Showing posts with label Gina Meeks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gina Meeks. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Steven Colbert Stood Up for Jesus' Divinity

Steven Colbert - Stood up for Jesus' Divinity

WATCH: Remember the Time Steven Colbert Stood Up for Jesus' Divinity? Neither Did We



Bart Ehrman, Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert (right) argues that the Bible is real and presents the divinity of Christ to well-known Bible critic Bart Ehrman.
Since Stephen Colbert was named as David Letterman's successor on The Late Show, a video of an interview he conducted with well-known Bible critic Bart Ehrman has been getting a lot of attention.
In the following clip from an April 2009 Colbert Report episode that aired on Maundy Thursday, Colbert, an outspoken Catholic, argues that the Bible is real and presents the divinity of Christ in a way that leaves Ehrman speechless.
Watch the video below.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Be sure to read Bible scholar Andreas Köstenberger's recent article (click to see website or read below), where he provided Christian Life News with a few more reasons Ehrman's latest book, How Jesus Became God, is wrong.



Don't Cancel Your Easter Service: Why Bart Ehrman's 'How Jesus Became God' Is Wrong

“Jesus was a lower-class Jewish preacher from the backwaters of rural Galilee who was condemned for illegal activities and crucified for crimes against the state. Yet not long after his death, his followers were claiming that he was a divine being. Eventually, they went even further, declaring that he was none other than God, Lord of heaven and earth. And so the question: How did a crucified peasant come to be thought of as the Lord who created all things? How did Jesus become God?” (1).
This is how Bart Ehrman, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, frames the question in his latest attempt at deconstructing the Christian faith in his popularly written, often lopsided,1 and at places eccentric book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. While Jesus was a Jewish preacher from Galilee who was crucified for political reasons (though surely also for religious ones) and whose followers claimed was divine shortly after his death, Ehrman’s portrait neglects Jesus’ miracles, his messianic claims,2 and his followers’ confessions of him as Messiah and even God during his public ministry and immediately following his resurrection (e.g., Matt. 28:17Luke 24:52John 20:28). Right from the start, one gets the impression Ehrman’s Jesus is a truncated version construed by a historical-critical scholar—and an unduly skeptical one at that. This isn’t only Ehrman the historian; it’s also Ehrman the ex-believer and notorious skeptic.3
From beginning to end Ehrman dichotomizes between faith and reason, history and theology, the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith.4 With such premises in place, the outcome of his historical research is predictable: Jesus never claimed to be God; he viewed himself as an apocalyptic prophet (echoes of Albert Schweitzer); and his followers never considered him to be God either. In customary fashion, Ehrman assigns the emergence of the notion of Jesus’ divinity to the latest possible date. He asserts ancient people frequently thought of a particular human as a god or of a god having become human, so there’s nothing unique about Christians’ claim that Jesus was divine.5
As is also customary for Ehrman, he paints a rather monolithic portrait of scholarship on the issue. There are sober-minded, realistic historians—that is, “the majority of critical scholars”—who for “more than a century” have maintained Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet and didn’t even claim to be divine (6). Then there are others who are naïve and uncritical, if not unreasonable, refusing to follow the lead of the self-proclaimed critical scholarly elite and thus condemning themselves to unenlightened historical-critical darkness and ignorance. Tertium quid non datur. (Editor's note: that means a statement must either be true or false.)
Bombshell Explodes
A bombshell explodes when Ehrman admits he no longer believes Jesus was actually buried or that the tomb was empty. He claims, notwithstanding the unanimous testimony of all four Gospels and Paul, [6] that “Christian storytellers” had a compelling reason to fabricate Jesus’ burial: “If Jesus had not been buried, his tomb could not be declared empty” (160). Pilate, he says, was not a “beneficent prefect who kindly listened to the protests of the people he governed” (163) and was therefore unlikely to grant the request to release Jesus’ body. Ehrman also claims the resurrection narratives are replete with contradictions.7
What we do know, Ehrman says, is that many of Jesus’ followers (Peter, Paul, and Mary, among others) had visions of him still alive, perhaps out of bereavement. Belief in those visions (not the historically resurrected Jesus) then led them to posit Jesus’ exaltation—the first exaltation Christologies. However, there was no precedent for belief in a resurrected Messiah, as first-century Jews did not anticipate a suffering Messiah (and a God who doesn’t die needs no resurrection). Later on, Ehrman alleges, an alternative view was posited that Jesus pre-existed as divine and became human (incarnation Christologies). In so doing, Ehrman posits a radical discontinuity between the Synoptics and John (270). He also claims Jesus didn’t exist prior to the incarnation; only the Logos did (274).
Later still, Christians espoused views eventually declared heretical (e.g., Jesus was fully human but not divine; he was fully divine but not human; he was two beings, divine and human, united temporarily during his earthly ministry). Finally, the fourth-century AD Arian heresy claimed Jesus was God but not on the same level as the Father (subordinationist Christology).
Essentially, Ehrman sketches a trajectory during the course of which the prevailing Christology evolved from “no God” (Jesus, his first followers) to “exaltation” (based on belief in visions; Mark) to “incarnation” (John) to the more sophisticated Christological formulations of the early councils and creeds. In other words, as Ehrman puts it, from “not . . . God in any sense at all” to “divine . . . in some sense” to “equal with God Almighty in an absolute sense” (44). The model is simple, but is it the most plausible way to characterize what happened?

Monday, March 31, 2014

After Chick-Fil-A Success, Mike Huckabee Pushes 'Hobby Lobby Day' - GINA MEEKS, Charisma News

Hobby Lobby

The Family Research Council has organized a 'Hobby Lobby Day,' and Mike Huckabee is urging people to show their support for the company by participating. (Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr/Creative Commons)

After Chick-Fil-A Success, Mike Huckabee Pushes 'Hobby Lobby Day'





When Chick-fil-A came under fire for comments CEO and President Dan Cathy made about homosexuality, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee asked customers to show their support. Now he’s doing the same for Hobby Lobby.
The Supreme Court began hearing arguments this week in the arts-and-crafts retailer’s case opposing the contraception mandate in Obamacare. The Green family will be forced to pay $1.3 million per day in fines or cancel health care coverage for their employees if they lose this case.
According to a poll commissioned by Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom, 59 percent of likely voters disapprove of the HHS mandate (including 54 percent of women ages 18-44).
The Family Research Council is asking Christians across the nation to show their support for Hobby Lobby on Saturday.
An event called “Hobby Lobby Day” on Facebook asks people to change their profile to show support, shop at Hobby Lobby stores or online on Saturday, say thank you with a card, and share a photo of the shopping trip on social media with the #HobbyLobbyDay hashtag.
“If Obamacare forces Hobby Lobby ... to provide abortive drugs, even though the privately run, family-run business opposes it on moral grounds, then the government has decided that you can only believe so much," Huckabee said on his Fox News television show Saturday. "And when there’s a conflict, the individual loses to the government. Now that, my friend, is a loss of liberty. This is a fundamentally outrageous action to anyone, liberal or conservative, who believes the Constitution was created to keep us free, not to keep us from being free.”
Huckabee says Hobby Lobby Day gives people the opportunity to show their support “and to express appreciation for [Hobby Lobby’s] courage in risking the very existence of their business to stand for what should be clear-cut, constitutional rights.”
Huckabee adds, “If religious liberty and freedom of conscience doesn’t exist for Hobby Lobby, how long will it be before it’s taken from you? Enough of government thinking it’s God and trying to act like it. We not only owe it to our children and grandchildren, but we owe it to the founders who meant to guarantee our freedom.”

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Mark Burnett Working on ‘The Bible’ Sequel, to Air on NBC Next Spring

Jesus in 'The Bible'
NBC will air a sequel to 'The Bible' next year. (Joe Alblas/The History Channel)
Fans of last year’s record-breaking The Bible have reason for celebration: Major network NBC will air a sequel next year.
Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, will produce A.D.: Beyond the Bible as a follow-up to their hugely popular miniseries, which aired on the History Channel last spring.
The Bible premiered to 13.1 million viewers, and the 10-hour miniseries beat almost everything else on television. It was the third most-watched cable series or miniseries of the year. NBC is hoping to break that record with the sequel.
“We are firmly in the ‘event’ business and nothing has more event potential than A.D. as it continues immediately after the The Bible ended,” NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said in a statement.
The 12-hour miniseries is expected to take up the story of the New Testament after the crucifixion of Jesus, and will contain other elements as well, Burnett told TV Guide Magazine.
“You’ve got parts of the Bible,” Burnett said when asked what will be used as source material for A.D., which is a working title. “Josephus was Jewish and wrote one of the most incredible historical documents [in the first century]. There’s also great archeology and a lot of writing to mine.”
NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke added: “Everyone’s lives were completely altered in an instant and the immediate aftermath of Christ’s death had an impact on his disciples, his mother Mary, and key political and religious leaders of the time. In the first episode alone you see the last moments of the Crucifixion, Judas taking his own life after betraying Christ, Peter denying Jesus three times, and then the miracle of the Resurrection.”
Burnett spoke of series like The Tudors and The Borgias, which both “weave fiction and history, as inspiration,” explained TV Guide Magazine. The magazine asked if this means A.D. will contain some fictional elements and perhaps original characters. Burnett said yes.
“Much the way HBO's Rome did. With the spirit of history. Clearly A.D. is not predominantly Bible stories. This goes beyond that. But we spoke to all our advisers and our huge network, NBC, and they can’t wait for this.”
The producer said A.D. will likely last more than one season.
“It could run in the same way as Game of Thrones, 12 hours year after year. I don't think for a minute that A.D. lasts for just a season,” he explained.
Burnett, who produces The Voice for NBC, also talked about why he picked the network to air his next project.
“I chose NBC because I believe they could turn this into an enormous event,” he said. “This is more than TV for us. When you have the amount of passion that Roma and I have for a subject, you're willing to do anything it takes to launch and make it happen.
According to the Los Angeles Times, British playwright and screenwriter Simon Block will write the series. A director and star have not been set.
In addition to the sequel set for next year, an edited-down movie version of The Bible will be released in theaters Feb. 28. Click here to watch the trailer for Son of God.