Notes
NOTES
INTRODUCTION: SEARCHING FOR THE REAL JESUS
1. Andrew Greeley, “There’s No Solving Mystery of Christ,” Chicago Sun-Times (Jan. 16, 2004).
2. Lyric from “The Real Jesus,” from the album Wide-Eyed and Mystified by downhere (Word Entertainment, 2006).
3. Doyle P. Johnson, “Dilemmas of Charismatic Leadership: The Case of the People’s Temple,” Sociological Analysis 40 (1979), 320.
4. See Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham, “Who Was Jesus?” available at news-week.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2006/12/who_was_jesus/comments. html#760080 (Dec. 26, 2006). The bulleted points are condensed from the submissions, but they preserve the author’s original language as much as possible.
5. Chris Suellentrop, “Jesus Christ: Choose Your Own Savior,” available at www .slate.com/id/2150645 (Oct. 4, 2006).
6. Paul Copan, True for You, but Not for Me (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1998), 94.
7. Charlotte Allen, The Human Christ (Oxford: Lion, 1998), 5.
8. For a summary of the evidence I found convincing, see appendix A.
9. Gregory A. Boyd, Jesus under Siege (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1995), 14.
10. See Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, “How Religious Are America’s College and University Professors?” available at: www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/gross/ religions.pdf (Oct. 22, 2006).
11. See N. T. Wright, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2006), 31-34.
12. Ibid., 33.
13. Jay Tolson, “In Search of the Real Jesus: The Gospel Truth,” U.S. News and World Report (Dec. 18, 2006).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Richard Cimino and Don Lattin, Shopping for Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), 19.
17. Ibid., 19-20.
18. Tolson, “In Search of the Real Jesus.”
19. See Marvin Meyer and James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007).
20. Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 005), 208.
21. The percentage who saw or heard about the Jesus Tomb documentary is based on a survey of 1,204 randomly selected American adults by Zogby International from March 22-26, 2007. See www.churchexecutive.com/Page.cfm/ PageID/8875 (April 18, 2007).
22. For example, see Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 232.
23. Jesus said in John 8:24: “If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.”
CHALLENGE #1: “SCHOLARS ARE UNCOVERING A RADICALLY DIFFERENT JESUS IN ANCIENT DOCUMENTS JUST AS CREDIBLE AS THE FOUR GOSPELS”
1. Stevan L. Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: Seabury, 1983), 1. The year 1945 was when a cache of ancient nonbiblical texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, was discovered in Egypt.
2. Sullivan made the comment during The Chris Matthews Show on MSNBC, May 7, 2006, in a debate over The Da Vinci Code.
3. The reporters who broke the story, which won first place for investigative reporting among Illinois newspapers from United Press International in 1986, were Anne Burris, Thomas J. Lee, Pete Nenni, Chris Szechenyi, and Kathy Schaeffer.
4. See Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge, revised and expanded edition, 1994).
5. Ibid., back cover.
6. Ibid., 3.
7. Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 7.
8. Miller, Complete Gospels, 360.
9. Ibid., 357.
10. Ibid., 357, 358.
11. Ibid., 401.
12. See Scott G. Brown, Mark's Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery (Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005).
13. Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel (Middletown, Calif.: Dawn Horse, reissued 2005), 107.
14. Ibid., 15-16.
15. Michael Baigent, The Jesus Papers (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 270.
16. See Robert W. Funk, et al., The Five Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFran-cisco, paperback edition, 1997).
17. Miller, Complete Gospels, 6.
18. Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, The Gnostic Bible (Boston: New Seeds Books, 2003), 43.
19. Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Vintage, 2004), 40-41.
20. Ben Witherington III, The Gospel Code (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004), 101.
21. Barnstone and Meyer, Gnostic Bible, 48, 69, 46.
22. Pagels, Beyond Belief 35.
23. Pagels, Gnostic Gospels (New York: Vintage, 1989), xxxv.
24. Funk, et al., Five Gospels, 35.
25. Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 248.
26. Jenkins, Hidden Gospels, 16.
27. All interviews have been edited for conciseness, clarity, and content.
28. Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), xxx.
29. Davies, Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom, 146.
30. See John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 427-34.
31. See Nicholas Perrin, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship Between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron, Academia Biblica 5 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002); Nicholas Perrin, “NHC II,2 and the Oxyrhynchus Fragments (P.Oxy 1, 654, 655): Overlooked Evidence for a Syriac Gospel of Thomas,” Vigiliae Christianae 58 (2004): 138-51; and Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).
32. From the German word Quelle, or “source.”
33. Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief, 38.
34. See http://home.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html (Sept. 17, 2006).
35. Witherington, Gospel Code, 75.
36. Jenkins, Hidden Gospels, 17.
37. See John Dominic Crossan, The Cross That Spoke (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
38. Evans added: “Luke was a proselyte more than likely.”
39. Moody Smith, “The Problem of John and the Synoptics in Light of the Relation between Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” in Adelbert Denaux, ed., John and the Synoptics BETL 101 (Leuven: Peeters and Leuven University Press, 1992), 150.
40. See Lee Strobel and Garry Poole, Exploring the Da Vinci Code (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2006).
41. See Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2005).
42. Smith, Secret Gospel, xi. Pagels wrote the foreword to Smith’s book.
43. Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 80.
44. Ibid., 16.
45. Ibid., 79.
46. Ibid., 77.
47. Scott Brown, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Secret Mark, is among the scholars who continue to believe in its legitimacy: “I, for one, side with Clement, who believed that Mark himself created the Secret Gospel in Alexandria by adding more stories to the version of his gospel than are found in the New Testament” (quoted in a 2005 afterword to Secret Gospel).
48. Ibid., 84, 85.
49. Smith, Secret Gospel, ix; from Pagels’s foreword.
50. Ibid., 85.
51. Against Heresies 1.31.1.
52. See John 13:27.
53. See Mark 11 and Mark 14.
54. See “Are the Gospels Reliable?” available at: www.whoisthisjesus.tv/qa .htm#scholars (Feb. 6, 2007).
CHALLENGE #2: “THE BIBLE’S PORTRAIT OF JESUS CAN’T BE TRUSTED BECAUSE THE CHURCH TAMPERED WITH THE TEXT”
1. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 207, 208.
2. Richard C. Carrier, “Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahis-toricity,” www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.html (Nov. 23, 2006).
3. See advertising supplement on TimesSelect in the New York Times (Sept. 24, 2006).
4. Reportedly Ehrman wanted to name the book Lost in Transmission, but the publisher thought that made it sound like an automotive book.
5. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 89-90.
6. Ibid., 7.
7. Ibid., 208.
8. Ibid.
9. Hoover, 6.
10. Carrier, “Did Jesus Exist?”
11. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 9.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 11.
14. Neely Tucker, “The Book of Bart,” Washington Post (March 5, 2006).
15. Emphasis added.
16. See www.csntm.org.
17. See www.netbible.org.
18. Ben Witherington III, “Misanalyzing Text Criticism—Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus,” http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2006/03/misanalyzing-test-criticism-bart-html (June 6, 2006).
19. Gordon D. Fee, review of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture in Critical Review of Books in Religion 8 (1995), 204. Bart D. Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus is a popularized version of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
20. Funk, et al., Five Gospels, 6.
21. 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
22. See Matthew 1:22, 2:15.
23. See 2 Peter 3:15-16.
24. See John 10:35.
25. See Daniel B. Wallace, “Mark 2:26 and the Problem of Abiathar,” www.bible .org/page.php?page_id=3839 (Nov. 23, 2006).
26. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 207-208.
27. See John 7:53-8:11.
28. Shawntaye Hopkins, “Woman Bitten by Snake at Church Dies,” Lexington Herald-Leader (Nov. 8, 2006).
29. Frank Zindler, The Real Bible: Who' Got it? www.atheists.org/christianity/ realbible.html (Nov. 29, 2006).
30. See Michael Baigent, Richard Lee, and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (New York: Dell, 1983), 368-69.
31. Norman Geisler and William Nix, From God to Us: How We Got Our Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 180.
32. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, acknowledgments.
33. For the entire interview with Metzger, see Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1998), 55 - 72.
CHALLENGE #3: PART ONE: “NEW EXPLANATIONS HAVE REFUTED JESUS’ RESURRECTION”
1. Richard C. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb,” in Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder, eds., The Empty Tomb (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2005), 197.
2. John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (San Francisco: HarperSan-Francisco, 1995), 241.
3. See Strobel, Case for Christ, 191-257.
4. “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus? A Debate between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman,” www.holycross.edu/departments/ crec/website/resurrdebate.htm (Oct. 2, 2006).
5. See Surah 4:157-58.
6. “Who Is the True Jesus?” videotape, available at: www.facultylinc.com/ national/fslf.nsf (Oct. 1, 2006).
7. Hassan M. Fattah, “In Qaeda Video, Zawahri Condemns Bush and Pope Benedict,” New York Times (Sept. 30, 2006).
8. Lemuel Lall, “Jesus Christ Lived in India, was buried in Kashmir: RSS Chief,” www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1914198,0015002100000000.htm (Jan. 28, 2007).
9. Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 16.
10. Baigent, Jesus Papers, 125.
11. See Baigent, Jesus Papers, 124-32.
12. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, back cover.
13. See Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 238-40.
14. Ibid., 234.
15. N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 718.
16. The segment, “Resurrection: True or False?” appeared on PAX-TV’s program Faith under Fire.
17. Gary Habermas and Antony Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), xiv.
18. For the transcript of a prior interview, see Antony Flew and Gary R. Habermas, “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism,” www.biola.edu/antonyflew (Feb. 7, 2007).
19. For video clips of my interview with Flew, see www.LeeStrobel.com (Feb. 7, 2007).
20. Transcript available at www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurr debate.htm (Oct. 2, 2006).
21. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli, eds., Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000), 67.
22. 1 Corinthians 15:17.
23. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 2004), 1.
24. Ibid.
25. See www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurrection-debate -transcript.pdf (Oct. 2, 2006).
26. John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 145.
27. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 230 (emphasis in original).
28. See Deuteronomy 21:23.
29. See Acts 9:26-30; 15:1-35.
30. 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.
31. Dean John Rodgers of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, quoted in Richard N. Ostling, “Who Was Jesus?” Time (Aug. 15, 1988).
32. Acts 13:36-38.
33. Mark 8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:32-34; 14:28.
34. 1 Clement 42:3. Translation by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.
35. Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians 9:2. Translation by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona.
36. Gerd Ludemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 80.
37. Fredriksen’s comments came during an interview with the late ABC journalist Peter Jennings for his documentary The Search for Jesus, which first aired in July 2000. Emphasis added.
38. Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Vintage, 1999), 264.
39. See 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8; Acts 9, 22, and 26.
40. See Matthew 12:46-50, 13:55-56; Mark 3:31 -35, 6:3; Luke 8:19-21; John 2:12, 7:3, 5, 10; Acts 1:13-14; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19.
41. See Mark 3:21, 31; 6:3-4; and John 7:3-5.
42. John 7:3-5: “Jesus’ brothers said to him, ‘You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.’ For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”
43. See Acts 15:12 - 21 and Galatians 1:19.
44. See Josephus (Ant. 20:200); Hegesippus (quoted by Eusebius in EH 2:23); Clement of Alexandria (quoted by Eusebius in EH 2:1, 23).
45. Reginald Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 37.
46. Acts 2:32.
47. William Ward, Christianity: A Historical Religion? (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1972), 93 -94.
48. Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 124-25.
CHALLENGE #3: PART TWO: THE CROSS-EXAMINATION
1. “Code Red” was invented for the movie. The film won an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, while Jack Nicholson was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
2. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, translator, The Qur'an (Elmhurst, N.Y.: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc., 1999), 61.
3. The True Furqan (Duncanville, Tex.: World Wide, 2006). This is not to say that pure Christian doctrine is presented in The True Furqan. One could write it using any doctrine, true or false, and it could still serve to answer the test presented in the Qur’an.
4. Ali, The Qur'an, 1.
5. Baigent, Jesus Papers, 125.
6. Ibid., 130 (emphasis added).
7. Richard C. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 187.
8. Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 135, 131.
9. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 232.
10. Paraphrase of Luke 24:39.
11. See 1 Corinthians 9:11.
12. Emphasis added.
13. Emphasis added. See also 1 Corinthians 15:53-54.
14. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 184.
15. Strobel, Case for Christ, 238.
16. See Deuteronomy 21:23.
17. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 156.
18. Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Putting Away Childish Things (San Francisco: Harp-erSanFrancisco, 1994), 131.
19. Copan and Tacelli, Jesus' Resurrection, 44.
20. See Matthew 5:22-24, 35-43.
21. Jeffery Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 267.
22. See Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 228-40.
23. Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2006), 220.
24. Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 25-26.
25. See www.ingermanson.com/jesus/art/stats.php (April 7, 2007).
26. Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III, The Brother of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 11-12, 57-58.
27. See Acts of Philip 37, 46, 50, 51, 119.
28. See 1 Corinthians 9:5.
29. Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007), vii.
30. See www.answers.org/news/article.php?story=20070307145346542 (April 17, 2007).
31. Audrey Barrick, “Study: Most Non-Born-Again Christians Still Believe Jesus Resurrected,” The Christian Post (April 3, 2007). Interestingly, the random poll of 1,204 Americans showed that 75 percent of those who said they’re not “born-again Christians” believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection.
32. Acts 2:32.
33. Robert M. Price, “By This Time He Stinketh,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 423.
34. Jeffery Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 288.
35. William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1989), 420.
36. Carrier, “The Spiritual Body of Christ,” in Price and Lowder, Empty Tomb, 195.
37. Copan and Tacelli, Jesus' Resurrection, 45.
38. See Francis S. Collins, The Language of God (New York: Free Press, 2006), especially 11-31 and 213-25.
CHALLENGE #4: “CHRISTIANITY’S BELIEFS ABOUT JESUS WERE COPIED FROM PAGAN RELIGIONS”
1. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries (New York: Three Rivers, 1999), 9.
2. Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ (New York: Walker & Company, 2004), 10.
3. See Helen Keller, The Story of My Life, chapter 14, www.afb.org/MyLife/book. asp?ch=P1Ch14 (Jan. 23, 2007).
4. Law.com defines plagiarism as “Taking the writings or literary concepts (a plot, characters, words) of another and selling and/or publishing them as one’s own product.” See dictionary.law.com.
5. Brown, Da Vinci Code, 232.
6. Harpur, Pagan Christ, 51. Harpur acknowledges in his appendix A that he has been influenced by the views of Gerald Massey (1828 - 1907) and Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963). Said New Testament scholar Craig A. Evans: “The work of these men, especially their reconstructions of ancient history and attempts to draw lines of continuity between Egyptian religion and Christianity, is deeply flawed. No qualified historian takes the theories of these men seriously. Anyone charmed by Harpur’s Pagan Christ should beware. We are talking old, odd stuff here. Personal philosophy and introspection it may be; history by any responsible, recognized sense it is not.” See Evans, 220-21.
7. Ibid., 85.
8. Freke and Gandy, Jesus Mysteries, 109.
9. Tomothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Laughing Jesus (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005), 55 - 56.
10. Hugh J. Schonfield, Those Incredible Christians (New York: Bantam, 1968), xii.
11. John H. Randall, Hellenistic Ways of Deliverance and the Making of the Christian Synthesis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 154.
12. See J. P. Holding, “Did the Mithraic Mysteries Influence Christianity?” www .tektonics.org (Jan. 23, 2007).
13. Freke and Gandy, Laughing Jesus, 61.
14. Freke and Gandy, Jesus Mysteries, 9.
15. Harpur, Pagan Christ, 10.
16. Harpur, Pagan Christ, 38, 39, 53.
17. Tim Callahan, Secret Origins of the Bible (Altadena, Cal.: Millennium, 2002), 332.
18. See Challenge #3.
19. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wicksell, 2001), 221.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. John D. Wineland, ed., The Light of Discovery (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2007), xiii.
23. Ibid., xi.
24. Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace, Reinventing Jesus, 250.
25. Wineland, Light of Discovery, xi.
26. See Strobel, Case for Christ, 73-91.
27. See Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras (New York: Routledge, 2000), 14-15, 21-22, 28.
28. See Richard Reitzenstein (trans. John E. Steely), Hellenistic Mystery Religions (Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1978).
29. A. Loisy, “The Christian Mystery,” Hibbert Journal (1911-12), 51, quoted in Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Easter—Myth, Hallucination, or History?” Christianity Today (March 15, 1974).
30. Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung (Tubingen, 1911), 151; English translation, Paul and His Interpreters (London, 1912), 192, quoted in Bruce Metzger, “Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian,” www.frontline-apologetics.com/mystery_religions_early_christianity.htm(Jan. 30, 2007).
31. “The word Hellenistic was coined early in the nineteenth century as a name for the period of history that began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ended with the Roman conquest of the last major vestige of Alexander’s empire, the Egypt of Cleopatra, in 30 BC. Obviously if this were the exclusive use of the term, it would make little sense to talk about ‘Christianity and the Hellenistic world.’ But the fact is that the phrase ‘the Hellenistic world’ is used to refer to the whole culture of the Roman Empire. While Rome achieved military and political supremacy throughout the Mediterranean world, it adopted the culture of the Hellenistic world that preceded its rise to power. Thus, while political control of the Mediterranean world belonged to Rome, the culture continued to be Hellenistic.” Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2003), 10-11.
32. Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 1. Nash notes that in 1956, an essay by the influential H. Riesenfeld of the University of Uppsala in Sweden called the appeal to the mystery religions “outdated.” See H. Riesenfeld, “Mythological Background of the New Testament Christology,” in W. D. Davies and D. Daube, eds., The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 81-95, esp. 81.
33. Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 3.
34. Ronald Nash, “Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?” www .equip.org/free/DB109.htm (Jan. 25, 2007).
35. See Jonathan David, “The Exclusion of Women in the Mithraic Mysteries: Ancient or Modern?” Numen 47 (2000), 121 -41.
36. See Richard Gordon, “Franz Cumont and the Doctrines of Mithraism,” Mithraic Studies 1:236.
37. See Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1996), 510.
38. E. J. Yarnold, “Two Notes on Mithraic Liturgy,” Mithras: Bulletin of the Society for Mithraic Studies (1974), 1.
39. Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 137.
40. Manfred Clauss (trans. Richard Gordon), The Roman Cult of Mithras (New York: Routledge, 2000), 7.
41. L. Patterson, Mithraism and Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), 94.
42. Gary Lease, “Mithraism and Christianity: Borrowings and Transformations,” in Wolfgang Haase, ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt, vol. II (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 1316.
43. Ibid., 1329.
44. See ibid., 1321- 22.
45. See Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible, 520-21.
46. Richard Gordon, Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 96, quoted in Holding, “Did the Mithraic Mysteries Influence Christianity?”
47. Clauss, Roman Cult of Mithras, 110.
48. Ibid., 113.
49. Yarnold, “Two Notes on Mithraic Liturgy.”
50. Lease, “Mithraism and Christianity,” 1324.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 1325.
53. See Romans 6:3.
54. See John 3:3.
55. See John 1:29. Also see Challenge #5.
56. Gunter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 266.
57. Bruce Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish and Christian (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1968), 11: “Thus, for example, one must doubtless interpret the change in the efficacy attributed to the rite of the tau-robolium. In competing with Christianity, which promised eternal life to its adherents, the cult of Cybele officially or unofficially raised the efficacy of the blood bath from twenty years to eternity.”
58. Stephen Neill and Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861 — 1986 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 208.
59. Yarnold, “Two Notes on Mithraic Liturgy.”
60. See Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Tammuz and the Bible,” Journal of Biblical Literature 84 (1965), 283-90.
61. See S. N. Kramer, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 183 (1966), 31.
62. Samuel N. Kramer said the alleged resurrection of Tammuz was “nothing but inference and surmise, guess and conjecture.” See Samuel N. Kramer, Mythologies of the Ancient World (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 10.
63. See P. Lambrechts, “La ‘resurrection’ d’Adonis,” Melanges Isidore Levy (1955), 207-40, quoted in Yamauchi, “Easter—Myth, Hallucination, or History?”
64. P. Lambrechts, “Les Fetes ‘phrygiennes’ de Cybele et d’Attis,” Bulletin de VInstitut Historique Belge de Rome 27 (1952), 141-70, quoted in Yamauchi, “Easter—Myth, Hallucination, or History?”
65. Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 130.
66. Nash, “Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?”
67. In a quote cited earlier, Freke and Gandy also mention the god Serapis. Said Nash: “During the Isis cult’s later, mystery stage, its male deity is no longer the dying Osiris but Serapis; and Serapis is often thought of as a sun god. It is clear that the Serapis of the post-Ptolemaic, mystery version of the cult was not a dying god. Obviously, then, neither could he be a rising god.” See Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 128.
68. Bruce M. Metzger, “Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity,” in Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies, 21.
69. Roland de Vaux, The Bible and the Ancient Near East (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 236, quoted in Yamauchi, “Easter — Myth, Hallucination, or History? ”
70. Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries, 261.
71. See Luke 1:1 -4.
72. Robert J. Miller, Born Divine (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polestar, 1993), 246.
73. Ibid., 208.
74. Walter E. Bundy, Jesus and the First Three Gospels (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955), 11.
75. Tom Flynn, “Matthew vs. Luke: Whoever Wins, Coherence Loses,” available at www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=flynn_25_ 1 (January 29, 2007).
76. For a discussion of the Isaiah 7:14 prophecy, see Challenge #5.
77. Robert Gromacki, The Virgin Birth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, second edition, 2002), 213.
78. See Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, third ed., 2001), 250. To examine artwork of the birth of Dionysus on an Italian vase, circa 380 BC, showing him emerging from Zeus’s thigh, see 251. According to J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, any reference to a “virgin birth” for Dionysus comes in post-Christian sources. See Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace, Reinventing Jesus, 242 -43.
79. See Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Anthropomorphism in Ancient Religions,” Biblio-theca Sacra 125 (1968): 99. J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1965, reprint of Harper & Row edition, 1930), 338. Machen, Virgin Birth of Christ, 330, 336.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84. Ibid., 326.
Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 37.
Buddha lived about five hundred years before Christ. As Machen notes: “In the introduction to the Jataka book, which dates from the fifth century after Christ, we have the well-known story of the white elephant that entered into the body of Maya, Buddha’s mother, at the time when her child was conceived; and the white elephant story seems to be shown by inscriptional evidence to have been current as early as the reign of Asoka in the third century before Christ. In its earliest form, the story appears as the narration of a dream; Maya dreamed that a marvelous white elephant entered into her side. . . . In later Buddhist sources, what had originally been regarded as a dream of Maya came to be regarded as an actual happening. . .. It would be difficult to imagine anything more unlike the New Testament story of the virgin birth of Christ.” See Machen, Virgin Birth of Christ, 339 - 41 (emphasis in original).
See Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Historical Notes on the (In)comparable Christ,” Christianity Today (Oct. 22, 1971).
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
See “Story of Lord Krishna’s Birth,” Sanatan Sanstha: Sanatan Society for Scientific Spirituality, www.sanatan.org/en/campaigns/KJ/birth.htm (Jan. 28,
2007).
Raymond E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist, 1973), 62; cited in Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace, Reinventing Jesus, 247.
Ibid., 65.
Thomas Boslooper, The Virgin Birth (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 135, quoted in Gromacki, Virgin Birth, 211.
Quoted in Tom Snyder, Myth Conceptions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), 194.
See Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 104. Retorted Nash: “The fate of Osiris’s coffin in the Nile is about as relevant to baptism as the sinking of Atlantis.” See Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 128. Russell D. Moore, “Ronald Nash, RIP,” available at: merecomments.typepad .com/merecomments/2006/03/ronald_nash_rip.html (Jan. 29, 2007).
Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 116, 117, 254.
Nash, “Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?”
Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 161 -62; quoting Andre Boulanger, Orphee: Rapports de Vorphisme et du christianisme (Paris, 1925), 102. Emphasis added. Nash, “Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?” Condensed but preserving much of Nash’s wording.
Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
98. Metzger said: “It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction.” See Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies, 11.
99. Nash, Gospel and the Greeks, 162.
100. 2 Peter 1:16.
CHALLENGE #5: “JESUS WAS AN IMPOSTER WHO FAILED TO FULFILL THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES”
1. Associated Press, “Comedian Jackie Mason Drops Lawsuit against Jews for Jesus Missionary Group,” International Herald Tribune (Dec. 4, 2006).
2. Feinberg is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. See “Did Jesus Fulfill Prophecies in Ways in Which the Jews at the Time Were Expecting?” www.whoisthisjesus.tv/qa.htm#scholars (Dec. 27, 2006).
3. Brickner quotations are from: Sarah Pulliam, “‘Volcanic’ Response: Jews for Jesus Takes to New York City Streets,” Christianity Today (Sept. 2006).
4. Michael Luo, “Jews for Jesus Hit Town and Find a Tough Crowd,” New York Times (July 4, 2006).
5. “I Won’t Fall Prey to Jews for Jesus,” New York Daily News (July 12, 2006).
6. Pulliam, “‘Volcanic’ Response.”
7. Associated Press, “Comedian Jackie Mason Drops Lawsuit against Jews for Jesus Missionary Group.” Mason discontinued litigation after receiving an apology from Jews for Jesus.
8. “I Won’t Fall Prey to Jews for Jesus,” New York Daily News (July 12, 2006).
9. Gal Beckerman, “Jews for Jesus Campaign Targets NY Jews,” Jerusalem Post (July 9, 2006).
10. Joshua Waxman, “The Limits of Identity,” in “The Virtual Talmud,” www .beliefnet.com/blogs/virtualtalmud (Aug. 30, 2006).
11. Aryeh Kaplan, The Real Messiah? (Toronto: Jews for Judaism, 2004), 14.
12. Quoted in Pinchas Stolper, “Was Jesus the Messiah?” in Kaplan, Real Messiah? 32.
13. Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
2007), 183.
14. Ibid., 150.
15. See J. Barton Payne, Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
16. Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Messiah in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), 29. Kaiser cites the source as Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1953), 2:710 - 41 (appendix 9).
17. Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2000), 131.
18. See John 4:25-26.
19. The number of messianic Jews is difficult to ascertain. Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz said in The Jewish Response to Missionaries: “According to a 1990 Council of Jewish Federations population study, over 600,000 Jews in North America alone identify with some type of Christianity. Over the past 25 years, more than 275,000 Jews worldwide have been converted.” See www.jewsforjudaism .com/web/handbook/s_toc.html (Dec. 28, 2006). Estimates by organizations of messianic Jews are generally lower. In my interview, Michael L. Brown put the number at about one percent of the worldwide Jewish population; this would mean there are 120,000 to 140,000 messianic Jews.
20. Quoted in Kaiser, The Messiah in the Old Testament, 19; citing E. Sehmsdorf, Die Prophetenauslegung bei J. G. Eichhorn (Gottingen: Vandenhoef, 1971), 153-54; noted in Ronald E. Clements, “Messianic Prophecy or Messianic History?” Horizons in Biblical Theology 1 (1979), 87.
21. Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 14.
22. Kaplan, Real Messiah? 27.
23. Missionary Impossible, published by Jews for Judaism, www.jewsforjudaism .com/web/byg/pdf/J4J_CMSGW16.pdf (Dec. 29, 2006).
24. Ibid., 4.
25. Ibid., 16.
26. “Do All Scholars Believe Jesus Fulfilled Messianic Prophecies?” www.whois thisjesus.tv/qa.htm#scholars (Dec. 28, 2006).
27. Ibid.
28. FIRE is an acronym for Fellowship for International Revival and Evangelism.
29. See Isaiah 42:4.
30. See 2 Chronicles 7:19 - 22.
31. See Daniel 9:24.
32. See Haggai 2:6-9.
33. See Malachi 3:1 - 5.
34. For a description of the time reckoning, see Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 1, General and Historical Objections (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2000), 70 - 71.
35. See Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a.
36. Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 report Jesus saying on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the first line of Psalm 22. In Jesus’ day, the Psalms were not numbered; people referred to them by their opening line.
37. See Psalm 22:27-31.
38. See Dueteronomy 18:15 - 22.
39. Torah, which means “teaching, instruction, law,” can refer to the first division of the Tanakh (the Old Testament) or the Oral Torah, which is composed of all rabbinic traditions related to the Written Torah and various legal aspects of the Jewish life. The traditions were first passed on orally before they were written down. See Browns, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, 1:255-56.
40. See Isaiah 53:10.
41. See Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39a.
42. Ibid.
43. 1 Peter 2:24: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
44. Midrash Ha-Chafetz to Leviticus 1:12, cited in Torah Shelemah 25:17 and by Joshua Berman, The Temple: Its Symbolism and Meaning Then and Now (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1995), 126.
45. Kaplan, Real Messiah? 4, 14.
46. See Mark 14:62.
47. See Deuteronomy 4:12, 15, 35; 6:4; Isaiah 43:10 - 11, 45:5 - 6, 46:9.
48. See Exodus 33:20.
49. See Genesis 32:30.
50. See Isaiah 6:1.
51. John 1:18, RSV.
52. John 10:30.
53. See John 10:36.
54. See Colossians 2:9.
55. See Isaiah 1:11-20; Amos 5:22-24; Psalm 51:17-19; Jeremiah 7:1-10; Micah 6:6-8.
56. Missionary Impossible, 4-5. Following the practice of some Jews, this document uses G-d rather than spell out God’s name. For references to repentance, see 2 Chronicles 7:14; Ezekiel 18 and 33; Jeremiah 36:3; Isaiah 55:6-7; and Jonah 3:10.
57. Matthew 3:2.
58. Luke 5:32.
59. See Mark 6:7-13.
60. Emphasis added.
61. See 1 Samuel 15:22.
62. Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 155.
63. For an early example, see Acts 8:26-39.
64. See Psalm 44.
65. See John 1:46.
66. See Matthew 21:13. The term “den of robbers” was a reference to Jeremiah 7:11: “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? ”
67. See Acts 8:26-39.
68. See Matthew 5:39.
69. Isaiah 1:4. Isaiah also called Israel “a seed of an adulterer” in Isaiah 14:20 and “a seed of falsehood” in Isaiah 57:4.
70. “Seed” can mean: “As marked by moral quality = persons (or community) of such a quality.” See Francis Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 283.
71. For the story of Louis S. Lapides, who was raised in a Jewish home but became a follower of Jesus largely based on Isaiah 53, see Strobel, Case for Christ, 171 -87. Lapides is now the pastor of a California church and is the former president of a national network of messianic congregations.
72. See Matthew 1:22-23.
73. Rashi is an acronym for Rabbi Shlomo Yitschaki (1040-1105), considered the foremost Jewish commentator on the Tanakh (Old Testament) and Babylonian Talmud. Rashi did not personally believe that Isaiah prophesied a virgin birth. See Rabbi A. J. Rosenberg, Judaica Press Complete Tanach with Rashi, CD-ROM ed. (New York: Davka Corporation and Judaica Press, 1999).
74. See 2 Samuel 12:24 - 25.
75. See Charles A. Briggs, Messianic Prophecy (New York: Scribner’s, 1889), 326, quoted in Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 112-13.
76. See Tovia Singer, “Judaism’s Response to Christian Missionaries,” www.out reachjudaism.org/like-a-lion.html (Dec. 27, 2006).
77. See William G. Braude, Pesikta Rabbati: Homiletical Discourses for Festal Days and Special Sabbaths, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale, 1968), 680-87.
78. James E. Smith, What the Bible Teaches about the Promised Messiah (Nashville: Nelson, 1993), 146, quoted in Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 113), cited in Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 3, Messianic Prophecy Objections (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2003), 121.
79. “Did Jesus Fulfill Prophecies in Ways in Which the Jews at the Time Were Expecting?” Available at: www.whoisthisjesus.tv/qa.htm#scholars (Dec. 27,
2006).
80. Kaiser, Messiah in the Old Testament, 232.
81. Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999), 613.
82. See Robert Kittel, Theologians under Hitler (New Haven: Yale, 1985).
83. See Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Anti-Semitism (New York: Paulist, 1985).
CHALLENGE #6: “PEOPLE SHOULD BE FREE TO PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT JESUS”
1. Utne Reader (Aug. 1998).
2. Hanna Rosin, “Believers in God, If Not Church,” Washington Post (Jan. 18, 2000).
3. David Ian Miller, “Finding My Religion,” www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article .cgi?file=/g/a/2006/07/24/findrelig.DTL (Jan. 12, 2007).
4. Rosin, “Believers in God, If Not Church.”
5. James R. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Sa'vior? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
2005), 3.
6. “Mixing Religious Teachings,” CBS Poll (June 29, 2005), www.cbsnews.com/ stories/2005/06/29/opinion/polls/main705181.shtml (Jan. 4, 2007).
7. Cimino and Lattin, Shopping for Faith, 26.
8. “Mixing Religious Teachings,” CBS Poll.
9. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior? 5.
10. Rosin, “Believers in God, If Not Church.”
11. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior? 5.
12. Terry Mattingly, “Oprah and Her American Faith,” www.kitsapsun.com/bsun/ fe_religion/article/0,2403,BSUN_19075_5269707,00.html (Jan. 11, 2007).
13. Ibid. Also see Marcia Nelson, The Gospel According to Oprah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005).
14. Miller, “Finding My Religion.”
15. “The Gospel According to Oprah,” www.wfial.org/index.cfm?fuseaction =artNewAge.article_1 (Jan. 5, 2007).
16. See John 18:38.
17. Andreas Kostenberger, gen. ed., Whatever Happened to Truth? (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2005), 9.
18. See Romans 2:14 - 15.
19. See Romans 1:18-19.
20. See Luke 10:27, as well as Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:30.
21. Cited in C. S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 7.
22. For a discussion of the topic, “A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell,” see Strobel, Case for Faith, 169-94.
23. Shirley MacLaine, Out on a Limb (New York: Bantam, 1983), 347.
24. See Psalm 31:15.
25. See Keith Windschuttle, The Killing of History (San Francisco: Encounter,
2000).
26. Luke 1:3-4: “Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
27. See Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003).
28. Revised Standard Version.
29. See Matthew 7:1 -5.
30. “Straightening the Record: Some Response to Critics,” Modern Theology 6 (Jan. 1990), 187.
31. See Romans 12:19-21 and Matthew 5:43-48.
32. Bryan Appleyard, “Is Sin Good?” The Sunday Times Magazine (April 11,
2004).
33. J. Fletcher, “Sin in Contemporary Literature,” Theology Today 50.2 (1993), 254.
34. Alan Mann, Atonement for a “Sinless" Society (Waynesboro, Ga.: Paternoster,
2005), 26.
35. See Karl Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin? (New York: Hawthorn, 1973).
36. John Shelby Spong, Why Christianity Must Change or Die (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 95.
37. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior? 151.
38. See Matthew 18:21-35.
39. Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
40. John 3:14-15: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
41. See John 10:11-18.
42. See 2 Corinthians 5:18-19.
43. John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1986), 160.
44. See Romans 8:3-4.
45. Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus, but Not the Church (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2007), 30.
46. Cathleen Falsani, The God Factor (New York: Sarah Crichton, 2006), 9.
47. See Hebrews 10:24-25.
48. See Galatians 5:22-23.
49. Kostenberger, Whatever Happened to Truth? 76.
50. 1 John 5:13 (emphasis added).
CONCLUSION: “DISCOVERING THE REAL JESUS”
1. Michka Assayas, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas (New York: Riv-erhead, 2005), 206.
2. Anne Rice, “Author’s Note” in: Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (New York: Knopf,
2005), 305 - 22.
3. Ibid., 312.
4. This idea of skepticism not equaling scholarship comes from Evans, Fabricating Jesus, 17.
5. Ibid., 15.
6. Ibid., 15 - 16.
7. Ibid., 16.
8. Ibid.
9. Quotes by Charlesworth, Dunn, Meier, O’Collins, and Theissen are found in the opening, unnumbered pages of Evans, Fabricating Jesus.
10. Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 1.
11. Ibid., 2.
12. Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 2.
13. Ibid., 3.
14. Ibid., 2.
15. See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006). The quote from Wright appears on the back cover.
16. Evans, Fabricating Jesus, 17.
17. Ibid., from opening, unnumbered pages.
18. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, revised and amplified edition, 2001), 196 - 97.
19. Three verses from the New Testament book of Romans are often used to sum up the Gospel. Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 10:13: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
20. Don Everts, Jesus With Dirty Feet (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1999), 26-27.