Josephus Misdated The Census of Quirinius by Rhoads

Below is a link to a very useful paper on Luke and Josephus's dating of the Census of Quirinius.

Link

Jude's Use of Pseudepigrapha

Some Evangelicals find Jude’s use of pseudepigrapha problematic.  Here’s the passage: 

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ 

Jude is quoting from the pseudographical First Book of Enoch.  This book is definitely not an authentic book of Enoch and was written around 200ish B.C., while Enoch is a antediluvian patriarch.  

Jude seems to say that this pseudo-Enoch made a genuine prophecy: “Enoch . . . prophesied.”  Is he claiming that the pseudographical First Book of Enoch is inspired?  Given that Enoch is not in the canon of Scripture, Evangelicals won’t want to take this option.

There’s a couple of more options:  First, it’s not clear that Jude is trying to teach that this book is written by Enoch.  He may just be working within the assumptions of the text itself. Inerrancy only holds what Scripture teaches is inerrant, and not what it assumes.  

Second, it’s possible for individuals to be inspired sporadically and in a non-systematic way to teach the Word God, despite those individuals not occupying the office of a Biblical prophet.  Balaam in the OT is an example of this sort of individual.  Perhaps whoever wrote Enoch is as well.  

Third, “prophecy” can sometimes have a broader meaning than “inspired by God.”  Sometimes it can imply mere teaching.  So the verse should be read “Enoch . . . *taught* about them  . . .” . If this is right, then Jude’s citation of Enoch is more on par with Paul’s citations of the Greek philosophers Epimenides and Aratus than it is with Paul’s citations of Deuteronomy.

The Demand for a Miracle

Why was it wrong for the Pharisees to demand a miracle?  Jesus was capable and willing to grant them, even for people who had doubts.  So what’s the nature of the wrongdoing in requesting such a miracle?

Leon Morris

The kind of miracle they were demanding Jesus consistently refused to perform. His miracles were always directed toward the fulfilling of a need felt by those for whom the miracle was performed. Jesus was no circus performer, gratifying the appetite for wonders on the part of people who were not serious about spiritual things. From the beginning he refused to demand that God should do miraculous things for him (4:5–7).

D.A. Carson

In the past God had graciously granted “signs” to strengthen the faith of the timid (e.g., Abraham [Ge 15]; Gideon [Jdg 6:17–24]; Joshua [Jos 10]). Here, however, Jesus says that signs are denied “this wicked and adulterous generation,” because they are never to be performed on demand or as a sop (a thing given or done as a concession of no great value to appease someone whose main concerns or demands are not being met.) to unbelief. 

Craig Keener

The request for a sign (cf. 16:1-4; Jn 6:30) revealed the evil character of that "generation's" hearts (cf. 11:16; 16:4; Deut 32:5; Dalman 1929: 52-53); Jesus had already been providing signs, and his opponents were disputing their validity (12:22-24).

Jesus explains that his generation needs no greater sign that he is from

God than his own message. Jesus' second example is that Solomon's wisdom was enough to prove his divine appointment, and that a distant queen heard and came to him.

R. T. France

The demand is met rather by repeated (and indeed escalated) assertions of Jesus’ special status, in relation even to those who in the past have had a key role as mediators between God and his people, and by the warning that to fail to recognize where God is now at work is to risk ultimate condemnation. For so obvious an authority no sign is needed. It is not so much an answer as a counterchallenge. In the narrative context it clearly does not satisfy, as the demand will be repeated in 16:1, and Jesus’ repeated refusal of a sign then will mark the end of dialogue between him and the Galilean authorities. 

The idea of an authenticating “sign” (cf. John 6:30) has a good OT pedigree. In view of the OT precedent the request for a sign is not in itself objectionable, and indeed Jesus has already drawn attention to the evidential value of his miracles in 9:6; 11:4-6, 21, 23.

But Jesus dismisses the present request because of the attitude of those who have made it.

Their demand for a sign after so much clear evidence (note especially v. 28) betrays their fundamental opposition to God’s purpose as it is now focused in the ministry of Jesus.

Donald Hagner

The culpability of the Pharisees is now brought into even sharper focus. The request for a sign is only a further indication of their refusal of Jesus and his message. They had witnessed countless miracles pointing to the reality of the kingdom and the truth of Jesus’ proclamation and yet would not believe. They had been the recipients of far more evidence than had the Ninevites or the Queen of Sheba. Whereas the latter acted upon what little they knew, the Pharisees not only failed to accept what they saw, but they attributed it to the power of Satan.

As the narrative makes clear, however, the Pharisees had already witnessed numerous miracles of Jesus that had sign-bearing significance (cf. 11:4–5) yet had refused to acknowledge them. Indeed, as we have seen, they went so far as to attribute some of Jesus’ works to the power of Beelzebul. Now they ask to see a sign, presumably a miracle performed just for them, something that would amaze them while presenting irrefutable evidence that his claims were true (cf. particularly John 6:30). Yet this is precisely the kind of miracle—a demonstrative display of power for the purpose of impressing—that Jesus would not perform. His miracles were never done for the sake of creating an effect or of overpowering those who witnessed them; they were much more a part of his proclamation and thus designed solely to meet human needs. Even if Jesus had performed some astonishing sign for them, such was their unbelief, it is implied, that they probably would have charged Jesus with sorcery and thus have used it against him.

They had seen miracles already, only to reject them (in the Johannine idiom they had seen “signs” [σημεῖα] and had rejected them; John 7:31; 11:47–48). The problem was a deeper one (cf. vv 33–35), one within the scribes and Pharisees, and in fact no sign would be adequate to convince their unreceptive hearts. Thus Jesus responds, with a degree of irony, that no sign “will be given” to them

The request for a sign only becomes unjustified and intrinsically wrong when one is already surrounded by good and sufficient evidence one chooses not to accept. In that case, unreceptivity and unbelief are the root problem, and it is unlikely that any sign would be sufficient to change such a person’s mind. This is not to argue for gullibility or easy belief. The fact is, however, that Jesus’ contemporaries had plenty of evidence upon which to act responsibly. In a similar way, evidence of the truth of the gospel exists today both for unbelievers and believers. In these circumstances, to ask for more evidence, more signs, is to reflect a deep-seated unbelief in the reality of God and his grace

Robert Gundry

Since Jesus’ deeds have counted as “the deeds of the Christ” and “the deeds of wisdom” (11:2, 19), seeking for a sign different from those deeds counts as a rejection of them and justifies a description of the seekers as “evil and adulterous.”

The resultant escalation emphasizes that the request is an antagonistic riposte.

Summary of Answers:

I.  Jesus refused to do some types of miracles.  For a miracle  to be performed, some criteria must be met.  It must not be a demand.  It must not be for mere performance.  It must be for some felt need.  It must have a spiritual component.

II.  The demand for another miracle is wrong on account of how many miracles had already been performed. Jesus had provided them ample evidence of his divine appointment, which they still disputed.

III.  The Pharisees should have accepted Jesus’ message without any miracle at all.  The wisdom and content of his message should have been sufficient to prove his appointment.  

Drawing all of this to WLC’s points about divine hiddenness seems like it may be fruitful.  An increase in evidence would lead to more belief-that but not to more belief-in.

Four(ish) Paths to God's Omnibenevolence

First: Derive God's omnibenevolence from God's omniscience and omnipotence.  Given moral rationalism, and given an agent that is entirely free, possessing all power, and that is supremely rational, it follows that this agent is going to be perfectly benevolent. 
Swinburne for this argument. 

Second: The Ontological Argument.  God is a maximally great being, and omnibenevolence is a great-making property. So God is omnibenevolent.

Third:  A simplicity style argument.  Limits are less simple than a being with no limits.  Evil is a limit.  So it's less simple to posit that God is evil than to posit that he is good.

Fourth: Perhaps we could argue inductively from the sheer amount of goodness and value in the world to the conclusion that the Creator is (probably) good.  This argument is offset to some degree by the problem of evil.

Recommended Book List for Christian Apologists

On the General Reasonableness of the Christian Faith: 

Reasonable Faith - William Lane Craig

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview -

William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland

Warranted Christian Belief - Alvin Plantinga

On Arguments for Theism:

The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology - Various

How Reason Can Lead to God - Joshua Rasmussen

The Existence of God - Richard Swinburne

On the Supposed Incompatibility of Science and Christianity:

Where the Conflict Really Lies - Alvin Plantinga

In Quest of the Historical Adam - William Lane Craig

On Evidences for the Resurrection:

The Resurrection of God Incarnate - Richard Swinburne

The Resurrection of the Son of God - N.T. Wright

On Christian Sexual Ethics:

One Body - Alexander Pruss

(With some hesitancy I recommend the following two:)

On the Meaning of Sex - J. Budziszewski

Embodied - Preston Sprinkle

On the Atonement:

Atonement and the Death of Christ - William Lane Craig

On Hard Cases in the Bible:

Is God a Moral Monster? - Paul Copan

A Summary of Inter Insigniores

1. Not all of the results of feminism are bad.  
2. Women play an important role in the Church.
3. Women should play as large of a legitimate role in the Church as is possible
4. There’s been a movement to admit women into the pastorate, and we need a decision on this matter.
5. The Church does not believe itself authorized to ordain women.  This needs to be explained.
6. Historically, the Church has never ordained women.  This is in keeping with the example of Jesus and of the Apostles.
7. The Scholastics also upheld this doctrine with various arguments.
8. This doctrine has been relatively uncontroversial historically so has received little attention.
9. The Eastern Churches are in agreement with the West on this point. 
10. Jesus did not ordain women or call them to the apostolate.  
11. Yet women played an exalted role in Jesus’s ministry.
12. It’s surprising in light of the exalted status of women in Jesus’s ministry that Jesus did not ordain women.  There must be a reason for their exclusion, then.
13. The Apostles followed Jesus’s example.  Mary had a privileged place yet was excluded from the election of Matthias.  
14. Despite encountering cultures that may have been open to female ordination, the Apostles still rejected it. 
15. Can the Church depart from its heritage? Let’s examine arguments that answer in the affirmative.
16. Some claim that Jesus and the apostles were constrained by their cultural milieu, and so could not ordain women.  But now that this milieu has passed, etc.  Yet Jesus was not afraid of breaking cultural norms, so this argument is bad.
17. While veils are probably culturally bound, Paul clearly bases some of his teaching regarding women in creation.  Creation mandates are not culturally bound.
18. Some claim that it is within the Church’s power to change ordinances such as these.  They point to the power of the Church over the sacraments.  But this power is a limited one.
19. We can only clarify and motivate the doctrine of male ordination, and not demonstrate it.  The best way to do this is to explain the connections between the male-only priesthood and its symbolism in representing Jesus.
20. Sacramental signs are not conventional.  They have inbuilt symbolism and imagery.
21. The priest represents Jesus.  The priest is the very image of Christ in performing the sacraments.
22. The priest is of sacramental importance.  It is fitting that sacramental signs represent what they signify by a natural resemblance.  Christ was and remains a man.  The priest, as man, represents the manhood of Christ.  
23. The priesthood, the Church, and the Son’s becoming a man, is bound with a deep conjugal symbolism that illustrates and enforces the important differences between men and women.
24. Male and female differences are rooted in creation.  Sex differences run deeper than ethnic ones.
25. But doesn’t the priest also represent the Church, which represents the woman? Yes, but the priest primarily represents Jesus to the Church.
26. The controversy over female priests should lead us to reflect on the importance and nature of the male-priesthood symbolizing our savior.  
27. These topics are to be resolved by reference to revelation.
28. The pastorate is not a human right but a divine gift.  The pastorate is not an advantage for the recipient, but for God and the Church.
29. A mere subjective feeling of receiving a vocation to be a priest is not enough to confirm the vocation as authentic.  Authentication by the Church is also required.
30. All have received the vocation to offer their lives and praise to Jesus.
31. It must not be forgotten that the priesthood does not form part of the rights of the individual, but stems from the economy of the mystery of Christ and the Church.
32. Equality is in no way identity.  The roles are distinct, and must not be confused; they do not favour the superiority of some vis-a-vis the others.  The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.

Rambling Notes on Gender Norms and the Bible

There’s two separate areas in which the Bible calls for strict gender norms:  Wives' submission to their husbands, and the prohibition on women entering the pastoral ministry.  The other gender norms that are present in nature, that women are called to motherhood and men to fatherhood, is evident naturally and naturally inviolable.  

Craig Blomberg, so far as I’ve read, has the best commentary on 1. Cor. 11.

Women should defer to their husbands.  Why? 

There are women who are smarter than their husbands

Who are stronger

Who are better informed

Who are more decisive

So why should all women defer to their husbands? Maybe the stupid women should, but what about the ones that are smarter than their husbands?

Why is, according to the Bible, headship in marriage based on gender rather than on skill? 

Womanhood can often, though not universally, imply difference in skill and quality.  (Careful here.  Skill and quality should be read as “skill and quality in those areas relevant to headship”?? Maybe.  See below.) 

But this still leaves unexplained the cases of women who seem better fit for headship.  Response: In these cases, a deference to husband may seem unnecessary in their particular case, yet it could show forth as a good example for the general trend nonetheless.

It’s not about the marriage performing in the most efficient, intelligent way possible.  It’s about whether we can submit in the face of knowing that it may not be the most efficient way possible. Submitting even when we think we know a better path is a greater sign of love and selflessness. 

Father and Son have no intrinsic difference with regard to ability--both are fully divine.  Yet the Son defers to the Father.  Why?  1. Cor. 11 is relevant, I think.  Headship as both “seat of authority” and “origin” or “source” seems like it may hold some key.  The Father’s eternal generation of the Son provides him with headship over the Son.  A similar point about women may apply, as they derive from men according to Paul.

Let’s say that the submission relationship is, in itself, a good one, and that it should be exemplified even in the case of totally equal individuals.  There may be no basis for which should defer to which, but the deference relation is itself good and a symbol, and should thus be exemplified.

So grant that there’s no intrinsic difference in ability between the sexes.  Yet a relational extrinsic priority is present between the Father and Son: The eternal generation of the Son.  This makes proper the submission of the Son to the Father.  So too does the submission of the woman to the man; there’s an external extrinsic priority of man over woman.  Man came first.  This is in accord with Paul’s argumentation.

What about “Because Eve was deceived”? Doesn’t this seem to imply that Eve is intrinsically inferior? 

Maybe not.  Two options:  The priority of man over woman is a result of a penalty for woman’s sin.  Maybe.  Second option; The nature of Eve’s sin is involved in her taking the headship from Adam, so Eve’s example drives home the point that woman should submit to man on the basis of source priority.

What does it mean to be a head in marriage:

Man, in a general way, takes the initiative.  Not in every respect or in every detail. Some things may be delegated to the wife given her particular skills.

Man leads, but in view of Jesus’s Lord-servant world reversal.  The master becomes the one who serves. Jesus washed his servants feet.  Died for them.  Served them.  Men being called to be leaders means being called to be active, initiative taking servants to their wives.

A woman who submits to a man who properly and biblically fulfills the role of biblical headship will not be an unhappy woman. These arrangements are for our good.

Men being called to this servant-initiative taker, mutual submission position ties our masculinity down to the family unit.  It’s God’s answer to the particular forms of sin that men fall into.

What does biblical headship look like?

It looks like a case of mutual submission: Husbands submitting to their wives, wives submitting to their husbands, and husbands breaking the pattern with an emergent initiative.  

Headship is like being a servant.  Jesus reversed the master-servant world order.  Masters are now servants.  Husbands are their wife’s chief servant.

But what does it mean practically--day-to-day?

I) Loving and concerned breaking of insurmountable disagreement.  But this is rare.

II) General pattern of initiative-taking.

III) Willingness to sacrifice and defend.

IV) How Jesus regarded his Father; his relationship provides an archetype for women and men.

V) Jesus’ leading of the Church also provides an example.

The general gender norms evident socially also seem to offer some guidance: Men should work, provide, have jobs, defend, and so on.  This is a bit of a fuzzy area, but offers some guidance.  I don’t mean that men should become obsessed with chasing money and providing mere material comfort.  That’s evil.  Workaholism is evil. 

The command to defer is not based on universal intrinsic behavioral traits.  In many respects, some women may be more capable than their husbands.  That a woman should still submit and the man still head can be a call for the man to strive better in servanthood and for the woman to divest herself of self-importance.  Even granting that the arrangement of a wife's submission to her husband is not helpful for every single individual woman, that these particular women are still willing to submit despite this, can provide a good example for the more general group.  Our behaviors do not just affect us.  We should be concerned with the general pattern too.  

God designed us.  Even if we feel that we are more inclined towards male patterns, even as females, or the reverse--we should seek to strive to conform to the patterns of our gender.  God better knows the designs of our hearts than we do.  That we may struggle with conforming is no argument for not conforming.  The struggle may be part of the lesson.

This is a scandalous teaching to our egalitarian culture.  But God is often scandalous.  We shouldn’t expect otherwise.  

Gender norms are biblical.  God designed us in such a way that we flourish when we fulfill our particular gender norms.  “Flourish” does not mean that it’s easy, though.  

The only reason given for the woman’s submission is because the man is her head.  That’s it.  No other reason is given.  It isn’t that man is smarter.  Or stronger.  Or anything else.  Just because he’s her head.

Similarly, children must submit to their parents. Not because they’re under 18.  Or because they’re parents are smarter.  Or anything like that.  But merely because they are the parents of the child.  

Being in the submitting role is what makes the woman weaker (1 Pet. 3:7); and not any intrinsic quality.  

What was the nature of the wrongdoing in Jesus’s Temptations?

The temptations of Christ have always been puzzling to me.  The things Jesus is being tempted to do don’t seem very. . . sinful? At least that seems to be the case for the first two sins (in the Matthean order).  To turn stones into bread or to jump from the temple--what’s the problem?  Why is it sinful to do these things?  God would protect Jesus if he jumped, and surely it’s within the power of Jesus to turn stones into bread--he turned water into wine, after all!  

I also see in this passage a prima facie difficulty with the relationship between evidence and faith.  Is Jesus’s faith more noble because he trusted the Father without requiring the Father to save him miraculously?  A similar question is near for the stones case.  If this is the correct interpretation of the first two temptations, then it would seem to support the idea of faith that’s more worthy apart from evidence, and this is the sort of conception of faith that’s seemed troubling to me.  I’ve seen some possible hints in which a lack of immediacy in faith can give rise to a greater focus and reliance on God, a sort of stimulus to our relationship and a call to reform our priorities.  Maybe that’s right.  But I’m still not sure about it.

Anyway, I took it upon myself to read some of the significant commentaries on the passage and to summarize each interpreter's main take on why the temptations were sinful.  I’ve copied the relevant sections below.  Towards the end, I’ll try to summarize what I take to be the most likely interpretation and what this has to say for my concerns about the nature of faith.  

Leon Morris

What sort of Messiah would Jesus be?  Those are the points of the temptations.  Using his powers for his own needs, spectacular but pointless miracles, or a mighty empire?

Second miracle is to compel God and reverse the Lord-servant order.

D.A. Carson

The father gave him a mission to demonstrate Jesus’s prioritizing of God over food, making bread would violate that mission.

To jump would be to forcefully manipulate the Father.  It’d be holding our pledge to God contingent on his fulfilling our demands--it’d be bribery.  It'd be threatening God with a bad state-of-affairs unless he acts.

Craig Keener

In this passage, the devil seeks to redefine Jesus’s call; by appealing to various culturally prevalent models of power to suggest how Jesus should use his God-given power.  The devil tests Jesus with three roles into which other Palestininan charismatic leaders had fallen -- from the generally despised crassly demonic sorcerer’s role to those that some Jews justified as pious.  

Second temptation presumes upon the Father

Robert Mounce

To eat the loaves at that moment would be to reorder physical needs above spiritual needs.

Perhaps the temple-jump was a reference to an immediate way to establish Jesus’s messianic claim.  But being the Messiah wasn’t a miracle-monger, as this would be repeating Moses’s sin? 

R. T. France

He has deliberately put them through a time of privation as an educative process.

As the first part of Deut 8:3 explains, Israel’s hunger had been a part of the educative process designed by God; it was only after they had experienced hunger that they were fed, in God’s good time, not at their own convenience. 

The vivid imagery of the psalm envisages some of the hazards which may be expected to confront God’s people, and promises God’s protection for them, but it does not suggest that they should take the initiative in courting such dangers. The devil’s suggestion, however, is to test the literal truth of God’s promise of protection by deliberately creating a situation in which he will be obliged to act to save his Son’s life. In this way “man may become lord of God, and compel him to act through the power of his faith” (Schweizer, 63). It would be “to act as if God is there to serve his Son, rather than the reverse” 

Donald Hagner

The testing takes place in conjunction with fasting, which is to be understood as commanded by God.

The testing is accomplished here by the suggestion of something that, looked at from another perspective or in a different context, is within the power and prerogative of the Messiah.

To jump is to jump to safety, to end the trial.  

Robert Gundry

Using his powers for self-serving interest would be contrary to his divine mission as Messiah

Let’s summarize the points.  Here’s wherein the wrongness of the temptations consisted:

I. Jesus was being tempted to specific models of Messiah:  The miracle-monger (temple jump), the war leader (taking the worldly Kingdoms), and the self-serving (stones to bread) kinds of Messiahs. 

Op: I don’t find this plausible as an interpretation.

II. Alternative:, the temptations constituted a special set-apart test, so while it wouldn’t be wrong for Jesus to turn stones into bread on other occasions, it would be under the conditions of this test.  The test was meant to present worldly goods in their best possible light, and to see whether Jesus could still choose God over them.

Op. I find this very plausible.

III. Turning stones to bread would be self-serving.

Op. I don’t find this plausible.

IV. Under the conditions of the test, turning bread to stones would wrongly prioritize bread over God’s mission.

Op. I find this plausible.

V. The temple jump may have been a temptation to immediately establish his Messianic claims in front of cheering crowds.  So it was a test to be a crowd-pleaser, taking the easy route.

Op. I don’t find this plausible.

VI. The temple jump was a temptation to end the trial early.  If Jesus had jumped, it would have been a jump to safety and prematurely ended his trials, as Jesus would be saved and ministered by angels before the trial was meant to end. It’d be picking worldly goods over God, so is the same sort of temptation as the stones to bread temptation.

Op. I find this plausible.

VII. The temple jump would oblige the Father to act on Jesus’s behalf, which is a wrongful and presumptive reversal of the Lord-Servant order.

Op. I find this plausible.

Given these interpretations, the temptations don’t seem clearly relevant to the nature of faith given that they occurred in a special sort of test.  But maybe this sort of test can be used as an analogy for the use of faith even in believers?  

Just as Jesus’s trials were given to him by God, perhaps God sends us trials and testing as well.  In Jesus’s trial, worldly goods were withdrawn.  And in their withdrawal, Jesus still prioritized God’s mission and God’s value over the world.  This seems to echo Abraham’s trial.  The life of Isaac had been withdrawn from an easy view once God had given the command to sacrifice Isaac.  But Abraham, even in light of this command, held onto the promise given by God.  The promise of God was ranked higher than the easy-to-view life of his Isaac.

This isn’t to say that we’re *always* under trials.  We often aren’t.  We get promises, and signs, and confirmation, and arguments at times.  But not always.  Life flickers.

D.A. Carson on Submission

https://go.efca.org/resources/media/family-husbands-and-wives-love-and-submission-christ-and-church-session-4