In a previous post, I have tried to make a case (thoroughly unoriginal) for the apostle John as the author of the Gospel that bears his name. Assuming John wrote the Gospel, why did he write it? The best place to start is with his own purpose statement in John 20:30–31: “But these [signs] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John selected several startling signs of Jesus (seven, I believe; see my BBR article cited below) to convince his readers that Jesus was in fact the promised Messiah (or, as Don Carson has it, that the Messiah was in fact Jesus). His purpose was to induce his readers (or those with whom his readers came into contact) to believe in Jesus and thus have life in him.

John, therefore, was possessed by a holy focus. This is not an autobiography, or even a biography (a “life”) of Jesus. Rather, John’s Gospel is an aid to personal faith. So much for the purpose. Now what about the occasion?

This may be harder to determine. Certainly tradition seems credible that John at the urging of some of his disciples wrote his Gospel toward the end of his life (Clement of Alexandria, cited by Eusebius, H.E. 6.14.7). But what were the circumstances surrounding John’s writing? And were there other purposes that guided him as he penned his Gospel?

In a recently published article, I have argued that the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70 may be an important external historical datum for the composition of the Fourth Gospel. No one disputes that the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, and clearly this was a momentous event with far-reaching consequences, and very few Johannine scholars question that John’s Gospel was written subsequent to A.D. 70 (most opt for the A.D. 80s or early 90s). So it seems natural to draw a connection between the destruction of the temple and the writing of John’s Gospel. Internal evidence seems to confirm this. Throughout the Gospel Jesus is presented as the fulfillment, and hence replacement, of all kinds of Jewish festivals and institutions, including the temple (see esp. 2:13–22).

Peter Walker, in his important book Jesus and the Holy City (Eerdmans, 1996, p. 197), says it well: “As a result, if any of his readers felt bereft of the Temple and of the spiritual focus provided by Jerusalem, John would have encouraged them not to mourn the loss of the city, but rather to see what God had done for them in Jesus. . . . The Evangelist, writing after the Temple’s destruction, does not bemoan its loss. . . . The presence of God has not been withdrawn, for Jesus has taken the place of the Temple. Jesus gives more than the Temple had ever given. . . . Jesus stands in the place of everything that Israel has lost.”

For further study see my essay “The Destruction of the SecondTemple and the Composition of the Fourth Gospel, ” TrinJ 26NS (2005): 205–42, with ample references to the burgeoning literature on the temple theme in John’s Gospel and research on the Second Temple and its destruction. See also D. A. Carson, “Syntactical and Text-Critical Observations on John 20:30–31,” JBL 124/4 (2005): 693–714 and my article “The Seventh Johannine Sign,” BBR 5 (1995): 87–103.

Technorati Tags: John, Gospel, Jesus, Messiah, Son of God, John’s Gospel, Second Temple, Fourth Gospel, Johannine, Kostenberger, Bible, New Testament, Judaism

In a recent survey, LifeWay researchers solicited responses as to the “Top 10 Issues Facing Today’s Family.” More than 2,000 people from around the country were part of this project. What are these top 10 issues facing today’s family? Here are the results:

1. Anti-Christian culture
2. Divorce
3. Busyness
4. Absent father figure
5. Lack of discipline
6. Financial pressures
7. Lack of communication
8. Negative media influences
9. Balance of work and family
10. Materialism

What are we to make of this list? Immediately, we are struck by the superficiality of responses. What does it mean for “anti-Christian culture” to be the #1 issue facing today’s family (see also #8: negative media influences)? How does this not amount to shifting the blame for failing Christian marriages to the surrounding culture and the favorite enemy, the media? Is it the media’s fault if our marriages are failing?

What does it mean for divorce to be #2? Is divorce an “issue” marriages face or is it the result of a deeper, underlying problem that needs to be addressed as the root cause? And are our marriages failing merely because we are too busy (#3) or struggle to balance work and family demands (#9)? This again seems to be to confuse a surface matter with deeper, underlying issues. Also, to be sure, all of us face financial pressures. We hardly need a survey to know this.

The same can be said regarding #7, lack of communication. As Christians, are we really saying that one of the main needs of Christian marriages is to improve spousal patterns of communication? Is this not what non-Christian counselors are saying as well? How, then, are we different in our prescriptions for failing marriages than the world at large? Should we not be different?

An absent father figure (#4) and lack of discipline (#5) may often go hand in hand, yet once again, this is clearly the result of other problems, not an “issue” marriages face. The root cause lies somewhere else, and so the remedy must start at this deeper point as well. The same is true for materialism, which is undoubtedly a problem for marriages, but only symptomatic of deeper issues.

If all those “Top 10 Issues Facing Today’s Family,” then, are merely symptomatic, what is the primary root cause of the failure of Christian marriages today? In my judgment, it is people’s lack of grounding in biblical teaching on marriage and the family. As we try to lay out in our book God, Marriage & Family, the current cultural crisis surrounding marriage is really symptomatic of a deeper spiritual crisis that can be remedied only by a return to the biblical foundation, that is, the scriptural teaching on marriage and the family.

Clearly, it is not for lack of good intentions that Christian marriages fail. Nor is it lack of Christian resources. These are aplenty. What is lacking is the right kind of resources, plus the recognition that marriage and family are at the heart a divine institution that is the target of intense spiritual warfare. For this reason good intentions or superficial remedies are not good enough. Rather, people must once again be taught God’s plan for marriage and the family, and they must commit themselves to live out this teaching as part of their Christian discipleship and as an expression of their witness to Christ in this world.

May I suggest, therefore, that we substitute for the “Top 10 Issues Facing Today’s Family” the one issue that is truly foundational for the recovery of Christian marriages and families in our day: the need of Christian men and women to rediscover the biblical teaching on marriage and the family on a profound, spiritual level, and to commit themselves to live by this teaching in the midst of those other issues. I believe that what we will find is that once the root issue is addressed, these other issues will be reduced to mere gnats yapping at our heels.

For further study see God, Marriage & Family (Crossway, 2004). See also the recent commentary by Albert Mohler on this work; as well as Andreas Köstenberger, “The Biblical Framework for Marriage,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 4/2 (2006): 24-42.

Technorati Tags: Family, Christian, culture, Divorce, Family

In my public appearances on The Da Vinci Code, I routinely make the point that the upcoming release of the movie presents the church with a golden opportunity for witness. In this I am joined by many others who have prepared helpful resources for dealing with the central claims of The Da Vinci Code.

Yet not everyone agrees that the church ought to use the release of the movie as a witnessing opportunity. In a recent column posted at http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/othercott.html entitled “Let’s ‘Othercott’ Da Vinci,” Barbara Nicolosi (founder and director of Act One, an organization whose mission is to train committed Christian writers to work in the Hollywood film industry) calls on Christians to “othercott” (apologies for the verbal monstrosity!) The Da Vinci Code. Rather than boycott the movie (which according to Nicolosi would be to “throw away” one’s “vote”), she calls on Christians to go and see another movie released May 19, Over the Hedge by DreamWorks. Otherwise, we should simply ignore The Da Vinci Code.

Nicolosi cites four major reasons for this proposal.

(1) It makes her physically sick to hear people say bad things about the one she loves (Jesus). Why add to her pain?

(2) “The debate is all on hell’s terms,” but “[t]he climate of evangelism is not consistent with a posture of defiance and cynicism.”

(3) Dialoguing with people about The Da Vinci Code would be equivalent to debating with the devil, and “You don’t debate the Devil.”

(4) Most people in the churches don’t know their Bible well enough to enter into this kind of debate and so are likely to be swayed by opposing arguments.

“Othercott” or opportunity for Christian witness? What are we to make of Nicolosi’s proposal? Here’s my response.

(1) It makes me sick, too, to hear people blaspheme the name of Christ, but my advice would be, “Toughen up a little!” As Christians, we are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus, and that includes enduring abuse for his name. “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

(2) The debate may be on hell’s territory, the world without Christ, but it need not be on hell’s terms. That’s what’s wrong with many of our churches, that the only evangelism in which they are willing to engage is done on their terms and on their premises. Jesus, on the other hand, went to where the people were and engaged them on their terms (example: the Samaritan woman in John 4), though he didn’t stop there. Taking them from where they were, he led them to the truth about himself (he is the Savior of the world) and about themselves (they are sinners). Paul told Timothy to preach the gospel “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). This means to share the good news of Jesus Christ not only to those who are open but to be faithful to proclaim the gospel whether or not people are receptive.

(3) Well, I don’t know about debating the devil, but I know that Jesus did do verbal combat with the devil at his temptation, matching (misused) Scripture with (appropriately used) Scripture. (One more thought: Did Jesus ignore the Pharisees?) Peter writes that we should resist the devil, standing firm in the faith (1 Peter 5:9). Paul likewise calls on believers to put on God’s armor so that they can stand their ground against the devil’s schemes (Eph. 6:10–17). He also says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). None of these verses sound like we ought to leave the playing field to the devil out of disgust or dismay that the name of Christ is being slandered.

(4) Are we to refrain from engagement with the enemy merely because our troops are ill-prepared? This may be reason to make sure we first prepare our troops before sending them into battle, but it can hardly be reason not to engage the enemy in the first place. In fact, this is precisely what is happening. Many churches are doing this, and many resources are available.

I, for one, think the “othercott” is a really bad idea. Let’s take full advantage of the upcoming release of The Da Vinci Code as a witnessing opportunity and trust God to do his mighty work through us. Several friends and I plan to stand in the foyer of a movie theater at a preview session the night before opening night. We will hand out booklets to those who go see the movie and seek to engage them in conversation, “making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).

Technorati Tags: The Da Vinci Code, church, witness, church, othercott

Who is setting the agenda for evangelical scholarship? Too often, it is non-evangelical scholars. Recent examples include Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and his other writings on early Christianity as well as the ubiquitous Da Vinci Code, which have generated a whole swath of evangelical responses. But are evangelicals forever doomed to take their cue from those outside their movement and to busy themselves with responding to the works of others?

I recently had the opportunity to reflect on issues such as these when I was asked to represent the field of New Testament in a panel discussion on the future of evangelical scholarship at the Southeastern regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The panel also included Millard Erickson (representing Systematic Theology), Bill Arnold (Old Testament), and Jerry Rankin (missions).

In my brief remarks, I ventured the following suggestions for evangelical New Testament scholarship:

(1) Biblical Theology: Build on the renaissance of biblical theology in recent years and produce fresh works on the theology of New Testament writers. Example: a forthcoming series, published by Zondervan, on the Biblical Theology of the New Testament (BTNT), with volumes by Darrell Bock on Lukan theology and Douglas Moo on Pauline theology.

(2) Hermeneutics: Implement Kevin Vanhoozer’s program of a theodramatic hermeneutic that understands biblical truth as being conveyed through the various scriptural genres. Flesh out Vanhoozer’s proposals in the form of concrete interpretations of specific NT (and OT) texts, especially since Vanhoozer himself rarely cites Scripture.

(3) New Testament Greek: In light of the arrival of rather sophisticated computer resources, we should see more definitive works and studies in the area of New Testament Greek. This should include syntactical and grammatical studies and reference works as well as explorations of the uses of the Greek verb (including further testing of Greek verbal aspect theory).

(4) The Scholarly Task: Theological educators should rise up and produce works on spiritual formation on the higher levels of theological education. More conscious thinking and publishing is needed on the calling and craft of the Christian scholar. A few years ago I published a little booklet entitled The Marks of a Scholar, but much more could be done in this regard.

For further reading see my lecture, “Of Professors and Madmen: Currents in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship”or listen to the audio of the lecture.

Technorati Tags: evangelical, scholarship, Bart Ehrman, Da Vinci Code, New Testament, Evangelical Theological Society, Biblical Theology, theology, Hermeneutics, New Testament Greek, Greek, education, Christian, Kostenberger, Bible

The authenticity of Paul’s correspondence with Timothy and Titus went unchallenged until the nineteenth century. Since then, more and more commentators have alleged that the Pastoral Epistles are an instance of pseudonymous writing (pseudo = false; -nymous = name) in which a later follower attributes his own work to his revered teacher in order to perpetuate that person’s teaching and influence.

Richard Bauckham, for example, one of the major biblical scholars and historians of our day, believes that the author of the Pastorals “has thought himself into situations in Paul’s ministry and . . . has filled out whatever historical information was available to him with historical fiction” (“Post-Apostolic Letters,” Journal of Biblical Literature 107 [1988]: 492). Bauckham goes on to conjecture that Timothy may have written the Pastorals himself!

Howard Marshall, another noted scholar, in his ICC commentary coined the phrase “allonymous” to argue that someone “other” (the meaning of Greek allos) wrote the Pastorals, though he is trying to soften the force of the word pseudo in “pseudonymous,” meaning “false,” which has a more negative connotation and implies deception. Marshall, then, argues that someone other than Paul wrote the Pastorals, but that he did so without deceptive intent.

The question is first a historical one. Is pseudonymous letter-writing attested in the first century? Related to this is a second, ethical and moral, issue: If pseudonymous letter-writing was practiced, was such a practice as ethically unobjectionable and devoid of deceptive intent as is often alleged? Could pseudonymous letters have been acceptable to the early church? If so, is pseudonymity more plausible than authenticity in the case of the Pastorals?

In answer to the first question, the extant evidence suggests that pseudonymous first-century letters are exceedingly rare to the point of being virtually non-existent. The two Jewish letters, the Epistle of Jeremy and the Letter of Aristeas, are really not epistles in the proper sense: the former is a homily, the latter an account of the circumstances of the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Similar problems attach to Laodiceans and 3 Corinthians.

With regard to the second question, rather than accepting pseudonymous letters, Paul and the early church were demonstrably opposed to such a practice. Paul frequently refers to the “distinguishing mark” in all his letters (e.g. 2 Thess. 3:17) and in 2 Thess. 2:2 warns believers against a “letter supposed to have come from us.” Tertullian reports that an Asian presbyter was removed from office for forging a letter in Paul’s name (Bapt. 17).

Another important issue is the significant number of historical particularities in the Pastorals. While it is possible that a later imitator of Paul fabricated these pieces of information to lend greater verisimilitude to his epistle, it seems much more credible to see these references as authentic instances in Paul’s life and ministry. For this reason we conclude, with D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, that

. . . the Pastorals are much more akin to the accepted letters of Paul than they are to the known pseudonymous documents that circulated in the early church (D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament [2d ed.; Zondervan, 2005], 563).

For further study see my essay “Hermeneutical and Exegetical Challenges in Interpreting the Pastoral Epistles,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 7/3 (Fall 2003): 4–17. See also my forthcoming commentary, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12 (rev. ed.; Zondervan).

Technorati Tags: Paul, Timothy, Titus, Pastoral Epistles, Bauckham, biblical, Post-Apostolic, Greek, early church, Tertullian, Paul, D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, Southern Baptist

Books on Paul

The Pastoral Epistles. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Revised Edition.
To keep pace with current evangelical scholarship and resources, the Gold Medallion Award-winning Expositor’s Bible Commentary has been revised and updated. Continuing the legacy of excellent evangelical scholarship, these volumes offer a major contribution to the study and understanding of the Scriptures. These commentaries provide pastors and Bible students with a comprehensive and scholarly tool for expositing and teaching the gospel.

Articles on Paul

This page contains links to resources that Dr. Kostenberger has written about The Da Vinci Code. Feel free to use these resources in your church or group.

In this booklet, Dr. Kostenberger deals with six key issues raised by The Da Vinci Code. Dr. Kostenberger interacts with biblical and historical data to show that Dan Brown’s truth claims have no basis in fact.

Click on the image of the booklet to download it in pdf format or call Southeastern Seminary’s LifeWay campus store at 919.556.3481 to order a hard copy. See also the PowerPoint presentations below.

If you want Dr. Kostenberger to speak at your church or group, click here to see his speaking schedule. Click here to schedule Dr. Kostenberger to speak at your function.
Essays

• “The Da Vinci Code: Tale of our Times, Opportunity for Witness.” This is an article written for Deeper Devotion, a web-based resource for youth and college ministry.
• “Why is Da Vinci so successful?” Dr. Kostenberger wrote this as a FirstPerson column for BPNews.
• “The Da Vinci Code: A Myth of Christian Origins.” This article was written for the Reformation 21 journal.
• “Da Vinci: Opportunity or Othercott?” Another FirstPerson column for BPNews.

Multimedia Resources

• Audio of a panel discussion at Southeastern’s 20/20 Collegiate Conference. The panel consists of Drs. Andreas Kostenberger, Norman Geisler, Richard Hays, and Bart Ehrman
• Radio Interview on the Calling for Truth radio station
• Dr. Kostenberger’s PowerPoint presentation for his speaking engagements. This is based on Dr. Kostenberger’s booklet on The Da Vinci Code. It is strongly recommended that the PowerPoint be used in conjunction with the booklet. For ordering information, call 919.556.3481 or contact Matt Lytle at 919.761.2491
  • Condensed version (1-part digest)
  • Complete version (3-part series)
• Watch a video of the first part of Dr. Kostenberger’s three-part series on The Da Vinci Code. Courtesy of Richland Creek Community Church
• Watch a video of the second session and view the slide presentation
• Watch a video of the third and final session at Richland Creek
• Watch a video of Dr. Kostenberger and Dr. Michael Green in a response to The Da Vinci Code at TrueLife.org

Other Resources

• The Da Vinci Code resources web site at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
• “The Gospel of Judas: A Villain Rehabilitated?” A blog by Dr. Kostenberger on the recently-discovered Gospel of Judas
• Read an article summarizing Dr. Kostenberger’s faculty lecture on the state of New Testament scholarship
  • Listen to the faculty lecture