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Ebla Tablets. Tens of thousands of clay tablet fragments from the third millennium BC were discovered at Ebla in modern Syria, beginning in 1974. Biovanni Pettinato dates them 2580 to 2450 BC, and Paolo Matthiae suggests 2400 to 2250 BC. Either period predates any other written material by hundreds of years.
Apologetic Importance of the Tablets. The importance of the Ebla tablets is that they parallel and confirm early chapters of Genesis. Although clouded by subsequent political pressure and denials, the published reports in reputable journals offer several possible lines of support for the biblical record (see Archaeology, Old Testament).
Tablets reportedly contain names of the cities Ur, Sodom, and Gomorrah and such pagan gods mentioned in the Bible as Baal (see Ostling, 76-77). The Ebla tablets reportedly contain references to names found in the book of Genesis, including Adam, Eve, and Noah (Dahood, 55-56). Others have cast doubt on these references.
Of great importance is discovery of the oldest known creation accounts outside the Bible. Ebla’s version predates the Babylonian account by hundreds of years. The creation tablet is strikingly close to that of Genesis, speaking of one being who created the heavens, moon, stars, and earth. Parallels show that the Bible contains the older, less-embellished version of the story and transmits the facts without the corruption of the mythological renderings. The tablets report belief in creation from nothing, declaring, “Lord of heaven and earth: the earth was not, you created it, the light of day was not, you created it, the morning light you had not [yet] made exist” (Pettinato, 259).
There are significant implications in the Ebla tablets for Christian apologetics. They destroy the critical belief in the evolution of monotheism(,^ Monotheism, Primitive) from supposed earlier polytheism and henotheism This evolution of religion hypothesis has been popular from the time of Charles *Darwin (1809-82) and Julius *Wellhausen (1844-1918). Now monotheismis known to be earlier. Also, the force of the Ebla evidence supports the view that the earliest chapters of Genesis are history, not mythology (see Flood, Noah’s; Science and the Bible).
S. C. Beld et at, The Tablets of Ebla.
M. Dahood, "Are the Ebla Tablets Relevant to Biblical Research?”
W. Kaiser, "Ebla” in NIVArchaeological Study Bible.
H. LaFay, "Ebla.”
P. Matthiae, Ebla.
E. Merrill, "Ebla and Biblical Historical Inerrancy. ”
R. Ostling, "New Grounding for the Bible?”
G. Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla.
Eden, Garden of. “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed,” relates Genesis 2:8. Since Adam and Eve are presented as real persons with real children from which the entire human race has come (Gen 5:1; 1 Chron. 1:1; Luke 3:38; Rom 5:12), it is also assumed that there was a literal Garden of Eden Indeed, the Bible speaks of it as an actual place on earth that abounded with trees, plants, and animals. It had rivers and a gate (Gen 2-3). However, critics point out that there is no archaeological (see Archaeology, Old Testament) evidence that such a place existed. They conclude that the story of Eden is just a myth (see Bible Criticism).
Arguments for a Real Garden. However, strong evidence to support the literal reality of the Garden of Eden comes from various sources.
First, since Scripture says that the Lord sealed off the garden in some way following the fall, this is one place where Christians would not expect to find archaeological ruins (Gen. 3:24). Nor is there any indication that Adam and Eve made pottery or built durable buildings. Whatever might have remained of a Garden of Eden would have been destroyed by the flood that covered the earth (Gen. 6-9; 2 Peter 3:5-6). Nonetheless, an early seal of Adam and Eve leaving Eden was discovered by the noted Assyriologist E. A. Speiser near the bottom of the Tepe Gawra Mound twelve miles from Nineveh. He estimated that the seal came from about 3500 BC.
Second, the Bible does give evidence of the location, since two of the rivers mentioned still exist —the Tigris (Hiddekel) and the Euphrates (Gen. 2:14). Even if the rivers have a different flow because of the flood, the use of names of rivers indicates that the writer believed this to be a literal place. The Bible even locates them in Assyria (v. 14), which is modern Iraq.
Third, Adam and Eve are referred to as real historical persons in the rest of Scripture (see Adam, Historicity of). Literal people need a literal place to live. The Bible calls that place the garden God planted in Eden (Gen. 2:8).
Fourth, the New Testament refers to events that took place in Eden as historical (Rom 5:12-13). It speaks of the creation of Adam and Eve (Matt. 19:4; 1 Tim 2:13) and of their fall into sin (Rom 5:12; 1 Tim 2:14). But these literal historical events need a literal geographic place in which to occur.
Fifth, the Scriptures affirm that God will one day restore human beings in a literal resurrection body (see Resurrection, Physical Nature of) to a literal restored paradise (Rom 8:18-23; Rev. 21-22). But what is a literal paradise regained if there was not a literal paradise lost?
Conclusion. For those who place any credibility in the biblical record, the evidence for a literal Eden is very strong. This place intertwines with central teachings of the Christian faith, such as a literal creation, fall, and restoration, which give it even more importance. To deny a literal Eden is to deny a foundation stone for basic Bible teachings for which there is strong evidence.
Edwards, Jonathan. Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was a significant theologian-philosopher, revivalist, and pastor in early America. Son of a Congregational minister, Edwards was a classical apologist (see Classical Apologetics). He was influenced by John *Locke (1632-1704) and Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and to a lesser extent by the British idealism of George *Berkeley (1685-1753). Edwards produced his first works as a teenager. His first philosophical work, Of Being, contains a powerful cosmological argument, as does his other youthful work “The Mind.” Likewise, in his Miscellanies, he argues for the existence and necessity of God. In his unpublished “Sermon on Romans 1:20” (1743), Edwards provides a detailed *cosmological and *teleological argument for God. One of his greatest works, The Freedom of the Will (1754), is also apologetic in emphasis, as is A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746). His great work on apologetics, A Rational
Divinity, was never completed.
The Apologetics of Edwards. As a classical apologist in the footsteps of *Thomas Aquinas and John Locke, Edwards began with proofs for the existence of God. Edwards used both the cosmological and the teleological argument, though his emphasis was on the former.
The Relation of Faith and Reason. Edwards balanced reason and revelation. Reason had eight basic functions: “First, reason must prove the existence of God, the Revealer. Second, reason anticipates that there will be a revelation. Third, reason alone can grasp rationally any ‘pretended’ revelation. Fourth, only reason can demonstrate the rationality of revelation. Fifth, reason must verily any revelation as genuine. Sixth, reason argues revelation’s dependability. Seventh, reason, having anticipated mysteries in any genuine divine revelation, defends them, refuting any objections to their presence. Eighth, though the ‘divine and supernatural light’ does not come from reason, it is reason that comprehends what this light illuminates” (Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, 22-23).
There are, however, four significant limitations to human reason. “First, it cannot make the knowledge of God ‘real’ to unregenerate man. Second, it cannot yield a supernatural, salvific revelation or even ‘sense’ it by mere reason. Third, if it does receive a revelation, it cannot thereafter determine what that revelation may and may not contain. Fourth, it cannot even ‘apprehend’ divine revelation as divine revelation, though it may recognize its presence” (ibid., 27).
Proofs of the Existence of God. Edwards outlines his own approach to God’s existence (see God, Evidence for) in Freedom of the Will (2.3). The apologist proves a posteriori, or from effects, that there must be an eternal cause and then argues that this being must be necessary and perfect a priori. Edwards combined cosmological and teleological proofs. He even argued against an eternal universe (see “Sermon on Romans 1:20”) in the mode of the *kalam cosmological argument.
God Is Eternal. That God must be eternal was firm in Edwards’s mind from youth. In his essay “The Mind,” he concluded that “it is not strange that there should be [something eternal], for that necessity of there being something or nothing implies it.” And since there is something, then there must always have been something. Why? Because nothing is an impossibility, since “we can’t have any such knowledge because there is no such thing.”
Edwards’s firm conviction that something is eternal springs out of the law of causality (see Causality, Principle of), which he describes as a self-evident principle, a “dictate of common sense,” “the mind of mankind,” and “this grand principle of common sense” (Freedom of the Will, 2.3). In “Miscellanies,” he declares that the principle that all effects have a cause is a self-evident truth (see First Principles). This being the case, “if we suppose a time wherein there was nothing, a body will not of its own accord begin to be.” For to hold that something can arise without a cause is abhorrent to the understanding (ibid., 91).
So convinced was Edwards that something could not arise without a cause that he argued even an eternal world would need a cause. “If we should suppose that the world is eternal, yet the beauty, contrivance, and useful disposition of the world would not less strongly conclude for the being of an intelligent author.” For “if we should see such a poem as Vergil’s Aeneid, would it be any more satisfying to us if we were told that it was from eternity. . . . Would it be at all more satisfying that if we were told that it was made by the causal falling of ink on paper?” (ibid., 312).
There Must Be an Eternal Being. God’s eternality is necessary because an eternal “nothing” is impossible, since nothing cannot produce something. Something is, so something must always have been. There are only two alternatives: nothing or God. But as Edwards scholar John Gerstner succinctly put it, “Nothing is nothing at all. That is, we cannot form the notion of Nothing. If we think we have an idea of Nothing, then we think we know that Nothing is. Nothing has become an existent
entity; Nothing then is Something” (Gerstner, “Outline of the Apologetics,” 10).
Proofs of the Attributes of God. As Gerstner correctly noted, “Extraordinary theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards find more of God in the ordinary revelation of nature than ordinary theologians find in the extraordinary revelation of Scripture” (ibid., 99). Edwards summarizes what can be known about God by general revelation (see Revelation, General): “,Tis by metaphysics only, that we can demonstrate that God is not limited to a place, or is not mutable; that He is not ignorant, or forgetful; that it is impossible for Him to lie, or be unjust; and there is one God only and not hundreds or thousands” {Freedom of the Will, 4.13). Since God is eternal and necessary, he must be independent. He is prior to the world, and the world is dependent on him, not the reverse. Further, God has all perfections. “To have some and not all [perfections] is to be finite. He is limited in some respects, viz., with regard to the number of virtues or perfections.” But “this is . . . inconsistent with independent and necessary existence. To be limited as to the virtues and excellent qualities is a contingent being” (“Sermon on Romans 1:20”). Edwards asserted that “nothing is more certain than that an unmade and unlimited Being exists” {Works of Jonathan Edwards, 97-98), for that which is necessary and independent must be infinite. Since God is infinite, he must be one, for “to be infinite is to be all and [it] would be a contradiction to suppose two alls” (“Miscellanies,” no. 697). All reality is in God, either as his being or in what flows from it. In Edwards’s words,
“God is the sum of all being and there is no being without His being. All things are in Him, and He in all” (ibid., no. 880).
Edwards’s Attack on Deism. Edwards believed not only that God existed but also that miracles are possible {see Miracle; Miracles, Apologetic Value of). God is not deistic {see Deism). In fact, Edwards’s critique of deism is one of the most penetrating of the eighteenth century.
Deists, in contrast to Christian theists, believe that God created the world and has revealed himself in nature but that he never performs miracles or produces a supernatural revelation. This view was proclaimed in Matthew *Tindal’s Christianity as Old as the Creation: or, the Gospel, a Republication of the Religion of Nature (1730). For Tindal and other deists, such as Thomas *Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Francois *Voltaire, natural revelation was sufficient.
As Gerstner notes, Edwards “refutes the Deists not by an appeal to faith but by rational analysis” (Gerstner, “Outline of the Apologetics,” 196). He demonstrates the utter insufficiency of reason as a substitute for revelation (ibid., 197). Contrary to Tindal, Edwards argues that, once reason has shown a revelation to be from God, it is reasonable to insist that every doctrine contained in that revelation be true {Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2.479ff.). Once it is known that the Bible is the Word of God, sound reason demands that all its dictates be accepted.
Proof of Supernatural Revelation in the Bible. Of course, this only shows that we need special revelation, not that we have it. To establish that the Bible is the Word of God, Edwards used a twofold argument: (1) It is internally consistent. (2) It is externally confirmed.
The Internal Test: Rationality. Stated as a negative, Christianity is not false because it has mysteries {see Mystery) but no internal contradictions (see Miscellanies, 544). Right reason and revelation harmonize, and “the Bible does not ask [human beings] to believe things against reason” (“Sermon on Isaiah 3:10”). God’s way to the heart is through the head.
The External Test: Miraculous Evidence. Like other classical apologists, Edwards believed that miracles follow from the existence of the theistic God. If God can create the world, he can intervene in it. This miraculous intervention takes one of four forms.
First, there is the miracle of supernatural predictive prophecy {see Prophecy, as Proof of the Bible). In Miscellanies, he deals with the fulfillment of Old Testament predictions, both general and messianic (443, 891, 1335). Only God could make such predictions.
Second, miracles can be used to accredit a messenger of God. Edwards appeals to the miracles of Christ. Sometimes, as in the case of the raising of Lazarus, Jesus stated in advance he would perform the miracle to prove his claim “Now can it be imagined that God would hear an impostor or so order or suffer it that so extraordinary a thing should be done immediately in consequence of the word and act of an impostor?” (ibid., 444).
Third, he appeals to the supernatural nature of the content of Moses’s teaching, arguing that no divine thing can come out of a purely human source. “For example, how could the Jews who were not learned in science or philosophy and were as prone to idolatry as the nations around them come forth with their refined and advanced doctrine of God” (ibid., 159, 1158).
Fourth, he argued from the supernatural results of conversion. How otherwise can a person overcome the fear of death? (“Sermon on Romans 14:7”). He went to great lengths in “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections” to show that the joy and peace that characterize Christian conversion are not present in other religions.
The Need for Subjective Illumination. All of his stress on rational and objective evidence notwithstanding, Edwards did not believe that either general or special revelation was sufficient to open depraved hearts to God’s truth. Only “the divine and supernatural light” could open the heart to receive God’s revelation. Without this divine illumination, no one ever comes to accept God’s revelation, regardless of how strong the evidence. A new heart is needed, not a new brain. This comes by illumination of the Holy Spirit. This divine light does not give new truth or new revelation. Rather, it provides a new heart, a new attitude of receptivity to revealed truth (see Gerstner, “Outline of the Apologetics,” 295-97; see Holy Spirit, Role in Apologetics).
Evaluation. It is possible only to touch on the implications for apologetics found in Edwards’s work.
Positive Evaluation. Jonathan Edwards was a noted American revivalist and a great intellectual— a rare combination. His defense of the faith was in the tradition of the *classical apologists.
Whatever one may think of Edwards’s answers to the difficult questions about *hell, he attempted to confront the most difficult theological problems. He believed that God’s truth is in harmony with right reason. His defense of Christianity began with one of the most rational and powerful arguments for God’s existence ever offered by a theist.
Despite his stress on reasoning, Edwards was not a rationalist. He argued for the need of special revelation. He believed that reason was insufficient to bring people to Christ. Nothing short of the supernatural work of divine illumination of the human heart could do that (see Holy Spirit, Role in Apologetics).
Edwards saw clearly the need to give a rational defense of the existence of God before he attempted a historical defense of Christianity. However, he also perceived that the truth of Christianity cannot be justified without an appeal to external evidence. There is a factual, as well as a rational, test for the truth of Christianity.
Negative Criticism. Some justified and some unjustified criticisms have been made of Edwards. Criticisms commonto Reformed theology are covered elsewhere (see Free Will). For an accurate understanding of his thought, however, two charges should be answered: that his Platonic (see Plato) idealism leads him into *pantheism, and that his God lacks mercy.
The charge that Edwards is a pantheist (see Pantheism) because he identified God with all Being is carefully answered in Gerstner, “An Outline of the Apologetics of Jonathan Edwards,” pt. 2, 99-107. Edwards’s God is only “all Being” in the sense that all being is either of his essence or flows from it. He makes clear distinctions between God and creation, Necessary Being and contingent being. And his emphasis on individuals being eternally elect or eternally damned is incompatible with a pantheistic worldview (ibid., 104).
One of Edwards’s arguments for hell is that God has no obligationto be merciful to all. Mercy, he insists, is a choice and not a duty. God only has to bestow his mercy on those he chooses. This argument seems to negate what Edwards says he believes: God is an all-perfect being, which would include omnibenevolence. But if God is all-good, then something in God obligates him to help sinners in need. Certainly, we would not think a person completely good who did not attempt to save everyone he could from a sinking ship or a burning building.
According to Edwards, no one is moved to act unless God acts upon him Free choice is doing what one desires, but it is God alone who gives the desire. When applied to Lucifer’s choice to rebel against God, this would mean that God gave him the desire to sin. But God cannot sin (Hab. 1:13), nor can he give free agents the desire to sin (James 1:13-14). Hence, Edwards’s (and the closely connected strong Calvinist) concept of free choice would seem to be rationally incoherent.
Sources
B. W. Davidson, "Reasonable Damnation.”
J. Edwards, Freedom of the Will.
--,Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections.
--, The Mind.
--, "Miscellanies.”
--, Of Being.
--, "Sermon on Isaiah 3:10.”
--, "Sermon on Romans 1:20.”
--, "Sermon on Romans 14:7.”
--, The Works of Jonathan Edwards.
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--, "An Outline of the Apologetics of Jonathan Edwards.”
Einstein, Albert. Albert Einstein was born inUlm, Germany, in 1879. He graduated from engineering school in Zurich in 1901. In 1905, he wrote his first paper on the theory of relativity, which gained him a PhD from the University of Zurich. He later gained world fame overnight in 1919, when the British Royal Society announced that his new theory of gravity had toppled the three-hundred-year-old theory of Isaac Newton. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in the field of theoretic physics. Rising antisemitism in Europe prompted Einstein to move to the United States in 1933, where he taught at Princeton University until his death in 1955.
View of God and Religion. Despite his support for the Zionist movement, Einstein was not a practicing Jew. His relation to Judaism was more ethnic than religious. Judaism played little part in his life, but he insisted that a Jew can shed his faith and still be a Jew. In a wartime letter to physicist Paul Ehrenfest, Einstein expressed a sense of bitterness toward God in the face of the European holocaust: “The ancient Jehovah is still abroad. Alas, he slays the innocent along with the guilty, whom he strikes so fearsomely blind that they can feel no sense of guilt” (see Canaanites, Slaughter of the).
As to the interaction of religion and science, Einstein believed that “to the Sphere of religion belongs the faith that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that it is comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” (Frank, 286; see Faith and Reason).
The Order of the Universe. For Einstein, the universe was a marvel of mathematical order: “The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature [than a Creator], For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in any real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been established” (ibid.; see Teleological Argument). A biographer explained that Einstein believed that “from a mathematical standpoint the system of physical laws is very complex, and that to understand it very great mathematical capacities are required. Nevertheless, he has hope that nature actually obeys a system of mathematical laws” (cited in Herbert, 177).
The Nature of God. In a 1929 reply to a cabled inquiry from Rabbi Goldstein of New York, Einstein described his belief in a pantheistic (see Pantheism) concept of God: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men” (Clark, 38; see Spinoza, Benedict). He added elsewhere, “The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in the concept of a personal God” (Frank, 285). Thus, he rejected *theism in favor of pantheism
Accordingly, he denied that there would be any day of reward or punishment after death. “What I cannot understand is how there could possibly be a God who would reward or punish his subjects or who could induce us to develop our will in our daily life” (Bucky, 85). He said, “I do not believe that a man should be restrained in his daily actions by being afraid of punishment after death or that he should do things only because in this way he will be rewarded after he dies. . . . Religion should have nothing to do with a fear of living or a fear of death, but should instead be a striving after rational knowledge” (ibid., 86).
God and Miracles. With the caveat that the existence of miracles could never be disproved, Einstein joined Spinoza in denying that they could occur: “The natural laws of science have not only been worked out theoretically but have been proven also in practice. I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic God who has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. ... If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds” (ibid.; see Miracles, Arguments Against).
The Origin of the Universe. There is a strange irony about Einstein’s view of God. His reluctant acceptance of the big bang origin of the universe (see Big Bang Theory) should have led him away from his pantheism to a more theistic position, for Einstein failed to find an explanation of his general relativity equation that would not require a beginning or a Beginner for the universe. Even the late-twentieth-century physicist and antitheist Stephen Hawking raises the question of who put “fire into the equations” and ignited the universe (Hawking, 99).
Einstein first opposed the mounting evidence for a big bang origin, perhaps realizing its theistic implications. In order to avoid this conclusion, Einstein added a “fudge factor” in his equations, only to be embarrassed later when his maneuver was noticed. To his credit, he eventually admitted his error and concluded that the universe was created. Thus, he wrote of his desire to know how God
created this world. He said, “I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thought, the rest are details” (Herbert, 177).
Evaluation. Logically, after reviewing the evidence that the cosmos had a beginning, Einstein should have concluded with the British physicist Edmund Whittaker, “ft is simpler to postulate creation ex nihilo—divine will constituting nature from nothingness” (Jastrow, “Scientist Caught,” 111; see Creation, Views of). Even Robert Jastrow, a confirmed agnostic, said, “That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact” (God and the Astronomers, 15, 18). Jastrow observes that “astronomers now find that they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation. . . . And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover” (ibid., 15). Unfortunately, we lack evidence that Einstein drew the conclusion that his scientific breakthroughs support (see Anthropic Principle; Evolution, Cosmic; Kalam Cosmological Argument; Thermodynamics, Laws of). If it is a scientific fact that the universe exploded into being by supernatural forces, Einstein should have accepted miracles. This was the biggest miracle of all.
P. A. Bucky and A. G. Weakland, The Private Albert Einstein.
R. W. Clark, Einstein: His Life and Times.
P. Frank. Einslein.
S. Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays.
F. Heeren, Show Me God.
N. Herbert, Quantum Reality.
R. Jastrow, God and the Astronomers.
---, "A Scientist Caught between Two Faiths.”
Emergent Church. This is a loosely organized movement among some contemporary Christians that attempts to postmodernize the evangelical church.
Leaders. The grandfather of the movement is Stanley Grenz (A Primer on Post-Modernism; Beyond Foundationalism; Revising Evangelical Theology), and Brian McClaren is the father of the movement (The Church on the Other Side; A Generous Orthodoxy; A New Kind of Christian; Everything Must Change). Other important figures include Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith; Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile; Love Wins) ; Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones (An Emergent Manifesto of Hope); Tony Jones (The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier); Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz); Steve Chalke and Allan Mann (The Lost Message of Jesus); Dave Tomlinson (The Post-Evangelical); and Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor (A Heretic ,s Guide to Eternity). An emergent website is found at www.emergentvillage.com
Basic Beliefs and Evaluation. In the wake of the “death of God” (see Nietzsche, Friedrich), postmodernism, adopted by the emergent church, includes relativism (the death of absolute truth); pluralism (the death of exclusive truth); *conventionalism (the death of objective meaning); anti-*foundationalism(the death of *logic); deconstructionism(the death of objective interpretation); and subjectivism (the death of objective values) (see Morality, Absolute Nature of).
Of course, there are other tendencies including *universalism (see Hell) and anti-substitutionary atonment. Steve Chalke speaks of the cross as “a form of cosmic child abuse,” which contradicts the
Bible’s claim that “God is love” and “makes a mockery of Jesus’s own teaching to love your enemies” (Chalke and Mann, Lost Message of Jesus, 182-83). By contrast, the Bible declares that (1) God gave his Son because he loved the world (John 3:16). (2) Jesus freely gave his life because he loved us (John 10:14, 18). (3) The sacrifice of his life was necessary for our salvation (Lev. 17:11; Rom 3:21-26; Heb. 9:22; Mark 10:45; cf. Isa. 53; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18).
Conclusion. Perhaps the best summary is that of Mark Driscoll, who wrote, “The emergent church is the latest version of liberalism The only difference is that the old liberalism accommodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity” (Driscoll, 21).
M. Adler, Truth in Religion.
J. Carlson, "My Journey into and out of the Emergent Church.”
D. A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.
S. Chalke and A. Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus.
K. DeYoung and T. Kluck, Why We 're Not Emergent.
M. Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformation REV.
N. L. Geisler, The Emergent Church.
D. Kimball, The Emerging Church.
R. S. Smith, Truth and the New Kind of Christian.
T. Howe, ed., Christian Apologetics Journal.
Enlightenment. The period of modern history known as the Enlightenment began in the late seventeenth century and dominated the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries in Europe. It was rooted in Dutch and German *rationalism, particularly Benedict *Spinoza’s rationalistic and anti supernatural work, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Tractatus Politicus (1670). Christian Wolfe (1679-1754) set the tone for the period when he sought the way to truth through “pure reason.” Immanuel *Kant later defined it in his Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone (1793) as “man’s emergence from a self-inflicted state of minority. A minor is one who is incapable of making use of his understanding without guidance from someone else. . . . Have the courage to make use of your understanding, is therefore the watchword of the Enlightenment” (Douglas, 345; see Rationalism).
Other writers who contributed to the Enlightenment include David *Hume, especially in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) and Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion (1779); Hermann S. Reimarus (1694-1768); and the deists (see Deism) JohnToland (1670-1722), Matthew *Tindal (1656-1733), Thomas *Paine (1737-1809), and Francois-Marie *Voltaire (1694-1778). Gottfried *Lessing’s work Nathan the Wise (1779) argued for religious toleration, since truth was not exclusive to Christianity but was found in many religions.
The Enlightenment stressed both reason and independence and elicited a pronounced distrust of authority. Truth is to be obtained through reason, observation, and experiment. It came to be dominated by antisupernaturalism (see Miracles, Arguments Against). Religious pluralism was the result (see Pluralism, Religious). Out of this context came *deism, biblical criticism, and rejection of divine revelation (see Bible, Evidence for; Bible Criticism). Natural religion was emphasized. Its more radical forms encouraged *agnosticism, skepticism, and *atheism This radicalized form lives on in secular humanism Karl *Barth characterized the Enlightenment as “a system founded upon the omnipotence of human ability” (cited in “Enlightenment”).
G. R. Cragg, Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century.
F. L. Cross, "Enlightenment.”
J. D. Douglas, ed., The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church. P. Gay, The Party of Humanity.
Epistemology. Epistemology is the discipline that deals with theory of knowledge. The term can be broken down into epistem-ology (Gk. episteme, “to know; logos, “study”). It is the study of how we know. The various epistemologies include *rationalism (see Spinoza, Benedict), empiricism (see Hume, David), *agnosticism (see Kant, Immanuel), idealism (see Plato), positivism (see Comte, Auguste), *existentialism (see Kierkegaard, Soren), phenomenology (see Hegel, G. W. F.), and *mysticism (see Plotinus). Epistemology considers whether ideas are innate or whether we are born a tabula rasa, that is, a blank slate. It also deals with tests for truth (see Truth, Nature of) and whether true ideas merely cohere or need an ultimate foundation (see Foundationalism) in self-evident *first principles. Epistemology also treats certainty (see Certainty/Certitude) and doubt. Agnosticism claims we cannot know reality, whereas realism asserts that we can know reality. The degree of our certainty in what we know ranges from low probability (see Inductive Method) to rational necessity (see First Principles; Logic and God).
Eschatological Verification. See Verification, Kinds of.
Essenes and Jesus. The Essenes were a breakaway Jewish sect that established a community near the Dead Sea (see Dead Sea Scrolls). Their name may derive from Hasidim (“loyal [or, pious] ones”). This may reflect their belief that they lived in the end times of apostasy. The evil reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the second century BC may have been the impetus for founding such a sect. Their community lasted until the second century AD. According to Josephus (Jewish War,
2.8.2), the Essenes, Pharisees, and Sadducees were the primary sects of Judaism The elder Pliny linked them with Qumran. Their life was marked by asceticism, communism, and the rejection of animal sacrifice. In New Testament times, they numbered about four thousand (Cross, 471).
Jesus and the Essenes. Some scholars, such as I. Ewing (The Essene Christ), have claimed that Jesus was the Essene “Teacher of Righteousness” mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is reasoned that John the Baptist and even Jesus were members of the Essene community. During his recorded ministry in the Gospels, Jesus opposed only the Pharisees and Sadducees. Never was he critical of the Essenes. Jesus certainly thought of himself as a teacher of righteousness. When he was baptized, he said, “Let it be so now: it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented (Matt. 3:15). Jesus was a priest. According to the New Testament, Jesus was a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7:17). He fulfilled the typology of the Aaronic priesthood. Likewise, “the Teacher of Righteousness” of the Essene community was a priest. Jesus spent time in the wilderness near the Essenes. He also had a similar antiestablishment emphasis, as did the Essenes.
Evaluation. There are numerous flaws in the Essene theory. The three basic arguments in favor of the Essene view will be treated in order. First, that Jesus did not criticize the Essenes is a fallacious argument from silence. He is recorded to have said nothing about them at all. Essenes were not part of
official Judaism, which opposed Christ. The Talmud did not oppose the Essenes either, yet it was not an Essene book. This is also an instance of the black-and-white fallacy. It overlooks the fact that Jesus could have been a member of no group at all. And it overlooks crucial differences between the teaching of Jesus and Essene doctrines. Jesus opposed ceremonial purity, which they radicalized. He opposed legalism, and they were decidedly Mosaic law legalists. He stressed the kingdom of God; they did not. He preached love, and they did not. Jesus claimed to be a sinless Messiah. They placed a heavy burden of sin on each person. Jesus opened salvation to the Gentiles, but they were Jewish nationalists. Jesus taught that there was one Messiah; they looked for two. Jesus taught the resurrection of the body; they stressed the *immortality of the soul but not the body. In general,
Jesus’s ethical teachings far more closely approximated rabbinical Judaism than Qumran austerity. While Jesus taught righteousness, it does not follow that he was the Essene “Teacher of Righteousness.” Such an identification overlooks crucial differences. The Essene leader was a priest, while Jesus was a Prophet, Priest, and King. The Essene leader was a sinner needing purification, but Jesus was sinless (see Christ, Deity of). The Essene leader thought of himself as a creature, not a Creator. He atoned for no one at his death. He was not resurrected from the dead as was Jesus. He was not worshiped as God. He lived long before Jesus.
There is no real evidence that Jesus ever visited the Essene community, but casual affiliation with Essenes is irrelevant, anyway. His identity remained with no one except God. In many regards, Jesus was an iconoclast of established Judaism Though he came to fulfill, not destroy, the law (Matt. 5:17-18), he opposed official Judaism for different reasons than did the Essenes. The Jewish hierarchy rejected him as the Messiah, the Son of God. This was not true of the Essenes. Further, Jesus was not an ascetic. He was even criticized for eating with sinners (see Christ, Deity of).
Conclusion. There is no evidence that Jesus ever had contact with the Essene community. But if he did, it does not make him an Essene or disprove his unique claims. His teachings differed in important respects. Jesus alone claimed to be the Jewish Messiah (see Prophecy, as Proof of the Bible), and Son of God (see Christ, Deity of).