Evidence for Jesus' Death?

On a post that I am currently guest bloggin, the conversation went to the subject of Jesus and the evidence of his death. I thought I would address this briefly. My arguments for the life and death of Jesus are not uncommon, they’ve mostly been the same for a very long time and when good arguments hold water I think we should keep using them. Therefore, the following, although not entirely cited (mostly because there are so many and I’m not sure where they originated), is taken from several sources. Also the post will not be terribly.
To start, we Christians do have evidence for the death of Jesus. Primarily the New Testament and, even more specifically, the Gospels. The Bible is at the very least an historical text. To simply say that it is not evidence for the death of Jesus is like saying it is not evidence for the life of Pontius Pilate. There needs to be sound arguments for why the text is not reliable as evidence. As I am not talking about the reliability of the New Testament I will only suggest reading scholars such as F.F. Bruce and Walter C. Kaiser for the arguments on the reliability of the Biblical Texts.
Secondly as to extra-Biblical sources, we have many. Also for the sake of space, I will point to Philip Schaaf’s work: The Person of Christ: The Miracle of History (Collection of Testomonies of Unbelievers) for a list, citation, and brief explanation of those who mention Jesus and his death.
As to the argument of Jesus surviving the crucifixion, where is the evidence for that? How does a man who is beaten to the point of not being able to carry his object to which he is later nailed, then being stabbed with a spear to make sure he is dead, then wrapped in cloth, then placed in a cold tomb able to recover from the trauma enough to not only stand, but to remove the cloth that is wrapped around him, fold the cloth that covered his face, leave the bandages (i.e. not use them to stop bleeding wounds) remove the stone that is in front of his tomb and finally to make not only his closest friends but 500 people believe that he rose from the dead. I’m guessing that he wouldn’t be to shiny after all of that. We Christians have at least the evidence above.
Finally, why would Jesus’ closest friends after seeing him in such a horrible state and recognizing that he had merely survived a horrible ordeal, go on to put there lives through torture, and ultimately death, knowing that what they were doing was a hoax. As Paul even said, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:19).
My hope is that more discussion will follow in the comments, so please comment.

Questions I have for Constructivists or those who know what it is

1. How did you construct the theory of constructivism if one of the premises of constructivism is that we can not know anything beyond our own mind?

2. What is logic?

3. Do I exist? (prove it)

4. Why is my major (education) so obsessed with a theory of learning that can not be proved to be true, otherwise it would be proved to be false?

5. Why do you do so much research if you can not actually know if what you are studying is real?

6. Although you can not explain reality, can you explain how you know that we can not know reality?


What's great is that an honest constructivist can't tell me that I'm wrong because they would be disproving what they believe. So, this is kind of an unfair fight. I may continue to add question on here, feel free to do the same.

Also, just to note: Constructivism is a learning theory and should not be confused with Relativism as a philosphy, but Constructivism does have roots in Relativism.

FUNdies

I just came across this post by John Piper. He definitely makes a great point and makes me think about times when I've taken potshots at fundamentalists. I find the last one humorous (albeit, with a point). My guess, and only my guess, is that he is not referring to Fred Phelps and the such.

20 Reasons I Don't Take Potshots at FundamentalistsJune 2, 2008 By: John Piper Category: Commentary
1. They are humble and respectful and courteous and even funny (the ones I've met).
2. They believe in truth.
3. They believe that truth really matters.
4. They believe that the Bible is true, all of it.
5. They know that the Bible calls for some kind of separation from the world.
6. They have backbone and are not prone to compromise principle.
7. They put obedience to Jesus above the approval of man (even though they fall short, like others).
8. They believe in hell and are loving enough to warn people about it.
9. They believe in heaven and sing about how good it will be to go there.
10. Their "social action" is helping the person next door (like Jesus), which doesn't usually get written up in the newspaper.
11. They tend to raise law-abiding, chaste children, in spite of the fact that Barna says evangelical kids in general don't have any better track record than non-Christians.
12. They resist trendiness.
13. They don’t think too much is gained by sounding hip.
14. They may not be hip, but they don’t go so far as to drive buggies or insist on typewriters.
15. They still sing hymns.
16. They are not breathless about being accepted in the scholarly guild.
17. They give some contemporary plausibility to New Testament claim that the church is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth.”
18. They are good for the rest of evangelicals because of all this.
19. My dad was one.
20. Everybody to my left thinks I am one. And there are a lot of people to my left.

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1251_20_Reasons_I_Dont_Take_Potshots_at_Fundamentalists/

"The Lord is King," a hymn by Josiah Conder

It's been a long time since I've posted anything, and it would not be fair to call this a "hymn of the week," but it is a gorgeous hymn proclaiming the sovereignty and power of the Lord of Glory, and I thought it was worth sharing.

The Lord is King
By: Josiah Conder

The Lord is King! lift up thy voice,
O earth; and all ye heav’ns, rejoice!
From world to world the joy shall ring,
“The Lord omnipotent is King.”

The Lord is King! who then shall dare
Resist His will, distrust His care,
Or murmur at His wise decrees,
Or doubt His royal promises?

The Lord is King! Child of the dust,
The Judge of all the earth is just;
Holy and true are all His ways;
Let every creature speak His praise.

O when His wisdom can mistake,
His might decay, His love forsake,
Then may His children cease to sing,
“The Lord omnipotent is King!”

Alike pervaded by His eye,
All parts of His dominion lie;
This world of ours, and worlds unseen,
And thin the boundary between.

He reigns! ye saints, exalt your strains;
Your God is King, your Father reigns;
And He is at the Father’s side,
The Man of love, the Crucified.

Come, make your wants, your burdens known;
He will present them at the throne;
And angel bands are waiting there
His messages of love to bear.

One Lord, one empire, all secures;
He reigns, and life and death are yours:
Through earth and Heav’n shall ring,
“The Lord omnipotent is King!”

No Distinctions

We were all equally dead and we are now all equally alive. Sometimes what we see is that the outplaying of our being dead is greater than others and the outplaying of our being alive is greater than others.
Example:

A child is born into a Christian family and hears the gospel while growing up. He is reborn at an early age and grows up in the Spirit of the Lord for his whole life; he leads Bible studies, prays and studies everyday, witnesses to everyone he knows and meets, and later plants and pastors a church.

Down the road is a man who has served time in jail for murder, raped women, done drugs, sold drugs, curses everyday, and can’t get through the day without getting drunk first. This man is reborn through Christ Jesus, stops living the life he is living; he begins going to church, reading and studying Scripture, prays everyday, witnesses to everyone he knows and meets, and later plants and pastors a church.

Was the second man more dead than the first? Did the second man become more alive than the first? No. I cannot think of any instance where someone in a grave is more dead than the guy a plot over. We were all equally spiritually dead and we are all equally spiritually alive.

Now, from our perspective we see a greater change in actions from the second man than the first, but, the change in a person’s heart from dead to alive is the same. There is no in-between dead and alive… there is either dead or alive. You are either dead in sin or alive in Christ.

There is no such thing as a boring testimony. If you have bee reborn in the Spirit, then your spiritual self has gone from death to life: just as Christ died physically and rose from the dead to life physically, so have you been raised from the dead.

God takes dead people and makes them alive. Nothing we do or say can in any way affect our deadness or aliveness, only God can do this. This is why all the glory is God's and none of it is ours.

The Loss of Rural Schools

We cannot afford to loose the benefits and identity that come from rural communities in America. Also, we cannot keep under funding and taking away opportunities from 40% of our Nation’s children. How then do we keep the rural communities and not hinder students?

I love that I grew up in a small town where everyone knows you and is looking out for you. People take a genuine interest in you and your education. The first time I learned to count back change was working at the grocery store. I am a fan of the small towns of America. Granted, small towns do have their downsides but I still feel they play an integral part of our society. According to the National Education Association,

“Rural schools serve over 40 percent of our nation’s students, but receive only 22 percent of federal education funding (http://www.nea.org/rural/index.html).”

Why is there so little funding for almost half the students in America?

One of the downsides to rural schools is the lack of opportunities. If you’re lucky, you grow up knowing what debate is (not just yelling at the kid across the room), what it’s like to act, that school offers more than three sports, what it’s like having computers that were built in the current decade, knowing that you can learn another language, and the biggest of all: being prepared for higher education. Out of my graduating class of 24, only two graduated from technical schools and five of us are still on the path to graduating from universities and the two who went to technical schools were prepared for the education by their home lives.

According to the National Education Association:

"Rural schools face formidable challenges in continuing to provide high-quality education. While rural and small town schools have many of the same needs as other schools, they often face different challenges based on their unique characteristics. Approximately 100 small rural public schools close each year; small rural districts are closing at a rate of 80 per year. Funding deficiencies, lack of programs targeted to students with special needs, difficulties in recruitment and retention of teachers, and inadequate facilities are among the challenges facing rural schools(http://www.nea.org/rural/lacpapers-rural.html)."

Some may look at this and think that because of a lack of funding for rural schools, thereby lessening opportunities; it is good that the schools are closing because the students will then attend a school that is better (a "survival of the fittest" for schools). The problem is that by closing rural schools and having students go to larger schools the students loose something.

Some may say that places such as my home state, South Dakota, have the right idea. The state government has made Senate Bill 157 law, which forces schools with fewer than 100 students to consolidate by June 30th, 2009 or the state will choose what to do with them. The solution here is to close several schools and force students to go to another school district (which for the majority of South Dakotans means another county). The impact that this could have is bad for the community that is loosing the school along with the families who will move closer to their new school district.

I do not believe several consolidations of schools is the answer. Instead of replacing numerous smaller communities with a small number of large communities, we should work to preserve the good attributes of smaller communities in the teaching of children about good social behavior and diminish the faults of fewer opportunities due to under funding.

"Rural schools tend to be smaller in size than their suburban or urban counterparts, with smaller class sizes and more interaction among faculty, students, and parents. Rural school districts are often the largest single employer in their area and rural schools serve as the social, recreational, and cultural foundation of their communities. Smaller classes and greater community involvement have resulted in higher average student achievement scores, higher graduation rates, and greater involvement in extracurricular activities among rural students. In addition, rural communities have launched a number of annovative strategies that have promise for all schools – including cooperative learning, site-based management, multi-grade classrooms, resource consolidation, regional consortia, distance education, community involvement, and cross-disciplinary course work and teaching(http://www.nea.org/rural/lacpapers-rural.html)."

When rural schools close and students are forced to move to another school, parents usually must move to the new town. With the migration of so many families out of a rural community business is lost and the economy of the community may drop dramatically.

The problem of fewer opportunities and under funding for rural schools needs to be fought on a few different fronts:

1. Parents need to take an active role in their children’s education (working with teachers, sponsoring events, volunteering for extra-curricular activities).
2. The local community needs to also be active in student’s education (volunteering, supporting events and programs financially and with their time, ets…)
3. Statewide support of all schools.
4. Our nation needs to act on giving the proper funding to schools (the people, not the government).
5. The Government needs to financially support the education system as a whole (not allow only 22% of funding to go to 40% of our nation’s children). Children ought to have equal opportunities to learn.

A Thanksgiving Hymn

This is all reposted from the Indeliblog. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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In honor of Thanksgiving I thought I would post this background to a great Thanksgiving hymn “Now Thank We All Our God” by Martin Rinkart (A 17th century German hymnwriter). The following is from Catherine Winkworth’s “Christian SIngers Of Germnay.” She is the one who translated the hymn in the 19th century.

This classic hymn was written by a pastor (Martin Rinkart) who suffered greatly through the 30 Years War in Germany during which (through war and famine) 4/5 of the population of Germany died. He himself was in extreme poverty and when the pastors of his 2 neighboring towns died he ended up having to do the work of 3 pastors, burying 4,000 people in 1637 (50 per day!) - including his wife - when the plague hit. This was followed by a famine so severe that 30-40 people could be seen in streets fighting to the death over the corpse of a dead cat. And then right after this the Swedes invaded and demanded a ridiculous amount of money in tribute. The story goes that he went to intercede with the Swedish commander to reduce the tribute and the commander refused. At this point Rinkart turned to the crowd that was with him and said “Come my children, we can find no hearing, no mercy with men. Let us take refuge with God.” he then fell to his knees and prayed with such pathos that the commander reduced the tribute from $30,000 to $2,000. He wrote this hymn in 1644, 4 years before the Peace of Westphalia that ended the War in 1648.

Here is the text:

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

"A Mighty Fortress is Our God" -- Mikes Hymn o' the week for Friday, Nov. 1, 2007

In honor of the recently-passed Reformation Day, I present what many have called The Battle Hymn of the Reformation, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," by Martin Luther (tr. by Frederic H. Hedge).

A Mighty Fortress is Our God
by Martin Luther

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.