Guys. We are the first choice when you really need the best cash saving options, the best equipment, and the highest rank of customer care. We will be ready to assist you with the greatest expertise and practical experience around. If you want Bathroom Renovation in Brohman, contact Bathroom Renovation Guys by dialing 888-341-7776, and we'll be glad to help.

lowercased:
bathroom renovation guys is here for all your needs concerning bathroom renovation in brohman, mi. our workforce of skilled contractors can provide the solutions that you require with the most sophisticated technologies available. our materials are always of the very best quality and we have learned to conserve your costs. we will make it easier to make decisions for your project, reply to all your questions, and prepare an appointment with our experts when you call us at 888-341-7776.
saving money is an integral part of your task. on top of that, you need the most effective and finest standard of work regarding bathroom renovation in brohman, mi. you can expect the best quality even while still saving you money. when you deal with our team, you'll get the benefit of our practical experience and quality supplies to guarantee that your project can last even while saving your time and funds. we will achieve this by delivering the most suitable savings in the market and steering clear of pricey errors. save time and money by simply contacting bathroom renovation guys now. you're able to contact us by dialing 888-341-7776 to get started.
you will need to be well informed concerning bathroom renovation in brohman, mi. we be sure you understand what to expect. you're not going to encounter any sort of surprises if you hire bathroom renovation guys. the first step is to give us a call by dialing 888-341-7776 to begin your work. we're going to discuss your questions as soon as you call and get you set up with a meeting. we consistently appear at the appointed time, ready to work with you.
if you are considering a project for bathroom renovation in brohman, mi, there are several good reasons to prefer bathroom renovation guys. we are the first choice when you really need the best cash saving options, the best equipment, and the highest rank of customer care. we will be ready to assist you with the greatest expertise and practical experience around. if you want bathroom renovation in brohman, contact bathroom renovation guys by dialing 888-341-7776, and we'll be glad to help.


text:
Portland’s Lady Lamb the Beekeeper will help celebrate the opening of Park Slope’s Rock Shop on Aug. 2.
The Rock Shop, Park Slope’s newest venue, celebrates its opening on August 2, with sets by Sharon Van Etten, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, and a very special guest.
The newest addition to the booming Park Slope nightlife scene, Rock Shop, celebrates its grand opening on Aug. 2.
The space, in the former Cattyshack and spearheaded by Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge owner Michael Winsch, has been open for a few weeks, but the managers waited to get settled and tweak the sound before “officially” opening.
For the grand opening, Rock Shop booker Jack “Skippy” McFadden, whom music fans will recognize as the former booker for the Bell House and Union Hall, has pulled together a “sentimental” lineup, with songstress Sharon Van Etten, the quirky Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, and a special female headlining act that’s hush-hush until the day of the show on the bill.
Between sets, you can imbibe in local brews including Six Point, Blue Moon, Brooklyn Lager. The only thing missing from the equation is food, which the venue will have from a local restaurant for the grand opening. By September, Harkenrider looks to start offering typical bar food like wings and burgers from its own kitchen, which will call for another party of its own.
Grand opening of the Rock Shop [249 Fourth Ave. near Carroll Street in Park Slope, (718) 230-5740], Aug. 2 at 8 pm. Tickets $15. For info, visit www.therockshopny.com.
Park Slope needs a sports bar serving wings like it needs a hole in its head.
Also, since when is Blue Moon (a brand of Coors) a "local" brew?

lowercased:
portland’s lady lamb the beekeeper will help celebrate the opening of park slope’s rock shop on aug. 2.
the rock shop, park slope’s newest venue, celebrates its opening on august 2, with sets by sharon van etten, lady lamb the beekeeper, and a very special guest.
the newest addition to the booming park slope nightlife scene, rock shop, celebrates its grand opening on aug. 2.
the space, in the former cattyshack and spearheaded by bowery ballroom and mercury lounge owner michael winsch, has been open for a few weeks, but the managers waited to get settled and tweak the sound before “officially” opening.
for the grand opening, rock shop booker jack “skippy” mcfadden, whom music fans will recognize as the former booker for the bell house and union hall, has pulled together a “sentimental” lineup, with songstress sharon van etten, the quirky lady lamb the beekeeper, and a special female headlining act that’s hush-hush until the day of the show on the bill.
between sets, you can imbibe in local brews including six point, blue moon, brooklyn lager. the only thing missing from the equation is food, which the venue will have from a local restaurant for the grand opening. by september, harkenrider looks to start offering typical bar food like wings and burgers from its own kitchen, which will call for another party of its own.
grand opening of the rock shop [249 fourth ave. near carroll street in park slope, (718) 230-5740], aug. 2 at 8 pm. tickets $15. for info, visit www.therockshopny.com.
park slope needs a sports bar serving wings like it needs a hole in its head.
also, since when is blue moon (a brand of coors) a "local" brew?