Evidence that Demands a Retrial continued...

This picture depicts Bacchus, carved in marble at TBN headquarters in Orange County, California. Otherwise known in Greek mythology as Dionysus, Bacchus seems strangely out of place at one of the largest "Christian" broadcasting organizations. But then, these would be the same folks who fraudulently claimed to be building a network of Christian television stations in Israel, and raised millions from the devoted faithful for this erstwhile cause. Few seemed to question the implausibility the Jewish state permitting Christian broadcasting within its boundaries. Oops!

On to the subject at hand...I've been flipping through Josh McDowell's sequel "More Evidence that Demands a Verdict". It's a thick tome, so one might think that the veteran apologist has a load of impressive material to share.

I was drawn to the chapter on historical references to Jesus. McDowell cannot resist citing the notorius "Testimonium" passage in Josephus' "Jewish Antiquities". Not only has this been debunked and discredited by nearly all scholars as a crudely forged Medieval insertion, but elsewhere in the works of Josephus, no less than 13 totally different historical "Jesus" figures are mentioned. Will the real Jesus please stand up?

Again, my argument is that there is no reliable historical trail that allows any conclusion to be made on the historicity of the Biblical Jesus. Jesus was a common Jewish name (Greek for Yeshua). Joseph was also a common name, so the recent discovery in Israel of an ossuary engraved with "Yeshua bin Joseph" means absolutely nothing. There were probably dozens of occurances of this father-son name combination throughout that time period.

People like McDowell simply can't escape from the circular thinking mentality that causes him to bend factual reality to support his "defense of the Faith". It is particularly pathetic for someone like McDowell to posture himself as a rational intellectual, simply trying to dig out the "obvious facts" that are claimed to support Christian belief.

McDowell criticizes the presuppositions that underly the philosophies and belief systems which compete with Christianity; He is totally oblivious to a few major presuppositions of his own.

For example, he consistently treats the Bible as a monolithic entity. This major supposition then provides license for quoting intra-biblical references and grammatical structure as evidence of God's handiwork. Totally ignored is the actual history of the canonization process, which casts an entirely different light on the subject.

McDowell also completely ignores the preponderance of mystery schools and cults during the period when Christianity emerged. Therefore, any extra-biblical reference to a "Christus" character or a belief in crucifixion and ressurection of a messiah figure is siezed upon as "proof" of historicity of the Gospel account. Of course, admission of the fact that stories closely paralleling the Gospels circulated hundreds of years before the 1st century AD would seriously undermine his case; a seeker following intellectually honest principles would consider all such information.

Why not simply be honest, and acknowledge that faith and fact are not necessarily connected? I can accept McDowell sticking to his faith (although he makes a case for rejecting tolerance for anyone else's). What really stinks is attempting to build a rational case, a preponderance of evidence, for a particular belief system. What essentially is an internal process of mystical discernment should not be contaminated with a selective twisting of history and intolerance for diversity.