Dear Friends,

I mentioned last time that I chose Bart Ehrman’s book, How Jesus Became God, to help me understand the skeptical side of the resurrection debate. However, I ultimately decided to choose an additional book by a critic, namely, The Resurrection: A Critical Examination of the Easter Story by Jonathan M. S. Pearce.

The Pearce book was recommended to me by a member of Internet Infidels, a website mentioned somewhere in an Amazon book review. So, I’d like to take a moment to discuss my brief foray on the Internet Infidels website.

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A drop of reason in a pool of confusion

That is the tagline of the Internet Infidels.

Gary Habermas calls them “one of the Internet’s main Web sites for skeptics”, Taner Edis (Ph.D. physics, Johns Hopkins) calls them “a major website serving nonbelievers”, and Bruce Lawrence (professor of religion, Duke university) said they were “hard to top” for “thoughtful material” (1).

So, I figured if I visited their website to get book recommendations, I would be giving atheists their best shot at convincing me Jesus is not God (yes, it’s a tall order to deconvert a lifelong Christian, but I was at least trying to play fair). I figured I was going to the tippity top of atheist thought.

Christ myth theory is popular with the Internet Infidels

Well, I didn’t realize it at first, but Internet Infidels is actually home turf for mythicists (people who believe there was no historical Jesus…see previous post). Richard Carrier, a well-known mythicist, is a former editor-in-chief (1). In addition, an Internet Infidels “squadron leader” recently informed me that “Many (or perhaps most) Infidels doubt that Jesus of Nazareth even existed…”

What’s so strange about this?

Well, it’s just odd that a group you would most expect to defer to the conclusions of credentialed experts who work in the field (for example, an atheist once told me “I’m not a trained evolutionary biologist, so all I can do is quote the conclusions of scientists who study and work in the field”) is actually flying in the face of the scholarly consensus about Jesus.

Maybe I thought after John Lennox successfully pushed Richard Dawkins to let go of Christ myth theory in a public debate, that would take a lot of the wind out of mythicists’ sails, but it seems I was wrong.

Funny you should mention that…

One Infidel told me that my primary resource for seeing the problems in the pro-resurrection Habermas book should be the Bible itself. Another advised me, in the same vein, to read Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. I couldn’t help chuckling at these suggestions, because I’ve said basically the same thing about atheism. Don’t get me wrong, my main purpose when discussing God with atheists is evangelism. I want them to experience the same joy and peace that I experience as a Christian. But as a side effect of these dialogues, I’ve become even more convinced of theism, even when my gospel appeal and argumentation are rejected.

The triple package

In any case, the Infidels recommended (among others) the Pearce book to me, and I added it to my list. It was recommended by the Infidels, it takes direct aim at the resurrection story, and the author is not a mythicist…so it fits the bill. But since I now had two skeptical books on my list, I figured I should add another Christian book to my list to even the score. I haven’t picked it yet (suggestions welcome), but it doesn’t matter…I started reading the Habermas book (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus) anyway. I’ll probably start discussing his book next time 🙂

God bless, and thanks for reading!

(1) Internet Infidels on wikipedia