Dr. Jim's WebLog

Newspeak, er Newsweek and the "Historical" Jesus

Hugh Hewitt has challenged us to respond to Newsweek's latest salvo in the culture wars. By coincidence, I've been working through The Case for Christ, which gives a fairly detailed and quite readable analysis of Christianity.

Newsweek: Yet almost nothing in Luke's story stands up to close historical scrutiny;
Case: "The general consensus of both liberal and conservative scholars is that Luke is very accurate as a historian."(John McRay, archeologist.)

Newsweek: Augustus conducted no global census
Case: Romans did do censuses. Page 101, quote from a governmental order dated 104 AD:
Gaius Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt...time has come fro the house to house census...compel... to return to their own homes...
Quirinius may have been governor twice; there is a coin with his name on it that places him around 11 BC.

Newsweek: Enraged and jealous, Herod orders a massacre of all the male children in Bethlehem—thus connecting Jesus' birth with the first Passover, when God spared Israel's sons from the same bloody decree by Pharaoh. (History records no such Herodian slaughter, though Herod was an undeniably cruel ruler.)
Case: "Bethlehem was probably no bigger than Nazareth, so how many babies of that age would there be in a village of five hundred or six hundred people? Not thousands, not hundreds, although certainly a few...Herod was a bloodthirsty king: he killed members of his own family...the fact that he killed some babies in Bethlehem is not going to captivate the attention of people in the Roman world..just wasn't much of a story back then." Plausible? Unfortunately, yes.

A couple of modern examples: the Rwanda genocide and the tragedy in the Sudan. Tens to hundreds of thousands of people dying, and world leaders lead a campaign of silence, refusing to use the word "genocide" because it might oblige them to do something.

Other interesting sources: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, a short readable development of the basics of christianity. He was not a "one toothed redneck" from the backwoods of a red state--he was an Oxford professor who started out a good atheist and became a Christian. He was just what I needed; I started out an atheist as well and gradually became a Christian, too. His works have consistently buttressed my faith. I also loved The Screwtape Letters, either the book or even better the book on tape narrated by John Cleese. Superb.

Want some modern scholarship? Read First Things, a monthly journal of christian thought (mostly Catholic, but with Evangelical, Jewish, other writings as well.) Warning: it can be a stretch for your mind if you're not used to thinking. Start with The Public Square and gradually work your way into the main articles. I have an MD and a PhD from Duke and scored 1540 on the old SAT so I'm not dumb but some of the articles make me wonder! Or from the Evangelical side, a similar journal on line is Credenda.

What about Dan Rather? Well, the Blogs brought him down by attacking his story on factual grounds. Sure, there were also some juicy ad hominem attacks but the text analysis was the key. Why don't those of you who know what you're looking at do the same for the Newsweek story? Roberts and Mohler have started the stampede; how about the rest of you guys?

I have to go to sleep now; blogging is fun but I feel a moral obligation to be sharp tomorrow while looking down the microscope, diagnosing disease for my patients. Just don't let these Newsweekers with their cleverly written propaganda undercut your faith. Those of us who grew up in postmodern times have inherited an "intellectual tradition" that softens the mind, blurs the line between story and truth (witness the success of The Davinci Code), and makes us susceptible to these guys. Seek out more information. Hugh refers to some real experts who blow rather large holes in Newsweek, far better than I can with my relative lack of theological training.