Answering the Peter Jennings Report on Jesus

ANSWERING THE PETER JENNINGS ABC REPORT ON JESUS

Dr. Ron Rhodes Many of you no doubt saw the Peter Jennings Report on Jesus this past week. I know that many of you were disturbed by this program. For this reason, this special issue of the REASONING FROM THE SCRIPTURES NEWSLETTER is provided as a brief response to just a few of the major errors set forth on television about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. At the outset, I want to remind you of something that Solomon (the wisest man who ever lived) once said: "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him" (Proverbs 18:17). The Jennings Report may have disturbed some of you because the argumentation may have sounded convincing to you. But when Christian apologists step forward and "question" the claims made on the show, the case falls apart. I begin by noting that Jennings in the broadcast focused on "the man" Jesus. He said he and his guests could not address the issue of Jesus as the "Son of God," for that is a matter of "faith." The subtle implication, of course, is that Jesus as a man is a matter of factual history, but one has to have "faith" (in the face of "the facts") to believe Jesus is the Son of God. In other words, nonintellectual people believe Jesus is God, but the real evidence points to his life as a man. Such a position ignores the overwhelming evidence for the absolute deity of Christ throughout the gospels (which many evangelical scholars have proved to be very reliable documents) and the rest of the New Testament. Of course, much of the TV special focused on the opinions of leaders of the Jesus Seminar, a group of self-proclaimed liberal "scholars" who deny the supernatural. The implication throughout the show was that it is impossible for the Gospels to be historically accurate because they record things that simply cannot happen, like dead people coming alive again and food multiplying. Since miracles can't happen, the reports in the New Testament must be fabrications. Hence, the Gospels are not historical, but contain mere embellishments from gospel writers who sought to keep Christianity alive after Jesus died on the cross. Of course, the Jennings team can give no good answer regarding why the New Testament writers suffered greatly (see 1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 2 Corinthians 11:24-29) AND DIED in defending the truth of what they taught. Who in his right mind would suffer greatly and then go to his death defending what he knows to be a lie that he made up out of thin air? Such a position is nonsensical. In any event, the main point I want to emphasize to you here is that the Jesus Seminar starts NOT with historical evidence, but with PRESUPPOSITIONS -- antisupernatural presuppositions -- and these presuppositions govern everything they say. Because Jesus Seminar members start with the "rational" and "scientific" view that miracles are mere myth, their presuppositions arbitrarily eliminate miraculous events before the game even gets started. Such faulty methodology necessarily leads to faulty conclusions. THE DATING OF THE GOSPELS The Jennings Report suggested that the Gospels date very late, and hence cannot be trusted. Contrary to this view, the evidence shows the Gospels should be dated early. As a backdrop, there is no doubt that the apostle Paul died during the Neronian persecution, which took place in A.D. 64. We also know that Paul was STILL ALIVE as of the end of the Book of Acts. This means Acts was written prior to A.D. 64. We further know that Luke wrote his Gospel ("Luke") BEFORE he wrote the Book of Acts, which means that Luke was written probably around A.D. 60, which places him WAY earlier than the Jesus Seminar is willing to admit, with their liberal biases. It is also significant to note that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do not mention the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple in A.D. 70 by Titus and his Roman legions. If the Gospels were written following this horrendous event (which, to the people then alive, was on a level with the modern holocaust), they surely would have said something about it. Since they said nothing about it, many scholars believe this constitutes definitive proof of the early dating of the Gospels (that is, prior to A.D. 70). Chronologically, there is strong evidence that 1 Timothy was written by the apostle Paul in A.D. 63, and he makes reference to Luke's Gospel in chapter 5, verse 18 (which means that Luke's Gospel must have been written prior to A.D. 63). Further, contrary to the Jesus Seminar members on the Jennings Report, the evangelical view of Jesus Christ IS truly based on eyewitness testimony. As 2 Peter 1:16 put it, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." First John 1:1 likewise affirms, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched this we proclaim concerning the Word of life." BIBLE CONTRADICTIONS Often Peter Jennings or his guests would make the statement that one Gospel contained some information that another Gospel did not. They said this as if it constituted ironclad proof of a contradiction. This is foolishness. If all four Gospels were the same, with no differences, critics would be screaming "collusion" all over the place. The fact that the Gospels have differences shows there was no collusion but rather they represent four different (but inspired) accounts of the same events. One should not assume that a PARTIAL account in a gospel is a FAULTY account. The partial accounts, taken together, give us the full account as to what happened. Just because two or more accounts of the same event differ, it does not mean they are mutually exclusive. Never, ever assume that the UNEXPLAINED is UNEXPLAINABLE. (Those of you who want powerful arguments that deal with alleged contradictions in the Bible may wish to purchase and read Dr. Norman Geisler's book, WHEN CRITICS ASK.) Further, Jennings and his guests often gave fallacious "arguments from silence." For example, they argued that one Gospel makes no mention of hearing God's voice at the baptism of Jesus, as if this constituted a "contradiction" with other Gospels that do mention the voice. Such "arguments from silence" are illegitimate. If I am at a church and I make mention of "my child Kylie," that does not mean that I don't also have a son named David. To come to the conclusion that I don't have a son named David simply because I didn't mention him at the church would be an argument from silence. No logician -- indeed, no true scholar of any type -- would accept an argument from silence as a legitimate form of argumentation. Yet the Jesus Seminar "scholars" pursue this faulty line of reasoning constantly. THE MYTHOLOGY CONNECTION Perhaps most disturbing to me personally were the many times the Jennings Report implied or outright stated that Christianity borrowed from Greek pagan religions. They cite the virgin birth as an example. The reality, if you look at Greek mythology and paganism, is that their male gods would come down and have sex with human women and give birth to hybrid beings. This is not what happened in terms of the virgin birth. Jesus is ETERNAL DEITY. When the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, it was specifically to produce a human nature within her womb for the eternal Son of God to step into, after which he was born as the God-Man (100-percent God and 100-percent man) nine months later. This is entirely different than Greek paganism. It was also argued that Christianity borrowed its "miracles" -- such as turning water into wine, walking on water, and the resurrection itself -- from Greek pagan mythology. Dr. Ronald Nash has responded convincingly to such absurd claims. Below is a summary of key points based on an article Nash wrote. He has also written the book, THE GOSPEL AND THE GREEKS, which you may wish to purchase and read. Nash argues: * Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the Greek pagan religions are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Liberal scholars (such as those in the Jesus Seminar) often describe pagan rituals in language that they borrowed from Christianity, thereby making them appear to be "parallel" doctrines. * The chronology for such claims is all wrong. Nash writes: "Almost all of our sources of information about the pagan religions alleged to have influenced early Christianity are dated very late. We frequently find writers quoting from documents written 300 years [later]... We must reject the assumption that just because a cult had a certain belief or practice in the third or fourth century after Christ, it therefore had the same belief or practice in the first century." * New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger is quoted by Nash: "It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction." Nash notes that it should not be surprising that leaders of cults that were being successfully challenged by Christianity should do something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than by offering a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to counter the growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly apparent in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate. * The mysticism of the mystery religions was essentially nonhistorical. The religion of Christianity is GROUNDED IN HISTORY. * The mystery religions were nonexclusive. Christianity, by contrast, is exclusive. Jesus alone is the way of salvation. As I close, I do so with the reflection that there has never been a time when there has been a greater need for apologetics ministries than today. The attacks against the cause of Christ are unrelenting, and we need to stand together in the face of the onslaught. May God bless you, Ron Rhodes President Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries