Saturday 19 March 2011

No joshing...

Neil Godfrey had best retire his blog immediately, and James McGrath will have to send in an engineer to shore up his matrix. Thomas Verenna may need to change his career pathway entirely. And that's just bloggers... pity poor Bob Price, who will need to move to Belize, change his identity, dye his hair and shave off the beard.
Josh McDowell, bestselling author and one of the most recognized Christian apologists, teams up with researcher Bill Wilson in this classic apologetics book, now with a new title, new cover, and new opportunity to connect with readers.

This accessible resource explores historical evidence about Jesus so seekers, skeptics, and Christians can understand more about Christ, His claims, His impact, and the evidence for His life. Revealing material includes:

    * surprising information from ancient secular writings about Jesus
    * insights and errors from the post-apostolic writers
    * how to test the New Testament evidence and material outside of the gospels
    * details of the geography, culture, ...
Yup, it's all been settled; sorry guys. And by no less a genius than Josh McDowell. End of story. What's that you say, it's just a rehash of He Walked Among Us, something Josh and his buddy put together in the eighties, fiddled with in the nineties, and have now wheeled out with a new cover? How rude! Please note, this volume is issued as part of the very impressive sounding McDowell Apologetics Library. Moreover, just look at the publisher: Harvest House of Eugene, Oregon. Credibility like that just can't be gainsaid. Pardon me? Did you say this is the 1993 edition, unrevised but reprinted in tarted up form? What are you talking about?! It's got a new cover and title for heaven's sake!

And who needs pointy-headed scholars anyway when you've got God-fearin', Bible-believin' apologists like Josh on the case. Quick, order in multiple copies while we await Neil's tearful repentance.

4 comments:

  1. Briliant.

    I remember the days when I took Mcdowell seriously, how naive I was.

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  2. Some years ago I used to debate about morals. My position was that the so called christian morals we've been taught are really a core set of values that goes across many religions / cultures. As part of my argument, I'd say "Imagine you found proof that Jesus didn't exist...", what would that change?

    Many answered understandably "it would change everything". But my come back was "Does that mean you'd go and cheat on your wife, steal your neighbours car, etc"?

    The point being that such a mental exercise helps prove that our values are core human values...

    So, in more recent times I've tried to find proof that Jesus ever existed and am amazed to find there really is such poor proof that my original statement of "Imagine you found proof Jesus didn't exist" isn't really any stretch of the imagination.

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  3. Objective morality? Objective morality? Did someone mention objective morality? Forget it Tony, it's been done... more than a decade or two or three ago. It's so boring I won't even enter the revised URL for it, written by Eugene Khutoryansky.

    No, rather we shall address the issue with recycled garbage.

    Those who have been with Otagosh and its progeneration are used to recycled garbage... decades and decades of it. We used to call it The Good News, which, of course, it was nothing of the sort. It has always been bad news, terrible news, awful news.

    So spiff it up. Set up a different publisher. Even have a number of different authors. Plagiarism is well alive and be grateful for it too, for it has produced our best original works.

    And then, get over it.

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  4. Hmm, well, there is a case to be made (the Religious Society of Friends - Quakers - certainly makes it) that, regardless of what deistic, non-theistic, or even apophatic terms you assign to it, that still, small voice exists in everyone, and that even those who do not believe in calling it God/the Holy Spirit/etc., can and do access it daily, through those twinges we get, when we know something is wrong.

    Listening to the still, small voice sometimes, that's the tricky part. Regardless of what you call it/think of it.

    ReplyDelete