I Call It as I See It.

John Dominic Crossan: History, Religion and Education under Fire

By Spencer D. Gear PhD


Outline of chapters:

1. Preface

2. Why would an evangelical Christian investigate an unorthodox scholar?

3. Welcome Derrida, Gadamer and Barthes to Crossan’s ideology

4. The death of the author

5. Barthes meant this by deconstruction

6. Crossan’s autobiographical background

7. Presuppositions dictate methods for examining the historical Jesus

8. The challenge of methodology

9. The impact of methodology on Crossan’s estimate of Gospel origins and content

10. Crossan’s estimate of the New Testament Gospels

11. The effects of Crossan’s stratification on methodology

12. Crossan’s presuppositions and their influence on his interpretation of

Jesus’ resurrection

13. Crossan’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus Christ

14. Warning to evangelicals: Skating too close for comfort

15. Conclusion

16. References

Chapter 1. Preface[1]

John Dominic (Dom) Crossan of the Jesus Seminar fame deconstructs the Gospel texts with a creative freedom to add to or subtract from the material. He has no qualms about making the text say what he wants it to say. What presuppositions could drive such a person-centered manipulation of the text? A presupposition is “something that is assumed in advance or taken for granted.”[2]

This book deals with the subject of the book, which concerns the presuppositions, scope and aims of how Derrida, Gadamer and Barthes could influence Crossan’s postmodern, deconstructionist, reader-response[3] philosophy. Some definitions are needed here. “Postmodern” relates to “a theory that involves radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history or language”.[4] A preface is “a preliminary statement in a book by the book’s author or editor, setting forth its purpose and scope, expressing acknowledgment of assistance from others, etc.”[5]

According to Dictionary.com, deconstruction refers to

a philosophical and critical movement, starting in the 1960s and especially applied to the study of literature, that questions all traditional assumptions about the ability of language to represent reality and emphasizes that a text has no stable reference or identification because words essentially only refer to other words and therefore a reader must approach a text by eliminating any metaphysical or ethnocentric assumptions through an active role of defining meaning, sometimes by a reliance on new word construction, etymology, puns, and other word play.[6]

We will show how this led to the death of the author of the text. Crossan was raised a Roman Catholic, taught at a major Catholic University for 26 years and left the priesthood to marry. The major influence on his conclusions was his idiosyncratic methodology of importing deconstructionist philosophy to remove the fixed meaning of a biblical text.

Reader-response is “a literary criticism that focuses primarily on the reader’s reaction to a text,”[7] Crossan regarded the New Testament Gospels as theological fiction. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus were not historical facts but were parables of invention by the Gospel writers, the resurrection being a phantom. Evangelicals skate on thin ice when they engage in allegorical interpretation as it can be close to the postmodern, deconstructionist boundaries. The aim of this book is to investigate Crossan’s presuppositions, as objectively as possible, and it will be shown that Crossan’s method destroys the meaning of any text, including Scripture.


Chapter 2. Why would I, an evangelical Christian, investigate an unorthodox scholar?

Why would an evangelical Christian desire to investigate the teachings of an eminent historical Jesus scholar with prolific writings over the last four decades, but whose teachings are unorthodox? I use evangelical in the orthodox sense of those who

take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The term ‘evangelical’ comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning ‘the good news’ or the ‘gospel.’ Thus, the evangelical faith focuses on the ‘good news’ of salvation brought to sinners by Jesus Christ.[8]

Could some teachings be active in our churches that require refutation like that by Irenaeus (ca. 120-200) in “Against Heresies” (1885); Athanasius (ca. 293-373) and his writings against Arianism (1892); and Kevin J Vanhoozer’s “remythologizing”[9] Rudolf Bultmann’s (AD 1884-1976) who was promoting demythologization of the Gospels?[10] I pursued the study of Crossan in my PhD dissertation[11] as this Crossan method is a threat to biblical (evangelical) Christianity.

If you heard the following teaching from your evangelical pulpit or in small groups should you be concerned? This book contains only a few examples from John Dominic (Dom) Crossan’s many publications. Some are provocative and blasphemous to those who have a strong commitment to the authoritative Scripture:

(1) Crossan stated:

What those first Christians experienced as the continuing presence of the risen Jesus or the abiding empowerment of the Spirit gave the transmitters of the Jesus tradition a creative freedom we would never have dared postulate had such a conclusion not been forced upon us by the evidence.[12]

To which kinds of “creative freedom” could he be pointing? “Forced upon us” is a statement loaded with Crossan’s presuppositions. Would it be better to say it this way: These conclusions are Crossan’s and he forces them on the reader?

(2) Crossan was asked in a letter, “Do you yourself believe in miracles?” His response was:

“Yes, but not as periodic intrusions in some closed natural order. I leave absolutely open what God could do, but I have very definite thoughts about what God does do. The supernatural or divine is not something that periodically or temporarily breaks through the normal surface of the natural or human world. The supernatural is more like the permanently hidden but perpetually beating heart of the natural”, was his reply.[13]

In his debate with distinguished apologist, William Lane Craig, Crossan explained the content of his presupposition concerning the supernatural:

The supernatural always (at least till this is disproved for me) operates through the screen of the natural. The supernatural is like the beating heart of the natural
. Miracles are acts of faith, which say, “Here the supernatural, which is permanently present, is made, as it were, visible to us.” That is how I understand miracles. That is not naturalism. It is a belief that the supernatural never forces faith.[14]

Of miracles, Crossan stated that where a doctor might announce at Lourdes, France that God had intervened, Crossan’s retort was: “It’s a theological presupposition of mine that God does not operate that way.”[15]

Chapter 3. Welcome Derrida and Gadamer to Crossan’s ideology

You may not have read much of Crossan or Derrida [pronounced der-ee-dah or phonetically, ˈdɛr iˌdɑ]. However, promotion of this deconstructionist ideology leads to the death of the author, ruin of the pastor’s message, and the trashing of anything you read or listen to. How could that be?

When you have “a creative freedom” to invent what a text states and you, the reader, ultimately determine the meaning, what will become of the authoritative Scriptures, sound Bible teaching, and your favourite TV news bulletin? If the intention of the original author for the original audience is irrelevant, it leads to multitudinous meanings. Your understanding is as good as mine and mine cannot be challenged within this framework. German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer, promotes a similar view of the “tension between the fixed text” in law or Gospel and applying it to a concrete interpretation. For him, the law and Gospel are not meant to be understood historically but the claims made “must be understood at every moment in every concrete situation in a new and different way. Understanding here is always application.”[16]

What is the difference between deconstruction, eisegesis and allegorical interpretation? I hope you understand how Crossan’s ideology, if accepted and promoted, is a mantra for the downfall of evangelical preaching and teaching.

Crossan presented an essay in which he endorsed French philosopher, Jacques Derrida’s (AD 1930-2004)[17] with Derrida’s statement: “I am trying, precisely, to put myself at a point so that I do not know any longer where I am going.”[18]

Do you understand the implications of this philosophy for a historical Jesus’ scholar and a preacher? Since he has no fixed point of reference, he has a “creative freedom” to do what he wants with the biblical text. This is evident in his statement concerning 1 Corinthians 15 and Joseph of Arimathea being “a fervent hope for the best rather than an historical description of what happened.”[19] This is contrary to the biblical evidence in Matt. 27:57-60; Mark 15:43-46; Luke 23:40-43, and John 19:38-42. Crossan followed Marianne Sawicki[20] in that philosophy, “I formulate it here as I see it,”[21] which is the theme of this book and of postmodern deconstruction. There you have his deconstructionist ideology in a nut shell. It is a profound step that leads to the rapid spread of interactivism in his worldview. It is blatant in its arrogance.

Derrida is regarded as the father of the deconstructionist movement. Although it is challenging to define, Derrida explained deconstruction as “the interplay between language and the construction of meaning.” He considered deconstruction to be “an on-going process of questioning the accepted basis of meaning.” For him, deconstruction was a means of interrogating the relationship between law and justice. The very nature of deconstruction defies an “authoritative definition” because he rejected the certainty of absolute truth or objective meaning and determined the origin of the meaning of words, for example, cannot be separated from their institution in writing. This is the foundation of deconstruction: “Meaning cannot be regarded as fixed or static, but is constantly evolving.”[22]

We could ask: Since Derrida was so influential in Crossan’s ideology, how does Derrida define deconstruction? Jing Zhai explained why Derrida was so evasive in defining his own ideology. He gave the example of painting a milk bottle red. Is that deconstruction or non-deconstruction at the same time? Zhai admitted it is difficult to define deconstruction. We see that with Derrida[23] and it will be evident that Crossan also promotes this view.

Even though Derrida published more than forty books and hundreds of articles in his lifetime, he failed to provide an authoritative definition of this concept. This was because of the self-defeating nature of deconstructionists, needing to use the language they criticise to provide a definitive definition. Deconstruction shuts the door on the language needed to define it. Zhai explained this failure of definition: “Deconstruction has to be understood in context. This kind of fluidity also prevents the possibility of defining deconstruction.”[24]

Language structure has already been the target for deconstruction to argue against, which shuts down the possibility of defining deconstruction with language. Another interesting feature of deconstruction is that it refuses an essence. Derrida wrote there is nothing that could be said to be essential to deconstruction in its differential relations with other words. In other words, deconstruction has to be understood in context. This kind of fluidity also prevents the possibility of defining deconstruction.

Keep that principle in mind. Crossan’s dependence on Derrida’s philosophy caused him to make statements such as, “Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens.”[25]

Catherine Turner, in her analysis of Derrida, made it clear that “deconstruction is not a ‘method’, and it cannot be transformed into one. One cannot ‘apply’ deconstruction to test a hypothesis or to support an argument. Rather it is an ongoing process of interrogation concerned with the structure of meaning itself.”[26]

Chapter 4. The death of the author

In 1968, another deconstructionist promoter, Roland Barthes, acknowledged that a work may originate with an author but its destination was the reader. His pointed assessment was that “we know that in order to restore writing to its future, we must reverse the myth: the birth of the reader must be requited, “one good turn deserves another,”[27] by the death of the Author”.[28] So for Barthes, the birth of the reader leads to the unthinkable death of the author.

Barthes “was attempting to kill off the tendency in literary criticism and educational institutions to use the notion of the author, and his or her supposed intentions, to limit the interpretive possibilities of reading.”[29] Barthes left no doubt as to what he meant by the “death of the author.”

Do you understand the implications for the writings of, say, Matthew and the Apostle Paul if the author’s intended meanings for their audiences were annulled and today’s readers reconstructed their own meanings of Jesus’ teaching from Matt. 28:16-20?

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’ (NIV).

Matthew 28:9-10 was created to reverse the teaching he copied from Mark 16:1-8. This was to help prepare the disciples for the message-vision they experienced, which was not an apparition. Matt. 28:16-20 was created by Matthew and the passion-resurrection tradition of the women appearing frequently after the crucifixion. What is that? The “ritual lament is what changed prophetic exegesis into biographical story.” That is Crossan’s deconstruction of Matt. 28:16-20.[30]

5. Barthes meant this by deconstruction:

· “Writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin.”[31]

· “The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions.”[32]

· “Linguistically, the author is never more than the instance writing.”[33]

· “The removal of the Author 
 is not merely an historical factor, an act of writing; it utterly transforms the modern text (or – which is the same thing – the text is henceforth made and read in such a way that at all its levels the author is absent).”[34]

· “We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.”[35] This researcher considers this is an impudent, shaking of his literary fist at God with the egotistical inference that “I [Barthes] know what texts mean and they don’t coincide with a single theological message. God got it wrong with his insistence on fixed meanings such as: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12 NET).”

· As indicated above, “Once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile. To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing.”[36] How will that deconstruction help us to understand the fresh outbreak of Covid-19 in the northern beaches’ region of Sydney? Can I take it literally that there has been a new cluster of cases, thousands of people tested for the virus, and borders between States closed and some people being quarantined?[37] For, Crossan a historical Jesus scholar, to promote this ideology aborts rational conversation on the meaning of words.

· “Writing ceaselessly posits meaning to evaporate it, carrying out a systematic exemption of meaning. In precisely this way literature, by refusing to assign a “secret”, an ultimate meaning, to the text (and to the world as text), liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypostases-reason, science, law.”[38]

Then add influences on Crossan of deconstructionists such as Gadamer and Ricoeur. All three of them have deconstructed the author in favour of the reader in understanding a text. Where does that leave the text? Relativism is here used to indicate multiplicity of meanings of words and concepts, instead of having one fixed and unequivocal meaning. This philosophy promotes free play with the text. Examples from Crossan include:

· “There is not in my work any presumption that the historical Jesus or earliest Christianity is something you get once and for all forever.”[39] Crossan prefers the term reconstruction as synonymous with Derrida’s deconstruction.

· “No past of continuing importance can ever avoid repeated reconstruction.”[40] Could he admit to the same for the terrorism disaster destroying the twin towers in New York City in 2001? Do you understand how deconstruction strips ordinary language of meaning?

· “This 
 presumes that there will always be divergent historical Jesuses, that there will always be divergent Christs built upon them.” The ultimate reconstruction is that “the structure of Christianity will always be: this is how we see Jesus-then as Christ-now.’[41] This makes the message of the historical Jesus gobbledygook. Language becomes meaningless, unintelligible bunkum.

· “I insist that Jesus-reconstruction, like all such reconstruction, is always a creative interaction of past and present.”[42]

· “Mark created the empty tomb story just as he created the sleeping disciples in Gethsemane.”[43]

· Jesus’ burial by friends “was totally fictional and unhistorical” and the burial, probably by enemies, was in a shallow grave accessed by “scavenging animals” and the text has “fictional overlays” designed to hide information.[44] This researcher notes there is not a word in the four Gospels to affirm this perspective. It is a relativistic invention by Crossan and he explains his argument that “furnished the creative matrix for the earliest passion and resurrection traditions.”[45] That’s Crossan’s deconstructionist view speaking.

An application of Crossan’s approach to reconstructed relativism is in his interpretation of Jesus’ appearance to people on the Emmaus road after his resurrection (Luke 24:28-32). For him, this was not an actual historical event, but “that story is parable about loving, that is, feeding, the stranger as yourself and finding Jesus still – or only? – fully present in that encounter.”[46] Again, this is a deconstructionist’s invention.

His reconstructed, parabolic understanding of this resurrection appearance is encapsulated in his statement, “Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens.” For him, that is “an introductory definition of a parable: a story that never happened but always does – or at least should.”[47] That interpretation of Emmaus was repeated at least four times in Crossan’s writings.[48] Of this incident, he stated “the symbolism is obvious, as is the metaphoric condensation of the first years of Christian thought and practice into one parabolic afternoon.”[49] The symbolism might be obvious to Crossan, but that is a dimension of his idiosyncratic, inventive, postmodern interpretation of what happened on the road to Emmaus, based on his reconstructive worldview.

The above analysis demonstrates that Crossan’s reconstruction of a text is designed to reread it for new meaning and his philosophy is that this must be done constantly by communities in new generations. He demonstrates this with his view of divergent Christs and the structure of Christianity on a foundation of “this is how we see Jesus-then as Christ-now.”’[50] This is a manifestation of Derrida’s deconstructionism where language is an “endless signifying chain.”[51] Imagine using that approach to gain an understanding of Crossan’s own writings? It’s a self-defeating philosophy of language.

Chapter 6. Crossan’s autobiographical background

Crossan was born in Ireland in 1934 as a Roman Catholic and entered the monastic Servite Order in the United States, attended a Servite seminary in Chicago, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1957, two years later receiving his theological doctorate in Ireland.[52] He then taught in Roman Catholic biblical institutes and seminaries in Rome, Chicago and Jerusalem until he resigned from the priesthood in 1968, to marry and to be able to think critically according to his training and not be criticised for such reasoning. He taught biblical studies at the Roman Catholic, DePaul University (Chicago), for 26 years. The university appointment required that his published research be highly original and creative.

His reputation as a critical thinker and biblical scholar received international acclaim when he joined the Jesus Seminar in 1985 in the USA. He was co-director of this Seminar from 1985-1996, the aims of the Seminar (Funk 1985) being to “inquire simply, rigorously after the voice of Jesus, after what he really said”[53] in a way that could border on blasphemy for many and the scholars would do it in full public view with significant mass media attention. Crossan also was chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature USA from 1992 to 1998.

Over the last forty years, Crossan has published dozens of journal articles, eighteen books on the historical Jesus with titles such as The Historical Jesus (1991), Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994), Who killed Jesus? (1995) and The Birth of Christianity (1998), the latter three becoming national best sellers in the United States. The list of his popular-level publicity in print, radio and television is numerous, attracting national and international media attention (see, for example, Copan[54] 1998; Kohn).[55] My personal e-mail inquiry of Crossan’s major publisher, Harper Collins, stated that the publisher was not at liberty to reveal the author’s sales’ statistics.

However, Crossan expressed that he ”‘wrote about one million words on the historical Jesus in the 1990s, had three more books on the Publishers Weekly list for several months apiece, and found myself translated into nine foreign languages including Korean, Chinese, and Japanese”,[56] In a brief biography of Crossan (2006-09), it was declared, “In the last forty years he has written twenty-five books on the historical Jesus, earliest Christianity, and the historical Paul. Five of them have been national religious bestsellers for a combined total of twenty four months”. The “scholarly core of his work is the trilogy.”[57] which was translated into Portuguese, Spanish, German and Italian. Note that he did not use a deconstructionist method to communicate details of his autobiography.[58]

He described his mass media exposure in the USA as including cover stories in the Easter 1996 editions of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. At that time, he made television appearances on A&E’s “Mysteries of the Bible,” PBS’s Frontline program, “From Jesus to Christ,” and an ABC [USA] news special with Peter Jennings. While he tried to be in the forefront of scholarly research, he also stayed on the cutting edge of “popular interpretation.”[59]

How Crossan still demands mass media attention is seen in the May 24, 2010 edition of The New Yorker[60] in which the content of Crossan, The Historical Jesus, is mentioned with Crossan’s emphasis on Jesus’ commensality and social radicalism, the best known being Jesus’ status that contrasted “between John the Faster and Jesus the Feaster.” Jesus had a reputation of eating and drinking with the prostitutes and highwaymen, turning water into wine, and establishing a mystical union at a feast through the use of bread and wine. Crossan, as co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, was stated in Gopnik’s article as making a persuasive case for Jesus’ ‘fressing’ [a slang word meaning “to eat or snack, especially often or in large quantities,”[61] pointing to a radical lifestyle with table manners referring to his heavenly morals.

7. Presuppositions dictate methods for examining the historical Jesus

The rationale for my research was to pursue Crossan’s challenge that Gospel presuppositions dictate methods and models for examining the historical Jesus and early Christianity and that wrong presuppositions weaken or may invalidate a research project. The foci of this study will be some of Crossan’s controversial presuppositions of the resurrection tradition.[62]

Jesus’ resurrection tradition will be pursued for presuppositional triggers he uses to disguise his presuppositions. The presuppositions will be examined for validity using the hypothesis-verification model. Of necessity, this task will involve hermeneutical examinations of the canonical Gospel texts as well as extracanonical material.

Which view of the historical Jesus would be discovered if the first strata chosen were the New Testament Gospels as historical accounts, the resurrection tradition was not based on the Cross Gospel from the Gospel of Peter (GPet), Mark did not use “his own theological creativity” and the Gospels were not “consummate theological fictions.”?[63]

Crossan’s views have had pervasive influence in both the academy and popular culture. His challenge to orthodoxy is represented by these kinds of statements:

· He stated that the Gospels are “consummate theological fictions” that are “neither histories nor biographies” and “tell us about power and leadership in the earliest Christian communities.”[64]

· His methodology starts with cross-cultural anthropology where he tries to almost forget his previous knowledge of Jesus.[65]

· His postmodern emphasis maintains that “there is not in my work any presumption that the historical Jesus or earliest Christianity is something you get once and for all forever.”[66]

To the above sayings can be added extracanonical documents, he supports such as The Gospel of Thomas (GThom), The Gospel of Peter (GPet), and The Didache (Did) as early documents to add to the strata of the canonical Gospels.

Chapter 8. The challenge of methodology

Crossan is one of the leading contemporary advocates of reconstruction of the Scriptures.[67] He admitted: “I believe, as a Christian, in the Word of God, not in the words of specific papyri or the votes of specific committees. But fact and faith, history and theology intertwine together in that process and cannot ever be totally separated.”[68] How is it possible to not believe in the Word of God inscribed on papyri and codices in the original documents and still take the Bible seriously?

Crossan himself issued the challenge to debate his methodology: “When I finally published The Historical Jesus in 1991, I intended not just to present another reconstruction of Jesus but to inaugurate a full-blown debate on methodology among my peers
. There still (in 1998) is no serious discussion of methodology in historical Jesus research.” [69]

By way of an example “of methodological avoidance” in historical Jesus’ research, Crossan mentioned Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans’ 1994 publication in which they “edited a massive and very useful survey of current research on the historical Jesus” but in over six hundred pages published by Brill of Leiden that “cost around $175,
 there is no chapter on method or methodology
. There is after all, very little methodological scholarship in historical Jesus research to evaluate or survey.[70] In this regard, Crossan[71] is myopic, overlooking the methodological issues in Wright,[72] and Lewis and Demarest.[73] Meyer,[74] which is a reprint of a 1979 edition, has written on “Jesus and critical history.” and Wright[75] considers Meyer’s research “is probably the finest statement on historical method by a practising contemporary New Testament scholar.” John W. Montgomery, in an earlier generation,[76] also addressed methodological issues in theology, although on a limited scale.

Chapter 9. The impact of methodology on Crossan’s estimate of Gospel origins and content

There have been challenges to Crossan’s scholarship including that by noted British historical Jesus’ scholar, N T Wright, whose assessment of the content of Crossan[77] was that it “is almost entirely wrong.”[78] Crossan’s challenge[79] to the content of biblical revelation was in statements such as ‘Christianity often asserts that its faith is based on fact not interpretation, history not myth, actual event not supreme fiction. I find that assertion internally corrosive and externally offensive’. Further, there are “two major disjunctive options that I summarize as prophecy historicized versus history remembered.”[80] He supports the “prophecy historicized” position to account for the origins of the passion-resurrection narrative. By “prophecy historicized” he is not referring to biblical texts as prophecies about Jesus, but it “means that Jesus is embedded within a biblical pattern of corporate persecution and communal vindication.”[81] He is using a metaphorical interpretation after the event that was read back into the biblical text. He understands Psalm 69 as “a general metaphor for lethal attack” that was “actualized during the crucifixion of Jesus” with the mention of gall and vinegar drink.[82]

The Chicago Tribune, July 17, 1994, published an article, “Searching for Jesus: Can this man change what Christians believe? John Dominic Crossan of DePaul University.” The writer summarised Crossan as saying that “Jesus was a mortal man in the fullest sense of the term. He was conceived and born in the conventional way (no Virgin Birth), did not perform miracles (no Lazarus, no loaves and fishes, no lepers), did not undergo resurrection (no Easter) and after his execution, was probably eaten by wild dogs (no joke).”[83] Crossan’s response to the article’s content was, “No mistake in that, but no sense of parable either.”[84]

He adopts a metaphorical view of Jesus’ conception because he stated that he wanted to be an ethical historian. He does not accept the divine conception of Jesus or of Augustus as factual history. Instead, “I believe that God is incarnate in the Jewish peasant poverty of Jesus and not in the Roman imperial power of Augustus.” Is this being honest with the biblical text or is it an imposition on the text? Are presuppositions driving these conclusions? Has being “an historian trying to be ethical and a Christian trying to be faithful” involved a redefinition of the meaning of ethics and faithfulness?[85] What are some of Crossan’s presuppositions that draw him to this kind of conclusion?

Chapter 10. Crossan’s estimate of the New Testament Gospels

Crossan admitted that “my endeavour was to reconstruct the historical Jesus as accurately and honestly as possible. It was not my purpose to find a Jesus whom I liked or disliked, a Jesus with whom I agreed or disagreed.”[86] However, what is his view of the Gospels? There are aspects of the Gospels that were never intended as history but as parable. He is not speaking specifically of Jesus’ parables but as historical incidents reconstructed as parable.[87]

Crossan states that his reconstruction is that the first followers of Jesus “knew almost nothing whatsoever about the details of his crucifixion, death or burial.”[88] What do we have in these accounts? We do not have “history remembered”’ but have “prophecy historicized”’ (emphasis in original). By prophecy he refers to units that are a backward look “after the events of Jesus’ life were already known” and Christ’s followers “declared that texts from the Hebrew Scriptures had been written” with Jesus in mind. Thus, prophecy “is known after rather than before the fact.” I find this to be a deceptive way to avoid the history of the Gospels and to reformulate the supernatural in prophecy. Since he redefines the supernatural, this kind of reconstruction is expected.

He is sceptical of “the exact sequence of the events at the end” of Jesus’ life because he claimed it “lacks multiple independent accounts.”[89] What are his presuppositions that cause him to reach this conclusion about the sequence of events about the end of Jesus’ life that surely must include the resurrection of Jesus?

Another dimension to Crossan’s methodology of the Gospels is his interpretation that the content of the Gospels includes parables by Jesus and parables about Jesus. He regards the Gospels as megaparables.[90] .

Chapter 11. The effects of Crossan’s stratification on methodology

His methodology involves “a triple triadic process” that attempts to synthesise anthropology, history, and literature.[91] Weakness in one area imperils the integrity and validity of the others. His method demands “equal sophistication on all three levels at the same time.”[92]

This statement by Crossan desecrates the deity and holiness of Jesus. I find his assertions to be blasphemous (offensive to God and Christianity): “Religion is official and approved magic: magic is unofficial and unapproved religion. More simply: ‘we’ practice religion, ‘they’ practice magic.” Therefore, the effect for Crossan is that Elijah and Elisha are categorised with Honi and Hanina as magicians, as was Jesus of Nazareth. He wrote that “it is endlessly fascinating to watch Christian theologians describe Jesus as miracle worker rather than magician and then attempt to define the substantive difference between the two.” Therefore, he sees others as engaging in “an ideological need to protect religion and its miracles from magic and its effects” while he is free to describe the supernatural as magical.[93]

At the literary level, Crossan asserts there is “no textual Gospel of miracles similar to that textual Gospel of sayings.” His assessment is that there is a sixfold independent attestation in the primary stratum for Gospel sayings but no more than two fold for the miracles. This leads him to “almost conclude that miracles come into the tradition later rather than earlier, as creative confirmation rather than as original data,” but he resists that conclusion by supporting a better explanation that “miracles were at a very early stage” but were “washed out of the tradition” behind Mark’s Gospel and John’s Gospel.[94]

Where are they to be found? He treats miracles such as the Gerasene demoniac’s story (Mk 5:1-17) as symbolic[95] and seeks affirmation of the miracles and other New Testament material.

The inventory of intracanonical and extracanonical materials is listed by Crossan in four chronological strata. The extracanonical material used is: First Stratum (AD 30-60); Second Stratum (AD 60-80): Third Stratum (AD 80-120); and Fourth Stratum (AD 120-150).[96]

While here summarising Crossan’s perspective on the various strata in formation of sources, this is not a significant emphasis of my study. It will be investigated only when it applies to Gospel origins and with particular application to the Cross Gospel of GPet.

Chapter 12. Crossan’s presuppositions and their influence on his interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection

In addition to the use of the extracanonical material in the strata, Crossan also is committed to the “multiple independent attestation” of the Jesus’ tradition. He states that his discipline “is to work primarily with plurally attested complexes from the primary stratum of the Jesus tradition.”[97]

However, there is a further factor that influences the Gospel accounts, textual “freeplay, that is to say, a field of infinite substitutions.”[98]

He emphasises “the tremendous importance of that first stratum. It is, in terms of methodological discipline, data chronologically closest to the time of the historical Jesus. Chronologically most close does not, of course, mean historically most accurate.”[99]

His methodology follows scholarship that over the last two centuries had emphasised “comparative work on the Gospels” which has “established certain results and conclusions.” Based on Crossan[100] these conclusions (with presuppositions) include:

· There are Gospels inside and outside the New Testament – aspectual verbs as triggers.

· The four intracanonical Gospels do not represent a total collection or a random sampling, but were “deliberately selected by a process in which others were rejected for reasons not only of content but even of form” – the quantifier presupposition.

· The process involved “retention, development, and creation of Jesus materials” in both intracanonical and extracanonical sources. Note the creation of Jesus’ material. This is an intonation presuppositional trigger.

· The differences and discrepancies among the various Gospel accounts and versions do not result primarily from “vagaries of memory or divergences in emphasis but to quite deliberate theological interpretations of Jesus.” This is a projection trigger (information on presuppositional triggers is based on the research of Beaver & Guerts 2011).[101]

It is pertinent to note Crossan’s inclusion of Gospel of Peter (GPet) in his first stratum, i.e. closest to Jesus. N T Wright regards the pseudepigraphical GPet as “clearly much later”[102] than Crossan’s,[103] who placed it in the Cross Gospel’s first stratum (dated to AD 30-60). Wright considers the suggested date of composition GPet in the AD 50s to be “purely imaginary.”[104]

When Matthew or Luke used Mark as a source for Jesus sayings and actions, why were these writers “unnervingly free about omission and addition, about change, correction, or creation in their own individual accounts – but always, of course, subject to their own particular interpretation of Jesus’ Crossan”?[105]

Presuppositional projections seem jump out at this researcher from these kinds of assertions. What are they? Crossan admitted the importance of correct presuppositions when he stated that “gospel presuppositions necessarily dictate methods and models for research on the historical Jesus and early Christianity.” He understands that the Synoptic Gospels are absorbed, partially or totally, into John’s Gospel. His view was that one may want “to debate these specific presuppositions but one must have some set of gospel conclusions.” His assessment was that “any work done on a wrong presupposition will be seriously weakened or even totally vitiated.”[106]

Chapter 13. Crossan’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Concerning Christ’s resurrection, Crossan’s view[107] was that the apostle Paul did not consider Jesus’ resurrection as “a special or unique privilege” because he was Messiah, Lord, and Son of God. Crossan does not see that Jesus’ case would be a parallel to that of Elijah, taken up by God and with “wider communal or cosmic effects.” His perspective is that Jesus’ resurrection is “an apparition with cosmically apocalyptic consequences,” but it is an apparitional vision “of a dead man who begins the general resurrection” (emphasis in original).

Literary stratification or layers’ model causes him to state that “it is very simple to compose a single harmonized version of the former narratives [of the passion and burial stories] up to the finding of the empty tomb but flatly impossible to compose one for the latter traditions.” That is flatly impossible for a deconstructionist.

However he objects: “An almost total discrepancy prevailed for what was, I would presume, even more important, namely the extraordinary return of Jesus from beyond the grave to give the disciples their missionary mandate and apostolic commission.”[108] “I would presume” is a presuppositional trigger that is “a construction or item that signals the existence of a presupposition in an utterance.”[109] For Crossan, “I presume” is associated with previous experience and something he allegedly knows.

Presuppose also means to assume, presume, or take for granted. We have, until now, existed on the assumption that our educations have prepared us as citizens to participate in a democracy. But relying on such an assumption has become increasingly problematic. Current research shows that middle school students are unable to discern between ads and news stories, and that high school and college students take evidence presented on the web at face value, without further investigation into authority and credibility of sources.[110]

The warning for evangelicals is we cannot take it for granted that a historical Jesus researcher and preacher will give the biblical text a literal meaning. We have to be ever vigilant.

Chapter 14. Warning to evangelicals: Skating too close for comfort

I close with a warning in using this idiom: For evangelicals, there is a legitimate use of allegory as seen in Galatians 4:24-31 with the “figurative” use of Hagar and Sarah. Hagar was the slave woman who had a child to Abraham while Sarah, the free woman, had a child to Abraham. The two women represent two covenants (Gal 4:24).

But evangelicals are ‘skating’ too close for comfort, or are “dangerously or uncomfortably near” deconstructionist hermeneutics?[111] John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was written legitimately as an allegory of the Christian life. Allegorical interpretation has been called, typological or symbolic interpretation. The label doesn’t matter but it is illegitimate if it removes the interpreter from the literal meaning of the text. The problem with allegorical interpretation is that it seeks to interpret every biblical passage allegorically.

Allegorical interpretation seeks a “deeper, spiritual” meaning from the text. Evangelicals do not make it as blatant as Crossan’s radical views of Jesus’ body being eaten by scavenging dogs or that Jesus’ resurrection was an apparition [a ghost]. They do it through allegorical interpretation. Developing that theme is for another time, but this should include a warning:

“Allegorizing makes a narrative convey ideas different to those intended by the original author. Thus, allegorizing is an arbitrary way of handling any narrative.”[112] The allegorical method was prominent in the church for its first 1,000 years when interpreters sought the “deeper meaning” of a text. That changed at the time of the Reformation when interpreters sought the plain meaning of a text.

Perhaps the most famous instance of allegorical interpretation is Origen’s explanation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. In the allegorical view, the man who is robbed is Adam, Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The priest is the Law, and the Levites are the Prophets. The Samaritan is Christ. The donkey is Christ’s physical body, which bears the burden of the wounded man (the wounds are his sins), and the inn is the Church. The Samaritan’s promise to return is a promise of the second coming of Christ.[113]

Another extreme example of allegorical interpretation would be, “according to the Old Testament Book of Jonah, a prophet spent three days in the belly of a fish. Medieval scholars believed this was an allegory (using the typological interpretation) of Jesus’ death and his being in the tomb for three days before he rose from the dead.”[114]

In examining the legitimate use of allegory, one must carefully study the context. The original hearers of the allegory may be determined by investigating the context. “If the interpreter does not consider carefully the context, it is almost impossible to avoid bringing his own ideas into the allegorical imagery.”[115]

Chapter 15. Conclusion

This is what happens when the fixed meaning of a text is allowed to be used in freeplay:

“How to Flee From a Big Fish, it’s obvious the prophet didn’t have a lick of sense. The belly of a fish was his 3-day home when obeying God was the better option. The book of Jonah is more than a “whale of a fish story”. The biblical story shows how God uses people, animals and natural elements to offer repentance to a sinful nation and a rebellious messenger.”[116]

Words, grammar and syntax are stripped of literal meaning, as with Crossan’s writings. Freeplay with the text strips it of literal meaning and replaces it by a readers’ understanding. Bye, bye literal interpretation and welcome the readers’ freeplay! So, “ call it as I see it,” is following Crossan’s call: “So I formulate it here as I see it.”[117] It is not what I recommend to arrive at a healthy interpretation of the newspaper, TV news, and university text books.

Chapter 16. References

Athanasius, Discourse 1, “Against the Arians.” Tr by John Henry Newman and

Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Ed by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Rev. and ed. for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Accessed 23 December 2020. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28161.htm.

Barthes, Roland. Image Music Text, 1977. Tr by S Heath. London: Fontana

Press. Accessed 22 December 2020. https://grrrr.org/data/edu/20110509-cascone/Barthes-image_music_text.pdf.

Barthes, Roland. “The death of the author.” Tr by R Howard. In R Barthes, The Rustle

of Language,1986, 49-55. New York: Hill and Wang. Accessed 22 December 2020. http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/handouts/8500/barthes_death.pdf.

Beaver, David I and Bart Geurts 2011. “Presupposition.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer. Accessed 5 January 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/presupposition/.

Best, V 2011. “Derrida for dummies. Tales from the reading room” (online),

December 1. Available at: http://litlove.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/derrida-for-dummies/ (Accessed 7 February 2023).

Bultmann, Rudolf Karl. New Testament & Mythology and Other Basic

Writings. Ed. and tr by Schubert M Ogden. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, (1957-62) 1984.

Cambridge Dictionary. (s.v. “requite.”) Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press,

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/requite, accessed 2 September 2022.

Copan, Paul (ed). Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1998.

Crossan, John Dominic. Raid on the Articulate: Comic Eschatology in Jesus and Borges. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1976.

Crossan, John Dominic 1982. “Difference and divinity”. In R Detweiler (ed), Derrida

and biblical studies, Semeia 23, 1 January, 29-40.

Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish

Peasant. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.

Crossan, John Dominic. “Almost the whole truth: An odyssey.” The Fourth R. September/October, 6(5), 1993. Westar Institute. Accessed 5 January 2021. http://www.westarinstitute.org/resources/the-fourth-r/almost-the-whole-truth/.

Crossan, John Dominic. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (this is a shorter version of

Crossan (1991). San Francisco CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994.

Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus. San Francisco CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.

Crossan, J D. “Historical Jesus as risen Lord”, in Crossan, J D, Johnson, L T & Kelber,W H, The Jesus controversy: Perspectives in conflict, 1-47. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999.

Crossan, John Dominic 2006-09. “Biographical summary”. Accessed 5 January 2021, http://www.johndominiccrossan.com/Biographical%20Summary.htm.

Crossan, John Dominic. The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction

about Jesus. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2012.

Crossan, John Dominic and Johathan L Reed. In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle

Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom. San Francisco CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

Crossan, John Dominic with Richard G Watts. Who Is Jesus? Answers to Your

Questions about the Historical Jesus. New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1996.

Derrida, J 1. “Letter to a Japanese friend”. Tr by D Wood & A Benjamin. In P

Kamuf (ed), A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, 270-276. New York: Columbia University Press (accessed 22 December 2020. http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/letter.html.

Dictionary.com (2022. s.v. “deconstruction”).

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/deconstruction (accessed 2 September 2022).

Dictionary.com (s.v. “deconstruction”). https://www.dictionary.com/browse/deconstruction (accessed 2 September 2022).

Dictionary.com. (s.v. “fress”). https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fress?s=t (accessed 2 September 2022).

Dictionary.com (2023, s.v. “preface”). https://www.dictionary.com/browse/preface (accessed 11 February 2023).

Dictionary.com (2022. s.v. “presupposition”). https://www.dictionary.com/browse/presupposition (accessed 2 September 2022).

“Following Jesus: A Life of Faith in a Postmodern World,”1985. Available at:

https://followingjesus.org/the-search-for-jesus/ (accessed 8 February 2023).

Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2004. Truth and Method, 2nd rev ed. Tr by J Weinsheimer & D

G Marshall. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Gear. Spencer D 2015, “Crossan and the resurrection of Jesus: rethinking

presuppositons, methods and models,” University of Pretoria, South Africa, supervisor Professor Ernest van Eck. Available at: file:///C:/Users/Spencer/Downloads/Gear_Crossan_2015-14.pdf (Accessed 3 February 2023).

Gopnik, Adam. “What did Jesus do? Reading and unreading the gospels.” The New

Yorker, 24 May 2010. Available at:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/24/100524crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz0oPc1o6ve (Accessed 5 January 2021).

Got Questions, “What is wrong with the allegorical interpretation method?” Available

at: https://www.gotquestions.org/allegorical-interpretation.html (Accessed 9 February 2023).

Irenaeus “Against Heresies,” in P Schaff (ed), Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol 1, ed by

A Roberts, J Donaldson, & A C Coxe. Tr by A Roberts & W Rambaut. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1885, rev & ed for New Advent by K Knight. Accessed 22 December 2020. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm.

Johnson, Roger A. The Origins of Demythologizing. Leiden, The Netherlands:

Brill. Accessed 22 December 2020. https://brill.com/view/title/6335.

Kohn, R 1999. John Dominic Crossan and the historical Jesus: An interview, The

Spirit of Things (online) 18 July, Radio National Australia. Available at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/spirit/stories/s37440.htm (Accessed 29 May 2010).

Lewis, Gordon R and Bruce A Demarest, Integrative Theology, vol 1. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Academie Books (Zondervan Publishing House), 1987.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022. s.v. “deconstructionist”),

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deconstructionist (accessed 2 September 2022).

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022. s.v. “postmodern”),

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postmodern (accessed 2 September 2022).

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022. s.v. “reader-response”),

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reader-response, (accessed 2 September 2022).

Meyer, Ben F 2002. The Aims of Jesus (Princeton Theological Monograph Series). Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications, (1979) 2002; citations are from the 2002 edition.

Mickelsen, A. Berkeley, 5th printing, 1974. Interpreting the Bible. Grand Rapids,

Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Montgomery, John W. Where is History Going? A Christian Response to Secular

Philosophies of History. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1969.

Montgomery, John W. The Suicide of Christian Theology. Minneapolis, Minn:

Bethany Fellowship Inc., 1970.

Montgomery, Martin, Alan Durant, Tom Furniss and Sara Mills. Ways of

Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English, 2007, 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Accessed 21 December 2020. http://skimmelapenglish11.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/90923565/Montgomery_Ways_of_Reading.pdf.

Nguyen, Kevin and Sarah Thomas 2020. ABC News, Brisbane, “Sydney’s northern

beaches coronavirus cluster grows to 90 after eight new infections recorded,” 22 December. Accessed 23 December 2020. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/sydney-nsw-northern-beaches-coronavirus-cluster-grows-to-90/13006258.

Oxford English Dictionary. (2022, s.v. “too close for comfort”),

https://www.lexico.com/definition/too_close_for_comfort.

SIL International, (s.v. “Glossary of Linguistic Terms: Presuppositional Trigger,”)

Accessed 4 January 2021. https://glossary.sil.org/term/presupposition-trigger.

Syracuse University 2016. “Librarianship and Democracy: Creating an Informed

Citizenry by Rachel Ivy Clarke”, 14 November, Accessed 4 January 2021, https://ischool.syr.edu/librarianship-democracy-creating-informed-citizenry/.

Turner, Catherine. “Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction,” Critical Legal Thinking, 27

May 2016. Accessed 16 December 2020. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/05/27/jacques-derrida-deconstruction/.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion and

Authorship. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Wikipedia, “Allegorical interpretation of the Bible,” Accessed 9 February 2023.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretation_of_the_Bible,

accessed 9 February 2023.

Wise, Betsy, Quora, “What is the allegory about Jonah and the whale, in the Christian

Bible?” https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-allegory-about-Jonah-and-the-whale-in-the-Christian-Bible, accessed 9 February 2023.

Wright, N T. The New Testament and the People of God, vol 1. (Series in Christian origins and the question of God) Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1992.

Wright, N T. 1996. Jesus and the Victory of God, vol 2. (Series in Christian origins and the question of God, vol 2). London: SPCK.

Zhai, J 2015. “Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction,” Not Even Past, 7 October.

Accessed 23 December 2020.https://notevenpast.org/jacques-derrida-and-deconstruction/.


Footnotes:


[1] This online book is compiled from my PhD dissertation at the University of Pretoria, New Testament Department, “Crossan and the resurrection of Jesus: Rethinking presuppositions, methods and models, available at: file:///C:/Users/Spencer/Downloads/Gear_Crossan_2015-18.pdf (accessed 28 February 2023).

[2] Dictionary.com (2022, s.v. “presupposition”).

[3] Reader-response is “a literary criticism that focuses primarily on the reader’s reaction to a text” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2022. s.v. “reader-response”).

[4] Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022. s.v. “postmodern”).

[5] Dictionary.com (2023, s.v. “preface.”)

[6] Dictionary.com, (2022. s.v. “deconstruction”).

[7] Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2022. s.v. “reader-response”).

[8] This is the definition provided by the National Association of Evangelicals, available at: https://www.nae.org/what-is-an-evangelical/ (Accessed 3 February 2023).

[9] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion and Authorship, 2010.

[10] Rudolph Bultmann, New Testament & Mythology and Other Basic Writing, 1984.

[11] Spencer D. Gear, 2015, “Crossan and the resurrection of Jesus: rethinking presuppositons, methods and models,” University of Pretoria, South Africa, supervisor Professor Ernst van Eck. Available at: file:///C:/Users/Spencer/Downloads/Gear_Crossan_2015-18.pdf (Accessed 28 February 2023).

[12] Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 1995, p. x.

[13] Crossan & Watts 1996, Who Is Jesus? p. 96, emphasis in original.

[14] Crossan in Copan 1998, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? pp. 45-46, emphasis in original.

[15] Crossan in Copan, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 1998, p. 61.

[16] Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2004. Truth and Method, pp. 307-408,

[17] In Crossan The Historical Jesus, 1991, pp. 270-276

[18] Crossan 1982, “Difference and divinity,” p. 29, emphasis added.

[19] Crossan 1998, The Birth of Christianity, p. xxx.

[20] In ibid., p. xxvii.

[21] Crossan, Ibid., p. xxx.

[22] In Catherine Turner. “Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction,” 2016.

[23] Zhai, J 2015. “Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction,” Not Even Past, 2015.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Crossan, The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus, 2012, p.5.

[26] Turner, Catherine. “Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction,”

[27] Cambridge Dictionary. (s.v. “requite”), 2023.

[28] Barthes, The Rustle of Language, 1986, pp. 49-55.

[29] Montgomery, Martin, Alan Durant, Tom Furniss and Sara Mills, 2007, p. 170.

[30] Crossan, The Birth, 1998, p. 572, emphasis added.

[31] Barthes, Image Music Text, 1977. p. 142.

[32] Ibid., p. 143.

[33] Ibid., p. 145.

[34] Ibid., p. 145.

[35] Ibid., p. 146.

[36] Ibid., p. 147.

[37] Nguyen, Kevin and Sarah Thomas 2020. ABC News, Brisbane.

[38] Bathes, Image Music Text, p. 147.

[39] Crossan, The Birth, 1998, p. 45.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991. p. 423, emphasis in original.

[42] Crossan, J D. “Historical Jesus as risen Lord”, in Crossan, J D, Johnson, L T & Kelber,W H, The Jesus controversy: Perspectives in conflict, 1999, p. 5.

[43] Ibid., p. 11.

[44] Crossan, Jesus, p. 160.

[45] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. 397.

[46] Crossan, The Power of Parable, 2012, p. 4.

[47] Ibid., p. 5.

[48] See The Historical Jesus 1991, p. xiii; Jesus, 1995, p. 197; in Copan , Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 1998 p. 153; Crossan, The Power of Parable, 2012, p. 5.

[49] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. xiii.

[50] Ibid., p. 423, emphasis in original.

[51] Best, V. 2011. “Derrida for dummies. Tales from the reading room.”

[52] These details are from Crossan, A Long Way from Tipperary, 2000.

[53] “Following Jesus: A Life of Faith in a Postmodern World,”1985, citing Robert Funk.

[54] P Copan, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 1998.

[55] R Kohn, “John Dominic Crossan and the historical Jesus: An interview,” 1999.

[56] Crossan, A Long Way from Tipperary, 2000, p. xvi.

[57] Crossan, The Historical Jesus 1991; Crossan & Reed, In Search of Paul, 2004.

[58] Crossan, A Long Way from Tipperary, 2000.

[59] Ibid., xvi.

[60]Gopnik, “What did Jesus do? Reading and unreading the gospels,” 2010.

[61] Dictionary.com (s.v. “fress”), accessed 2023.

[62] See Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, pp. 104, 395-416.

[63] Ibid., 389-90.

[64] Ibid., 390, xxx; Jesus, 1995, p. 190.

[65] Kohn, “John Dominic Crossan and the historical Jesus: An interview,” 1999.

[66] Crossan, The Birth, 1998, p. 45.

[67] Ibid., p. 103.

[68] Ibid., p. 46.

[69] Ibid., p. 139.

[70] Ibid., pp. 139-140.

[71] Ibid.

[72] N. T. Wright, 1992, The New Testament and the People of God, vol 1., pp. 3-144; N. T. Wright, 1996, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol 2., pp. 8-11, 86-89, 122-144, 540-611, 660-662.

[73] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A Demarest, Integrative Theology, vol 1, 1987, pp. 21-40.

[74] Ben F. Meyer, 2002, The Aims of Jesus, pp. 76-94.

[75] Wright, 1992, The New Testament and the People of God, vol 1., p. 98, n32.

[76] John W. Montgomery, 1965, Where is History Going? A Christian Response to Secular

Philosophies of History; Montgomery 1970, The Suicide of Christian Theology, pp. 267-313.

[77] Crossan, The Historical Jesus.

[78] Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol 2, p. 44.

[79] Crossan 1993, ““Almost the whole truth: An odyssey.”

[80] Crossan, 1998, The Birth, 1998, p. 520.

[81] Crossan. ibid., p. 521.

[82] Crossan, ibid.,, p. 520.

[83] See Crossan A Long Way from Tipperary, 2000, p. 133.

[84] Ibid.

[85] Crossan, The Birth, 1998, p. 29, emphasis in original.

[86] Crossan, Jesus, 1994, p. xiv.

[87] Crossan, A Long Way from Tipperary, 2000, p. 134.

[88] Crossan, Jesus, 1994, p. 134.

[89] Crossan, Jesus, 1994, p. 196.

[90] Crossan, The Power of Parable, 2012, p. 6.

[91] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, pp. xxxvii-xxxix.

[92] Crossan, ibid., 1991, p. xxix.

[93] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. 305.

[94] Ibid., pp. 310-11.

[95] Ibid., p. 314.

[96] Ibid., pp. 427-34.

[97] Ibid., pp. 410, 434-50.

[98] Crossan, Raid on the Articulate: Comic Eschatology in Jesus and Borges, 1976, p. 34.

[99] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. xxxii.

[100] Ibid., p. xxx.

[101] David I.Beaver and Bart Geurts 2011. “Presupposition.”

[102] N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996, p. 49.

[103] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. 429.

[104] N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996, p. 49.

[105] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. xxx.

[106] Crossan, The Birth, 1998, p. 101.

[107] See Crossan “Historical Jesus as risen Lord,” 1999, p. 29.

[108] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, 1991, p. 395.

[109] See SIL International, (s.v. “Glossary of Linguistic Terms: Presuppositional Trigger,”).

[110] Syracuse University 2016. “Librarianship and Democracy: Creating an Informed

Citizenry by Rachel Ivy Clarke”,

[111] Oxford English Dictionary. (s.v. “too close for comfort), 2023.

[112] Mickelsen (5th printing, Interpreting the Bible, 1974, p. 231).

[113] Got Questions, “What is wrong with the allegorical interpretation method?” Accessed 9 February

2023.

[114] Wikipedia, “Allegorical interpretation of the Bible,” Accessed 9 February 2023.

[115] Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible, 1974, p. 232.

[116] Betsy Wise, Quora, “What is the allegory about Jonah and the whale, in the Christian Bible?”

[117] Crossan, The Birth of Christianity, 1998, p. xxx.

Spencer Gear

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A New Response to Life-After-Death

By Spencer D. Gear PhD

clip_image001Since I live in aged care, I’ve encountered a new approach to life-after-death. A fellow from my level (I’ll call him Ken) passed away yesterday. Another fellow commented to me: “It will be better for him now. He no longer is experiencing the pain that he had before.” Ken has no concept of the fact that we are spiritual beings with a body, soul and spirit.

The setting at the breakfast table was not an appropriate occasion for me to engage in any in-depth discussion to answer these kinds of questions:

clip_image003 We are more than physical beings. Where does our conscience come from?

clip_image003[1] What does the Bible say about where we will be one minute after our last breath? Should that be an important authority?

clip_image003[2] “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Heb 9:27 NIV). Will that mean the end of punishment? I think not.

clip_image003[3] The view of people being punished eternally after death is denied by some in the liberal churches who have a low view of the authority of Scripture and discount the value of Scripture.

For further examples of the punishment that comes after death, see my articles in LIFE AFTER DEATH INDEX, and HELL AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT INDEX.

Copyright © 2022 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 10 November, 2022.

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Australia’s droughts, fires, floods and cyclones

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(Slim Dusty photo courtesy Pinterest)

By Spencer D Gear

I’ve been a fan of Slim Dusty’s country music since I was growing up as a kid on sugar cane farms near Bundaberg, Qld in the 1950s. I listened to him sing on “Riding Along with a Smile and a Song” which was 30 minutes of country music, from 5.30am on 4BU, Bundaberg. I went to hear him annually as he sang in his tent concert at the Bundaberg Show.

It was only in September 2019 I heard his song, It Takes a Drought (courtesy Phone Lyrics).

Slim composed this song. Two lines caught my attention as I listened:[1]

I one time heard a bushman say while drovin’ on the
track
It takes one hell of an old man drought to bring this
country back.

Slim was writing about when the drought breaks, rain is pouring down, dams filling and countryside dressed in green again.

I’ll use Slim’s analysis to add some new understandings.

1. We can’t make it rain

On 27 September 2019, it was announced by the PM that another $100 million would be available to drought-stricken farmers and communities.

clip_image003Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, said: “We know we can’t make it rain, but we must keep finding ways to do everything we can to make life just a bit easier and remove some of the burden” (Littleproud 2019).

Former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, agreed: “We can’t make it rain’. [2]

As I write, Australia is experiencing one of its worst droughts. Do Australians deserve the rains to come?

Both Prime Ministers failed to tell us 


2. Who can make it rain

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One drought-affected sheep farmer said, ‘There’s not much we can do about it’.[3] Really? There is one word missing from his statement. Please read further.

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This photograph is of 83-year-old Alf King praying for rain that went viral in November 2018. Source: Rhonda King, his daughter (Yahoo! News).[4]

Aussies are missing the source of the rain. The current Christian Prime Minister, ScoMo, had the world stage to announce God sends the rain, but he missed the opportunity.

‘[God] causes his sun to shine on evil people and good people. He sends rain on those who do right and those who don’t’ (Matthew 5:45).

An earlier Prime Minister, John Howard, had a different view.

‘Pray for rain, urges [John] Howard’[5]

3. Pointers to the solution

Where are the prayer meetings in towns or suburbs across the land to cry out to God for rain? Are you praying in your homes daily for God to open the skies with drought-breaking rain?

I’m waiting for Scott Morrison to call Australians to Prayer and Repentance – for those who believe in the power of prayer and repentance.

3.1 Israelites and drought

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3.1.1 Amos 4:7-9 (NLT)

“I kept the rain from falling when your crops needed it the most. I sent rain on one town but withheld it from another. Rain fell on one field, while another field withered away. People staggered from town to town looking for water, but there was never enough. But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.

There you have it for the Old Testament people of God. See similar messages in Joel 2:11-13, and 2 Chronicles 7:14. They couldn’t expect God’s blessings when they disobeyed him.

There is a similar message for all nations at Proverbs 14:34: ‘Godliness makes a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people’ (NLT). See also Luke 13:1-3. What kinds of sins of disgrace are happening in Australia?

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(graphic image of aborted child)

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(Photo: Liberal MP Warren Entsch lifts up Labor MP Linda Burney as they celebrate the passing of the Marriage Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, December 7, 2017. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

I haven’t discussed Australia’s sins of legalising euthanasia, de facto relationships, prostitution, easy divorce, and normalisation of adultery (decriminalised in 1975).

  • ‘Humbly relying on the blessings of Almighty God’

These words are in the Australian Constitution of 1900 and affirm Australia’s commitment to the Judeo-Christian Lord God Almighty.

Australia’s national sins of legalisation of prostitution, abortion and euthanasia demonstrate we deserve God’s judgment now.

4. There is a way back

It involves these steps:

a.  The churches

b.  Prayer and repentance for 


c.  God’s mercy in sending rain and not judgment.

The above is a summary of the detailed information on the links in: Australia is in deep trouble: Droughts, floods and fires

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(photo courtesy WordPress at The University of Melbourne)

clip_image017(photo courtesy ABC News, Brisbane, Qld.)

5. Fix the rot

If this is not fixed, the rot will continue to infest Australia.

This is the ‘rot’ I’m writing about:

a. Amos 4:6-12

“I kept the rain from falling when your crops needed it the most.

I sent rain on one town but withheld it from another. Rain fell on one field, while another field withered away.

People staggered from town to town looking for water, but there was never enough.

But still you would not return to me, says the Lord”.

b. Joel 2:11-13

c. Luke 13:1-3

d. Proverbs 14:24

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(image courtesy letgodbefoundtrue.net)

5. However, what are Australian governments doing?

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(abortion image courtesy http://100abortionphotos.com/#23)

cream-arrow-small Ungodly legislation and practices in Australia are a disgrace to the nation and lead to Australia’s doom.

cream-arrow-small Only God sends the rain and withholds it.

cream-arrow-small Godless, secular Australians refuse to bow the knee to the Lord God Almighty.

cream-arrow-small We want his blessings of rain without the commitment to Him. We deserve what we get.

cream-arrow-small When will local, State and national leaders call the nation to prayer and repentance to break the drought and stop other disasters?

cream-arrow-small When will they repeal unrighteous legislation? e.g. Prostitution, easy divorce, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage and other anti-biblical legislation.

We cannot have a great nation when we continue to promote ungodliness. If we don’t stop it NOW, the path Australia treads is to destruction.

6.  Works consulted

Littleproud MP, The Hon David 2019. “Backing our farmers and drought affected communities,” 26 September, accessed 9 October 2021, https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/littleproud/media-release/backing-our-farmers-and-drought-affected-communities.

Notes

[1] The lyrics were supplied by Phone Lyrics n.d. Available at: https://phonelyrics.com/lyrics/652728.html (Accessed 26 September 2019).

[2] Stephanie Bedo 2018. Australia’s crippling drought crisis: Overcoming past mistakes to save ourselves for the future. news.com.au (online), 6 August. Available at: https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/australias-crippling-drought-crisis-overcoming-past-mistakes-to-save-ourselves-for-the-future/news-story/136436de96fee5f33809de8d607f413c (Accessed 7 January 2019).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Alana Calvert 2019. From dam to crater – veteran farmer’s prayers for rain go unanswered.Yahoo! News, 23 July. Available at:

[5] The Sydney Morning Herald 2007. Pray for rain, urges Howard (online), 22 April. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/pray-for-rain-urges-howard-20070422-gdpyx1.html (Accessed 6 January 2019).

Copyright © 2021 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 12 October 2021.

Scientist: From hard-core atheist to evangelical Christian.

By Spencer D Gear PhD

It is a long time since I met an evolutionist who moved from being a passionate atheist to an evangelical Christian while retaining his evolutionary ideology.

Evolutionary biology

Darwin's finches by Gould.jpgDarwin’s finches by John Gould (image courtesy Wikipedia)

I met such a person online today: Dr Sy Garte (pron. Gart) is a PhD biochemist and for 30 years a hard-core atheist. He became a Christian and has stated on Twitter. I was introduced to him through a Google search that located these statements.

It’s a mistake to conflate [i.e. merge] atheism with science. Nobody uses God to answer scientific questions about the world of nature. Christians (like me) use science to answer scientific questions. We turn to our faith to answer the “why” questions that science is not built to address.[1]

The basics of the scientific materialistic world view

clip_image002Sy Garte, Ph.D, Biochemistry. Biologist.

(photo courtesy Twitter Sy Garte‏ @sygarte)[2]
An interview with Sy is available on YouTube about ‘Evolution and Reasons to Believe in God‘.
He also belongs to an organisation BioLogos.
See also Science Meets Faith.

Notes


[1] 5:55AM, 31 Jul 2019. Available at: https://twitter.com/sygarte/status/1156549018568273921 (Accessed 23 August 2019).

[2] https://twitter.com/sygarte

Copyright © 2021 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 08 October 2021.

Santa, Tinsel, and Christmas Misinformation

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(Adoration of the Shepherds by Dutch painter Matthias Stomer, 1632)[1]

By Spencer D Gear PhD

Where did the idea of Santa, Christmas stockings and gifts come from? It is a long story – legend – that dates back to the Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle, the jolly old man.

“Today, he is thought of mainly as the jolly man in red who brings toys to good girls and boys on Christmas Eve, but his story stretches all the way back to the 3rd century, when Saint Nicholas walked the earth and became the patron saint of children.”[2]

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Santa Claus portrayed by Jonathan Meath in 2010[3]

But he’s a figment of our imagination. Don’t tell the kids that! As a child I remember having lots of fun with the Santa bringing gifts overnight on Christmas Eve. Dad and Mum never let the cat out of the bag about the truth of what went on – the gifts were from my parents.

Symbol of commercialism

Sadly, from my Christian worldview, Christmas has become associated with commercialism. ‘Jeremy Seal describes how the commercialization of the Santa Claus figure began in the 19th century. “In the 1820s he began to acquire the recognizable trappings: reindeer, sleigh, bells,” said Seal in an interview. “They are simply the actual bearings in the world from which he emerged. At that time, sleighs were how you got about Manhattan.”[4]

Some of the Christmas songs in the public domain with no copyright include:

Flower8Away In a Manger;

Flower18The First Noel;

Flower18 Go Tell It on the Mountain;

Flower18 Hark, the Herald Angels Sing;

Flower18 O Come All Ye Faithful;

Flower18 O Little Town of Bethlehem;

·Flower18Once in Royal David’s City;

Flower18Silent Night.

You’ll need to check your favourite singers for renditions of these songs. I enjoy the Jim Reeves’ versions of:

designQuiltsmall  Oh Come All Ye Faithful;

designQuiltsmall Oh Little Town of Bethlehem;

designQuiltsmall Mary’s Boy Child.

The Truth

Christmas does not celebrate Santa Claus, tinsel, silver or red bells, and the gifts. The truth is we remember the Christ child who was born on Christmas Day – offering the greatest gift of salvation to all people. He came as a human baby, to grow into a man who would pay for our sins by his death and resurrection.

Matthew 1:20 (NLT):

‘But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”’

Luke 1:35 (NLT):

‘The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”’

We celebrate Jesus’ birth on Christmas Day. He came to earth to die: “He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.” (Rom 4:25 NLT).

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Vintage Christmas images public domain.[5]

Notes:


[1] “Nativity of Jesus,” Wikipedia, accessed 2 September 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativity_of_Jesus.

[2] “Santa Claus,” history.com, Updated: Dec 14, 2020, https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus, accessed 2 September 2021.

[3] Wikipedia, accessed 2 September 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

[4] How St. Nicholas Became Santa Claus: One Theory, interview with Jeremy Seal at the St. Nicholas Center (in Wikipedia, “Santa Claus”).

[5] Pinterest, Vintage Christmas images, accessed 2 September 2021, https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/302374562460418813/.

Copyright © 2021 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 2 September 2021.

Drawing of word Jesus written in shape of fishDrawing of word Jesus written in shape of fishDrawing of word Jesus written in shape of fishDrawing of word Jesus written in shape of fishDrawing of word Jesus written in shape of fishDrawing of word Jesus written in shape of fish

Nobody knows what happens after death!

(Image i-am-n T-shirts Voice of the Martyrs)

By Spencer D Gear PhD

I do some Internet blogging and met this fellow who stated:

when your asked if you no de wae - ImgflipThere are no answers, and there never will be for the living. And there is no difference in dogmatism of those who say that there has to an after life and those who say there is not. Nobody knows.[1]

I responded: Do you understand your hypocrisy? You claim there is no difference between the dogmatism of those who affirm an after-life and those who don’t. Then you give us your dogmatism: “Nobody knows.”

Meet someone who gives evidence for life-after-death.

Let me introduce you to somebody who knows what happens after death.

Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back. After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power (1 Corinthians 15:22-24 NLT).

This same author, the Apostle Paul, writing under divine inspiration, affirmed: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21 NIV).

This kind of evidence led to this statement in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”

“Nobody knows” is arrogance.

I know you won’t like the evidence I’ve provided, but your “nobody knows” position is one of ignorance – even arrogance.
What was Jesus’ view? He said to Martha at the time when her brother, Lazarus, was raised from the dead by Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies, and the one who lives and believes in me will never die [i.e. will never die forever]. Do you believe this?”(
John 11:25-26 NET)

Meet the One who knows what happens at death.

There is most definitely someone who knows where you will be one minute after your last breath. He is the crucified, resurrected and returning Jesus Christ who is alive and well. He is the only one who has provided assurance in life and after death.

(Image from 2018, “Thousands of Muslims turn to Christ after witnessing ISIS atrocities,” Christian Today)

You must count the cost of following Jesus with much thought.

  • Salvation is absolutely free.
  • So is joining the army; you don’t have to pay to get into it. Everything you need is provided.[2]
  • Following Christ is like joining the army. It will cost you daily. It will cost you freedom, family, friends, doing things your own way (autonomy), and possibly even your life.[3]
  • I must tell you, a prospective believer, the full truth and nothing but the truth.
  • Read what Jesus said about this in Luke 14:26-33; Matthew 10:34-38, and Romans 6:6.

See a more extensive discussion on the Gospel and discipleship in, The Content of the Gospel . . . and some discipleship.

Romanian pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, spent 14 years in a communist prison – three of these years were in solitary confinement. Later, he was able to say,

We prisoners have experienced the power of God, the love of God which made us leap with joy. Prison has proved that love is as strong as death. We have conquered through Christ. Officers with rubber truncheons came to interrogate us; we interrogated them, and they became Christians. Other prisoners had been converted… The Communists believe that happiness comes from material satisfaction; but alone in my cell, cold, hungry and in rags, I danced for joy every night
 Sometimes I was so filled with joy that I felt I would burst if I did not give it expression… I had discovered a beauty in Christ which I had not known before.[4]

Will you join me in confessing your sin, seeking God’s forgiveness and seeking salvation for eternal life through Jesus Christ?

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(VOM refers to Voice of the Martyrs, founded by Richard & Sabina Wurmbrand. Image courtesy Persecution Blog, VOM)

Notes

[1] On Line Opinion, “Death and the Lords of the Universe,” Peter Sellick, 18 January 2021, Posted by ttbn, Monday, 18 January 2021 4:38:24 PM (Accessed 19 January 2021).

[2] John F. MacArthur Jr., Faith Works: The Gospel According to the Apostles. Milton Keynes, England: Word Publishing, 1993, p. 253.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Richard Wurmbrand, In God’s Underground (Diane Books), in David K. Watson, How to Find God. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1974, p. 65.

 

Copyright © 2021 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 19 January 2021.

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color lines png PNG image with transparent background | TOPpngcolor lines png PNG image with transparent background | TOPpngcolor lines png PNG image with transparent background | TOPpng

Is Heaven Real?

Jesus Christ In Heaven

By Spencer D Gear PhD

Is heaven real or a fantasy? How can any person get there?

There is a liberal Anglican, Peter Sellick, who posts articles online. He has a new one entitled, “Death and the Lords of the Universe” (On Line Opinion, 18 January 2021), That’s a provocative title. Which Lords?

I picked up a statement from this article:

Death is real, a real end and absence that cannot be penetrated. When this is understood, the confidence of “a better place” after death is exposed as a attempt to soften the hard realities of life and therefore to remain a child in the world.[1]

Sellick’s world view of liberalism speaking

So, I responded:[2]

This is your world view speaking. It is far, far from biblical reality which states:
clip_image001“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 1:21 NET).

clip_image001[1]“Thus we are full of courage and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8 NET).

There is absolute confidence of going to a place of many rooms/mansions for the Christian (John 14:2).

Your problem, Sells, is that you don’t have confidence in the authority of Scripture, so you invent your theology or seek someone else to support your liberalism.

Country music follows your world view.

Country music has a fantasy about heaven. This is one example, sung by its composer, Steve Wariner.[3]

File:Steve wariner 2019.jpg

(Image Steve Wariner, Wikimedia)

These are Steve Wariner lyrics:

“Holes In The Floor Of Heaven”

One day shy of eight years old, my grandma passed away
I was a broken hearted little boy, blowing out that birthday cake
How I cried when the sky let go, with a cold and lonesome rain,
Mamma smiled, said don’t be sad child, grandma’s watching you today
Cause there’s holes in the floor of heaven
And her tears are pouring down,
That’s how you know she’s watching,
Wishing she could be here now.[4]

I’m a country music fan and have heard so many songs with a generalised statement about heaven but no biblical evidence.

You fall into a similar category.

The Bible is adamant: There are mansions for believers; to die is gain, and when I’m absent from this frail, mortal body I’ll be present with the Lord.

Absolutely certain no heaven

Another poster jumped in: “Nobody know (sic) what happens after death” [5] Another asked: “How do you know? Can you prove it?”[6]

I responded: “How do you know? What causes you to make this absolutistic statement? Don’t you think it would show more humility if you said: “I’m unsure what happens at death, but I’ll seek some more information.” [7]

Do you want to join me?

Here’s the key for everyone to enter heaven and enjoy salvation forever: “You can’t be saved by believing in anyone else. God has given people no other name under heaven that will save them” (Acts 4:12 NIRV).

Notes


[1] https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=21273 (Accessed 18 January 2021).

[2] See: Posted by OzSpen, Monday, 18 January 2021 10:02:07 AM. Ibid.

[3] Available at: http://theboot.com/country-songs-about-heaven/ (Accessed 18 January 2021).

[4] Available at: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stevewariner/holesinthefloorofheaven.html (Accessed 18 January 2021).

[5]  Posted by ttbn, Monday, 18 January 2021 10:50:10 AM.

[6]  Posted by Mr Opinion, Monday, 18 January 2021 11:25:54 AM

[7] Posted by OzSpen, Monday, 18 January 2021 11:39:21 AM.

Copyright © 2021 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 18 January 2021.

The 7 Letter Alphabet: How to Name Music Notes — Musicnotes Now

The 7 Letter Alphabet: How to Name Music Notes — Musicnotes Now

Is God in hell?

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

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(Image courtesy PublicDomainPictures.net)

By Spencer D Gear PhD

While blogging on a Christian forum, I met a person who wrote: ‘I don’t believe God dwells in Hell. That’s what Jews believe’.[1]

Is that true or false?

1. Hades and God’s omnipresence

God’s omnipresence means

God is everywhere present at once (omni=everywhere = present). Negatively stated, there is nowhere that God is absent [from]
. It is helpful to see what omnipresence does not mean. It does not mean that God is creation; this is pantheism
. In theism God made the world; in pantheism God is the world. Nor does omnipresence mean that God is in creat6ion, which is panentheism (Geisler 2003:169-170).

The Bible teaches God is omnipresent (Prov 15:3; 1 Kings 8:27; Jer 23:23-24; Matt 18:20; Ps 139:7-12). He is everywhere all the time and that means he will be present forever in hell as the Judge and perpetrator of punishment.

Proverbs 15:3 (NIV) supports this view: ‘The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good’. The wicked are on earth and also in Hades/Hell. The Lord is active in watching them.

2. What is Hades?

It is ‘the place of the dead’ (Eccl 9:10; Ps 55:23; Acts 2:27) or ‘the place of departed souls/spirits’ (Eccl 12:7; Isa 14:9-10, 19).

There does seem to be a contradiction in Scripture regarding God’s presence in Hades or not. Paul speaks of being ‘shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might’ (2 Thess 1:9 NIV).

However, Scripture also teaches in Revelation 14:20 (NIV) that anyone who receives the beast’s image

will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.

How can the damned be shut out from God’s presence and still experience fury from God, in the presence of the Lamb? They seem to be conflicting statements.

These verses are best reconciled, in my view, by recognizing that judgment consists in being excluded from God’s presence as the source of all blessedness, but not from God’s omnipresent lordship (Michael Horton, Hell is not separation from God).

Psalm 139:7-12 (ESV) destroys the view that God is not in Sheol/Hades:

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”
Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.


Seamless Realistic Fire Border...

3. Works consulted

Geisler, N 2003. Systematic theology, vol 2: God, creation. Minneapolis, Minnesota: BethanyHouse.

4.  Notes

[1] Brian100 #587. Christianity Board, ‘Atheist objections to evidence for God’s existence’, 8 July 2020 (Accessed 10 July 2020).

Copyright © 2020 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 10 July 2020.

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