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Is ETDAV an Apologetic? Jeffery Jay Lowder James Patrick Holding maintains that, despite my introduction to The Jury Is In,[1] “Jury‘s ultimate thrust is misguided.”[2] Holding argues that the Jury authors have misunderstood McDowell’s stated purpose for his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (hereafter ETDAV).[3] Jury authors treat ETDAV as if it were a […]

The Jury Is In The Ruling on McDowell’s “Evidence” Jeffery Jay Lowder (editor) Introduction (1997) by Jeffery Jay Lowder Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict (hereafter, “ETDAV“) is arguably one of the most influential Christian apologetic books today. The purpose of Jury shall be to evaluate how well it does. Chapter 1. The Uniqueness […]

Conclusion I think there are three distinctive characteristics about the contemporary debate between Christians and secularists over the resurrections. First, both sides tacitly assume that the material understanding of the resurrection is the proper understanding of the issues involved. Second, both sides fail to discuss the background probability of the resurrection from their critic’s point […]

The Contemporary Debate on the Resurrection Having now discussed the importance and meaning of the resurrection, as well as its background probability, I’d now like to briefly survey the contemporary debate and outline the major arguments by both sides, at both the popular and scholarly levels. Christian authors who address the resurrection are obviously very […]

The Miracle of the Resurrection Before we can even examine the evidence to determine whether the resurrection is a historical event, we must first deal with the problem of whether such an event is possible in the first place. We need to confront the problem of miracles. More skeptics reject the resurrection because of its […]

The Importance and Nature of the Resurrection Christians universally agree that the resurrection of Jesus is central to their faith. Popular apologist Josh McDowell wrote, "The resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christianity stand or fall together" (1982, p. 179). Terry Miethe, a Christian professor of philosophy at Oxford, has maintained that "`Did Jesus rise from […]

Introduction I am an agnostic at a Christian university. Since enrolling at Seattle Pacific University, I have been challenged by several of my Christian friends to investigate the historical evidence for Christianity. In particular, they challenged me to investigate the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, as a historical event. Although I was […]

Works Cited Anderson, J.N.D. The Evidence for the Resurrection. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1966. Barker, Dan. Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist. Madison, WI: Freedom From Religion Foundation, 1992. Borg, Marcus J. "Thinking About Easter" Bible Review. April 1994, p. 15 and 49. Bostock, Revd Dr Gerald Boldock. "Do We Need an Empty […]

The Historicity of Jesus’ Resurrection The Debate between Christians and Skeptics Jeffery Jay Lowder (1995) Related documents: “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig” (2001) Lowder provides a point-by-point rebuttal to Craig’s case for the empty tomb. Along the way, Lowder defends a naturalistic explanation of the empty tomb. […]

Notes* Jeffery Jay Lowder In this column, I want to consider two distinct but closely related questions: (1) can a theist be a freethinker?; and (2) are all nontheists freethinkers? I shall argue that the answer to (1) is “yes” and the answer to (2) is “no.” I shall then argue that nontheists should stop […]

Empty Defense of an Empty Tomb: A Reply to Anne A. Kim’s Misunderstandings (2012) Jeffery Jay Lowder 1. Kim’s Misunderstanding of My Thesis      1.1 The Application of Bayes’ Theorem to Empirical Hypotheses     1.2 The Relocation Hypothesis 2. Kim’s Defense of Craig’s Empty Tomb Evidence      2.1 The Burial Account             2.1.1 First Stage: Is the Burial Story Historically […]

[Note: the following article was originally published in the Journal of Higher Criticism 8:2 (Fall 2001), pp. 251-93. A substantially revised version of this essay appears as a chapter with the same title in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus, 2005).] ________________________________________ […]

The Mental Discomfort of “Why?” James Still * I do not believe in dead things and cannot distinguish between being no more and never having been.  -André Gide. Abbreviations 1. Preliminaries 2. Wittgenstein and God 3. The Expression of "Why?" and the Problem of Life 4. “Why?” in Religious Practice 5. "Why?" in the Cosmological […]

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Obeying a Rule On Only One Occasion in §199 James Still Wittgenstein argues that meaning and use should not be conflated; the whole use of the meaning of a word (the steps to be taken) cannot be understood in a flash nor can the use fit the meaning simultaneously in that flash […]

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: The Muddle of Understanding as a Mental Process James Still Wittgenstein writes that "perhaps you will say . . . understanding itself is a [mental] state" (PI, 146). Wittgenstein presents this supposition–that the demonstration or viable accompaniments to understanding are symptomatic of an underlying mental state–in order to reduce the notion to […]

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: The Grammatical Fiction of PI §307 James Still In §307 Wittgenstein is accused of denying that mental processes are an essential element within the individual who experiences a sensation S; only the expressions of S exist while S itself if a fiction. Wittgenstein counters that the only fiction involved in the discussion […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Virgin Birth The Virgin Birth and Childhood Mysteries of Jesus James Still Biblical scholars have long ago dismissed the literal interpretation of the miraculous virgin-birth of Jesus. Also, many liberal Christian denominations have either quietly purged the curious piece of teaching from their body of philosophy, or conveniently ignore the […]

Lord, Liar or Lunatic? An Analysis of the Trilemma James Still Christian apologist C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that Jesus was either Lord, a lunatic, or "the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse." Josh […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: The Syrophoenician Woman in Mark 7:25-30/Matthew 15:21-28 The Syrophoenician Woman in Mark 7:25-30/Matthew 15:21-28 James Still Mark’s Text The Syrophoenician woman pericope is found in Mark 7:25-30 and paralleled in Matthew 15:21-28. Mark’s version of the story reads: [A] woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about [Jesus], and […]

Reliability and Belief (1999) James Still   Introductory Remarks Christianity is a religion built upon faith. Faith is central to the Apostle Paul’s vocabulary and intertwined within his theology as a whole. For Paul, to become a Christian is to believe in one’s heart that God has acted through the risen Christ to bring about […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity Critique of "Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity" by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart James Still Josh McDowell, organizer and minister to the Campus Crusade for Christ, co-wrote with Don Stewart, the infamous book Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity. The introduction states that Reasons was "written […]

Kerygmatic Sources of the Jesus Movement James Still Christianity begins with John the Baptist. The earliest gospel, Mark, begins with the Baptism of Jesus by John (1:1-11), and the other three include a narrative of John’s ministry in their accounts as well (Mt. 3:1-12; Lk. 3:1-20; Jn. 1:1-8, 19-36; 3:23-30). Outside of the gospels we […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument James Still *   The clocks were functioning, thus someone must have set them in motion, even if their winding had been designed to last a long time. -Umberto Eco […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: John Context Contextual Problems with the Gospel of John James Still The Johannine material (Gospel of John) is a radical departure from the synoptics of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. John’s psuedepigraphical author relied solely on the Greek Septuagint, did not have a Semitic-language background, and Colwell (Greek of the Fourth […]

The Problem with Jesus’ Arrest and Trial James Still There is a problem when dealing with the various contradictory biblical accounts of Jesus’ arrest and trial as they relate to each other and Jewish practice of the day. We are told in Mark’s gospel that after Jesus enters Jerusalem he is soon arrested praying at […]

The Search for the Historical Jesus James Still Before the nineteenth century, when Christians sought to understand Jesus and the ancient world depicted in the gospels, they adhered to naturalistic literalism. Naturalistic literalism is the practice of reading the Scriptures and accepting the events that are described therein as the literal truth. No one had […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: The Institution Narrative of Luke 22:19-20 The Institution Narrative of Luke 22:19-20 James Still 1. Introduction In the gospels, issues involving fasting, eating, and drinking plague Jesus. Just after his forty day fast in the wilderness, Satan tempts Jesus to turn a stone into bread (Mt. 4:3; Lk. 4:3). While […]

The Pre-Canonical Synoptic Transmission: Who Was the Historical Jesus? The biblical tradition places Jesus’ birth in Palestine at the town of Nazareth “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” (Lk. 1:5). We do know that Herod reigned from 40 BCE to his death in 4 BCE, so Jesus was born no later than 4 […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Gospel John The Gospel of John and the Hellenization of Jesus James Still In John we find the culmination of Greek philosophy that has created the Jesus that we are the most familiar with today. A fully-formed Hellenized Jesus has emerged to become an equal with God. The Gospel of […]