Let's look at some of the current "scholars" of the Bible:

Elaine Pagels believes that Paul was Gnostic (like she is), and anything anti-gnotic is not Pauline.

Marcus Borg (a panentheist mystic) concludes through his unique hermeneutic that Jesus was a Jewish Mystic.

Jesus was a tolerant, inclusive, liberator based on the distinctive research of liberal John Domonic Crossan.

Proponents of the New Perspectives on Paul conclude that books of the Bible that go against their perspective are not really Pauline.

The naturalistic Jesus Seminar concludes that the words of Jesus cannot be prophetic since prophecy can't happen in a natural world.  

Examples like this are abound within the liberal and skeptical community. That based on the presuppositions and assumptions scholars come to a conclusion that is less than biblical, that Jesus or Paul was not the Jesus or Paul the Bible says. They recreate the message of the Bible based on what they seemingly want the Bible to say. Usually the God they develop based on their research usually matches the philosophy they have already come to. Like the Jesus Seminar or Elaine Pagel, parts of the Bible are not original or parts of the Bible are missing (like the Gospel of Thomas). Adding and removing the words from Scripture you can form whatever you want the Bible to say.

We are to come to the Bible as a whole and allow it to speak to us about God. Not to use strange hermeneutics, to slice and dice the Bible based on assumptions, or to assume a certain philosophy then judge the Bible on that philosophy. These scholars create a God in their own image.

This is a complete reversal of the philosophy of the Bible. The Scriptures are God revealing Himself to mankind. That humans are a creation that need to live, act, and think a certain way. That God doesn't change and that we are to come under His authority as our creator. We are made in His image (Gen 1:26) and are to be made into the likeness of His Son (Romans 8:28-29).

Yes we have a theology that is named after him, "Calvinism", but he was much more. He was a great commentator, theologian, and pastor. God has used Calvin in a way that has had a huge impact on the church. We thank God for these giants of the faith that through thier ministry we can be edified and comforted.

"How can you say Christ is the only way?"

"You are saying anyone but people who are just like you go to Hell?"

"How arrogant!"

These types of claims are usually responded to by the Christian with authority claims. Instead of using the opportunity many Christians respond by saying "well Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life", or by saying "it says in Acts that His is the only name under Heaven..." These are good responses, for the Word of the Lord does not return void. There is nothing wrong with authority claims if the authority is Scripture.

But I think that we could use this opportunity rather to proclaim the Gospel. What if Christians were to instead turn this criticism into a chance to proclaim the Gospel? I think Christians do not do this now because we, as a whole, lack any real doctrine of atonement. We do not know, or want to ignore, the truths of sin, or do not have a firm grasp on how Christ is a substitute. But what if we could use the opportunity, that instead of just making an authority claim we claim Christ with authority?

When we hear the criticism: "How can Christ be the only way?" We can respond "because Christ is the only sin bearer. Everyone is sinful, everyone deserves God's wrath. But Christ lived a perfect life to fulfill Gods need for holiness, died the perfect death as a substitutionary death, and rose again to eternal life as we will." Instead of saying "because the Bible says so" and seemingly being a "Bible Pounder" we can explain to them why Christ is the only way, because He is the only way that we can have our sins forgiven.

The criticism comes from the idea that everyone is good enough for Heaven, and all religions are more or less the same. So if we turn that on its head, show that everyone is under God's wrath and that Christianity is unique in how it deals with the sin problem, the criticism loses its bite. But this requires that us Christians have a better grasp of what the Good News really is.

Thinking of this term, “faith versus reason” is actually very prideful in its use. It is presuming that belief is inherently irrational and the unbelief is somehow more reasonable. It is a passing “low blow” at believers when it is used in this way. Why is it assumed that the faithful are irrational? Can’t faith be rational? Why is it assumed that one must “check their brains at the door” of a church?

In fact, I think this happens because believers have very poorly defined the word “faith”. Often we here terms like “just believe” or “it is by faith” or “give God a try” from the mouths of believers. The faithful themselves have painted this false dichotomy and it has come back to bite them. Using these types of terms, and defining “faith” in this way, gives ammo to the critical unbeliever.

Christians need to stop using this language or presenting the faith in this way. I think the Church needs to recognize and act as what they believe is reasonable. In fact, many theologians and philosophers would argue that you need to have belief in God in order to even have reason, that God Himself is the foundation for logic and rationality. Look at this part from the famous Bahnsen and Stein debate:

Stein: Is mathematics either atheistic or theistic?
Bahnsen: Foundations of mathematics, yes.
Stein: Which?
Bahnsen: Theistic.
Stein: Theistic?
Bahnsen: Christian theistic.
Stein: How do you figure that?
Bahnsen: From the impossibility of the contrary. No other world view can justify the laws of mathematics or of logic, because no other world view can account for universal invariant, abstract entities such as them.

Bahnsen argues that we do not even have a foundation for rationality without God. This is a far cry from “blind faith”, this is a faith that is based on something, a faith that has a grounding and can stand under fire. Christians have let the unbelievers define the debate and frame it is such a way that the assumption is that faith is irrational, as it only follows that we lose the debate.

Bahnsen goes onto argue, rightly, that the materialist worldview is bankrupt. Since the materialist is stuck in a material world they have no foundation for immaterial things like God, souls, Spirit, and logic. The materialist position inherently denies logic and reason. Look at this clip from the same debate:

Bahnsen: “Do you believe there are laws of logic, then?”
Stein: “Absolutely.”
Bahnsen: “Are they universal?”
Stein: “They’re agreed upon by human beings. They aren’t laws that exist out in nature. They’re consnsual.”
Bahnsen: “Are they simply conventions. Then?”
Stein: “They are conventions, but they are conventions that are self verifying.”
Bahnsen: “Are they sociological laws or laws of thought?”
Stein: “They are laws of thought which are interpreted by men and promulgated by men.”
Bahnsen: “Are they material in nature?”
Stein: “How can a law be material in nature?”
Bahnsen: “That’s a question I am going to ask you.”
Stein: “I would say no.”
Moderator: “Dr. Stein, you now have an opportunity to cross-examine Dr. Bahnsen”
Stein: “Dr. Bahnsen, would you call God material or immaterial?”
Bahnsen: “Immaterial.”
Stein: “What is something that is immaterial?”
Bahnsen: “Something not extended in space.”
Stein: “Can you give me an example of anything other then God that is immaterial?”
Bahnsen: “The laws of logic.”
Moderator: “I am going to have to ask the audience to hold it down please. Please. Refrain from laughter and applause. Can you hold that down please?”

Christian “faith” is not defined as “blind” and is “a reasonable trust in someone or something”. So for someone to say that “faith” is “blind” is a contradiction, it is saying “trusting something with reason without reason”. And the reason we can have faith, or trust, in God is because He has proven Himself faithful.

This is not only personal, that we see God change people’s lives for thousands of years, or that He has been faithful in our personal lives today. He has also delivered the Jews from Egypt, He gave them the land of Israel, and most importantly He has demonstrated His love for us with Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This is the ultimate seal of God’s promise, we can trust Him because of the truth of Christ.

In other words, faith is not opposed to reason and the people who inherently place them in opposition are simply being… unreasonable.

- It is frustrating that Geisler changes the meaning of words that have been used throughout history. He calls normal “Calvinism” “Extreme Calvinism”, “Open Theism” becomes “Extreme Arminianism”, he calls his modified Wesleyanism “Moderate Calvinism”, and there is no discussion of true “Extreme Calvinism”.

- There seems to be a lack of in-depth exegesis. I love commentaries and hearing how people interpret passages of Scripture, this is more or less lacking in this work.

- His conclusion is simply not well spelt out. He doesn’t, that I recall, spell out how He reconciles the issues of human free will or God’s eternal decrees. He simply affirms sovereignty and free will together without any discussion of compatibilism or similar theories.

- On that note, it seemed to me that Geisler simply holds that God knowing the future means that He is sovereign over that future. His view truly belittles what he spends the whole first chapter showing, God is sovereign.

- His often used defense of free will is flawed. He says that if someone attempts to deny free will they are affirming it since they are freely denying it, thus the denier is inconsistent. It might just have well be ordained that the denier of free-will deny free will, he is arguing in a circle.

- Likewise, one of his criticisms of determinism is that the determinist wants the person who affirms free will to change their mind is inconsistent since changing of the mind is a free act. This again assumes that it can’t be determined that the arguments of a determinist be used to change the mind of one who holds free will.

- The oft used argument that “God is good therefore wants all to be saved equally” is flawed. God is good when He punishes sin. In fact it is glorifying to Him when He brings His wrath to bear.

- He holds to Perserverence of the Saints but denies the other 4 points. But on what foundation? If someone is free to accept or reject God, then that freedom will continue even after they accept Christ. This is especially inconsistent since Geisler seems to think that free will is a great gift from God.

- Dr. Geisler has a special dislike of Limited Atonement, yet affirms substitutionary atonement, which usually go hand in hand.

These are my first thoughts after finishing the book. I plan on reading Dr. James Whites The Potter’s Freedom next, which was written as a rebuttal to Chosen But Free, but have not done so yet. I would really not recommend Geisler’s work here, it simply has too many errors and is not as definitive as it claims to be.

Here is my next question:

Is the Bible inerrant?

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I was posting this blog entry when I realized that I used the Kettering article as the basis for my Inerrancy article in the General Apologetics section of this website. So instead of re-posting the same material I will just link to the finished Didaskalia article:

http://didaskalia.org/innerancy.asp

Although a part of the original article that is no long there is the conclusion, which I will add a modified version of here:

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The natural response by a skeptic to an article like this is to do one of two things. Either find websites that have lists of Bible problems or to give some problems themselves (probably copied and pasted from aforementioned websites). If the reader is interested they can open Google on their own and find the lists and (if they click the next link) probably find the solution. When many critics point out an apparent problems they are assuming that Christians are stupid and we have never heard of the "problem" before. Also, to simply provide mindless lists of contradictions without a better argument is not the job of a scholar. Finally, to say that honest Christian apologists do not have answers to these is wrong. There are scores of books written answering these apparent dilemmas. Simply finding Bible problems and believing that this definitively shows the Bible is wrong without allowing for a response is to show that you are both too lazy and too hard-hearted to search for and allow a solution.

Here is my next question:

Given the mutual exclusivity of most faiths, how can strong, devoted adherents of different faiths coexist peacefully at all?  Is it right for adherents of one faith to attempt to "convert" those of another?

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This is a good question, actually. And seemingly more relevant today than in times past, especially with the clash of cultures that we are experiencing with the new communication and transportation technologies, not to mention the war on terror which can be confused as a religious war. Can't we all just get along? And the answer to this is… this is a tough question.

To give a quip answer, "yes, we can all just get along, it is logically possible". If certain people and thinkers had their way then we would all be sitting around a large campfire, holding hands, and singing inoffensive songs likened to Kumbaya (of course without the "my Lord" references since that would offend someone). But since I do not see too many people doing that (not even myself), then the answer is no, we can't just get along.

But then again, it depends on what we mean by "just getting along". Like I just said, if getting along means holding hands and swaying back and forth while doing inaudible chants, then no. But if getting along means living peacefully then I think it is possible, yes we can just get along. Unless a person or group of people that we need to play nice with refuses to do so. We can all just get along if people lay aside the part of their beliefs that tell them not to get along.

So there are two things going on here. One is that religion is… now get this, this is key… that religion is important. These are matters of Heaven and Hell, where are you going to spend eternity? if anywhere? If there is an all knowing, all powerful, omnipresent, creator that puts demands on our lives and will judge us, and this judgment effects eternity, then this is no small matter. So asking if we can all just get along means that we have to lay down the most important thing in our lives, clearly we can not. Secondly is what each person's religion demands of us. If a religion demands for us to not get along, then we won't.

In fact, in order for us to all just get along around that campfire, we need to lay aside religion. If the biggest point of controversy that divides us is religion, then in order to just get along means we have to belittle religion. I think it is funny that those who hate religion, those are directly opposed to God, those who think that religion poisons everything, usually use an argument about religion causing strife. And their only solution that they offer is to destroy or belittle all religion.

To some sense I think that the post-modern shift, the denial of truth, is to destroy the sting of religion. If you can deny ultimate truth, or at least deny that there is one true religion, then there is a sense in where we no longer have to meet those demands. If people no longer worked to meet the demands of their god then we could all just get along. I have heard time and again that it seems arrogant to think that religion is nothing more than mere opinion, I have heard that if anyone makes a claim to truth then it is just pride (the funny thing about that is that when that accusation arises they are making truth claims as well). So if we make religion nothing more than opinion then we can put it down and regard it as such. It is usually ignored that if all God gets relegated is mere opinion, then there is no religious truth. To these people picking a faith is like picking your favorite ice cream flavor. To be post-modernist is to be agnostic at best because nothing is more than opinion. But because religionists are making what they consider truth claims, then the severity is different. There are truths to these questions that are asked by religions. God either does or does not exist, Jesus either is or is not the messiah, and to relegate these life-changing questions to mere opinion is to a horrible disservice, mainly to the post-modernist.

So since these are truth claims, and since these are important truth claims that have an eternal impact, it is foolish to think as post-modernists do. I have heard it quipped that we shouldn't be so open minded that our brains fall out… I agree. So can't we all just get along?

We could get along, if our convictions allow us to get along. Since there is no putting the convictions away, we need to look at the specific claims that each faith makes. I feel that this is where many go wrong. Modern atheist thinkers like to group peaceful Christians, like myself, along with fundamentalist Muslims. And, unfortunately, Christians lump peaceful Muslims with the kind that like to play with bombs. That is an unfair generalization since the worldview for each person is different. I am not a fundamentalist Muslim. I have no desire to do violence for my religion, I do not feel that Christianity teaches that we should do violence for our faith. So instead of lumping all religions together as one evil thing, we need to separate it out and look at each group. In order for us to get along, our convictions must allow us to just get along.

What does "just getting along" mean? If you want it to mean a hippy type of universal and free love then I think it is absurd to think it can happen. If getting along means we must agree, then it is also ill placed since it is clear that people disagree… even on the smallest details (Reformed theologians actually argue about the order of God's thoughts in creation… yes, we argue over the God's thought process… maybe we have nothing better to do?...I dunno… but the point is, we all disagree). So we can never get along if it means we all must agree. Does "just getting along" mean we simply co-exist without hurting each other? Again, this boils down to what people's convictions are.

And I think it is important that we reclaim the definition of "tolerance". People who believe that there is a thing as Truth get called intolerant. Even if the person never does anything hateful, just the fact they have an exclusive belief they are considered intolerant. This is not the historical definition of the term. Tolerant used to mean to "live with the other person respectfully, even with disagreement". It has been redefined as "holding hands and singing a secular version of Kumbaya", or "having no exclusive beliefs at all". Then this redefined term has been used as a whipping stick against those who do not conform to this new image. I consider myself tolerant, not because I have a camping trip planned this weekend, but because I listen and respect other points of views, even if I speak out against them. As long as I can disagree respectively, present my disagreement in a respectful manner, and not attempt to physically hurt the person or their family, then I think I am being tolerant. I am tolerating that someone is not… well, me. So I think we are getting closer to what we need to do to "just get along".

We can't all be forced to agree, nor can we be forced to ignore the most important things in life, nor can we deny their importance. So we must respectfully disagree, and not forfeit our convictions and truth claims. (Now I am not saying that we shouldn't ever change our mind based on better evidence, I am not suggesting a hard headedness).

If a religion teaches tolerance (not the campfire kind, but the respectfully disagree kind), the those people can be tolerant. If a religion teaches violence, then tolerance is not accepted.

I feel that true Christian conviction teaches love, even those you disagree with. Yes, there are so-called Christians who perform stupid or violent acts, but they are not following what Christianity really teaches. So another distinction that needs to be made is what the religion actually teaches and what people actually do, these are two different things. If a person is not acting out of love, then they are not acting according to Christ. Christians should defend the Christian faith, and attempt to spread it, but do so peacefully. Not once is the faith of God actually spread by the sword in the Bible (now all of you who are going to cry wolf need to be reminded that the Jews entering Canaan was not an evangelistic attempt, it was punishment and promise), Christ teaches us to evangelize with proclamation of forgiveness of sins.

Now some Christian groups do not do that right, I would be hard pressed to say that they are following Christ. But even worse is that there are religions that teach violence. I feel that true Islam is one of them (I am not saying that all Muslims are violent, there are those that are peace-loving.). A systematic look at the Koran will show that the teachings of Mohammed were contradictory unless you place them in historical context. One place in the Koran it states that Muslims should get along with "people of the book" and that there is "no compulsion in religion". But other times it teaches that believing that Christ is Lord is "shirk" and they should "behead the infidels". These seemingly contradictory statements are explained by realizing the time period that Mohammed was writing them. The peaceful statements occurred early on in his ministry before there was any political or religious disagreement. But as he felt more pressure and felt threatened the violent passages were revealed. The Koran also teaches that latter revelation triumphs older revelation. So you put it together.

Since there are people who feel that violence and true intolerance are ordained by God we will never all "just get along." Nor am I saying Christians have a perfect track record, but I feel that those times are not in obedience to Christ. So I feel that Christians should act in accordance with Christianity and be peaceful. But we can not control, and should not be lumped with, other violent people who feel that hatred is ordained by God.

So the answer to the open ended "can't we all just get along?" is "no, we can't". But the better question is "can we tolerate each other?" I think this is best answered by asking who we are talking to. A Christian should answer "yes, I can tolerate others". I will let the people of other convictions speak, and act, for themselves.

So the second part of this question was if people have the right to evangelize. I would obviously say yes. In fact I would argue we have the responsibility to. First and foremost every religion teaches evangelization to some degree, so it is ordained by every god to evangelize. To deny a person from the right to spread their faith is to deny a central tenant of that faith. Therefore any loyal Christian should be looking for opportunities to share. And like the whole discussion above states, we should do so in a peaceful way.

Also, if these are topics of Heaven and Hell, eternity and ultimate truth, then we have a responsibility to other to proclaim the Gospel. In fact the least loving thing we can do is not proclaim because the lack of proclamation means that people are for sure not saved. So it is out of the deepest respect for others that we feel we should evangelize. Our motives should be out of love and wanting to share the message of truth. Too many times Christians (myself included) get wrapped up in "being right" that you win the argument but lose the person. If we are acting out of love, then our actions should reflect that. Which means that we do evangelize openly, but lovingly. And this does NOT exclude defending the faith with apologetics or philosophy, just we need to do it out of love. And this also doesn't exclude showing that other faiths are wrong with polemics, just must do so with the right intention and respect.
If I am right that Christianity is a peaceful religion, then the spreading of it should bring about more peace. So there should be a social responsibility to so do as well.

And finally, although not least, if Christianity is true, as in the facts that compose the Christian faith reflect reality, then we have the responsibility to teach it. Like a teacher has the responsibility to mark a student's paper wrong if they say 2+2=5. Christians, know the "right answer" should want to correct people just for truth's sake. Why should we allow people to be ignorant of truth? And like I mentioned above, believing a lie about God can result in more than a small red "x" on a piece of paper. This truth is one that needs to be shared, and any wrong answer should be corrected. There is no value in believing in falsehoods, and Christians should help educate people.

Basically, as Christians we should desire to spread our faith. And out of obedience we should do so. But in relationship to the first question, we should do so peacefully and out of love.

Thanks for your patience

God Bless!

Here is my next question:

What is the history of the modern Biblical canon? Since books were selected or ignored by men, how can we be sure of its authority (by extension, why do Pauls letters hold authority while the Book of Mormon or the Koran do not, since they also were revelations to man)?

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I decided to use the article I wrote and use it as a main article for the website. The article can be found here: http://didaskalia.org/canon.asp

Although I will give the addendum to the original articlein this blog post.

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Addendum

Concerning the problem with other NT texts, such as the Gnostic Gospels there are a couple quick points. If we cannot trace the Gnostic texts to the teachings of Jesus or the apostles then we have no reason for believing they are for the church. Historically speaking, if Gnosticism is not an early form of the church then we shouldnt think they are authoritative. It is these Gnostic texts that are usually considered the "Lost Gospels" or the Gospels that were in competition with the canonical texts to be put into the Bible.

1) The Gnostic texts are clearly later than the New Testament writings. The internal evidence, such as the language used and the philosophy taught, are from a later date. There were certain words and phrases not used in the 1 century that appear in the Gnostic Gospels. This would be like if you found a writing with the word dude in it referring a friend, you can be sure it is not from the 18th century. The same with these texts, they have language that is not common to 1 century AD.

2) The teachings of the Gnostic Gospels are in no way consistent with either the earlier New Testament books or any of the OT books. If Jesus and the apostles were Jews and God doesnt change then we should recognize that later revelation from God should be consistent with earlier revelation. Gnosticism is a wholly different system and is NOT in any way consistent with the Jewish God or who Jesus would be. Gnosticism has gone as far to say that the Old Testament God is not the true god, but rather an lesser being.

3) Archeologically speaking we have no reason to believe an early date for any of the Gnostic texts, not even Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. The earliest manuscripts we have for any Gnostic text is late second century. We have earlier manuscripts of the NT writings like a scrap of the Gospel of John dated about 110.

4) The church fathers specifically argued against Gnosticism. We can find a direct relationship between the orthodox church of history and the apostles. The church fathers can easily be traced (in writing and teaching) to the apostolic fathers, who are easily traced to the apostles. The Gnostics share no such lineage, and do not have a same consistent line of teaching that the church shares. The traditions of the NT canon are kept and used to argue against Gnosticism. The Gnostic texts are not reliable either by history or lineage to Jesus and His teachings.

5) Related to 4, the early church argued against the Gnostics but not until the late second early third century. Since the early church was not aware of the competing faith, what is to say it existed? It seems that the church would fight against Gnosticism if it existed, but since there is no evidence of an early battle, we can assume there wasnt one. When we argue this point though, we have to understand that full-fledged mature Gnosticism with a written library is not the same as proto-gnosticism. Proto-gnosticm can possibly be seen as an enemy of the early church and is possibly what some of the NT authors are writing against. But this proto-gnosticism is more of a Platonism with Jesus imported and is not the full fledged Gnosticism we see much later.

6) We see that the church has not, in large, accepted any of the Gnostic texts. If the people of God know the words of God then the Gnostic texts are not the words of God.

7) If God has a purpose is preserving His Word for His church, and the Gnostic church disappeared along with the writings for 1500 years then God has failed to keep His Word and His people if the Gnosticism was true. But since Gods plan cannot fail, and He has written His word for his people, we can say that Gnosticism is not the church established by Christ.

Since the later Gnostic texts do not go back to the apostles or Jesus, they are less reliable historically, and are not consistent with other Biblical teachings we can count them out of the canon. Here are some more specifics:

Gospel Thomas

This is the golden boy for Gnostics, if GThom falls then Gnosticism fails to be related to Christ in any real way. Also recognizing that GThom is not a part of the canon would refute much of what the Jesus Seminar has done.

Internal evidence shows that it is not consistent with Biblical teachings, plus the specific language used is second century, not first. There is also no archeological evidence to place the Gospel of Thomas as early enough to have relationship with the teachings of Christ and the apostles.

Further, the fact that the Gospel of Thomas (GThom) quotes all four gospels and other NT writings show that the author has knowledge of all the texts. Because of the limitations present in the early church it was rare, if not impossible, for a single church to have the whole NT. So for GThom to quote extensively from a larger portion of the NT shows it is probably later when there was a better chance of the author having accessibility to more of the NT, which could have only occurred in the late second century.

To help place GThom late we look at the Coptic version (which is argued to be earlier than the Greek) and we see that it quote specifically the Coptic version of the New Testament that was not translated until 175 (this is a set date). So GThom, if quoting the Coptic NT, must be later then the Coptic NT, thus later than 175. Also, since the original New Testament is written in Greek, and GThom is from the Coptic, we know that GThom is not a source for the other Gospels, but vice-versa.

The Gospel of Mary

This writing was not even a problem until Dan Brown used it in his fiction novel The DaVinci Code.

The Gospel of Mary is not a fully Gnostic text, it related better to proto-gnosticism and was most likely written as an apologetic to allow women in teaching positions. It is dated mid-second century (no debate to this amongst scholars), and the theme was actually to argue against Pauls rules of who should lead the church. So this writing is not theologically accurate and has no historical backing.

The idea that it teaches that Jesus and Mary were married is also lacking, the Gospel is very fragmentary and to come to the conclusion of their marriage is to make several logical leaps.

Secret Mark

This Gospel is most likely a fraud that was developed in the 20th century. The only manuscript has disappeared and therefore cant be tested. The person who supposedly discovered it, Morton Smith, is a known fraud.

Gospel of Judas

The newest member of the Fake-Gospel family, this one made news in 2006.

We have one copy of this that carbon dates to early fourth century, although the original was probably written about the same time as GThom. Irenaus specifically argues against this text and calls it a "fictitious history". There is no real reason to give this any historical or theological weight, and most scholars would agree.

There are more Gnostic texts than these, but they all follow the same pattern. They are anachronistic, inconsistent, and ahistorical. The New Testament canon is what we have for good reason. I would actually say that Gnosticism is a totally different religion than Christianity and should not be considered another flavor or sect of the same faith. God has not inspired or made these texts available to the church at large for the better part of church history, and to argue that they are intended to found our faith would say that God failed.

I would like to thank my friends who have supported me over the last few years, my family who have helped me through the tough times, and the professors of the seminary who have taken time to work with me. Without these people that God placed in my life my time at seminary would have been much more difficult. But I would like to thank God for His grace in this process, I truly feel that His hand led me to this seminary for the experience and life I have lived there.

Now as I go forward with my degree I pray that I can honor God and His word with some of the lessons and doctrine I learned at MTS. I hope that I am able to be used of God to edify and build His church for His glory!