In my own scholarship of the Bible I have often been surprised by the source of many debates that I have with people. Today was one of those surprise encounters. Dr. Josh Bowen is described as a scholar of the Pentateuch, asserting that Moses in not the author of the first five books of the Bible.
The following is Dr. Bowen’s description of himself found at Amazon:
“Dr. Joshua Bowen graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 2017, with a Ph.D. in Assyriology. He wrote his dissertation on the lamentational liturgies of the city of Kiš, and specializes in the Sumerian language. Joshua was awarded the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (D.A.A.D.) and Fulbright scholarship during the 2014-2015 academic year, allowing him to spend the year in Tubingen, Germany, working with Dr. Konrad Volk on his dissertation project.”
Like myself, Dr. Bowen frequents the discussions at Twitter, and attempts to answer questions and pose questions regarding the Bible. Dr. Bowen has done his due diligence and has earned his academic credentials. For this we owe him respect.
- See The Academic Evidence For Mosaic Authorship
- Who Is Qualified To Be A Biblical Scholar?
- Impeaching Dr. Josh Bowen
Concerning the Bible, Dr. Bowen and I, do not agree
On Saturday, March 19, 2022, I received a question from Josh regarding a post at Twitter that I made earlier in the morning, as follows:
“In Deuteronomy 32:48-50, God told Moses he was going to die, to prepare himself. Moses writes his own obituary in Deuteronomy 34:1-5. It’s no mystery how Moses was able to write about his own death. He recorded it before he died.”
Josh apparently saw my post and presented the following question to me:
Dr. Josh
@DJHammurabi1
“Can you think of any Pentateuchal specialists that would agree with you?”
My answer was the following:
“If you are describing Source Criticism, this remains a fractured field. Predominately Source-critical studies have conjectured that there is a probability that the current Pentateuch/Hexateuch insinuates multiple sources, but this posit has never been proven conclusively.”
Josh responded:
“Your failure to reference any Pentateuchal specialist is telling to me. Interesting.” *specialists
The following was my question presented to Dr. Bowen:
“Let me ask you a question: do you believe the God of the Bible exists?”
Josh responded:
“I do not.”
“Can’t wait to see where this question is leading 🙄”
My response and the follow up to my question:
“I asked you this question because your view of whether the Biblical God exists, determines your Cognitive Bias. Critical Scholarship is not inherently biased, but many scholars are. Every human being is capable of cognitive prejudice. People tend to choose their preferred conclusions and then justify their choices by often fallacious and unprovable assertions.
You, not believing that God exists, have chosen a hypothesis to explain the Pentateuch that fits that bias. Although this hypothesis cannot be proven conclusively, you reject the simple exegesis of the text themselves.
You incorrectly assert these suppositions upon unsuspecting readers, as established facts, when they are not. The evidence presented by the extant manuscript evidence for these texts, impeaches your hypothesis.”
Dr. Bowen responded:
“Good one. People have biases. Awaiting the logical progression to your fringe position being shown to be the most plausible.”
My answer:
“If your hypothesis cannot be conclusively used to explain the Pentateuch, why is the extant manuscript evidence of the actual texts, not evidence that Moses is the author?”
Impeaching Dr. Josh Bowen And “The Atheist Handbook To The Old Testament”
To this question, there was no response from Dr. Bowen.
At the time of publication for this essay, there was no response.
The reason I asked the esteemed Doctor this question is because, what he and his other atheist colleagues are using to assert that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, when the extant manuscript evidence from antiquity, proves Moses wrote these texts, Bowen’s hypothesis does not prove Moses is not the author.
The entire supposition that is asserted by Bowen, comes from his Cognitive Bias that God does not exist, therefore, the Bible is not the Word of God. This view further causes the error that Moses is not the author of the Torah, causing the people who read their comments to believe the Bible is flawed and cannot be trusted.
The actual physical evidence of the surviving manuscript evidence for the Torah, proves that Moses is the true author. The Hebrew scholars of the first century have written extensively that Moses is the author. Only modern atheist scholars today, assert that Moses is not the writer of these texts, but four other unknown persons wrote the first five books of the Bible.
Is Yahweh A Terrorist? Dr. Joshua Bowen Says, “Yes”
If the hypothesis that Dr. Bowen is relying upon to prove Moses did not write the Torah is correct, how do you explain that preeminent Hebrew scholars in the first century, didn’t know this?
Josh Bowen and his colleagues use this hypothesis in an attempt to impugn the reliability and truth of the Hebrew Bible, which causes the entire 66 books of the Old and New Testament to be called into question. The problem for these scholars is that their hypothesis is just their opinions, their conjecture, their speculation.
Dr. Bowen has written several books where he alleges that texts from the Old Testament are flawed. This brief encounter with Josh Bowen demonstrates that he is biased, and not honest in his conclusions. The actual extant texts of the first five books of the Bible, are archeological, historical evidence that demonstrates, Josh Bowen’s conclusions about the Old Testament are flawed.
There is not a single citation in the historical record made by any Hebrew scholar, before the seventeenth century, that claims Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch. This is a modern fabrication made by atheists that exists with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to prove it is true.
If Dr. Bowen would like to continue this debate with me, he can post his arguments at the end of this essay:
UPDATE: April 25, 2022. Josh Bowen never returned to continue this debate.
- Impeaching Dr. Josh Bowen And “The Atheist Handbook To The Old Testament”
- Dr. Joshua Bowen, PhD, Falsely Asserts The Old Testament, “Endorses Slavery”
- Is Yahweh A Terrorist? Dr. Joshua Bowen Says, “Yes”
- Impeaching The Poor Scholarship Of Yale Professor Joel Baden
- Impeaching Yale Professor Joel Baden And His Views On The Documentary Hypothesis
- Proving Moses Wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, From Historical Evidence
- The Historicity Of Moses
Categories: Archeological Confirmation, Atheists, Agnostics and Skeptics, Bible, Common objections by Atheists, Controversy, Destruction of the Canaanites, Evidence: The Pentateuch, Exegesis and Hermeneutics, Inability to perceive evidence for God, Jesus is God, Jesus is the Messiah, Josh Bowen, Literary authenticity of the New Testament, Principles of Biblical Interpretation, Reliability of the Bible, Robert Clifton Robinson, Why God Allows Evil
Robert Clifton Robinson 
I was just gonna go away Bob, but you never answered my question. Go to the Dead Sea scrolls and read the translation of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (or read it in Hebrew if you are as well studied as you claim). What was inherited from whom? I think you avoided answering that one on purpose. If Yahweh inherited Israel from Elyon (El the most high) as it clearly says, Yahweh was subordinate to the more ancient Mesopotamian God El. Now jump to the New Testament. If Jesus is God, which God is he? You can’t get out of this one, although Michael Heizer tried by completely ignoring the word INHERITED.
p.s I copied nothing from anyone as you claim. You can search any of my responses and you will find them all original to me. I admit that I have influence from Voltaire, David Hume, John Locke, Descartes, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Bart Ehrman, Richard Dawkins, Etc. but my statements are all from my own brain.
you on the other hand, use much of your responses back to people are clearly cut and paste statements from other apologists. That’s kind of hypocritical there Bob.
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Your problem is that you are seeking to take the different names for God (there are 950), and make them into different gods. This is the tactic of those who seek to assert that there are different gods in Genesis 1 and 2 (the JEDP hypothesis).
This is utter nonsense!
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one God!
There is just One God who created all that exists, and He is the God of Israel and the whole world. He is known by many different names which define a particular attribute of His nature. They are not, however different gods. Every name for God in the Bible is for the same God.
Yahweh didn’t inherit anything from Elyon, they are One and the Same God.
If you would simply read the text as it is written, and cease taking the advice of persons who have an agenda to assert multiple writers for the Pentateuch, your understanding would instantly clear up.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9 When the Most High (עֶלְיוֹן) divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel. 9 For the LORD’s (יְהוָֹה) portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.
BTW, all my work is my own work. I don’t cut and paste anything from anyone. If I cite the words of a person or source, I place a citation in the essay.
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in my opinion, Dr Bowen won this debate. His lack of response was most likely due to your cognitive bias. He knew he would go no where with you as he stated that you are in the minority scholarly opinion. Dr. Bowen was a former believer and due to his studies, changed his opinion based on evidence. Bravo, Dr. Bowen.
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It is a fundamental of debate that when a question is presented of any importance to the subject of that debate, an answer is required.
Anyone who reads the texts of the debate can readily discern, Josh did not have a valid answer.
BTW, simply asserting that one was a former believer in Jesus, does not validate their claim. Anyone can claim anything, at any time. Jesus said in John 17:6 that the truly saved were “always His.” This requires that there never was a time when they were not His.” If Bowen is not a believer now, He never was a believer.
Further, Bowen is not in a majority of scholars, regarding the Documentary Hypothesis.” This position has been abandoned by the majority of scholars, excluding atheist and progressives. The reason? The evidence against this position is overwhelming.
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I believe as Josh does. The evidence is overwhelming that Moses could not have written the first 5 books. All of it is written in the 3rd person (and god said unto Moses). Moses appears to not know who is father-in-law is (3 different names are mentioned). Why would Moses or the same author give two contradictory creation accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Why would Moses give 2 different flood accounts (is it 40 days or 150 days?), Exodus 2:1-10 describes Moses birth and his early life (who wrote that?), all 5 book are anonymous, Numbers 12:3 “now the man Moses was very humble”….hmmmm, Genesis 36:31 “These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.” This couldn’t be true until several hundred years after Moses, many of the cities and nations that “Moses” talks about did not exist at the time Moses was supposed to exist, there are too many doublets for a single authorship, you are incorrect about majority consensus except with fundamentalists (with critical scholars, by far the majority ascribes to the documentary hypothesis), in the 10 plagues all the livestock are killed twice, different names for God (different authors), according to Exodus God never revealed himself to Abraham as Yahweh (in Genesis he did?). I could go on and on about why Moses could not have written the Torah and I assume that is why Josh stopped responding (or gave up) as I definitely know he could have gone on and on and on. No disrespect to you or your faith, just hoping people can use evidence and reason to find truth vs a book that was clearly written by man (just as the New Testament was). Faith is not evidence nor is hope. Good day sir.
p.s. I was too once a believer and sincerely wanted it to be true but the more I read the Bible (read multiple times over 40+ years) the more I didn’t believe and the more and more I pleaded with God to show me his existence when I was younger and was always crickets. Thus, no empirical evidence, no belief/no faith. I love the Bible and its stories but now I know they just aren’t true theologically.
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Sorry for the late response. This comment by you was automated into spam.
Do you know how many secular and religious books are written in the third person? Why is it that only the Pentateuch is questioned? God tells us that He only trusts Moses to hear and record the texts that He dictated directly to Moses:
God said that He only trusted Moses, not 4 other unknown persons asserted by the Documentary Hypothesis
Numbers 12:6-8 “And the LORD said to them, “Now listen to what I say: “If there were prophets among you, I, the LORD, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams. But not with my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles! He sees the LORD as he is. So why were you not afraid to criticize my servant Moses?”
It is quite common in life that people are known by different names. Moses’ Father in-Law is one of those cases. Did you know that the God of the Bible is known by 950 different names? Each one has a specific meaning that can be applied to every need we have in our life.
There are not two contradictory creation accounts.
When Genesis was originally written, as with all of the Bible, there were no chapters or verses.
The text in the Genesis creation account is all one single story.
What you are observing in these narratives is a common Hebrew method of telling a story: In Genesis chapter 1 God gives us a brief summary of the events that took place in creation; chapter 2 He tells us the specific details of these events in greater detail.
Just one creation narrative, not two.
Josh Bowen says: “How long did the flood last; like we all know it lasted 40 days and nights, except for the verses that say it lasted 150 days!”
Let’s examine the texts in question to see what it states:
What The Book of Genesis 7:17-24 Actually States: “Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.”
Did you see what Bowen’s error is?
Verse 17 states that the rain and groundwater from the earth, continued for 40 days. Then the water that covered the earth, remained on earth for 150 days.
If we merely read Bowen’s comments he leads us to believe that there are two contradictory statements in the Genesis 7 texts. When we read it for ourselves we see that Josh Bowen deceived us. The statement of 40 days of rain, is not the same as how long the water remained on earth for 150 days, after the rain stopped.
This is the type of subtle deception that atheists construct in their comments on the Bible. Josh Bowen did this because he wants us to believe that the Pentateuch is unreliable. He wants to convince us that the Pentateuch contains serious contradictions. These contradictions are due to the certainty there are multiple writers. We are learning already that what Josh Bowen asserts as a contradiction or difficulty, is merely his injection of a false assertion.
The fact of the matter is, it is Josh Bowen who has serious issues of dishonesty.
The texts are clearly dictated to Moses by God, by “Direct Revelation,” from God. Is this not clear to you that the portions of Genesis regarding the Creation Narrative, God told Moses how these events took place and he wrote what God said?
I am surprised that you don’t understand this simple fact.
Moses Received The Information He Recorded In Genesis, Directly From God:
“Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth! “Build a large boat…” ~Genesis 6:11-14
This testimony written in Genesis 6, is similar to Paul’s account of God giving him information about events that were previously unknown before that time: “We tell you this directly from the Lord…” (1 Thessalonians 4:15). “I received this by direct revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12).
God told Moses everything about the flood of Noah, so that he could accurately, and truthfully, record these events for us in Genesis. We see many places in the Old Testament where the Lord spoke to Moses and gave him specific and detailed instructions and information of specific events:
“God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.” ~Exodus 3:15
“Then the LORD said to Moses,…” ~Exodus 4:6
“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. ….” ~Leviticus 4:1-2
“The LORD said to Moses…“Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.”~ Exodus 25:1, 40
This is not what the entire Biblical texts state. There nare almost a thousand references to Moses as the author.
See these citations throughout the Bible, at my essay: “Proving Moses Wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, From Historical Evidence“Proving Moses Wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, From Historical Evidence
Bowen states: “In Numbers 12…my favorite verse that that doesn’t make sense for Moses to have said, is where it says in the numbers 12 says “now Moses was the most humble man on earth,” which I always have the funniest thing for Moses to potentially written, but you can see why people would say that maybe Moses didn’t write anyway, so the question of maybe Moses didn’t write all of it?”
As we examine the actual texts of Numbers 12, we can see very quickly why Baden has made his error of assumption:
What The Book of Numbers 12:1-3 Actually States: “While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the LORD heard them. (Now Moses was very humble—more humble than any other person on earth.)”
I have two theories that define why this controversial text appears in Numbers 12. I like the second because it is fits a good exegesis of the entire text of Numbers 12.
First: In a majority of reliable translations of the Bible, we often find parentheses to indicate an editorial comment or remark made by a person other than the one writing the texts. If you pick up any one of my 21 Bibles in my office, you will quickly notices that they are filled with comments made by me in the margins and columns of these Bibles.
No one reads my comments and thinks that the original writer said these things. Most intelligent persons who do not have an insidious agenda to impeach the texts of the Bible, understand this fact of ancient extant manuscripts. We find comments written by persons other than the original writer, in a great number of surviving manuscript copies of the Bible.
We find the usage of the parenthesis also in the New Testament, where editorial comments are made in John 7:22, and 7:39.
A requirement for all good exegesis of any text found in the Bible, is to begin our investigation by first examining the text in question. We notice in Numbers 12:1 that Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses, and said: “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us too?”
What follows this challenge to the authority of Moses leadership, is the statement that Baden criticizes as inconsistent for Moses to have said: “Now Moses was very humble—more humble than any other person on earth.”
In response to this challenge of Moses, he does not become angry—he does not fight back—Moses takes this conflict to the Lord. In verse 4, the Lord calls Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and says to them:
“Go out to the Tabernacle, all three of you!” So the three of them went to the Tabernacle. Then the LORD descended in the pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam!” he called, and they stepped forward. And the LORD said to them, “Now listen to what I say:
“If there were prophets among you, I, the LORD, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams. But not with my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles! He sees the LORD as he is. So why were you not afraid to criticize my servant Moses?” The LORD was very angry with them, and he departed.” ~Numbers 12:4-9
This is evidence that proves ONLY Moses was given access to God, because of his humility, whereby, God dictated directly to Moses—all the texts of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—personally.
This statement above, from God, regarding the qualities of character that Moses possessed—defines Moses as writing what God wanted to be said. It also tells us that the statement about Moses’ humility was placed in the text of Numbers 12, because God wanted it there, so the Jews would know what kind of man Moses was, and his humility was the chief reason God spoke only to him.
Second: We see in the above text from Numbers 12:4-9, that there is tremendous evidence that Moses had a unique and special status with God that no other man on earth had. This status with God allowed Moses to write in the third person and speak honestly about himself.
Numbers 11:16, describes the “officers, Hebrew, “shoter,” שׁוֹטֵר šôṭêr; to write; a scribe, an official superintendent or magistrate: — officer, overseer, ruler. The Hebrew in this instance indicates that God considered Moses far above any other man on earth. This was the reason He spoke only to Moses, and only Moses could have written the Torah.
The text in Numbers 11:16, gives us an indication that Moses had a special standing before God, and his relationship was of such intimacy that Moses was permitted by God, to speak truth objectively, as God revealed each text He personally dictated to Him.
We see this exhibited as Moses freely describes his own faults, and failures, including his misrepresentation of God before the people at the rock at Horeb. Moses was also permitted to write God’s view of Moses, as “more humble than any other person on earth.”
It was because God saw Moses as a truly humble man, that Moses was the friend of God, and there was no one else among the Hebrews that God would speak directly to. We see this when Korah challenged Moses authority, and God opened the earth and swallowed Korah and all the men who came with him (Numbers 16). It seems clear to me that God told Moses to write the text regarding his humility, as this was how God saw Moses, and He wanted future generations to understand why He chose only Moses to write the Torah.
This assertion only works if you assume that Moses wrote the texts of Genesis by himself. The Actual texts themselves tell us that Moses received his information about all the events that took place before he was born, directly from God.
This is a well established fact in Hebrew literature and their history.
Why is this so difficult to understand by atheists and progressives who seek to impugn the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch?
The obvious reason is that they ignore what the actual texts say, and superimpose their false narrative of Moses alone as the writer.
This information about the Kings who reigned in Edom, came to Moses the same way that the information for how God created the universe came to him, direct revelation from God, as Numbers 12:6-8, states: “I only trust my servant Moses.”
Exodus 9:6 says, “So the Lord did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died.” This verse indicates that the fifth plague on Egypt destroyed all of the livestock in that country.
While Exodus 9:20–25 has livestock in Egypt being protected in houses from the seventh plague. How could Egyptian livestock be protected if it had all been killed earlier in the chapter?
The solution is quite simple:
There was a span of weeks between these plagues. The Egyptians acquired additional livestock after the first plague killed their livestock. The subsequent plague killed the new livestock that was acquired.
In 1753, the first claims of inaccuracies leveled against the Genesis narrative were made by French physician, Jean Astruc.1 This commenced the study of literary analysis for the book of Genesis and the claim that two different writers are responsible for Genesis chapters 1 and 2.
Astruc claimed that the first chapter of Genesis uses the name of Elohim for God, while the second chapter describes God as Yahweh. This multiple use of terms for God caused Astruc to conclude that Moses must have accessed two different literary sources when he composed Genesis. This was the beginning of the modern term for literary criticism of the Pentateuch, called “The Documentary Hypothesis.”
God is known throughout the Bible by multiple names.
If the usage of different names in a particular text was an indication that a different author had written the texts, we would need to assert that over 950 authors wrote the Bible
One part of the Documentary Hypothesis that originates in the nineteenth century posits that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, because there was no known alphabetic script in existence during that period of history.
Critics assert that the first five books of the Bible were actually written by a group of priests who lived a thousand years after Moses. This conjecture has now been thoroughly refuted by hard evidence that the early Jews had a workable alphabet and writing system.
We know that Moses was literate, because the historical record describes him as being educated by the best scholars in Pharaoh’s household (Acts 7:22). It is likely that God chose Moses to write the Pentateuch because he was exceptionally educated while, at the same time, extraordinarily humble before God.
In the twentieth century, alphabetic inscriptions were discovered on stones at Serabit el-Khadim, an Egyptian turquoise mine in the Sinai, by Sir Flinders Petrie.
This working alphabet was being used during the time that Moses would have written the Pentateuch, 1500-1900 BC.4
Prior to this discovery, scholars believed that the Phoenicians had created the first usable alphabet.
The inscriptions discovered at Serabit el-Khadim confirmed that the early Semitic-Hebrew people had actually created the first alphabet. This was the writing system used by Moses in composing the Pentateuch.
Acts 7:22 Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action.
As I have demonstrated in my impeachments of all your assertions above, Josh Bowen has made many errors in his conclusions, contradicting the actual historical evidence of the Bible, archeology, and the long history of the Hebrew people.
If in fact, these are the real reasons that you gave up on Jesus, it is certain that your abandonment was for the wrong reasons. I demonstrated to you that all of the false claims Josh Bowen wrote in his books, can easily be impeached by evidence.
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….and by the way you have proved nothing. All you have done is quote scripture as your proof. That’s like a comic book fan quoting Spider-Man to prove Spider-Man’s existence and achievements, in fact, it’s exactly the same. Your starting premise cannot be everyone’s ending conclusion. The universe doesn’t work that way. What I can say for certain is that the person you are (your character and personality), meaning you Bob the fringe Christian apologist, is that if you grew up in India with your parents being Hindus, you personally Bob, would be preaching to everyone today about the cosmic salt ocean as 100% truth, it’s your character Bob. If you grew up in Saudi Arabia Bob, only you Bob and people like you who from family and cultural up-bringing only, you would be preaching how Mohammed flew from Mecca to Jerusalem in one night on a flying horse to ascend to heaven over the the site of the dome of the rock as 100% truth, yes Bob you would be one of those guys and most everyone you grew up with would believe you (except the ones that snap out of it with reason and logic and say what in the hell was I thinking after honestly studying the evidence). You Bob, would be one of those cavemen beating the other caveman over the head with a club because he was praying to the wrong pile of divine rocks. You Bob, along with your type of character and personality, have already made a commitment to your premise before you ever investigated the evidence, thus you cannot accept evidence outside of your blocked out worldview that can only encompass the truth of you premise and then you use only the documentation inside the source of your premise as proof of your premise. What a small world you live in sir. People like me though, started with your premise from being raised in a Christian family and a Christian country as a believer and read, reread, reread, took meticulous notes, reread, reread and then came to the conclusion that this isn’t true and it’s the same as every other religion in the history of humanity. The first step to intellectual freedom is to go where the evidence points you. Once you do that, you find one error or one contradiction, your view of inerrancy has to come crashing down which it did for me. Once a view of inerrancy is shattered, then the flood gates open and you see both the Old Testament and the New Testament are littered with historical errors and contradictions and I am talking hundreds. You start seeing that hey, not 1, not a single Old Testament prophecy points to Jesus. Not one. You find that you were lied to your entire life. You find that Isaiah was read out of context. You find that the translators of the Septuagint mistranslated a word in the Hebrew Bible to where it said a virgin will give birth. Then you actually read the entire context around that Isaiah “prophecy” and find that it wasn’t even talking about a future birth, it would be a sign given by god to isaiah to King Ahaz when two armies were sieging his city and the sign was a young woman (it wouldn’t even matter if it was a virgin) giving birth right then and there. Why would king Ahaz have to wait until the birth of a boy between 6-4 BCE to help him back then? C’mon Bob, use your head. Is the story in John about the woman taken in adultery inerrant? We all know now that story is not in any of the earliest New Testament manuscripts. Which manuscript is inerrant Bob? You are not teaching truth Bob, you are teaching your truth with eyes closed and ears plugged because you have never ventured outside of your starting premise. I know, I am a demon and going to hell. Well Bob, hell does not exist. The word most commonly used in the New Testament that was translated to Hell in English is Gehenna. Do you know what Gehenna is Bob? It’s a literal earthly place outside of Jerusalem where Jews dumped their trash…..and no Bob, the 2 irreconcilable genealogies of Jesus isn’t that 1 is Joseph’s and the other one is Mary’s. They both explicitly say they are through Joseph (how can that be Bob if the Holy Spirit impregnated a virgin. Joseph’s seed was not involved). I know where you’ll go with this Bob but the book doesn’t say their was a Levite marriage nor does the book say that one lineage was the royal bloodline and the other paternal or maternal bloodline. You’ll probably focus on the royal bloodline because you’ll need to show king David in there somewhere just as Luke did when he made up the census because he needed to have Jesus born in the town of Bethlehem to force a biblical prophecy. The only problem Bob is that there was no census by Quirinius in 6-4 BCE. It wouldn’t be until another 10 years after the birth of Jesus before that census took place and the census did not have people go back to their ancestral home from a 1000 years prior (king David was around 1000 years before Jesus for those that do not know). So many errors and contradictions in the gospels Bob, too many to count. But Bob, you will now quote scripture to prove the I am wrong and then I will tell you again that I don’t believe your premise Bob because I know Spider-Man doesn’t exist (Jesus most probably existed I grant you but that’s about all that can be granted). The New Testament was written in greek by Greeks who grew up in Greek culture Bob. You can see the influences of Homer, Euripides, Plato, etc., all throughout the gospels thus one can understand why Jesus has so many traits of Greek hero’s. Nope, no eyewitness wrote any of the New Testament. None of them claim to be eyewitnesses. No Jewish sheep or goat herders nor fishermen would have been able to write fine Greek works (both Peter and John were illiterate or unlettered according to Acts). But then you will say what about Mathew the tax collector…and then I would say c’mon Bob, why would a smart Jewish tax collector be writing a book about the arrival of the Jewish messiah with so many Greek culture mythology innuendo’s and hey Bob, why would he need to copy over 80% of Marks gospel when he was an eyewitness and Mark was not? I haven’t even taken the cork of the bottle Bob but you won’t listen to any of it Bob, you’ll just quote your truth from “inerrant” scripture and I will call BS again then you will call me a Satan spawn devil and I will prove to you again that hell as you know it doesn’t exist. So I will just gracefully go away and wish you a good day.
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Meretricious at best.
The Bible was written as a historical narrative of true events. We can use the same methods that forensic scientists have used for hundreds of years, to determine whether or not the written testimonies in the Bible are true.
This has been accomplished many times over the course of the Bible’s long 3,450 year period of scrutiny.
The modern atheist assertions you assert in 2024, were all impeached in 248 AD by Origen. These same false assertions against the reliability of the eyewitness historical testimony about Jesus, was made by the Greek Philosopher and atheist, Celsus. All of his false claims were refuted 1700 years ago; the same claims you and other atheists are making today.
Your errors of assumption are glaring.
I was an atheist in 1975. I was a drummer in a touring Rock band. I could not have cared less about God or the Bible.
I was not raised in a Christian home
We never went to church in my entire life.
I simply picked up a Bible one day and read the Gospel of John for the first time. I didn’t believe the story was true, because I had never known anyone like Jesus. I didn’t believe that He could be a real person. My curiosity drove me to pursue whether or not there was evidence to prove that the story of Jesus in the New Testament was true.
I became a believer because of the massive evidence that proves the historical eyewitness testimony about Jesus is true.
Simply claiming to be a believer does not make you one. Many people claim to be many things, but later, like you, they are found frauds. You were never a genuine believer in Jesus. According to Jesus in John 17:6, all those who are truly saved, were, “always His.” This is a statement made out of eternity, that God knew who the true believers were before they were born, and they were always His. He knew you were a fraud, as I and everyone who reads your claims about yourself, know from reading your comments.
Going where the evidence leads, is precisely what I have done.
I began as an atheist with no knowledge, and devoted 49 years to the research, study, writing, publishing and teaching of the true facts of the Bible.
You, on the other hand, have believes the lies of atheists and progressives regarding their false assertions about the Bible. I doubt that you have had an original thought or have published any original idea yourself, in your entire life.
You are exactly what Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians: a captive of satan, compelled to do his will.
Your end will be swift and just, and none of us will have to ever hear or read your lies about God or His word again.
Although your statements are stolen from other atheists and bear no mark or an original research idea of your own, they are still in error. I have read this exact statement from atheists hundreds of time in the past 49 years that I have debated with them. It has been thoroughly impeached long before I was born.
In my books I have provided the evidence that refutes your assertions about Isaiah, and demonstrated that you and other atheists simply don’t know what you are talking about.
The historical record of the Jews records just one Isaiah who wrote these texts. There are 131 Messianic Prophecies in Isaiah’s 66 chapters. I spent nearly 2 decades researching these Messianic Prophecies and recording their historical accuracy in three of my published books.
The Prophecies of the Messiah (4,200 pages)
These Things Were Written (3,800 pages)
The Messianic Prophecy Bible (5,889 pages).
Have you ever written anything that is remotely close to this body of work? No!
You are a parrot of atheist inaccuracies.
The story is in the earliest manuscripts. It was removed by some of the first century Judaizers who feared that people would think that Jesus was approving of adultery by not condemning the woman caught in adultery. It was later found as incorrectly removed and restored to later manuscript copies. This is a well known fact of history.
If you reject Jesus as the payment for your sins, you will pay for your sins yourself. God said: “The soul that sins will die.” Jesus said that He came into the world to forgive sinners, but many like you, will not come to Him and live for Him in expectation and trust that His death on the cross has paid your debt for your sins.
Hell is the place of the unsaved. It is seen clearly in Luke 16 where Jesus describes two chambers in the earth where the saved and unsaved go upon their death.
Lazarus went to the place of comfort, awaiting the sacrifice for sins that the Messiah would make.
When Jesus rose from the dead He descended into the earth and took all those in this place of comfort (Paradise), with Him to heaven. Jesus closed this chamber forever.
The rich man who rejected God’s promise of salvation, went to the place of “torments,” where he begged God for mercy.
The chamber called Hell or Hades, still exists. It is the place of the unsaved where people are tormented by the inmates of that prison. Revelation 20 describes the final judgment of these persons at “The Great White Throne.” They will all be found guilty of rejecting the only way that God chose to save us. They will all be thrown alive into the Lake of Fire where they will reside forever. This is their Second Death.
Jesus told this story as a true narrative of what really happens to those who die.
Luke 16:19-31 19 Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. 20 At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. 21 As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.
22 “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and he went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.
24 “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’
25 “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’
27 “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. 28 For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’
29 “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’
30 “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’
31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Ghenna is a garbage dump outside Jerusalem where Jesus used this place as an illustration of Hell, and later, the Lake of Fire, where the unsaved like you will go after their death. “Where the fires never go out, and the worm never dies.” This is your destination, if you do not repent and believe that Jesus’ death paid for your sins, and live in this belief for the rest of your life. I hope you change your mind and repent.
When the untrained read the two different genealogies for Jesus in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, often they view these two narratives as contradictory or conflicting. In truth, these two lists of descendants exist for a very important and specific purpose: the prove that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah.
There are two different genealogies for Jesus because one is showing Jesus’ legal right to be Messiah through David (Joseph), the other, Jesus physical right to be Messiah through Mary.
Mary’s Genealogy by Luke
As Matthew gives us the details of Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph, Luke reveals that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah through Mary’s family line, described in Luke Chapter 3.
Mary’s genealogy is in reverse, with Jesus being named first, going all the way back to Adam:
Notice that Abraham and David’s names are listed in Mary’s line, qualifying Jesus to be the Savior of the world. If Jesus could not prove that He was descended from both Abraham and David, He could not be the Messiah, regardless of the other prophecies He has fulfilled.
The Importance of Jesus’ Genealogy
According to the Gospel of Matthew—through Joseph’s genealogy, Jesus came from Abraham and David. The Messiah must come from the seed of Abraham and be from the house of David. This genealogy in Matthew, showing that Jesus came through Joseph’s line, proves that Jesus has the legal right to the throne of David.
Mary’s genealogy, in the Gospel of Luke, traces Jesus’ line all the way back to Adam, validating that He was qualified to be the second Adam and Savior of all men. Mary’s genealogy proves that Jesus has the physical right to be the Messiah.
Although Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus, he did convey to Jesus the legal right to the throne as the Messiah. Joseph, as His stepfather, was descended from David and Abraham.
If you carefully examine Joseph’s genealogy, which is given by Matthew, you will see a man by the name of Jeconiah.
In the Book of Jeremiah 22:30, the Lord pronounces a “curse” upon the entire line of Jeconiah:
Thus says the LORD: “Write this man down as childless, A man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah.”
In other words: No descendent of Jeconiah could ever be the Messiah.
This presents a huge problem for the Lord, in that the Messiah must come from the line of David. Jeconiah is from the line of David down to Joseph who is the stepfather of Jesus.
If Joseph had been the birth father of Jesus, then Jesus would have been disqualified from sitting on the throne of David because He is descended from the line of Jeconiah, in whom no one from his line could sit on the throne of David.
In Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, we see this man called “Jeconiah.” Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.
In the Book of Jeremiah, Jeconiah was the king of Israel. He was such an evil king that the Lord cursed his entire line of descendants. As a result of this curse, none of Jeconiah’s future descendants could be the king of Israel.
“As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah (nickname for Jeconiah) the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off;” Thus says the LORD: “Write this man down as childless, A man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah.”
This presented a problem for the future fulfillment of prophecies that concern the Messiah, who comes from one of the descendants of Jeconiah. We notice that Jesus is from Jeconiah’s line, in Matthew 1:11 of this chapter.
Matthew 1:11,16: Josiah begot Jeconiah… And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.
The genealogy that Matthew presents to us is for Joseph, Jesus’ stepfather. According to this curse placed by God upon all of those who come from Jeconiah, neither Joseph nor any of his sons could sit on the throne as the king of Israel. This would disqualify Jesus as the Messiah, except for one important fact: Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father; Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
In this prophecy, we see how important the virgin birth of Jesus truly is. Had Joseph been the source of Mary’s conception, it would be impossible for Jesus to fulfill all of the prophecies of the Messiah. The precision and detail to which God made certain that Jesus is uniquely qualified as the Savior is truly amazing.
It is certain that the reason why the Lord created this scenario in which Jeconiah’s line is cursed—preventing Joseph or one of his sons from being qualified to be the Messiah—is to show us the great power of the Lord to fulfill His word.
The Messiah must prove that He is descended from Abraham and David; God makes prophecies that require this.
God curses the line of Jeconiah because of his evil; no descendant can be the king of Israel (the Messiah).
God chooses a line of descendants for the Messiah that includes Jeconiah and Joseph, leading to Jesus.
Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit, not by Joseph.
Joseph conveys the legal right for Jesus to be the Messiah as His stepfather while avoiding the curse that comes from the bloodline of Jeconiah.
Mary’s line of descendants also comes through Abraham and David, but not through Jeconiah.
Mary’s conception of Jesus is by the Holy Spirit, allowing Jesus to be born without inheriting the sin of Adam as well as following a line of descendants that excludes Jeconiah.
Now that is extreme engineering!
You can see how some have misunderstood these two genealogie and thought they were a contradiction. The truth is, these two prove beyond any doubt, from a Jewish perspective, that Jesus is truly qualified to be the Messiah. This was extremely important to the Jewish readers of the New Testament, later.
Regarding the Census:
One of the criticisms of Luke’s account of Jesus’ life is found in his description of the census that he says was ordered by Caesar Augustus.
And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.
Because no archeological discovery had ever previously verified that such a census took place, Luke was regarded in past history as having embellished this story. A later discovery regarding the taxes of the kingdom of the Roman government revealed that the taxpayers were enrolled every 14 years by the use of a census. Archeology has uncovered facts that verify Caesar Augustus did conduct the precise census described during the period of time Luke specified—near the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
Further, an inscription discovered in Antioch describes Quirinius in 7 B.C., who was the governor of Syria on two occasions—7 B.C. and 6 A.D.—a fact that is confirmed by the Jewish historian Josephus.
An archeological discovery in Egypt uncovered a Papyrus that specifically describes the details of this census spoken of by Luke, under Caesar Augustus:
“Because of the approaching census it is necessary that all those residing for any cause away from their homes should at once prepare to return to their own governments in order that they may complete the family registration of the enrollment and that the tilled lands may retain those belonging to them.”
In his book, Archeological Confirmation of the New Testament, Dr. F. F. Bruce describes a problem that was present in Luke’s description of the Tetrarch of Abilene, in Luke 3:1.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene.
Previously there was no record of anyone called “Lysanias” as the tetrarch of Abilene during the time Luke specified that he was there. In recent history, an archeological discovery made in Damascus, Syria describes a person called “Freedman of Lysanias the Tetrarch.” Scholars date this inscription at between 14 A.D. and 29 A.D. This is the same period of time in which Luke had written of Lysanias.
An interesting discovery in 1910 by Sir William Ramsey debunked the secular record of Cicero of the Romans, who described Iconium as being in Lycaonia. Luke describes Lystra and Derbe as being in Lycaonia.
They became aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding region.
The secular record has been erroneously held as more reliable and accurate than the Biblical record in past history. This continues to be a common error made today. The facts bearing witness, the Bible is always right in matters of history and the secular record is consistently wrong. This truth has been confirmed by archeological discoveries over the entire course of human history, all over the world.
Other noted scholars such as Dr. Adrian Nicholas Sherwin-White, a British historian and scholar—regarding Ancient Rome—wrote his doctoral thesis on the treatment of the New Testament from the point of view of Roman law and society.
Dr. Sherwin-White said this regarding the work of Dr. Ramsey’s conclusions on the Book of Acts:
“Any attempt to reject its (the New Testament’s) basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”
Dr. Sherwin-White examined the records of Rome, and concluded that their own history proved the narrative of the New Testament scriptures regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
When criticism is offered by those who are untrained regarding the prophetic scriptures of the Messiah, we must disregard their censure. Unless, of course, we are simply seeking validation of our own unwillingness to accept the assertions of facts.
The intellectually honest will always seek the truth in any matter, when the facts of any important subject are unknown. The mind that is genuinely searching for truth will consider evidence by those who are qualified to make their conclusions.
I have published several books that prove there are no contradictions in the New Testament Narratives about Jesus. This is merely a fabricated lie by atheists and progressives.
The evidence of the actual historical texts of the New Testament, proves there are no contradictions, discrepancies, or errors in the texts.
See my book: “New Testament Apologetics,” where I impeach these 21 unfounded assertions by atheists and progressives:
According to atheist New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman—because the narratives of Jesus found in the New Testament were written in elegant Greek, they could not have been written by the eyewitnesses of Jesus. According to Ehrman, the Apostles of Jesus were not educated men who would have been able to write Greek. For this reason, Ehrman concludes that the four Gospels could not have been written by eyewitnesses, but were written by others much later who had not seen Jesus.
Perhaps you have also read this conclusion from Ehrman and believed that he must know what he is talking about. Did you notice that there is no evidence to support this assertion, but it is merely the opinion of Bart Ehrman? Would you expect anything less from an atheist?
Here is the problem:
The writers of the entire New Testament state in their own words that they are eyewitnesses, 203 times. The question is, do we believe an atheist scholar writing his opinion 2,000 years after these events took place, or the men who say they were there and saw these things?
If you are an atheist, you use what Ehrman said to argue the New Testament is not reliable. If you are an honest person who has read the texts for yourself, the honorable thing to say is that the text states they are eyewitnesses.
You may choose to not believe what they said, or to commit yourself to Jesus as the Lord of your life, but would you still say that eyewitnesses did not write what is recorded in the New Testament?
The idea that these men were called by Jesus to be His witnesses, but they were not able to write a testimony, is utterly preposterous. When we follow Jesus through the narratives of the New Testament, we see that He is meticulous in every part of His ministry. There is not a single moment when Jesus is callous or careless. We see Him knowing the events that will take place, long before they occur. Jesus knew every person He spoke to, as though He could see into the deepest places of their heart.
Does Jesus impress you as a man who would choose men who were not able to accomplish the very reason He called them to follow Him—to be witnesses of what they had seen and heard? Notice what Jesus told these men after He had risen from the dead:
Acts 1:8: Jesus said: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
How exactly would these men tell people “to the ends of the earth,” what they had seen, if they did not write a testimony?
Jesus told John to write what he saw and send this testimony to the churches that were in Asia:
Revelation 1:11: Jesus told John: “Write in a book everything you see, and send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
Some say that these men were merely to tell people what they saw. When we read the comments of Jesus, He said that the Old Testament prophets said that when the Messiah came to earth, He would call men to write a testimony about Him and send it to the known world:
Luke 24:46-48: Jesus said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’ You are witnesses of all these things.
Once again: how would these men reach “all the nations” of the world, as Jesus stated, unless they wrote their testimony and sent it by letters to distant lands?
We must ask whether Jesus called 12 men to see and hear what He had said and done, to preserve a witness about Him for the world—only to choose illiterate men. Of course, this assertion is preposterous.
There are several problems with Ehrman’s conclusions. Ehrman said that the writers of the New Testament; Paul, Luke, Mark, and Matthew, are described in the Book of Acts, as illiterate.
Acts 4:13: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled.”
This verse does not say these men were uneducated, only that the leaders of Israel thought they were uneducated. The English word, “perceived,” was translated from the Koine Greek word, καταλαμβάνω katalambanō. This Greek word does not mean emphatically that the Apostles of Jesus were illiterate, only that the leaders of Israel thought they were—because many were fishermen.
There is no indication in the New Testament that the men Jesus called to be His witnesses, were not able to read, write, or incapable of recording what they saw and heard. This idea by atheist and progressive scholars is merely conjecture and speculation.
When we read the entirety of the New Testament we discover that all of these men had the capacity to speak, read, and write Koine Greek.
Paul was taught by the esteemed Gamaliel and was a Pharisee and Hebrew scholar. There is confirmation in the New Testament that he both spoke and wrote Koine Greek.
Luke was a highly-educated, Greek-speaking Physician, who was able to write Koine Greek.
Mark is described as a Greek citizen, also able to write Koine Greek; likely the scribe for Peter, recording his testimony about Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. The leaders of the early Christian church chronicled Mark as a Greek-speaking Jew, who acted as the scribe for Peter.
Matthew was an employee of the Roman government as a tax collector. One of the requirements for every Roman tax collector was the ability to speak, read, and write Koine Greek to serve as a tax collector. How else could Matthew communicate with the people he was collecting taxes from?
A second problem for the assertion of Ehrman is that the surviving manuscript copies for the four Gospel we have in our possession today are copies of the original autographs, not the original autographs. To assume that because the surviving manuscript copies we have today were written in Koine Greek, therefore the original autographs were also written in Greek, is a conclusion that cannot possibly be proven.
The hypothesis of Ehrman is based on this unprovable assumption.
We don’t know what language the original autographs were written, in or who it was that may have assisted the Apostles in transcribing them. We don’t know that the Apostles were not able to write Greek. We don’t know that the original autographs were first written in Aramaic or Hebrew and later copied as Greek texts. In the third decade of the second century, Papias said: “Matthew gathered the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue, and each person translated them as he was able.”
We cannot accurately conclude what language the original autographs were written in because they don’t exist any longer. There are no original autographs for any ancient texts of that age, secular or religious. All we have today to prove any event of antiquity are the surviving manuscript copies.
Luke writes at the beginning of his Gospel that he was very familiar with all of the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Luke states that he interviewed the eyewitnesses who saw Jesus and heard Him.2 If only Luke, Matthew, and Paul were able to write Koine Greek, which is a relative certainty, then these men are more than adequate to assist in writing all the first autographs of the New Testament narratives.
One of the assertions made by critics of the New Testament is the idea that what is written in the Synoptic Gospels, was penned long after Jesus appeared on earth. Atheists often write that men who never saw Jesus, created the narratives about Jesus, late in the first century. These adversaries of the New Testament say these men were not eyewitnesses, and a majority of the things attributed to Jesus—He never said or did. The problem with these statements is that the actual 24,593 extant manuscript copies of the New Testament from the historical record, documents that these men saw and heard what they chronicle. The entire New Testament is a compilation of 27 letters that record 203 instances of eyewitness testimony in the 260 chapters of the New Testament.
Not once in the entire record of antiquity is there any evidence that proves the writers were not eyewitnesses, and they wrote late in the first century.
The Writers of the New Testament Say They Are Eyewitnesses
If we conduct a personal investigation concerning the Canonical Gospels of the New Testament, we quickly discern that we are reading testimony from men who were present when Jesus said and did the things recorded in these texts. These men state repeatedly that they saw and heard Jesus and there is no ambiguity in what they meant:
Paul: 1 Corinthians 9:1: “Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus our Lord with my own eyes?
Peter: 1 Peter 1:16: “We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes.”
John: 1 John 1:1:”We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.”
James, Paul, all the Apostles: 1 Corinthians 15:7: “Then Jesus was seen alive by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.”
Mary Magdalene: John 20:18: “Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!”
Peter: Acts 5:29-32: “But Peter and the apostles replied… We are witnesses of these things…”
John: 1 John 1:2-3: “This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us.
The cork is out of the bottle. Both you and all atheists and progressives, cannot prove by any evidence that any part of the Bible is not true. The massive historical evidence proves that you are all liars.
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hmm. He probably did respond as I just did with a long list of reasons why Moses could not have written the Torah but it did not post in this chat. When overwhelming evidence is presented here it is apparently screened and deleted so the people “hanging by a thread” with their faith don’t hear what prominent scholars are talking about. No disrespect and have a nice day.
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There is not a scintilla of evidence published by Josh Bowen that proves that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. According to Josh Bowen, Moses didn’t write the first five books of the Bible because he says he didn’t write it. When pressed to provide any valid evidence, Bowen is always unable to do this.
I published an 1,100 page treatise that documents the literary historical, archeological, and long history of the Hebrew people, who state that Moses is the only author of the Pentateuch.
If you read my book you will discover that the claims of Josh Bowen are a house of cards. Once we examine the actual historical evidence that exists, his entire theory of four different writers for the first five books of the Bible, collapses.
Ask Bowen who these writers are. He will tell you that “no one knows.” In other words, four unknown individuals wrote the Pentateuch, but we have no evidence for who these persons are, nor do we have any documents by these persons that proves they wrote the Pentateuch.
Bowen asserts that the person known as Moses is fictional, the Exodus recorded in the Torah never happened. Bowen said that Moses did not write the five books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This becomes an insurmountable problem for Josh Bowen when we read the authors of the 29 other books of the Bible, who name Moses as the writer, 720 times in the Hebrew texts and 96 times in the Koine Greek texts over a 1,450-year period of history. Bowen claims all these documented historical authors are all wrong, and he is right.
If you want to see the actual evidence that proves the Documentary Hypothesis is a fraud, read my book: “Proving The Pentateuch: Impeaching the Documentary Hypothesis.”
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ok. I came to this site because I have listened to Dr. Josh many times and have read many of his books and wanted to read an honest discussion about the authorship of the Torah. Since our last communication, I did a little research on you and now understand why Josh didn’t respond to you. You are a fundamentalist and literally believe every word in the Bible is inerrant and is gods word. Nothing wrong with that if it makes you happy and gives your life meaning but very disingenuous when you put your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes when people who have studied this for years and have devoted their academic careers on these subjects. These magnificent minds try to have a conversation with you and then disappear. Now I understand why. If it’s in the Bible then it’s 100% true and logic and reason have no say so.
you have to take that position because if the New Testament states that Jesus confirms Moses as the author of the Torah, then debate is over. No way that it’s just the fallible opinion of a very human author of the gospels that put that on Jesus’s lips.
Ending on this note. I see in your biography on Amazon and other site that you studied at “university”. Why just that basic vague statement?
but I know the answer as you say it yourself. You don’t need to study this stuff academically, you need only to read the Bible and god will make you understand.
I wouldn’t have bothered replying but so many people are being mislead by biblical fake news from from apologists like you that god help us if people like you take Marjory in our government as the 2000 year imminent return of the Jewish messiah makes people not care about the present.
“God help us” is just an expression. Relax.
p.s. if you only knew…your kind of apologetics has turned away more people than you have saved.
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The only persons who believe the Documentary Hypothesis is true, are atheists and progressive scholars who don’t believe the Bible is true, or that God exists. Not exactly reliable sources for truthful facts concerning God or the Bible.
If you have any evidence that the Documentary Hypothesis is true, I would like to see it. I have challenged Josh Bowen and Joel Baden to provide me with facts that prove the Documentary Hypothesis on many occasions. They have never provided any evidence, because it doesn’t exist.
Simply because these men tickle your ears with things you want to hear regarding God and the Bible does not authenticate anything.
I was an atheist 49 years ago. It was the massive evidence that proves the Bible is one hundred percent true and without any error, that made me a believer.
A person who believes in the fundamentals of any endeavor of life, is not, as you say, disingenuous or naive. The fundamental facts of both the Old and New Testaments are that they were written and truthful, historical narratives of genuine events.
The facts of God’s existence are easily proven by facts of history, literature, science, and mathematics.
You write, obviously, as an atheist. You have decided that God does not exist, or that the Bible is true. Using this flawed methodology, you assume that persons who have invested decades proving the facts of the Bible and the existence are wrong.
I began my biblical and cosmological studies when Josh Bowen was in diapers. For nearly 50 years I have researched, studied, taught, and published the true facts of God and the Bible. I have done my due diligence to ensure that what I publish and teach is the absolute truth.
“magnificent minds.” A misplaced adjective if there ever was one. How exactly, can a person have a magnificent mind if they have failed to learn and understand that the God who created the universe, exists, and has communicated who He is to the people of earth.
Someday, the frivolity of that statement will become known to you.
Every day I read through a portion of the Old Testament in my morning devotional. It is nearly impossible to read through these books without encountering a text where the writer describes Moses as the writer, and the Exodus of the Israelites, as historical events.
The entire Old and New Testaments are saturated with Moses as the only author, and the reality of the Exodus as a fact of Jewish history. How is it that every Hebrew scholar for the past 3,450 years has affirmed Moses and the Exodus as historical facts, but suddenly in 1750 AD, a small group of atheists decided that Moses didn’t write these books?
Paul was the preeminent Hebrew scholar of the first century and he affirms Moses as the singular author in authenticating the Old Testament in all of his comments in the New Testament. Do you expect me to believe that Paul and his teacher, Gamaliel, were misinformed, but some enlightened men in the 1700’s determined that four unknown writers actually wrote the Pentateuch?
Who are these persons who wrote the Pentateuch? No one knows, but these geniuses are certain that Moses, who is mentioned almost a thousand times in the Hebrew and Koine Greek texts, didn’t write the Pentateuch. In these things you can see why no credible scholar today still believes the Documentary Hypothesis.
I take the position that Moses is the only author of the first five books of the Bible, because this is what the evidence has proven for over 3,450 years. The Documentary Hypothesis is a new theory that arose about 200 years ago, by atheists who were seeking a new method to try and overthrow the accuracy and truth of the Bible.
You are obviously not aware that the Documentary Hypothesis has never been proven, and it has been abandoned by all scholars except atheists and progressives.
My work speaks for itself. I have published 3,400 essays and 37 books, proving the historical reliability of the Bible.
There are thousands of university educated men and women with PhDs who don’t know anything productive about the Bible. They were taught flawed ideas by atheist and progressive professors, who also don’t know anything about the Bible. God does not convey wisdom or knowledge of His word to people who don’t believe Him. It is a fundamental truth that God hides Himself from the scoffer and the unbeliever.
God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
There is wisdom that is transient, and wisdom that is transcendent. There are scholars whom the world recognizes, and there are scholars that God recognizes. People in this world who earn an academic status as a scholar in the field of biblical studies, are considered by this world as experts, qualified to make conclusions about the Bible.
According to God who is the source of the words in the Bible, He does not recognize any academic status in the world that denies His existence, or denies that the Bible is His word. God recognizes only persons who have been born again by the Spirit, and have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, as people eligible to be a biblical scholar (John 3:3). It is by the Spirit that a person is able to understand who God is, and what He has said.
No person born on earth, but not born a second time by the Spirit, can ever understand God or the depths of His Word, neither can they be a genuine biblical scholar. It is by the Spirit that a person is given the ability to understand the scriptures and make valid conclusions.
Jesus said that the depths of scripture are hidden from the unbeliever: “You are permitted to understand the secrets (gr. mystērion) of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not…For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.” ~Matthew 13:11-16
The Koine-Greek, “mystērion,” is a silence imposed by God towards anyone who is not His.
According to God, who is the author of the Bible, only a person who has been born again by the Spirit of God is capable of knowing the depth of the scriptures. Jesus said that unless and until a person has turned from their sins and believes in Jesus as their Savior, they cannot be born again, they cannot understand the Kingdom of God:
John 3:3-8: “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot understand the Kingdom of God.”
Hebrew scholar, Paul, said that only by being born again by the Spirit, can any person understand the things of the Spirit:
1 Corinthians 2:10-14: “But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us…But people who aren’t born again by the Spirit can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means.”
It is the Spirit of God that gives us the ability to know and understand the Bible, not an academic degree. The Bible is not literature from this world. The Bible claims that its words and principles come from the Eternal God who communicated what He wanted written in the Bible. God spoke these texts to faithful men and women who recorded these words for every generation. God controlled what was included, and protected these words for us through every generation.
2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is inspired by God…”
2 Peter 1:20-21: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
Atheist and Progressive scholars do not have the benefit of the Spirit because they have not been born again as Jesus described in John chapter 3. Paul later explained in his letter to the Corinthian church, that only people who have been born again and have the Holy Spirit living in them, are capable of understanding the deep principles of the Bible.
God prohibits atheists and critics from understanding the Bible in its depth. The unsaved are only capable of understanding the basics of the Bible: the need for sincere repentance from sins, and the complete reliance upon Jesus for our salvation. These truths will be fully explained in subsequent chapters of this book.
Critics and unbelievers who have academic degrees in biblical studies, don’t believe that only believers can understand the Bible. Critics believe that the Bible is nothing more than ancient literature that can be evaluated and understood by the same methods secular scholars have used for hundreds of years. They are wrong. The Bible cannot be known or understood by any secular method.
God only reveals Himself to people who are diligently seeking Him—people who accept that God exists, and they seek to know Him through the Bible that He gave us. The books of the Bible are the method that God chose to reveal Himself to the world. It is the only sure way that we can know God and what He requires.
The Old Testament states that God can only be known and understood by the diligent and sincere seeker:
Deuteronomy 4:29: “But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Jeremiah 29:13-14: “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD.”
In the New Testament, we find that knowledge of God comes only to people who admit that God exists and then sincerely seek Him.
Hebrews 11:6: “It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”
The average reader assumes that a scholar with a Ph.D. is an expert regarding the subjects they write about. What if this person doesn’t believe God exists? How could the opinions of an atheist be helpful to us in knowing the God of the Bible? In simpler terms, would you trust a medical doctor, if you discover they don’t believe in medicine?
The fundamental requirement for anyone who claims to be an expert in the Bible is that they believe God exists. It is not possible to be unbiased in your conclusions about the Old and New Testaments if you don’t believe they are true before you begin your examination.
Our Premise Determines The Outcome If we begin with the idea that God does not exist, then this premise will affect our examination of evidence. We must also begin our examination of the New Testament with the presumption that what is written is true. When an examiner uses the presumption that the subject is lying, the test will always be self-refuting. The presumption that a person is always lying, while performing any examination for truth, is pointless, since the conclusion is already made before the examination has begun.
The first rule in achieving an unbiased outcome in the forensic examination of historical texts is the assumption that all documents that come from known sources and were used by those who held the documents in their custody for long periods of history—believing them to be true—are entitled to the presumption of truthfulness.
A fundamental basis in determining reliability for all ancient documents that assert eyewitness testimony is that every document should be assumed trustworthy unless it can be shown unreliable through the burden of proof.
Unless we assume a general presumption of truth in every testimony, we will never be capable of determining whether anything is true. The only effective method that allows a professional examiner to determine truthful testimony is the presumption of truth at the onset.
I think 49 years of scholarly study, teaching and publishing, qualifies me to make accurate, conclusive remarks.
Not once in all of your comments and opinions, have you provided me a single piece of evidence. Everything you have stated is simply your opinion. People are being misled. It is by people like you who don’t know what they are talking about, but assert authority, who lead people astray.
Last year I reached over 500,000 people in 200 countries. The truth of the Bible is still the most sought after subject on earth.
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Thank you — sorry the exchanges seemed disrespectful — but I heard a long interview with Joshua and he told the story of having been raised and remained highly committed to fundamentalist Christianity, his talent for scholarship hoped to be used to help spread the faith. He is still respectful of the faith of his Christian wife. He was very cognitively biased toward faith when what he learned gradually eroded it. If you wish to speak to doubters within and outside of the faith, please listen to the interview and address the specific things he said without your own cognitive biases. I am holding onto my faith by a thin thread when apologists attack the questioner more than the questions. Too avid defensiveness betrays hidden doubt. Instead of keeping their eye on the master to stay afloat, having found their sea legs, they forget they are still at sea and depend on him entirely. There is no solid ground for a reason.” “Rid your house of one demon, and seven more rush in” “When the son of man returns, will he find faith on earth?” “those who think they see are blind.” Please help me and rise to this challenge. Die again and be born again a better, indeed a true man, faith is a living evolving thing or it is dead. Thank you.
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Really! What difference does it make as to authorship? The Bible is the Divine work and Word of God!
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Dear Mr. Robinson,
Your rebuttal to Charles Branz made my day today. It was nice to read that you,
having biblical acumen, refer to the possibility/probability of divine
intervention as early as this year. Yes, The Rapture is upon us imminently.
What you are actually indicating is that people shouldn’t be squabbling about something that
really doesn’t address their own unbelief problems. The people who deny Moses, etc.,
are smoke-screening their own inability to address their personal faith in God.
To the atheists: The human brain produces brain wavelengths. Just because we can’t see
them doesn’t mean our brains aren’t functioning. It’s the same with God.
Steve Rodak
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What really makes the difference who is right? It all comes down to salvation, that comes ONLY through Jesus Christ!
1What do you believe?
2Why do you believe what you believe?
3Where do you get your information?
4How do you know it’s true?
5WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG?
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Charles.
For people who already believe and have no doubts about their faith, you are right, these discussions are not that important. For people struggling to believe under the mountain of lies purported today by atheists, it matters tremendously.
I have been teaching the entire Bible for over four decades, and up until the last ten years, there was not much opposition from critics. They really didn’t care what people believed. Most people understood that the Bible is the Word of God, and that Jesus is who He claimed to be in the New Testament. In the last decade the world has fallen into rebellion and unbelief.
Paul wrote to Timothy about the days we are living, and told him: “You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred.They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.” ~2 Timothy 3:1-4
I have not seen the evil, rebellion, vile behavior, and total disregard for God and the Bible, that I am seeing and hearing today. The Gospel is under attack and although the Lord said that He does not need us to defend Him, He is certainly pleased when our love propels us to defend the Gospel. Jude wrote that he wanted to address other issues when he penned his letter, but at that time, there was also a need to defend the Gospel.
The world is filled with men and women who obtain a PhD in Biblical studies, only to use that title to try and dismantle the integrity and reliability of the Bible. For two thousand years the Bible has been trusted, relied upon, honored, and respected. Today, it is reviled, disrespected, and regarded as untrue by critics. The truth and reliability of the Bible hasn’t changed, but the hearts of people have changed.
My role was formerly to teach the Bible to students. I have had to change my role in my older years, to teaching people how to defend the historical reliability of the scriptures. This necessitates debate with atheists on occasion. Those who are cordial and willing to talk honestly about the subject, I will engage with.
Josh Bowen is a young man who achieved an academic status, but he was taught incorrectly that Source Criticism is the appropriate method for evaluating the Bible. It is not. As believers we acknowledge what God said about His word; it is perfect, has no need of human critique, or alteration. God gave it to us to be read, studied, believed and lived. And in some cases when it comes under attack, defended.
There is no evidence anywhere that the Bible is not all true; only the opinions of critics who assert it is not true, but provide no evidence to validate their claims.
From the look of things in the world today, we are very likely in the last days of the last days. I believe that Russia will move further into Europe and draw in the NATO nations, along with the United States, into a global war. This war will not be like former wars where conventional tactical weapons are used. Putin is obviously fully under the control of satan now, and it has always been the desire of satan to destroy the world.
In the Old Testament, satan is called “the destroyer.” It is certain that we have seen his work already through Putin and this is only going to get worse. God will not allow man to destroy the world by a nuclear war, because He has already told us that Jesus will destroy the heavens and the earth, at the end of His one thousand year reign on earth. This will take place immediately after the seven year Tribulation.
This present conflict, in my opinion, may lead us to a war that will include the exchange of ballistic nuclear weapons. It takes less than 10 minutes now, to destroy the entire world, once hypersonic ballistic nuclear weapons are mutually launched. I think this war will likely bring the entire world to that point by the end of August of 2022.
Before the hour when the war will become nuclear and the earth will be destroyed, Jesus will appear, as He promised, as Paul told us He would, and remove everyone who loves Jesus and waits for His return.
If a billion people suddenly disappear from earth, all war will stop, and the world will pause to consider what has just happened.
I have studied, researched, lectured, taught, and published books about the days we are living. Certain specific events were necessary before we could really be in the last of the last days. If the Lord does not return now, and this is possible, then whenever He does decide to come, He will have to recreate the exact same events we are seeing now.
I don’t think it is likely that these same events will ever happen again. I could be wrong, because we don’t know the day or the hour, only the signs that we see, but September-October, during Rosh-Hashanah, would be a prime time for Jesus to take His church home. I wrote a few books about this event, as it is tied to the seven feasts of Israel. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the first four feasts at His first arrival on earth. The final three will be fulfilled at His return. The next event is the Feast of Trumpets, that takes place later this year.
The people who don’t believe the Bible, or that Jesus will come again, will scoff at this and continue to live their lives. I am sure that my critics will have a field day with this post. We are at the precipice. I have never seen events like those we are seeing now. I think we are near the end of this present world.
So in answer to your question as to whether this debate is really that important; I think it is. Time is short, the Day of the Lord is at hand, the coming of Jesus is nearer now that it has ever been. So, yes, it is important that we defend the Gospel and prove the Bible is true, till the last day.
Blessings!
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Hy,
did he really not respond or did you delete his respond like you are deleting my question that you willingly refuse to answer?
Regards
Ray
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The essay ends with his last post. He never answered my final question.
The reason is obvious; although Josh Bowen has obtained an academic PhD, he does not have the ability to impeach the time-tested reliability of the extant Old Testament manuscript evidence.
See the following: “The Historicity of Moses“
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