Tuesday, December 19, 2006
20/20 on the Historicity of the Nativity
By and large, the experts they had assembled were against the Nativity story being true. Here were the two most pertinent things in the segment.
1) An anti-supernatural bias. If you start with the premise or the faith commitment that God cannot do these things, guess what you end up with? God didn't do those things and the Nativity story is wrong.
2) Some scholar said that the ancients had a looser view of a story being true than we do. The story doesn't have to be literally true, but it was meant to be a story for some other purpose. She gave no basis for this. She doesn't explain why Peter explicitly says they didn't follow designed myths. "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Peter 1:16)
She doesn't explain why Paul explicitly says that if the Resurrection didn't really happen, Christians would be accursed by God. (1 Cor. 15) Does that sound like a story that doesn't have to be true?
She doesn't explain why the reaction by the Sadducees, who didn't believe in resurrection generally, is incredibly negative to Paul's preaching. (Acts 23:6-10) I mean it is just a nice story, right? Why did some Greek philosophers mock Paul's preaching the Resurrection if Paul isn't preaching a real resurrection from the dead? (Acts 17:32)
In other words, the people preaching this message didn't think it was an Aesop's fable. They died for this message. And, more importantly, the people who disagreed with the message realized they believed what they were preaching and it wasn't a fable.
This particular scholar 20/20 seems to want to say something positive about the biblical accounts. But the accounts don't leave room for her interpretation. They are either lying or telling the truth. There is no other option.
By and large, the experts they had assembled were against the Nativity story being true. Here were the two most pertinent things in the segment.
1) An anti-supernatural bias. If you start with the premise or the faith commitment that God cannot do these things, guess what you end up with? God didn't do those things and the Nativity story is wrong.
2) Some scholar said that the ancients had a looser view of a story being true than we do. The story doesn't have to be literally true, but it was meant to be a story for some other purpose. She gave no basis for this. She doesn't explain why Peter explicitly says they didn't follow designed myths. "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Peter 1:16)
She doesn't explain why Paul explicitly says that if the Resurrection didn't really happen, Christians would be accursed by God. (1 Cor. 15) Does that sound like a story that doesn't have to be true?
She doesn't explain why the reaction by the Sadducees, who didn't believe in resurrection generally, is incredibly negative to Paul's preaching. (Acts 23:6-10) I mean it is just a nice story, right? Why did some Greek philosophers mock Paul's preaching the Resurrection if Paul isn't preaching a real resurrection from the dead? (Acts 17:32)
In other words, the people preaching this message didn't think it was an Aesop's fable. They died for this message. And, more importantly, the people who disagreed with the message realized they believed what they were preaching and it wasn't a fable.
This particular scholar 20/20 seems to want to say something positive about the biblical accounts. But the accounts don't leave room for her interpretation. They are either lying or telling the truth. There is no other option.
Labels: 20/20, apologetics, nativity, resurrection
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Amen. There is no other option. How people can miss this and claim to be Bible scholars is beyond me.
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