Popular Attacks
BEFORE A ROOSTER CROWS ONCE OR TWICE? A Seemingly Intractable Contradiction in the Gospel Accounts Solved
© 2022, by John Tors. All Rights Reserved. The Problem One of the seemingly most intractable apparent contradictions in the Gospel books concerns Jesus’ foretelling, at the last supper, Peter’s denial of Him. All four Gospel books include this. Matthew records the following: 31 Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, …
THE RESURRECTION ACCOUNTS: “Incompatible Contradictions” or Coherent History?
And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have …
TIME OUT: Fifty Years Later, Answering Time Magazine’s Question, “Is God Dead?”
Fifty years ago today, Time, “the weekly newsmagazine,” published what some consider its most controversial cover story ever.[1] Inside the usual red border of the cover there was nothing but a stark black background with, under the Time banner, a question in three large red letters: “Is God Dead?”[2] The implication, of course, was not that God, a living being, had met with some misfortune or old age and had died; the question suggested that the world was coming to the …
YES, JESUS REALLY DID EXIST: Refuting Maclean’s Magazine’s Latest Madness
The article is the same farrago of unsubstantiated allegations, bald assertions, and refusal to consider relevant evidence that always characterized this sort of article.
CONTRADICTIONS IN THE GOSPEL BOOKS? Lessons from the World Junior Hockey Championships
There are a number of events in the ministry of Jesus that are documented by more than one Gospel author. Events that are documented by two authors (Matthew and Mark, Matthew and Luke, or Mark and Luke) are called the “double tradition.” Events that are described by three Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are called the “triple tradition.”[1] One of the ways in which liberal skeptics attack the historical reliability of the Gospel books is to point out that there are differences in the double and triple tradition. Matthew’s description of …
DOES AN ANCIENT TEXT PROVE THAT JESUS WAS MARRIED TO MARY MAGDALENE AND HAD CHILDREN? A Response to “The Lost Gospel” by Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson
The claims of The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus’ Marriage to Mary Magdalene are a non-starter. The document is from the late 6th century AD, far too late to have credibility. It is a fictional story of Joseph and Asenath and says nothing about Jesus or Mary Magdalene.
THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD JESUS AND THE TESTIMONY OF GOD IN OUR DAYS
Fact 1: Today the reader is a witness to the fact that a Christian Church exists Fact II: The Lord’s Day / The Christian Day of Worship – First Day of the Week (Sunday)Fact III: NT writings, over 5,800 Greek Manuscripts, Tens of Thousands of NT Manuscripts Other than Greek and …
“NATIVITY LEGENDS” OR HISTORICAL FACTS? A Response to Free Inquiry
It’s that time of year again. Christmas is approaching, and with it a bevy of annual traditions: Christmas carols, decorations, coloured lights on houses, shopping for gifts – and, of course, the farrago of assaults by atheists and liberal scholars on the historical truth of the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus. The …
AN IMPOSSIBLE ENTITY: A Refutation of “The Thinking Atheist’s” Unthinking Attack on Creationism
Simple logic shows that if there are two, and only two, possible explanations for a phenomenon then proving one false necessarily proves the other true.
“HENDERSON HAS SCORED FOR CANADA!” What the 40th Anniversary of the Canada/USSR Summit Series Can Tell Us about the Gospel Books
Today, September 28, 2012, is the fortieth anniversary of Game 8, the final and deciding game of the 1972 Canada/USSR hockey “Summit Series.” It was an event that captured the attention of Canadians as very few other things ever have. Hockey was our game, the one thing we did better than anyone else in the world, and the one thing that touched the lives of all Canadians from coast to coast. We were the best, no question. For a long time, other nations were no match even for our lowly amateurs[1]. But …
STILL WAITING FOR AN INTELLIGENT DEFENCE OF ATHEISM – The Latest Failure: Heather Mallick in the Toronto Star
One must wonder whether an intelligent defence of atheism is even possible. Most attempts are nothing more than bald assertions, usually sprinkled liberally with insults and couched in bad manners. Even the best attempts are invariably riddled with errors of fact and logic. If an intelligent defence of atheism has been made, I have yet to see it. The latest such buffoonery is Heather Mallick’s “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s atheism,” published in the Toronto Star on September 24, 2012 (p. A23). It begins with a bald assertion followed by …
IS CREATIONISM NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN? Exposing the Muddled Thinking of Bill Nye “the Science Guy”
Bill Nye, the mechanical engineer and well known host of the 1990s Disney/PBS educational show “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” is an ardent advocate of the theory of evolution. On August 23, a video was posted on YouTube titled “Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children.” It was designed to persuade people to stop teaching creationism to children and embrace evolution, yet for the thinking individual the video simply exposed the muddled thinking of Darwin’s disciples[1]. The purpose of this article is not to “reinvent the wheel” by again arguing the …
CHEATING THEMSELVES THROUGH PHILOSOPHY: A Demolition of “The Rights and Wrongs of Alan Dershowitz” in Claremont Review of Books (Fall, 2005)
As a salvo in the debate over natural law versus revelation, the article “The Rights and Wrongs of Alan Dershowitz” by Hadley Arkes, published in the Fall 2005 issue of Claremont Review of Books[1], is a noteworthy contribution. It is noteworthy, however, because it does such a good job of destroying its own argument for natural law. And it does it so thoroughly, albeit unintentionally, that it would seem to make it difficult to take such arguments seriously henceforth. There are two main parts to this article. The first, which takes up …
DO YOU HAVE TO STOP THINKING TO BE A CHRISTIAN? A Response to Charles Lewis (National Post, January 26, 2011)
In an opinion piece titled “Less God, more excuses” in this day’s National Post newspaper (p. A15), Charles Lewis writes the following: The most popular objection to religion is that it replaces thinking with sets of unproveable truths – and that the rules flowing out of those truths turn adherents into robots. Those who leave religion behind, we are led to understand, will begin to think for themselves and thereby exercise real freedom as responsible citizens. Lewis goes on to lament that this latter theory has not been fulfilled, but has instead …
