How does Dan Brown know?

Dear SS (Sincere Seeker):

Let me pick up our recent debates about why your version of early Christianity is distorted. ( Because you got your information mostly from secular media, magazines and from Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown and his like mind fellows full of biases against Christianity. How can your assumptions be right, I wonder?  Just think about a few Questions down below, you will find why your assumptions are wrong. 

Consider, If the deity of Christ was an idea invented by Constantine and completely foreign to Christ’s followers who viewed him as a mere mortal, what explains the “relatively close vote” at Nicaea as Brown claimed? ( actually, it was a landslide victory for traditional belief from the Apostles and Jesus' earliest followers, only 2 out of 318 bishops voted along Arius' errant view. It was not close at all)

 If the early records of Jesus’ life are so corrupted and compromised with “countless translations, additions, and revisions,” as Brown claimed, and if “history has never had a definitive version of the book,” from where does Brown derive his reliable, authentic, unimpeachable biographical information about Jesus? How does Brown know that thousands of Jesus’ followers wrote accounts of his life if the great bulk of these records were destroyed? This is the classic problem for conspiracy theorists. 

If all evidence was eradicated, how do they know it was there in the first place? How is it physically possible for Constantine to gather up all of the handwritten copies from every nook and cranny of the Roman empire by the fourth century and destroy the vast majority of them? 

Now that you ponder the above Qs carefully, let's consider the historical facts below.

The Council of Nicaea was not an obscure event in history. We have extensive records of the proceedings written by those who were actually there: Eusebius of Caesarea and Athanasius, deacon of Alexandria.( And they held two opposite views, Eusebius was in Arius side. So their writings should give us the whole historical picture of  the Council of Nicaea) Two things stand out in those accounts that pertain to Brown’s claims. 

First, no one at Nicaea considered Jesus to be a “mere mortal ,” not even Arius, whose errant views made the council necessary.

 Second, Christ’s deity was the reason for the council, not merely the result of it .After a pitched debate, the orthodox party prevailed. The vote wasn’t close at all; it was a landslide. Of 318 bishops, only the Egyptians Theonas and Secundus refused to concur.  The council affirmed what had been taught since the beginning. Jesus was not a mere man; He was God the Son.

 Regarding the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, (the first scrolls were discovered in the 1940s, not the 1950s as Brown claimed). Brown claimed that The Dead Sea Scrolls say nothing of Jesus. There were no Gospels in Qumran. Not one shred or shard mentions his name. This is a complete fabrication from Brown.

If you like, you can check the introduction to Dead Sea Scrolls out for yourself.( I have a few books about them even with vivid pictures. We visited the display at Deyang museum and see the intact Isaiah 53 which foretold the coming of Jesus Christ to suffer on the cross for all our sins.

I hope with an open and fair mind, after you consider all these historical facts, you won't claim to me again that it was all Constantine's credits to establish Jesus' God status. Contrary to what you think, Constantine was the one who flip-flaped and went back to support Arius' view after the council as we've already discussed in previous emails. 

I pray earnestly that you may shake off your deep bias about these issues.

May God open your eyes to see His Truth!

P.S. I've got so many insight from this book TACTICs.

Jesus' human nature not His God nature was in dispute in church history

Dear SS ( sincere seeker ):

You are trying to prove that Jesus' status as God/man had been debated for hundred years before finally being settled down that He is indeed a God/man with dual natures.

You seemed to conclude because of those centennial long debates, Jesus being God is just man-made.  You do have a good point, and I guess we do need to be concerned if Jesus was man-made or man promoted God.

I did give it a deep thought and I do have more insights than before, thanks for raising this Q.

Let me share with you what my current insight is.

Let's go back to the time when Jesus was walking on this earth as a human being.

His disciples and other believers followed Him for 3 yrs, the most. They saw Him performed many miracles, but basically, most of them thought He was only a human being endowed of special abilities like many prophets before Him. Once in a while, someone like Peter did get revelation from Heaven and realized that Jesus is Christ and the promised Messiah. 

But not until Jesus' resurrection and reappearances to them for 40 days and Jesus' ascension to Heaven, that they started to realize that Jesus is also God. For this realization, they became bold to spread the Gospel at the risk of losing their own lives; they are reliable witnesses. As this generation who eye witnessed Jesus' miracles and resurrection passed away, since people were further away from the time when Jesus walked on earth, many of them started to regard Jesus as only God; some of them eliminated Him being a human being out of total respect and admiration. That caused Jesus to be regarded as God only without being God the incarnate since they now had relationship with God the Son but no longer had the human Jesus walking alongside with them on earth.

Therefore, a debate becomes necessarily to decide whether Jesus did have a human nature, whether He is God incarnate. So you see it is His human nature in dispute, not the God nature. Namely, Jesus being God has been proved by His after resurrection appearances and the blood of martyrs but His human nature has been neglected by early pious Christians. So the debates were to confirm that Jesus as God had truly come to this earth to take on human body and human nature. It was not the God nature of Jesus being in dispute. If His God nature were the issue, then your concern to raise the Q would be really having a strong reason.

Trust me , it is not His God nature being in dispute but the dual natures of God/man are in dispute because of our own limits in 3 dimensions, we are not able to comprehend how Jesus could be simultaneously being God and being man. It took 100 yrs for believers to come to the conclusion that Jesus is really God/man.

I hope this clear up the issue you raised.. Indeed, Jesus' human nature not His God nature was in dispute in church history

The hills are alive...

Dear SS(sincere seeker):  

The hills are alive with the song of music... as the famous song goes.

Yet there are many people who don't hear the music in the air, right?

That is the problem with the fingerprints of God you claim you don't see at all.

Yes, there is music in the air waves, yet we need to have a right receiver like radio, TV...etc. to receive the music. Of course, our ears can pick up music in nature, like the birds' singing...etc. But some people are not lucky enough to have a functioning ear, especially as they age.

Likewise, those who want to look for the fingerprints of God need to assume God exists.( Assuming God exists will certainly make more senses than assuming Nothing creates this wonderful universe.) This is not my invention but it is from God's Word. So you need to have right kind of mentality to find God's fingerprints. Your magic show mentality certainly will block your view of God's fingerprints. That is why I hope you can put aside your magic show mentality even if for a short period of time. As my young granddaughter who struggled to learn swimming,  understood the fish out of water will gasp for air, so we gasp for understanding when we get into the spiritual realm.

I find another good example of positive self directing test 自導自演 in OT Bible,( better than Abraham's test which after all the main character was mostly Abraham, obeying God's order; only the Angel of the Lord stopped him at last minute to prevent him from killing his son Isaac.) 

That is the test Joseph gave his brothers to test if they had changed, if they cared about their half brother Benjamin.( Joseph's same mom brother) So Joseph asked his servants to put money back to their sacks of food, then accused them as spies and detained one of them in jail until they brought their youngest brother Ben, when they brought Ben, Joseph asked his servants to hide his precious cup in Ben's sack ; after they left, the servants chased them and searched for the cup, then found Ben was guilty of stealing Joseph's cup.( 栽贓, 自導自演 ) Not until he found out his half brothers did care about their old father and youngest half brother, Joseph didn't let them know that he was their long lost half brother they sold to the Egyptian. The whole test stretched out at least many months.  And it looked like a cheating scheme of Joseph, yet at the end, the brothers passed the test.( the climax is Genesis 45, and Genesis 44) If you are not familiar with the story, it should be interesting to read a few chapters there.

Many thanks to you, now I can think of some other positive tests of  自導自演 with good purposes.

God bless!

BH

Loss of Innocence

Dear SS( Sincere Seeker):

Most of us dreamed about flying like angels or Peter Pan when we were young, right?

That is why I said if evolution work, we humans should have grown wings by now because most of us all have dreamed about flying since our childhood. Besides, throughout human history, It is a common wish, Isn't it? So our mind and "natural selection" should have worked to push our bodies to grow wings, right? At least, we should have evolved a half wing by now, if evolution theory is correct. A half wing is also okay according to Richard Dawkins, right?

Well, yes, as we grow up, we have lost our innocent childhood which we have no way to return to. That reminds me about what humankind has lost in the Garden of Eden, the paradise. By rebelling against our Creator God's only rule 100%, Adam and Eve gained the knowledge that robbed them of their guiltless innocence which had been lost forever since then. ( I think that is also the symbolic meaning of eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Not that knowledge is not good but we don't need to really rob a bank in order to get the knowledge of robbing banks. In a word, we don't need first hand knowledge of doing bad things, i.e. bombing other people.) What if our original pair of ancestors ate the fruit of tree of life instead? Have you ever thought about that?

You kept saying that God is just for Jews only. Dawkins has the same thinking. So I pasted here below a brief rebuttal to him from "Dawkins' Letters" for your reference.

Anyone who reads the Bible in its context cannot take seriously the suggestion that Jesus only came for the Jews and that love your neighbour, only meant the Jews. The very parable that Jesus told to illustrate that truth was one which involved a non-Jew. Your rewriting and rereading of these verses is out of context, dishonest and deceitful special pleading which says a whole lot more about your prejudgements than it does about the Bible. You base much of your thinking here on what you call a ‘remarkable paper’ by John Hartung, an associate professor of anaesthesiology and anthropologist. This paper entitled 'Love Thy Neighbor: The Evolution of In-Group Morality,' includes an acknowledgement of you and your wife and more disturbingly a sympathetic review of Kevin MacDonald's A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy. It is all getting disturbingly close to the ‘evolutionary’ view of 

religion and Judaism that the Nazi academics and 

scientists taught. And it is a million miles away from 

what the Bible actually says.

The Dawkins Letters - 9. The Good Book and the Moral Zeitgeist

(The Dawkins Letters - 6. Why there almost certainly is a God)

(*You may read all the chapters of Dawkins Letters in the website of above links)

Dear SS, What Jesus talked about Heaven is really not a wishful thinking because He came from Heaven and returned to Heaven; He has risen from death and lives forever so His promise of eternal life is a sure thing. Furthermore, He has given the Holy Spirit (as a guarantee for eternal life) to dwell in those who believe in Him too.

Dear SS, are you sure you don't want eternal life if it is a true promise?

May God wake you up!

BH

A Cold-case Detective is Speaking

...The Gospels Make A Case For God’s Existence

I first became interested in the existence of God after reading the gospels. I read them as a curious atheist. A local pastor aroused my curiosity by providing a few choice samples of Jesus’ teaching, and I was simply curious to see if the gospels contained any additional wisdom. I was no more committed to Jesus as an ancient teacher than I might be to Buddha, Socrates or any other ancient sage.

But the gospels resonated with my experience as a detective and demonstrated many characteristics of eyewitness testimony. I was quickly engaged in a forensic statement analysis of the gospel of Mark and it wasn’t long before I was taking what the gospels said seriously. I discovered:

1. The gospels were written very early
2. The gospels were transmitted carefully
3. The gospel information was protected and preserved
4. The gospel claims about Jesus were consistent with non-Christian sources
5. The gospel accounts were testable 

If the Gospels Are True, God Exists

In the end, I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts that delivered accurate information about Jesus, including His crucifixion and Resurrection. But that created a problem for me. If Jesus really was who He said He was, then Jesus was God Himself. If Jesus truly did what the gospel eyewitnesses recorded, then Jesus is still God Himself. As someone who used to reject anything supernatural, I had to make a decision about mynaturalistic presuppositions.

The evidence for the reliability of the gospel eyewitness accounts caused me to reexamine the evidence for God’s existence in general. If Jesus rose from the dead, miracles are possible. If Jesus, claiming to be God, could raise himself from the grave, there was little rational reason to disbelieve any miracle attributed to God, including the miracle of creation. The gospel accounts became the foundation from which I examined the cosmological, axiological, teleological, ontological, transcendental and anthropic arguments for God’s existence. I didn’t begin generally and then move to Jesus specifically, I began with Jesus and then moved “backward” to the broader evidence for God’s existence. As someone who worked regularly with cumulative circumstantial cases (as a cold-case detective), the connectivity of all the available evidence seemed obvious as I assembled the case. Any one of these pieces of evidence was sufficient to make the case for God’s existence, but when considered cumulatively, the weight of the evidence was overwhelming.

Jesus Is A Critical Piece of Evidence

Even though the life of Christ was a critical part of my personal investigation, I still find myself arguing for God’s existence, at least initially, as though I wasn’t a Christian at all! When sharing what I believe with skeptical friends and family members, I have to make a conscious effort to remember that Jesus’ life alone demonstrates the existence of God. If the gospels are true, none of us need any additional proof. Jesus is sufficient evidence that God exists.

(For the whole article, please click the link below)

     Jesus Is Evidence That God Exists | Cold Case Christianity

http://coldcasechristianity.com/ 

Rational people won't buy that!

Dear SS:

Just as you said in previous email, 

"Rational people won't buy that!",
 (you mean you are not able to be against your own rationality to do something irrationally.)

even more so, God wouldn't and couldn't compromise His holiness and righteousness to count sins as no sin, to just forgive our sins. God is Love so He couldn't stop loving us( this is from our human perspectives), that is why Jesus has to die for us in order to save us from eternal dooms and condemnations. Jesus indeed has died in place of us.

As for Hitler, I think you have admitted before that we humans all have our dark sides, though you don't want to call them sins.

what if we had Hitler's absolute powers and charisma, his multitudes of followers...etc., who knows if we could have been tempted and corrupted to do the very selfish acts like him, when all our dark sides are allowed to play out without any restraints. That is when our inner hell is all out!!

What do you think? Don't we all have a little Hitler, a little mean person hidden in us? If so, then, we don't need to complain that God gives the notorious sinners chance to repent and be forgiven. Agree? It is actually you and I and all the humankind who had nailed Jesus on the cross. It was all human sins piled on Him. We do have our shares of guilt even the crucifixion happened about 2000 yrs ago. Realizing this point will help us understand why Jesus had died for us.

I hope you wake up to this truth!

May God open your eyes and mind!

Why can't God just forgive our sins?

Dear SS( Sincere Seeker):

You said in #2 below, Some sins are so severe that even God should not forgive. The sinner has to pay the price. Think about this, if Hitler repented, should he be cleansed for his sins?

Basically, I think most people would agree with your above statement too.( me too, deep down inside me I like to echo with you the same disgust if someone like Hitler repent and get forgiven because we all have a built in sense of justice and fairness, right? After all, we are all made in the image of God. And our Creator God Himself is Righteousness and Justice) 

However, after we justify this kind of thinking and agreement, then come back to your favorite Q" Why can't God just drink a cup of coffee and forgive our sins? ( Why Jesus has to die for us?) Isn't that clear now why God can't "just " forgive sins?Can the Justice Himself judge unjustly? God being totally righteous and just, has to condemn the sinners to death penalty.(  that is the fact of life, we are all facing it as we age.) Yet, God Himself is Love, He loves us sinners, He doesn't want us to perish forever so He Himself( Jesus, God the Son) shouldered and bore all our sins on the Cross, so whosoever accepts His offer of salvation will be saved to have eternal life living in front of this eternal God. (You see that no one “just” forgives, if the evil is serious. Forgiveness means bearing the cost instead of making the wrongdoers pay the sin debts or penalties.)

Now imagine you would just drink a cup of coffee and forgive Hitler even if he doesn't repent or not really repent at all. You think that is fair? Are you contradictory to yourself? You ask God to "just " drink a cup of coffee and forgive all the sins, Can the Cosmic "Just" Being just do that to become the most corrupted Judge?( since He has the ultimate right to write and set up the laws, the rules.) You want God to be the worst judge and worst cosmic dictator?( worse than Hitler?)

In a word, you want  the Judge of all the earth not do justice?'

I hope this shed new light on you. Now read your #1 sharing  of your thoughts again.

1. You said "Jesus died for you" was really a silly idea fabricated by his followers.(It is absolutely not a silly idea, it is not fabricated by His followers.You are surely being misled and have deep bias about truthfulness of this statement.)  You said "God created you. God defined the sins. God can forgive you if you repent honestly and sincerely, and do not repeat. He doesn't have to hurt himself a hair at all to forgive you." (Please rethink! Although God is almighty, God is not able to do things against Himself, against His very Being and attributes.)  

 2. You said "Some sins are so severe that even God should not forgive. The sinner has to pay the price. Think about this, if Hitler repented, should he be cleansed for his sins? There is no such a nice thing that you sin and someone will bear that for you."( It is a sure thing that Jesus has died for us and borne all our sins.That is why it is called good news. This is a costly Grace in Christ because it costs God's own life.( Jesus is God/man) So Christians or others shouldn't abuse this costly Grace. Can Christians stay sinning all the times and treating this costly Grace as cheap grace? Not at all! I would tremble greatly before God if I purposely keep sinning; God will deal severely with those who abuse this costly Grace and God certainly knows who is abusing it. So we don't need to worry that the Judge can't judge justly and fairly.)

Jesus is still knocking at your door, open the door of your heart and let Him in!

May God's truth shine like the Sun!