A interesting, but exciting conversation with my best friend
I seem to just ATTRACT people with intellectual doubts about Christianity to my side. This is the 6th or 7th time! I seriously think this is a sign (lol) from God that I need to brush up on my Christian knowledge.But anyhooz, my best friend took a "Christian Tradition (or rather Christian History)" class at Dartmouth, and she came back really unsettled. How could I tell? Well like 5 minutes after I came to visit her (who I hadn't seen in 5 months), she exclaimed that she just took a religious class and asked me what I thought of Jesus destroying the temple (why did he do it? What's wrong with sacrifices?(there's plenty of it in the old testament)), that she didn't believe in the New Testament because the early gospels were spread by "oral tradition" (like "telephone" and we know how many errors that can cause!), that she couldn't understand why Christians got all anti-semitic (what's wrong with the Jews?), and that she liked the morals displayed in the old testament but she didn't believe in God.
Hm. I think this time I handled it better than all the previous times I had conversed with people who had intellectual doubts. I think mainly it was because I had prayed to God for opportunities like this to talk about Christianity with her, and when it happened today, I just felt humbled and gracious that God would give me this chance. Secondly, I love her so much =) And because of that, I was even less prone to arrogance or pride. Third, I was just happy that she TOOK the initiative to request an explanation to her doubts! Boy I'm proud of her. It would be worse if she had an indifferent attitude to this. And so I had no unstated expectations whatsoever.
I answered her questions to the best of my abilities. Now I got stumped at the part about the "oral tradition" and how that screws up some of the validity of the earliest manuscripts of the gospel. (especially when she brought up the "telephone" analogy) Now I definitely played telephone before and I know the results of that game. But how could I answer a question like that without bringing up the holy spirit? I even mentioned to her that there were more than 100,000 manuscripts (or even more...) found, and that MOST, if not all, of the manuscripts did not deviate from the truth of the gospel. I even said that the time frame between Jesus's ressurection and the earliest manuscript is TINY! (50 years was it?). But her argument was that "alot can happen during 50 years," and so I mentioned what I learned in Course 101 about the timeframes of other old manuscripts that we have determined to be "true" like Odyssey's Iliad that were MUCH MUCH BIGGER. Still she concluded: "because the gospel was initially spread through oral tradition, much of the gospel we have now could be erroneous, and so I do not believe in the New Testament."
Aish. My best friend also has a good friend in Dartmouth who's Jewish. She doesn't like the fact that Christians are so "anti-jew." Hm...wait a minute...what? My FDA supervisor is Jewish! And we get along like Grandpa and Granddaughter! Really! Okay, well here's the question: What are the differences between Judaism and Christianity? Was it just that they did not believe Christ was divine?
P.S And yes I will post up pictures of my hair hehe :p hahaha you'll be surprised when you see it!
7 comments:
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/charts/christianity_judaism.htm
on the differences between Christianity and Judaism.
continue on what you're doing :).
I hope this bit of info can help you:
The difference between myth and religion is that myth does not have any historical document that validates the claims that are made. In religion there are historical documents, events, facts that can validate claims that are made.
Even the fact that the gospel was told in an oral tradition, your friend has to take account the fact that they named specific people in the new testament events. If indeed there were errors or any doubts in the occurrence of an event, a person living in that time period could just find the person and ask.
Also, the gospel of Luke and Acts is an actual letter to Theophilius. It wasn't an oral tradition. So was the epistles written by Paul. They were personal letters to the churches and people who were disciple under him.
hope they help :)
Hi Lily! Wow, God is surely blessing you and molding you into a great witness for Him!!!! Keep up the courage!
About the anti-semitic part, the bible (God) is totally pro-semitic, but it is a fact that there are "Christians" out there who are really anti-semitic, but I don't think these "Christians" standpoint is necessarily biblical. If you read the whole of Romans 11 (from the New testament, I have to say), I think that really reveals God's heart for "Israel" (or Jews). Here's a snippet from Romans 11 that previews what the whole passage says about how much God loves them and how they are still part of the "Christian" story with my small commentary to hopefully bring home the point (rather I should say that we, Christians, were included into the "Jews" story and their heritage of being God's people):
28As far as the gospel is concerned, they [Jews] are enemies on your [Christians (persecuted by the Jews)] account; but as far as election [chosen by God] is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs [Old Testament covenant between God and Israelites], 29for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable [God is not UNFAITHFUL]. 30Just as you [Christians] who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy [through Jesus] as a result of their [the Jews] disobedience, 31so they [Jews] too have now become disobedient in order that they [Jews]too may now receive mercy [through Jesus] as a result of God's mercy [possible through Jesus] to you [Christians].
Hopefully this wasn't too confusing. Apostle Paul himself was a devout Jew who has "received mercy" as were all the other disciples like Peter. Jesus himself is a Jew and loved his people. Again and again throughout the new testament, you see Jesus (and the disciples) preaching in the synagogues to try to get them to return back to God, and sometimes harsh language was used (i.e. calling Pharisees hypocrites and such), but it was in hopes to try to get them to see their sinfulness and turn back to the true way of loving God. So let your friend know that Christianity is definitely not anti-semitic, but it is likely certain Christians may be.
Sorry it's so long. Hope this helps.
Also, I wanted to talk about "telephone." It's so ironic, because when I took Course 101, we actually played "telephone" as an activity to reaffirm the authenticity of the bible, lol. Anyways, it definitely came out that by "telephone" the facts get lost really quickly, so the fact that even after so many hundreds of years, the bible is still the same (even in different languages, in different places around the world, is still telling the same stories). The authenticity of the bible is hard to prove that it is faulty especially comparing it to past documents. Definitely turning to your Course 101 is the way to go if she wants more reasons for the reliability of the bible. Also keep in mind some of the points Stephen made. Maybe you should encourage her to read through your Course 101, if she really wants to investigate the truth and who knows, maybe she'll get other questions/doubts answered as well.
I'll be praying for you and your friend :) Thanks for sharing!!!
i would ask her to investigate what she means about oral tradition.. definitely like stephen said many books of the NT were epistles (Paul's), and firsthand or secondhand accounts written by particular credible people close to Jesus and had names of people who were still alive and so if something in the written accounts were false, they would be quickly and emphatically discredited. i never thought of the NT as oral tradition, but i'd have to investigate more myself... good stuff, proud of you Lily! keep it up and def keep praying for your friend! we'll be doing so as well. your heart for your friend really shines through :)
It would seem to me that in terms of the beliefs of the religion itself, Judaism is actually the one that's anti-Christian and not the other way around (but noting that is of no help to your question and to this conversation with your friend).
Stephen, Angel, and Jenny have already said everything I would've said otherwise, but definitely I want to reiterate what Jenny said.
"i would ask her to investigate what she means about oral tradition.."
I had this same thought while reading your post because usually by oral tradition, people are talking about passing things down orally from generation to generation, which is not what happened in the case of, say for example, the gospels. The gospels were written within the lifetime of the people who experienced Jesus himself, so yeah.
In addition, it's possible for someone to say that in 50 years, you could've forgotten a lot about what happened and stuff like that, but for people who lived during Jesus' time, this was life changing stuff. I mean Jesus was like THE MAN, yaknow? You wouldn't doubt the memories of someone who suffered the Holocaust 60+ years ago right? (Not a perfect analogy, but it makes a certain point)
also want to add: to add credibility to the historical accuracy of the NT... there are definitely secular historical accounts of the life of Jesus as well. They mention the life of Jesus and that he died by crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate. Obviously secular accounts don't say that Jesus was the son of God or that he resurrected, but they will say things like he took the community by storm and gained disciples, all which point to the undeniable accuracy, at least in historical terms, of most of the events in the Bible. Even secular historians today do not deny most of what happened in the NT as true. The only point of contention then that would "prove" the deity of Jesus is whether the resurrection account is true. For that there is tons of logical evidence, ie. read the end of Course 101 material. Hope that helps! Aja aja!
btw, i don't know if this is relevant, but the OT (or the Hebrew Bible) began as "oral tradition" and was written down by scribes later on. Does she believe in the veracity of the OT?
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