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Report from the road – events in Kiltarlity

It was an early start for the Solas team as we headed North to see our great friends at Kiltarlity Free Church. Kiltarlity is a small village of less than a thousand people in the Scottish Highlands, a few miles west of Inverness. The Free Church near the centre of the village is deeply committed to mission in their area, indeed their website has the strapline “Sharing the good news of Jesus in the rural Highlands”. As part of that, their minister Stephen Allison invited Solas to lead a half-day Confident Christianity conference on everyday evangelism.

Andy Bannister was joined in the speaking team by Clare Williams, who had travelled up from the south of England to speak in the Highlands for the first time, and I had the privilege of addressing a Confident Christianity conference also for the first time. What was on offer was a blend of apologetics, theological reflection and practical training all designed to equip God’s people spiritually, intellectually and practically for the exciting task of evangelism today.

Andy Bannister spoke first on the increasingly relevant topic of engaging the apathetic in spiritual conversations. There are huge numbers of people who say they “don’t do God”, and wouldn’t come to an overtly Christian event – but who are passionate about many important things. Andy explained that many Christians are drawing these people towards considering the gospel – not by confronting them directly – but by exploring what matters to them most, and then helping them connect that to the gospel. Human Rights, environmentalism, and love are just three important examples of these passions which make little or no sense in atheism, but are explained most clearly in a Christian worldview. The bridge Andy uses to help these folks start to join the dots between these convictions and the gospel is “Have You Ever Wondered” questions. You can find out more about this here, and there are more Have You Ever Wondered questions to consider here too.

Clare Williams spoke next and she took us into some very helpful apologetics. The truth is that when we engage people in spiritual conversations, or even get as far as inviting them to consider trusting in Jesus themselves; many people have all kinds of objections. Learning to respond helpfully to people’s questions and push-backs is an important part of evangelism today and something that Solas is really passionate about. Obviously we need to distinguish between different kinds of objections; objections to what the gospel is are rather different to those based on misunderstandings or misinformation. Equally people can raise objections for different reasons, from painful life experience to playing philosophical games to heartfelt searching for truth.

A very significant, and genuine objection that many people raise today is that the Christian faith is unjust, and is a tool of oppression. This, Clare argued is a subject which has been overlooked by classical apologetics, but is a pressing concern in the Black majority churches of which she is a part. “Does Jesus matter in an age of moral outrage?” was her title, and Clare achieved several important things in her short talk. She affirmed that a sense of justice and moral outrage was a vital response to oppression, showed that the oppression of Black people in the (sometimes in the name of Christianity) was itself an outrage, and a violation of Christianity; and then showed that justice points us to the God of the Bible. She landed her talk with a quote from the brilliant Lisa Fields who pointed out that we need deliverance from both “the sin of slavery” and the greater “slavery of sin”. True liberation from both those things is found in Jesus.

After the break I had the privilege of doing a bit of theological reflection on the way in which we share the gospel today. Apologetics has had a bad press in some quarters, as it has been regarded as trying to argue people into the kingdom of God, and reliant too much on human reasoning and pride and not enough on the Holy Spirit. I sought to outline a biblical approach in which we use apologetics in the way the Apostles did in the New Testament, to lead people into truth – as a work dependent on the Holy Spirit. All true conversions, I suggested, need to convince the mind that Jesus died for us and rose again, and are also completely miraculous works of the Spirit in giving New Birth. As such, our task as Christians is to learn to be as good as we can at evangelism and apologetics; but to pray unceasingly for the lost and our witness too. Our Solas colleague Gareth Black summarized it neatly when he wrote:

In the Q&A, we had all sorts of interesting questions about everything from prayer, to how to prepare an evangelistic message, to several pointed questions about parenting teenagers. It was good to meet people from all over the Inverness region, catch up with several old friends and renew fellowship in the gospel. It was a smaller crowd than last time we were up in Kiltarlity, but a really worthwhile occasion which it was a privilege to contribute to. That evening Clare and the team returned to the church to do a youth event which was packed with young people from youth groups across the area. After Clare had picked up some themes around God and justice, she was bombarded with questions sent in via text and social media platforms. It sounds like a great night, which I was personally sorry to miss. I was driving back down the A9 preparing for a Solas event in Perth the following day!

Many thanks to our great hosts at Kiltarlity and to Clare Williams for travelling all the way up from the south of England for these events. It’s our prayer and desire that beyond just keeping evangelism on the church’s agenda, that these events will embolden and encourage the church in her mission – and that we might be able to bring an event like this to many more towns and villages all over the country.

Why Do We Consider Sex As Sacred?

Have you ever wondered why even in our secular age we still treat sex as something sacred? Consider the way that those who sexually assault others are considered to be the worst moral monsters. Why do we see sex as about far more than the raw evolutionary need to reproduce our DNA? Why do we long for intimacy? And could it be possible that sex is a pointer to a much greater story?

Thanks to our friend Elizabeth Humble for letting us film at her jewellery studio.

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Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Have You Ever Wondered Why Are Humans Drawn to Beauty?

I spent my childhood years in a naturally beautiful place: the Pacific Northwest of the United States. My parents loved the outdoors and frequently took our family on trips to see the mighty Pacific Ocean or the majestic volcanic peaks of the Cascade Range. At times, even as a child, I would sit quietly contemplating and reveling in the overwhelming beauty I encountered. It was difficult to put into words as a child, but I felt as though beauty meant something and that it was something good.

Over time, I began to wonder what all this beauty in the world was for and contemplated its undeniable draw on human beings. I watched a lot of nature shows in which spectacular beauty in the animal kingdom was said to be an instinctual preference to preserve a species. However, beauty, in total, seemed to be ridiculously beyond what was instinctually necessary to attract a mate, such as a Mozart symphony, a Van Gogh painting, or a sunset on the ocean. I sensed that beauty pointed me towards something more transcendent and everlasting, not just something physical and immediate.

God is beautiful

I was given a Bible my senior year of high school by a music teacher I greatly respected who caught me at just the right moment when I was searching for some answers, such as the meaning behind, and draw to, beauty. As I encountered those Scriptures, I read:

“One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.”
Psalm 27:4 ESV

Though I had never thought about it before, I began to realize that God is beautiful. As the Scriptural authors convey, his beauty is desirous, and it is further reflected in all of his creation:

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” Romans 1:20 ESV

I reasoned that if this God is the Creator of everything, if he is beautiful, and if he made his creation in reflection of his own qualities (Gen. 1:26), then it makes sense that his creation draws me towards Himself. The draw that I feel towards his ultimate beauty is, in some ways, like how a great piece of art draws me to know the artist. However, it’s not just the splendor of the natural world around me that has such sway, but it’s the beauty of humans, as well.

Humans reflect God’s beauty

I sometimes wonder if we have difficulty encountering the pull of God’s transcendent beauty, because we’ve forgotten how truly beautiful humans really are. I’m not simply referencing physical beauty, but also the design of the human body, the emotional depth, cognitive complexity, moral quality, plus the unity in diversity. If nature’s beauty strikes a chord with us, then humanity is a symphony of experiences. And that symphony tugs at our desire to understand who and what we are as human beings, as something more than a cosmic accident.

The timeless quality and irreplaceable value that we see in each other are attributes not best explained as arising from the chaos and pitiless indifference of blind physical forces that have no aim or end. Such origins would leave these qualities without proper meaningfulness, and with no apt reason for why we should comprehend their existence at such depth. For analogy, chaotic origins would seem to reflect the indifference of John Cage’s musical composition “4:33,” in which music is defined as anything and nothing,[1] rather than the meaning-packed complexity of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” in which there is masterful musical form and purposed emotional intent. Our human attributes entail intentionality, purpose, and worth; qualities that arise from an artist, a personal creator, rather than from unconscious forces. As the Psalmist expresses:

“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.”
Psalm 139: 13-14

There exists an aesthetic of meaning and value to our existence, and we’re attracted to it just like we are attracted to beauty and design in nature. Humans are an irreplaceable work of art that compels us to discover the fashioning artist.

Beauty and the sciences 

The natural beauty of our environment and the complex beauty of human beings serve as signposts towards the Creator through the many different ways in which they signal intentionality, purpose and design. Yet, further, the ever-increasing discoveries of science aid our understanding of how beauty literally impacts our mental health and wellness.[2] Combinations of colour and light, as well as their outworking in art, can improve human psychology, resulting in astounding effects such as quicker recovery from illness.[3]

Further, studies have found that humans respond positively to scenes of nature and as well as spending time surrounded by natural beauty:

“Over 100 studies have shown that being in nature, living near nature, or even viewing nature in paintings and videos can have positive impacts on our brains, bodies, feelings, thought processes, and social interactions. In particular, viewing nature seems to be inherently rewarding, producing a cascade of positive[sic] emotions and calming our nervous systems.”[4]

The call of beauty in our lives is not just for theological or philosophical reflection, but comes down to even the basic psychological and physiological impact.[5]

So why are humans drawn to beauty?

It seems to be so because beauty impacts us and calls to us in every aspect of life. From our mental and physical health to our greater understanding of what it means to be human, we are constantly faced with the aesthetic of meaning and intentionality, the beauty of design. We have been made in the image of a perfectly beautiful God, and our desire for beauty finds its fulfillment in Him.

While there is so much more to be said on this matter, a good starting point for conversation is the creation of humans who reflect God’s likeness, not just in physical aspects, but also in emotional, intellectual, and moral beauty as well. As we desire to understand our unmistakable draw to beauty, perhaps one of the most powerful places to begin is by looking into the eyes of our fellow humankind.


Mary Jo Sharp is Assistant Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University

[1] One could argue that Cage’s piece is an interpretation of the beauty of the everyday incidental sounds of humans. But, in my music education background, I noticed how many trained musicians have an abject dislike of this piece of ‘music,’ which seems to deconstruct the meaning of the term, “music,” beyond any reconciliation. In other words, it really annoys us.

[2] MacDonald, Fiona. “Here’s How Colours Really Affect Our Brain And Body, According to Science.” ScienceAlert, September 28, 2017. https://www.sciencealert.com/does-colour-really-affect-our-brain-and-body-a-professor-of-colour-science-explains.

[3] “Visual Art in Hospitals: Case Studies and Review of the Evidence – Louise Lankston, Pearce Cusack, Chris Fremantle, Chris Isles, 2010.” Accessed November 21, 2022. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1258/jrsm.2010.100256.

[4] Greater Good. “What Happens When We Reconnect With Nature.” Accessed November 21, 2022. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_happens_when_we_reconnect_with_nature.

[5] Further investigation: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-brain-responds-to-beauty/ and https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_happens_when_we_reconnect_with_nature. Though these studies are interpreted strictly through a sociobiological evolutionary perspective, they aptly communicate that something psychological and physiological is happening.

Confident Christianity in Ellon

“We were thrilled to host Solas for a Confident Christianity evening at Ellon Baptist.  We had a good turn out not only from our own members but from a variety of other surrounding churches.  Andy Bannister spoke on the evening looking at how to share our faith and also how to understand suffering in relation to our faith.  It was a really positive and very helpful evening with those attending finding what was shared both easy to understand and useful.  I feel we have gained a lot from this event and now explore the question of how we build on this and put things into practice.  In an age where our culture is secularised and there are very loud ideologies around us the ministry of Solas is so important for equipping Christians to both understand their faith and to share it.”
– William Butchart, Pastor – Ellon Baptist Church

Ellon was another stop for Andy Bannister on Solas’s recent “Confident Christianity” tour of the North of Scotland. At Solas we often stress that we want to go to smaller towns, as well as do the big events in larger cities. We would miss out on so much if we didn’t go to places like Ellon – where we meet great people who are really keen to learn all they can about sharing their faith today.

As William Butchart, the pastor at Ellon Baptist mentioned, Andy spoke about “How to talk about Jesus without getting fired or cancelled” – all about how to use questions to develop spiritual conversations with seekers, sceptics and colleagues in a gentle and winsome manner. The second topic he was asked to address was the timeless question of the problem of suffering. People in every age have wrestled with this question, sometimes as an academic exercise – often as a real wrestling with personal pain and dissapointment. Andy looked at the way that the Christian faith offers real hope in the context of a broken world – a hope that we can share with others.

It was a delight for Andy and Solas to partner with Ellon Baptist in this traning event and we pray that they will know great encouragement and fruit as they seek to reach out to their community with the saving love, and hope that Jesus Christ offers today.

As we criss-cross the UK working with all kinds of churches and in all sorts of places – we’d love to come and help stimulate and encourage evangelism in your church with an event like this. Please do get in touch as we’d love to hear from you about the opportunities and challenges of gospel work where you are, as well as explore whether Solas could be hepful for you and your church fellowship. Contact us here.

PEP Talk Podcast With Dan Paterson

Today’s guest reflects on a traumatic childhood event and how it shaped his pursuit of God. These kind of experiences can cause many to wrestle with the love or the hiddenness of God. How can we journey with others to find a God of purpose and hope?

With Dan Paterson PEP Talk

Our Guest

Dan Paterson is the founder of Questioning Christianity, an Australian ministry helping you connect the Christian story to life’s deepest questions. He has experience as a pastor, lecturer, and public speaker, having studied Theology and Apologetics in Australia and at Oxford. Dan currently lives in Brisbane with his wife, Erin, and their favourite job is raising three wonderful boys.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

Have You Ever Wondered What God Thinks of You?

We hear a lot of discussion these days about the proliferation of social media platforms and questions being raised about the impact they are having on society and our mental health.  For example, if anything like me, you’ll have posted a status update or picture – and checked 10 minutes later to see if people have liked or commented on it.  If no one has, then you can start to wonder: “Does any one care about me?”

Many of us are concerned about what other people think about us, but have you ever wondered what God thinks of you?

There is nothing that bestows more dignity upon our humanity, than the fact that Almighty God has become one of us, in the person of Jesus.  So let me tell you the true story about a man called Nicodemus, who came to meet Jesus “by night” (v.2) – which is ironic since Nicodemus is in the dark – unable to see who Jesus is fully, nor see himself truly.

Notice what we’re told about Nicodemus’ identity.  Firstly, he’s “a Pharisee” (v.1) – which means that he is a member of a strict religious order which emphasised rigorous moral behaviour.  Secondly, he’s a “ruler of the Jews” (v.1) –he sat on the high council of Israel, which means he was successful and enjoyed high status.  Thirdly, Jesus calls him “the teacher of Israel” (v.9) – because he was highly qualified and learned in the Holy Scriptures.

Based on what he knows, what he does, and how other people look up to him, Nicodemus is a man who might feel very self-satisfied with himself.  Perhaps he could be forgiven for imagining: if anyone is in God’s good books, if anyone qualifies for entrance into God’s heavenly kingdom – then it’s him!  But just to make sure, he comes to see Jesus for a private interview.  You see Jesus performs miracles and speaks as though He were God Himself – if that were true, then Nicodemus wonders, what will Jesus make of him?  Will Jesus agree with his self-assessment and give him God’s validation?

Jesus immediately and abruptly, challenges Nicodemus’ self-satisfaction.  “Truly, truly I say to you: unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (v.3).  That’s not something you hear every day so Nicodemus asks the next question that we all are thinking: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v.4)  To which Jesus cryptically answers: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v.5-6).  Jesus is drawing on an OT prophecy that one day God was going to do a new thing: to transform the sinful and self-righteous hearts of His people.  What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is that it’s going to take a divine miracle for him to be admitted into God’s kingdom!  Nicodemus is not acceptable to God in his current state.

Now this raises a dilemma for us: If very good, knowledgeable and respectable Nicodemus doesn’t qualify for acceptance into God’s kingdom, then what hope do any of us have?  The answer is it will take a miracle for us too!

Before you start to think that God is being harsh or unreasonable, someone has explained the problem facing us in this way: “God cannot let me into his kingdom because – as I am – I would spoil it.  It is going to be a place of no tears – but I make people cry.  It is a place of harmony – but I fall out with people.  It’s a place of truth – but I lie.  And I suspect you do too… Jesus did not come to help us turn over a new leaf.  He came to give us new life – a miracle so radical it would be like a new birth” (Mike Cain).

So Jesus confronts everyone one of us with the bad news that without a miracle – we will be excluded from God’s new world and perish forever outside of His good kingdom.  That’s the bad news.

But this same passage in John’s gospel goes on to record some of the best known words of good news: “For God so loved the world [the world that rejects and ignores Him] that He gave us His one-and-only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (v.16-17.  Later in another of John’s letters he tells us: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Our sin offends and separates us from God – not only is there a gap between our IDEAL self and ACTUAL self, but there’s a huge gulf between our ACTUAL self and God – filled with guilt, shame, regret, sin.  But the good news is that Jesus, God the Son, has come to remove our sins and restore us into relationship with God His Father.

Jesus wants Nicodemus and us to realise: acceptance with God and entrance into His new world is not something that we have to strive achieve, rather it is a gift that we can receive.  Just as we did not contribute anything to bringing ourselves into this world – instead life was a gift from our parents who did all the work – so also the new birth and new life comes entirely from God and is not based on our own efforts or contributions – rather it is based entirely on the work Jesus has done for us in His life, death and resurrection.

So Jesus demonstrates that God sees us as we are – both the good and the bad – and yet still chooses to love us as we are.  Also he loves us far too much to leave us in the state in which He finds us.  He has grand plans and dreams for our lives, now and forever!

Doubting Christmas

One of the ways I love to do ‘apologetics’ is by teaching the Bible. That works because the Bible itself takes the questions that we all ask, very seriously indeed and engages with them.

You can watch the whole talk here:

So on the Sunday morning I spent with Greenisland Baptist Church we looked at the way that Luke wrote to give people certainty. Luke particularly seems to appreciate the doubts, questions or problems believing that people with no background in the Christian faith bring with them as they read the gospel story for the first time. So Luke begins his account with the story of Zecharaiah, a man who doesn’t have certainty about the gospel or the promises of God.

I explored the ways in which The Lord deliberately and strategically confronted and dealt with Zechariah’s doubts, Specifically his doubts about miracles and the supernatural needed to be addressed, so I talked a little bit about the fact that such questions didn’t come about as a result of the scientific enlightenment but that The Bible took these questions seriously millennia ago!

We also looked at Mary’s pregnancy and her arrival at Zechariah and Elizabeth’s house, as an essential part of the restoration of Zechariah’s faith. Luke’s story comes to a great conclusion with the naming ceremony of John the Baptist – and the restoration of Zechariah. So we looked at the source of Zachariah’s doubts, and how God dealt with them –and then looked at his prophetic song in Luke 1. There Zechariah doesn’t merely accept the miracles he’s confronted with in his own household, but in his proclamation of Jesus becomes one of the first announcers of the gospel in the New Testament – before Jesus was even born!

I was very encouraged by the enthusiastic response from many of the people in Greenisland. Some sad they had never heard the story of Zechariah explained as part of the Christmas story. One lady was quite overcome with emotion as she explained that God had been speaking to her deeply about many of the issue in the text. She contacted me again later to say that she had never seen the ‘heart of God, the concern of God or the wisdom of God in this passage before – and what a great saviour we have!’

It was just a wonderful privilege to be able to open the Bible and help someone in that way. The point is that she saw all of that not through technical apologetics, or my philosophical expertise – but because the Bible itself addresses these questions so profoundly. It really is wonderful, the way in which God helps to navigate us through from uncertainty through to a confident Christian faith.

Why Do We Preserve the Past?

Have you ever wondered why we bother to preserve the past? Why do we spend money on museums, or get angry when people damage ancient historical sites? Surely if atheism is true, all that matters is the future — that our DNA is passed on to future generations. Yet instinctively we know that’s shallow, that the past matters, that culture matters, and that human life (past, present, and future) matters. Could that be a clue to a bigger story?

Thanks to our friend Elizabeth Humble for letting us film at her jewellery studio.

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Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

Support

Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Mike D’Virgilio, “Uninvented: Why the Bible Could Not be Made Up, and the Evidence that Proves It”

In his recent book Uninvented, (Two Penny Publishing 2022) Mike D’Virgilio presents a highly readable popular level exposition of an often overlooked aspect of the internal evidence for the historical nature of the biblical narratives, the fact that those narratives are just so embarrassing in their cultural context. For example, D’Virgilio points out that: “the biblical characters are displayed as terribly human, warts and all prominently displayed.”[1] The overarching message here is that:

Critics and skeptics insist the Bible and its stories are more or less fiction. Many would further insist that making up the biblical stories would have been a piece of cake. I contend they are wrong on both counts, especially the latter.[2]

There really are people who think that large parts of the Bible which present as ancient historical narrative are far less ancient works of fiction. For example, according to prominent atheist Richard Dawkins:

The only difference between The Da Vinci Code and the gospels is that the gospels are ancient fiction while The Da Vinci Code is modern fiction.[3]

Dawkins reckons that what goes for the New Testament also goes for the Old Testament prior to the Babylonian Exile. Consequently, he mistakenly asserts that:

King David . . . made no impact either on archaeology or on written history outside the Bible. This suggests that, if he existed at all, he was probably a minor local chieftain rather than the great king of legend and song.[4]

It has obviously slipped Dawkins’s notice that:

The publication of fragments of an Old Aramaic stela from Tel Dan in 1993/1995 bought to light the first recognized nonbiblical mention of the tenth-century king David, in a text that reflected events of the year 841 and would have been set up at no great interval after that date.[5]

This Stela famously mentions “the house of David”. Eric Cline, Professor of classics, anthropology and history at George Washington University, explains that: “the finding of this inscription brought an end to the debate and settled the question of whether David was an actual historical person . . .”[6]

Dawkins’ misinformed and misleading assertions on this and other Old Testament subjects[7] are a popularization of the so-called “minimalist” school of biblical scepticism, whose members “believe that only the barest minimum of the Bible is true, and then only if it can be incontrovertibly corroborated by extrabiblical evidence.”[8] As theologian Michael S. Heiser elaborates:

For those unfamiliar with the “minimalist” vs. “maximalist” debate over biblical archaeology, the former basically believed the OT has little or no historical value, as it was entirely written during or after the exile. Maximalists, on the other hand, disagree, but on what I’d call a continuum of optimism about the biblical text as a historical source.[9]

One scholar “commonly labeled a minimalist, although he denies that label,”[10] is Jewish archaeologist Israel Finklestein, who (writing with Neil Asher Silberman) famously proclaimed that:

The historical saga contained in the Bible-from Abraham’s encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses’ deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage, to the rise and fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah-was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination.[11]

Thus, Dawkins hitches his wagon to the purely hypothetical view that: “It was during or around the time of the Babylonian exile that most of the Old Testament books were written . . .”[12]

A comparison of the biblical narrative with “extrabiblical evidence” (e.g. from archaeology) can only go so far, but the comparison shows that “minimalism” is probably false and is therefore an unsound objection to viewing the Bible as “a miraculous revelation”.[13] Of course, as D’Virgilio points out, the extent to which one trusts the content of the biblical narratives depends in part upon the worldview one brings to the interpretation of those narratives (and hence upon what one makes of the comparative case for and against different worldviews). Nevertheless, just as the external evidence of archaeology makes a contribution to this debate that cannot be ignored, so too does the complementary internal evidence highlighted by D’Virgilio.

The core of Uninvented is a (very readable) tour through the Old and New Testament in the company of the  critical criterion of embarrassment developed within the school of New Testament “tradition criticism”.[14] In that context, the criterion of embarrassment “refers to sayings or deeds that are not easily explained as inauthentic creations of the early church, simply because there are aspects about them that would have been potentially embarrassing.”[15] As theologian Graham Stanton observes: “traditions which would have been an embarrassment to followers of Jesus in the post-Easter period are unlikely to have been invented.”[16] Of course, the general principle here can be applied to any text, and D’Virgilio’s Uninvented brilliantly applies the criterion of embarrassment to the historical narratives of both the Old and New Testaments. This tour establishes a list of major Old Testament stories with contents so embarrassing that the hypothesis that they were invented during or after the Babylonian exile as “a brilliant product of the human imagination”[17] puts a hefty strain on our credulity. Likewise, D’Virgilio’s careful consideration of the gospel narratives in cultural context is sufficient in and of itself to demonstrate the preposterous nature of Dawkins’s assertion that “the gospels are ancient fiction”[18]:

If you want people to believe your story in the first century, you don’t make women the first witnesses [to the resurrected Jesus]. Not only this, but the men don’t exactly come off looking like pillars of the early church; they look more like cowards. After they ran away from Jesus in his hour of need, and Peter denied three times even knowing him, they ended up cowering in a locked room because they didn’t want to be next. Then, when the women told them they saw the risen Jesus, how did they respond? Pretty much like any men of their time would, but certainly not like disciples of Jesus should (Luke 24) . . . So not only do the gospel authors make the women look good, but they also make the men look bad. Is this how men in a male dominated culture would invent a story if they wanted other men to believe it? Doubtful.[19]

Recommended Resources

Peter S. Williams Podcast, “Outgrowing God? An Introduction (2022)” http://podcast.peterswilliams.com/e/outgrowing-god-an-introduction-2022/

Peter S. Williams Podcast, “ELF 2021: Old Testament Historicity: From Abraham’s Ur to Daniel’s Babylon” http://podcast.peterswilliams.com/e/elf-2021-old-testament-historicity-from-abrahams-ur-to-daniels-babylon/

Dewayne Bryant, “The Death of Biblical Minimalism” https://biblearchaeology.org/research/contemporary-issues/3805-the-death-of-biblical-minimalism

Mike D’Virgilio, Uninvented: Why the Bible Could Not be Made Up, and the Evidence that Proves It (Two Penny Publishing, 2022)

K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2006)

Peter S. Williams, Outgrowing God? A Beginner’s Guide to Richard Dawkins and the God Debate (Wipf and Stock, 2020)

Peter S. Williams, Getting at Jesus: A Comprehensive Critique of Neo-Atheist Nonsense about the Jesus of History (Wipf and Stock, 2019)

[1] Mike D’Virgilio, Uninvented: Why the Bible Could Not be Made Up, and the Evidence that Proves It (Two Penny Publishing, 2022), 55.

[2] Mike D’Virgilio, Uninvented: Why the Bible Could Not be Made Up, and the Evidence that Proves It (Two Penny Publishing, 2022), 64.

[3] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Black Swan, 2007), 97.

[4] Richard Dawkins, Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide (Bantam Press, 2019), 48.

[5] K.A. Kitchen, On The Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2006), 92.

[6] Eric Cline, Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2009), Kindle Location 814.

[7] See: Peter S. Williams, Outgrowing God? A Beginner’s Guide to Richard Dawkins and the God Debate (Wipf and Stock, 2020).

[8] Dewayne Bryant, “The Death of Biblical Minimalism” https://biblearchaeology.org/research/contemporary-issues/3805-the-death-of-biblical-minimalism.

[9] Michael S. Heiser, http://drmsh.com/archaeology-and-the-old-testament-minimalism-and-maximalism/

[10] Dewayne Bryant, “The Death of Biblical Minimalism” https://biblearchaeology.org/research/contemporary-issues/3805-the-death-of-biblical-minimalism.

[11] Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (Touchstone, 2001), 1.

[12] Richard Dawkins, Outgrowing God (Black Swan, 2007), 53.

[13] See: “ELF 2021: Old Testament Historicity: From Abraham’s Ur to Daniel’s Babylon” http://podcast.peterswilliams.com/e/elf-2021-old-testament-historicity-from-abrahams-ur-to-daniels-babylon/.

[14] See: Robert H. Stein, “Criteria for the Gospel’s Authenticity” in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, ed.’s. Contending with Christianity’s Critics (B&H Academic, 2009).

[15] Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort The Gospels (IVP, 2007), 140.

[16] Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (OUP, 2002), 175.

[17] Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (Touchstone, 2001), 1.

[18] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Black Swan, 2007), 97.

[19] Mike D’Virgilio, Uninvented: Why the Bible Could Not be Made Up, and the Evidence that Proves It (Two Penny Publishing, 2022), 151-152.

Cedarwood Festival

A new fixture in the Christian events calendar is the Cedarwood Festival, in Yorkshire. Andy Bannister was invited there on behalf of Solas to do discuss whether “Christianity has lost it’s edge?’ with the crowd there. He was joined by Aaron Edwards for the following session which was first broadcast on Andy’s personal podcast.

Cedarwood 2023 will run from 14-16 July and details are here.

PEP Talk Podcast With Tim Beougher

Fear. Lack of knowledge. Busyness. These are some of the top reasons given when Christians are asked why they don’t share their faith. How do we address these issues within the church? Today’s guest has years of experience teaching seminary students, and shares how he prepares them for a life of confidence in sharing the gospel.

With Tim Beougher PEP Talk

Our Guest

Tim Beougher (pronounced Boo – ker) has served as the Billy Graham Professor of Evangelism and Associate Dean of the Billy Graham School at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Kentucky since 1996. Tim is the author of numerous materials on evangelism, discipleship and spiritual awakening, including Invitation to Evangelism: Sharing the Gospel with Conviction and Compassion and Overcoming Walls to Witnessing. In addition to his seminary responsibilities, he currently serves as Pastor of the West Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville.  He is married to Sharon and they are the proud parents of five children and the extra proud grandparents of eleven grandchildren.  The Beougher “family” also includes a Golden Retriever named Crockett.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

Have you ever wondered why we crave money knowing it’s not the answer?

As we lurch from “Mini Budgets” to Autumn Statements in a cost-of-living crisis, many in our society are contemplating financial decisions which would be more appropriate in a Charles Dickens novel. Sad dichotomies between putting food on the table and heating our homes, amidst rates of inflation which every day make it more difficult to stay above water in a rising tide. We think that if we could just have a little more money, then it would all go away. Confidence in uncertain times is a function of where we place our security and most of us instinctively turn to our bank accounts.

I don’t claim to be any different. Since the war in Ukraine broke out and the cap on energy prices was lifted for the first time, I started renting out the spare room in our house and took on extra consulting work to earn more money. But at the same time I know, as I think we all do, that money in the end won’t make me happy. So why do we crave money knowing it’s not the answer? Have you ever wondered? Is there something through and beyond the material subsistence and provisional security that money is able to provide – something we might be able to see, more deeply at the heart of reality?

Since the ancient days, humanity has been wondering where happiness can truly be found. One work, above all, has shaped the trajectory of Western philosophy – Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics written in 400BC. In a work of multiple thousand pages, he starts with one thought which he takes to be fundamental to the understanding of human pursuit of happiness: that we do and seek things, according to what we think will result from those actions, revealing a hierarchy of purposes and motivations which link all the way up to one thing we take to be more important than anything else.

We do X, because we think Y will result – upon having Y, Z becomes possible and so on. According to this thought, maybe the reason we want food on the table is so we can work. Work earns us money, so then we can buy a house, a house becomes a home, a home allows us raise a family and so on. That seems like pretty sound logic. But then says Aristotle; if there is some end in all our actions that we wish for because of itself, wishing for all the other things we wish for because of it alone – this will be the chief good. “If we could know it, it would have great significance – like archers with a target we would be so much more successful in hitting the point if we had this knowledge.”

Unfortunately for him, this is where Aristotle came unstuck. He never worked out what that thing could be – that thing which might be an ultimately worthy pursuit, a source of happiness and security (though that didn’t stop him waffling on for thousands more pages). Fast forward a few centuries to Jerusalem and Jesus Christ comes along with his answer. Jesus doesn’t need thousands of pages – the Son of God speaks with his own authority. Jesus says: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and his righteousness – and to paraphrase – everything else starts to make sense under THAT.”

In the trenches of day-to-day life we find it impossible to keep focussed on the right things. When we’re in survival mode, worried that we might lose our job in today’s economic context or with umpteen other preoccupations, we construct security using pieces of a jigsaw which only add up to a picture reflecting THIS world: paying the mortgage, job security, husband, wife, children, girlfriend, boyfriend, tennis (I’m trying to take this up again), the environment, charitable causes, voluntary work, degrees and qualifications, status in society. These things are important – but we need to look through and beyond them – to see where we really ought to be seeking our happiness, and placing security.

CS Lewis used to say the good things of this world are like the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we’ve never visited. That country, according to Jesus is the Kingdom of God and there is more than just the material world around us – “life is more than food.” Sometimes it feels like God is not there, or if he is there, he’s got no interest in our lives. Especially in times like this. According to Jesus however, our Heavenly Father is committed to providing for us, and when our relationship with Him is in the ultimate position, that’s when things start to make sense. I wonder if you know that to be true? If there’s nothing else in your bank account, where else will you look?

You may not be someone who says they have any relationship with God, or even think that that’s important – but perhaps now is a moment to reflect on the question of whether you are walking in the security of the relationship you were created for? Have you opened your heart to receiving the love of God in a personal and direct way? It may be that that relationship with God is something you’ve never properly started, though maybe you’ve flirted with the idea or even outright rejected it in the past. We crave money knowing it’s not the answer. So in these crazy days, might it be worth seeking him first?

MPG’s at PBC! Persuasive Evangelism in Perth

Perth Baptist Church (PBC) invited Solas to lead three evenings to encourage and equip Christians in persuasive evangelism, which we were absolutely delighted to do! PBC do not run a traditional Sunday evening service, but have been pioneering what they call ‘MPGs’ which stands for Multi-Purpose Gatherings. On a typical Sunday night, everyone gathers for refreshments before splitting up into different parts of the building for courses such as ALPHA or The Prayer Course. Its been really successful in Perth, with people coming for fellowship and gaining skills and godly wisdom for many different aspects of life.

PBC’s church pastor Eder Feraz ran just one MPG for these three weeks though – and invited friends from many different churches to join us for these sessions – and it was a joy to chat to many people from at least seven local churches. It was encouraging to see so many churches represented, and a common desire from so many folk to get just a little better at sharing their faith.

Andy Bannister led the first evening in which he explored the basics of conversational evangelism, where asking questions can open the door to gospel conversations. Not only does the question asking approach diffuse hostility, but it can also facilitate conversations in places such as the wrokplace, where more direct proclamation is impossible. As ever, at Solas events there was a Q&A time and the topics raised included suffering, how to start spiritual conversations, apathy, questions about secular work, and the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism.

Andy returned for the second week of the MPG’s at PBC and looked further at one of the most significant topics facing the church today: how to engage the apathetic. While some of the people we meet have definite ideological or religious commitments and want to debate ideas, we increasingly meet people who profess total disinterest in God.  They do however care deeply about other things such as human rights and dignity, or the environment – all of which make most sense in a Christian worldview. Andy explained how the ‘Have You Ever Wondered?’ questions can be a pre-evangelistic bridge from their world towards the gospel.

On the third week, as Andy headed south on route to a week of mission in the Channel Islands, Gavin Matthews presnted the Solas material. He looked at some inspiring and creative ways in which people are sharing the gospel all over the UK today, before inviting people to pray for their own Christian witness and for people they long to see coming to Christ. The three evenings concluded with a reminder that the gospel is ultimately good news, good for the lost as it contains the promise of forgiveness and eternal life and also good news for us! That is because we’ve all failed, especially in evangelism – but the gospel promise is that all our sins and failures are paid for at the cross. We are therefore free to get involved in God’s mission, not out of guilt, duty or seeking approval – but because the love of Christ compells us!

It was a great privilege for us at Solas to work with PBC again, and meet so many people from such a wide variety of churches.

Why Are We Drawn to Beauty?

 Whether it’s the art and photography we put on our walls or our computer desktops, or the natural landscapes that draw us to climb hills or gaze from viewpoints, humans are fascinated by beauty. But have you ever wondered why? Is the atheist Richard Dawkins correct that experiences like beauty are “Darwinian misfirings”, a side effect of our genes that plays tricks on us? Or is beauty a clue that there is something much more than just survival and reproduction to the experience of being human?

https://youtu.be/Ko3dd9opWjc?rel=0

Thanks to our friend Elizabeth Humble for letting us film at her jewellery studio.

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Jesus in Context – in Conversation with Dr David Wenham

Solas’s Gavin Matthews spoke to New Testament scholar Dr David Wenham.

GJM: I’m very pleased to be speaking to Dr David Wenham, the author of this fascinating new book “Jesus in Context” (Cambridge University Press, 2022). David, it’s really good to speak to you – can we begin with your new book – tell us, why this was a book that needed to be researched and written?

David Wenham:  Cambridge University Press were putting together a new series of books on “Philosophy Religion and Society”, and I was invited by the editors to contribute a volume on Jesus for the series. I thought I could contribute something useful, because of my own Christian faith and journey as a scholar over several decades.

It all started for me with historical questions about Jesus when I was a teenager, questioning things I was hearing and asking what it was credible to believe;  this ultimately led me into a career in Jesus scholarship. I’ve done lots of teaching and lecturing over the years, but at the heart of it all has been the question of Jesus and what we know about him. When I was a teenager it was very hard to find any books that looked at the evidence for Jesus… but that is where it began for me. When I received the invitation from the editors to write this book,  I thought that it could be my last book and that it might an appropriates way to complete my research and writing – taking on a topic that is arguably more important  than any other that I could be asked to write about..

GJM: So, what can we know about Jesus? Some people see Jesus as a distant shadowy figure who we can’t quite access through the mists of history. So can we get an accurate handle on who he really was in history?

David Wenham: Yes, I think we can. I think that the impression that the events of Jesus’ life are so far back in past history that they are just unknowable, is flawed. Of course, a lot of things that happened on or two thousand years ago, we only have very hazy information about. We are in the dark about quite a lot of historical things, but interestingly the story of Jesus took place in the Roman world, and we have a lot of information about the Roman Empire. We have a whole range of sources for this. There are Roman historians who describe that period, such as Tacitus who was a reputable Roman historian and not at all Christian by the way. He refers to Jesus being crucified in his writings even as he describes Christians as being an objectionable sect! So he was not pro-Christian at all, but he knew about Jesus – even though he was living and working in Rome, a long way from the events he described.

Then there is archaeology too. When my wife and I were in Rome a few years ago – amongst the many things we saw there was the ‘Arch of Titus’, which was built to celebrate the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70, just after the life of Jesus. On the arch you can see images of them carrying away the things from the Jewish Temple, such as the seven branched candlestick. In the 1940s in Palestine they found a tablet referring to Pilate, ‘hard’ evidence for a key figure inf the gospel accounts. There is a lot of evidence of that nature, and then there is Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived in Palestine in the First Century AD – and his book, “Jewish Antiquities” is an account of that period. It is very interesting to see the way that he refers to things like John the Baptist and his execution, which are also mentioned in the New Testament.

So there is loads of evidence, not to mention the New Testament itself which contains four accounts of Jesus and his life. They were all written within a hundred years of Jesus, and some of them going back to within thirty to fifty years of the events they describe. We also have letters written in the period from people like Paul of Tarsus.So we have loads and loads of information!

GJM: So, in your book you give very short shrift to the theory that what we have in the gospels are much later developments, the result of what used to be called ‘Chinese-whispers’. You look at the way that some people suggest that things changed and changed until the gospels and creeds were finally written down, centuries later. But you don’t accept this idea that Christians today are following a 5th Century fictitious character, rather than a First-century Jewish messiah! Why is that?

David Wenham: Well there are several reasons for that. Firstly there is good manuscript evidence showing that the four gospels were written within the first century. Most manuscripts from the ancient world have rotted away, but a well-preserved fragment of John’s gospel has been found which can be dated from the first half of the second century. There are other very old manuscripts showing that the gospel writings go way back. And then there are things within them that just make so much sense, and fit in with so much else we know about history. The gospels are not the results of theological thinking centuries later but are clearly from the real world of Galilee, with fishing boats and storms on the lake, and interactions with the Roman governor of the time, Pilate and with the Herod family too, all of which make ‘first-Century sense’.

One of the things I think we don’t realise in the modern world is how knowledge was passed on in the ancient world. That’s because when we want to know something, we just go to Google and look it up. But before the internet and printed books, learning and teaching were done by memorisation. Whereas my memory today is useless, in those days people learnt things off by heart, word for word. And in Paul’s writings which we can very confidently date at around AD 50-60, (twenty or so years after Jesus’ crucifixion), he refers to the stories and traditions of Jesus being passed on – in exactly the way people in the ancient world memorised and retained large amounts of very detailed information. In fact, it’s something people in many parts of the world still do today and something we see – for example, in musicians who can accurately recall and reproduce sometimes very complex pieces of music. I’ve recently been watching ‘young musician of the year’ and it is astonishing how much musicians remember on some occasions playing a forty-minute piece and getting every note right.  Paul saw it as a key part of his job to carefully pass on the stories of Jesus. It’s much like some of the Orthodox churches today where in order to be ordained you have to know the New Testament off by heart!

GJM: In the book, you also discuss the question of the authorship of the four gospels. But how much do you think it matters to the reader today, who actually put pen to paper. There is some controversy about who wrote which bits when and why, but how much does it matter who wrote which bits?

David Wenham: In one sense it doesn’t matter, if you are confident that whoever did write it was a good source. None of the gospels tell us by name who wrote them. Headings such as “The Gospel According to Mark” are not in the earliest manuscripts. The authors didn’t bother putting their names on these things because (probably) when they circulated these documents everyone knew who’d written them. And the gospel writers didn’t see themselves as writing about themselves but  about Jesus. However there are more than hints that behind the different gospels, are people who knew what they were talking about. Luke’s gospel is very interesting here, because his gospel is the first part of his two-volume work Luke-Acts, which goes on to describe the earliest days of the church starting in Jerusalem and going out elsewhere into the Roman world. In Acts, about halfway through, he drops into the first-person, saying “we” went here, “we” did that. This suggests that Luke was a companion of Paul, which means that we can confidently in my view date Luke as writing his account very soon after the time of Jesus.

I regard Luke as a very serious historian, who talks about ‘having researched matters carefully’, and there are many good reasons for thinking that he really did know his subject matter very well. When he wrote about Paul and his companions in Corinth, he refers to things that are confirmed by Roman sources such as the names of Roman governors like Gallio, who is also named on a first century inscription. He is no fiction, but real history. So there is a very strong case for Luke being the author of that gospel. He’s generally thought to have used Mark as one of his sources. John’s gospel also claims to have been based on eye-witness testimony, one of the disciples of Jesus traditionally identified as John. And I think there is every reason to believe that that was the testimony out of which John’s gospel was developed.

GJM: So how should someone approach the gospels today, then? If someone is not a Christian, but is a truth-seeker, searching for answers – then should they approach the gospels as a critical historian, or looking for inspiring fables, or seeking mystical experiences – how should someone who wants to find out what this is really all about approach these texts?

David Wenham: The simple answer to that is; with as open a mind as they can manage. Which I suppose is the case with any historical text – except that this isn’t just a historical text because the claims in it about Jesus challenge us in all sorts of other directions. If Jesus was really as the gospels portray him, if he really did rise from the dead, then he challenges us not just historically but personally too. So the answer must be to approach the text open-mindedly and honestly and not with a decision not to believe made beforehand. Mind you, there have been some people who have read it like that and been convinced it was true despite that! They’ve found that their initial disbelieving reading of the text was wrong and that the only credible reason for what the gospels describe is that they have a historical basis. And as a serious academic point, the picture of Jesus we have in the gospels is of a most extraordinary person. If you think just of Jesus’ teaching, his parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son; and the Sermon on the Mount – widely recognised as supremely important teaching – where did all this amazing teaching come from? Are we going to say that people after the time of Jesus invented all this stuff? It’s less convincing in my view to say that various geniuses in later times invented this figure of Jesus and his teaching than it is to say that what created this extraordinary Christian movement was the person of Jesus himself. Equally it’s nonsensical to suggest in that context, that someone inventing this figure would have had him crucified, because that makes no sense whatsoever! Jesus is not a fiction, he’s not a late fable.

GJM: Another issue you grapple with in the book is that some scholars have taken a ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ approach, not taking (for example) Luke in its entirety but saying, ‘this bit looks authentic, but this bit isn’t’. But you are quite sceptical of that approach most famously adopted by the ‘Jesus Seminar’. So why don’t you see that as a legitimate way of handling these accounts of the life of Jesus?

David Wenham: I think that is because again and again when people have tried to dissect the text into what the regard  as ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ sayings of Jesus, it is a very, very subjective exercise. You’ll find that one scholar says one thing, another scholar says another thing. The Jesus Seminar was a largely American group of scholars who went through the sayings of Jesus and voted on whether they thought it went back to Jesus or not. They tried to be ‘scientific’ but what they ended up with was firstly very little confident information about Jesus and second a Jesus figure who looked rather like a modern liberal American of the 1970s/80s! Their subjective reading of the story actually left them with very little. I am just one of many scholars who have concluded that that is just a hopeless approach. However if you are to approach these texts as a whole, given what we know about the context, the archaeology and Judaism of the time from which Jesus came – the big picture the gospels present makes sense and has force. Whereas, weighing one tiny verse against another is a fruitless, tear-jerking process that doesn’t get you anywhere.

GJM: So the Jesus who emerges from the text – if we take it seriously as you suggest – is he a surprising figure, if you paint him onto the backdrop of 1st Century Judaism and his context? I’m thinking about things such as his emphasis on the Kingdom of God. Is he what you’d expect?

David Wenham: The answer is “yes and no!” Many of the Jewish people were looking forward to God intervening and saving them. They were of course, at that time under the colonial rule of the Romans. And observant Jews were looking forward to God coming and doing something about that, and about the corrupt priests who were running the temple at that time too. And many of them, as they looked forward – hoped for a messiah who would come and drive The Romans out of the land and bring political autonomy and freedom to the Jewish people. Then Jesus comes, and he’s very exciting and you can see their expectations rising that Jesus is going to accomplish this. You see this amongst Jesus’ own followers when they say things like “Jesus – when you establish your kingdom, we want top places in your government.” And when Jesus went up to Jerusalem, expectations got very high – that he was going to be the sort of king they wanted. But Jesus is hugely surprising. He’s positively surprising because of the extraordinary things he did, he was a famous healer of the sick for example. He was also extraordinarily compassionate and cared for the outsiders, not fraternising with the elites but reaching the poor and the outcasts. I called my book on the parables “pictures of revolution” because his relationship to the poor and the needy was revolutionary and it was those sorts of people, not those in power who responded most positively to him.  Those invested in the status quo found Jesus very uncomfortable and threatening in fact. So Jesus is surprising because he was not the sort of messiah they had been looking forward to. But when Jesus taught they were constantly taken aback by his authority, “who is this?” they would ask.  He evidently had a unique relationship with God as ‘Father’ – a word he uses so much famously in the “Lord’s Prayer”. That was something very striking about Jesus, this intimate relationship with God that was not typical of religious leaders. Then Jesus went to Jerusalem where he evidently knew he was going to be killed. No-one expected the messiah to come and get crucified. There were all kinds of other popular movements around at the time, but when the leader got killed, that was the end of it! But with Jesus, it was followed by the disciples and the followers of Jesus saying, “Actually, he’s alive and his announcement of God’s kingdom and rule didn’t come to an end with his crucifixion.” So obviously what motivated the early Christian Church in a quite extraordinary way as they went around the Roman Empire proclaiming this crucified Jesus – was their conviction that Jesus was alive and that into this world of death, hopelessness and religious confusion, Jesus is alive and brings hope and meaning in a way that nobody has before.

GJM: Now obviously in this interview we can only touch on a few of the things in the book, which also examines things such as the cultural context, the Old Testament background, John the Baptist, the path of Jesus’ life, his teaching, his ethics, what it means to follow Jesus, through to his death and resurrection and the consequences of that – and more! But one thing I did want to focus on for a moment is this. Most religions teach that what matters is their founder’s teaching and that is doesn’t really matter who delivered it; the emphasis is on the wisdom, ethics teaching, or prophecies of their faith – not primarily about the person who delivered those, it doesn’t so much matter who he was. But the Jesus who emerges in the history you present – it seems to really matter who he was. His identity and knowing him seems to be up front and central alongside his teaching, parables, prophecies, ethics and so on. Why is the identity of Jesus so significant?

David Wenham: Very good question – you are quite right, that Jesus’ teaching is not secondary and unimportant – but that even more important than that, is Jesus himself. Paul (who I have also written a book about!) was a very intelligent, critical person and initially a rabid opponent of Jesus before he had his famous Damascus Road conversion. Now, when Paul had that experience he already knew all the arguments against Jesus being the messiah, but in that moment he realised that Jesus really was the person his followers had been claiming. And Paul says, very pertinently that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christians might as well shut up shop and go home. That is because Jesus himself is at the heart of things, because as the disciples realised – God had come amongst them in an extraordinary sense and revealed himself to them in this person. It was not just in his brilliant teaching, but that here God was among them. Matthew’s gospel picks up the Hebrew name Immanuel, meaning “God with us” and applies it to Jesus, saying that God has revealed Himself uniquely in Jesus in whom he offers us this relationship of children to a heavenly Father. Jesus had this unique and extraordinary relationship with God, which they could observe – but Jesus goes further and says to them, ‘if you follow me and put your faith in me, you too can be members of the heavenly family and children of God’. So the person of Jesus is very important, and whether these things in the gospels did or didn’t happen, and whether he really is risen from the dead or not, really matters.

Another of my heroes in the New Testament, is a man sometimes referred to as “Doubting” Thomas. One of the striking things about the gospels is that Jesus’ followers who went on to be leaders in the early Christian movement appear in the narrative as having all sorts of problems and doubts and getting a lot of things wrong! So Peter, the first major leader of the Christian church denied knowledge of Jesus when he was under pressure. Thomas was the one who said, “I’m not going to believe that Jesus is risen from the dead just because you other disciples tell me, I actually want to see and touch Jesus for myself!”  I like Thomas because he relates to my own journey of faith, because I want evidence – and Thomas is given that evidence. And when Thomas was given that he didn’t respond by saying something like ‘thankyou Good teacher” but “My Lord, and My God!” His relationship with Jesus is of God showing himself to us – or in the language of John’s gospel he is God’s “word” to us, God communicating to us. And Jesus is the one who supremely communicates God to us human beings with all our faults. So, if we had the remarkable teaching of Jesus without the person of Jesus, we could dismiss it. But actually while his teaching was unique, it’s the person of Jesus that is ultimately significant.

GJM: Well, there so much more in the book we could talk about- we haven’t even begun to look at Jesus own view of himself, or his view of how the world would end. So if people want to explore that- they will have to get a copy! So – who did you aim this book at? What kind of audience is it written for?

David Wenham:. Well it’s suitable for students, and I suspect that the  Cambridge University Press primarily had their American market primarily in view and  the college student studying religion: you can’t really study religion without including Jesus in your reading. But it’s certainly not only for students, but for any interested, intelligent reader who wants answers, who wants to know about Jesus. I do try to give a balanced picture of what different scholars have been saying and to represent all viewpoints fairly. And I had to do all that in a comparatively short book with a strict word limit but which provides a glimpse into who Jesus was and some of the historical evidence.

GJM: So it seemed to me that it would be accessible to someone who was comfortable reading a broadsheet style newspaper, not only for people with a professional or degree level interest in theology. It nicely lays out where the field is, as well as your own conclusions on the subject in a very helpful way. So what did you gain from researching and writing it.

David Wenham: I gained a lot. Although have studied this for decades, I spent much of lockdown studying other people’s work and all kinds of sources. I was delighted, for example to study the work of the German scholar Rainer Riesner, who has a major book on Jesus. Reading extensively and then being compelled to summarise things in a systematic way, was wonderful for me. I learnt things about Jesus and was very pleased to be able to write the book, should anybody read it!

GJM: So where can people get their hands on it?

David Wenham: Well, most people get their books from Amazon or Waterstones, but most bookshops can get hold of it from Cambridge University Press.

GJM: Well, that was fascinating – thank you for speaking to us and for sending me a copy of the book before we spoke.