Author biography: Tom Tozer is a real estate attorney based in the Chicago area. He received his law degree from from Indiana University-Bloomington. His undergraduate and master's degrees were issued by the University of Chicago. Tom and his wife Lori and have three daughters. Publisher's Note: Occasionally I am given the opportunity to publish work that I cannot take credit for writing myself. Tom Tozer has produced an outstanding, very thorough review of Bart Ehrman's book Jesus Before the Gospels and graciously agreed to allow his efforts to be published here as well. From this point forward, the words you will be reading are Tom's, not mine. This is his review...many thanks, Tom! One thing should be made clear first. Christians who disagree with Ehrman should embrace – not reject – historical analysis of the faith's texts. Understanding the history of the texts is critical to understanding them. Even more, contrary to Ehrman's various claims, Cambridge historian Richard Bauckham and others before him have shown that there is plenty of reason to believe what the Church has long said about the historical sources of the Gospels and their authorship. At the end of the day, the historical analysis allows one to believe as the Church teaches on this issue. Another person may, based on their view of the evidence, disbelieve that teaching and instead indulge in speculation about other possibilities. This result shouldn't be any source of discomfort to Christians examining the issue. But the bottom line is, whatever the evidence is about who authored the … [Read more...]
Tom Tozer reviews Bart Ehrman’s book Jesus Before the Gospels, Part 2
[This is the second installment of a four-part series of articles written by Tom Tozer that reviews Bart Ehrman's book Jesus Before the Gospels.] See also: Tom's review, Part 1 Chapter 3 is about eyewitness testimony, and it's good that we're finally going to get to that. I couldn't resist a sneak peek though. In the first couple of pages Ehrman tells the story of a staged event to test eyewitness accuracy. A teacher was giving a lecture when two students stood up and started to argue, the teacher intervened, and a gun went off. Then the teacher explained it was all for show. Over the next few weeks, they had people write down what happened. There were errors. (So why the shock about discrepancies in the Gospels?) It's the von Liszt experiment which you can look up. I didn't find a description of what the people got right and what they got wrong, but I bet they all correctly described the basics, a fight, intervention, and a gunshot. Now why would that be and what kind of event in the Gospels might resemble that? Chapter 3 begins with the von Liszt experiment which I already mentioned. It doesn't get much better. Ehrman mentions some other “memory studies,” although I'm not entirely sure that's what they amount to. One, for instance, involved a plane crash into a building in the 1990s, before phone video and other ubiquitous handheld video was available. There was no film of the crash. Nevertheless, weeks after the crash, someone asked hundreds of people whether they had seen video of the plane crashing into the building. A significant percentage said yes. … [Read more...]
The philosophical argument for God
This post represents the other bookend to the effort I made to illustrate why waxing philosophical on the question as to whether or not God exists is an extraordinarily tricky problem to tackle, no matter what your personal opinions (atheist, theist, agnostic) on the subject might be. Especially simplistic arguments fail to reveal the true complexity of the argument as a whole. To illustrate the gravity and true scope of the problem, I recruited the smartest person I know, an honest-to-God scientist recognized worldwide in his specific field of expertise, for an unbiased and unvarnished evaluation of the science and logic used in my article, focused on my own argument for God in particular to expose any and every perceived weakness in my reasoning. What follows next is primarily my friend's analytical feedback and constructive criticisms of my argument through our subsequent correspondence, which I've converted into an article to further elaborate on what we started... No matter what you actually believe, your worldview will be at least partially based on faith, whether you are a scientist, an atheist, or someone like me. Even if that faith is limited to yourself -- you've put faith in something, but not in nothing. The scientist places his or her faith in the scientific method and personal skill set to discern between illusion and reality. The atheist trusts intellect and reason will ultimately lead to evidence that validates their lack of belief in a supernatural God, while the theist has faith that his or her intellect is surpassed by something far … [Read more...]
The secret of evolution
[WARNING -- People who are humor impaired should not read this article, especially if you have a strong aversion to dripping sarcasm.] Almost a decade ago, I became a professional writer because Richard Dawkins basically said that the theory of evolution had rendered belief in God into delusional thought. I spent the next several years of my life reading everything I could find in the library on the subject of evolution, looking for a book that might explain the missing secret ingredient that allowed macro evolution to occur. Most biologists have seemed to agree on the belief that evolution from an existing species into a new type of creature requires three things: sexual reproduction, isolation of the gene pool in a small breeding population, and time. But that isn't really enough to explain the diversity of life on earth, is it? Let's look at a few of these alleged factors that allow evolution to occur: Isolation of a small breeding population -- think about the diversity of life in an ocean. We can cast our lines into the water and possibly catch trout, bass, flounder, mackerel, shark...and the list continues for quite a while. How did all of those different species of fish (and don't forget mammals, etc.) evolve into different types of creatures from a single common ancestor? If the theory of evolution really is true, humans aren't just related to monkeys because of sex, isolation of a gene pool, and time. We're also related to every other living organism on the planet by those same three mechanisms. Sexual Reproduction -- here it gets a little tricky, … [Read more...]
Waxing philosophical
[To shorten this to a somewhat more palatable length, the original post was split in half. Because my intention was to present a solid philosophical argument to a philosopher, I decided to recruit an honest-to-God scientist to "moderate" the discussion and keep all of us honest. It turns out that my scientist friend didn't really like anybody's effort to make a coherent argument for God. Our correspondence will be included in the followup post, to be titled "The Philosophical Argument for God."] Some questions have easy, straightforward answers: What is the sum of three plus four? How old are you? What did you have for dinner? Do you like chocolate? How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man? Okay, so maybe that last question wasn't that easy or straightforward, but it turns out the answer is 42.* Other questions, for example such as our existential questions, may not have one clear and correct answer to existential questions such as: Does God exist? What happens when we die? How did this universe originate from nothing? What existed prior to the Big Bang? How was life created from inanimate matter? However, just because these other questions are extraordinarily more difficult to answer doesn't mean we shouldn't even bother to put out any effort looking for the answers. These are some of the most consequential questions we could ever seek to answer, because the truth could change the way we live our lives from day to day. Philosophy professor Dr. Alex Malpass recently caused a minor sensation on the internet when he tackled the … [Read more...]
