ӣƵ

Skip to main content

ӣƵ the Blog

The Good Book Blog, a resource from the faculty of Talbot School of Theology, features articles that explore contemporary ideas from the perspective of the Bible — the “Good Book” — including topics such as apologetics, biblical studies, theology, philosophy, spiritual formation, ministry and leadership. Find out more about what sets Talbot apart and how it prepares Christian leaders through its degree programs.

 

Subscribe

RSS Feed


 

  • Sean McDowell — 

    Pastors, apologists, and other Christians love proclaiming the deaths of the apostles as evidence for the Christian faith. As I lay out in The Fate of the Apostles, the willingness of the apostles to be martyred for their faith is one critical piece of evidence for the reliability of the resurrection accounts. Despite the popularity of this claim, there are no early, reliable accounts that the apostles were given the opportunity to recant their beliefs before being killed. Does this undermine the claim that they were martyrs? ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dr Craig I always enjoy hearing you speak, and I especially love the cross-examination and Q&A parts of your debates. It was a pleasure to meet you in person at the conference in Atlanta. ... I have noticed that many skilled apologists (yourself included) do NOT argue for the inspiration of scripture in debates, but rather their historical accuracy. My question is - do we really need to argue over inspiration or inerrancy? Wouldn't we be better served to make the argument that the scriptures are reliable? In doing so, we silence those (like Bart Ehrman or Shabir Ally) who quibble over minor discrepancies between accounts (most of which are easy to explain anyway) ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    The traditional view is that Paul was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero AD 64-67. In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I make the case that the apostles were all willing to suffer and die for their faith. While the evidence for individual apostles varies, there is very good historical reason to believe that Paul died as a martyr in the mid to late 60s ...

  • David Talley — 

    This article builds on “Hidden Sins, Part One,” which was written previously (August 24, 2012). I forgot to post Part Two, so here it is. The next question to be asked is: What are the results of “hidden sins”, and what can we do about it?

  • William Lane Craig — 

    I am a Christian theist and working towards a doctorate in philosophy. I have a question that I think is relevant for both laymen and academics, and I would really appreciate your thoughts. I often find myself "gestalt-shifting" between naturalistic and supernaturalistic (especially theistic) worldviews. When I consider certain things, the theism to which I assent seems eminently reasonable, but when I consider other things naturalism (or at least non-theism) also seems plausible, and it is understandable to me why so many philosophers and scientists are naturalists (or at least non-theists) ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    Could the apostles have been sincere but misguided in their convictions about Jesus? In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I make the case that all the apostles were willing to suffer and die for their faith, and some of them did. A common objection, however, is that they were sincere but misguided. In other words, the apostles were not liars—they just mistakenly died for something that was false ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Hi Dr. Craig, I just finished watching your rematch with Austin Dacey at CSU ... One point he made seemed to me to be a good one and I was wondering how you might have responded to it if you had the time ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I make the historical case that the apostles were all willing to suffer and die for their belief that they had seen the risen Jesus. This does not prove the truth of their claims, but that they were sincere. But what about Joseph Smith? Didn’t he die as a martyr for his faith? Does that mean he was equally sincere, and hence Mormonism may be true as well?

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr Craig, As the Christmas season is upon us, I'd be interested to hear your wisdom regarding Christian families celebrating the Santa Claus tradition. To be more precise, do you think it's consistent with Christian values to pretend that Santa is real? As a parent of two young children this is particularly relevant to me at the moment. On one hand we recognise that as a Christian family, we always want Jesus to be at the centre of the Christmas celebration. We also highly value telling our children the truth in all things. But I also can see a place for fantasy and make believe and see the fun and joy that this can bring to a family ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr. Craig, Thank you for your relentless study and work to communicate truth to the world. You have impacted my faith more than any other Christ follower in the world today. With that said, however, I am having a hard time with one of your recent statements. In your recent Q&A blog you made a comment that I reluctantly disagree with ...

  • Mark Saucy — 

    While I’m not usually too much into “merchandising in the Temple,” I must here. That’s because the book at issue in this modest review is a grabber. Not only does it concern a topic most pressing in our ever secularizing world—and therefore one Evangelicals must get good at talking about—it’s a topic that touches every one of us in everything we do ...

  • Thaddeus Williams — 

    What gifts does God give us in the person and work of Christ? How can we unwrap and enjoy them every day with the wide-eyed wonder of a kid on Christmas morning? Dr. Williams offers some Christmas reflections.

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear William Craig ... how do you know then whether you're making the right ethical decision? It seems to be a bit problematic to know whether you committed a sin since your sin (such as a murder for example) could be the greatest good for the humankind ...

  • David Horner — 

    "GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS," New York’s Daily News announced in the aftermath of the latest US mass shooting, in San Bernardino. Their target? Presidential candidates who immediately responded to the tragedy by offering sufferers their “thoughts and prayers,” not calling for more gun control.

  • Sean McDowell — 

    Perhaps the most common claim regarding the martyrdom of Peter is that he was crucified upside down. As the story goes, Peter refused to be crucified upwards as his master Jesus, and so he requested an upside-down death. And the Romans were more than happy to oblige ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Hello Dr. Craig, ... I wanted to ask about the moral argument's second premise. I've been trying to hash this out in my mind and I feel like I might be missing something. I read your QOW on the grounding of the second premise of the moral argument and I understand that we are not appealing to God as the foundation for moral values in that premise. Rather, we are appealing to moral experience. Now, the atheist might give a defeater for our experience because he says that evolution ingrained us with this "herd morality". But, of course this is the genetic fallacy. So, he might then say that our moral values have no justification even if they are true because evolution aims at survival and not truth. Here I get a little fuzzy ...

  • Scott Rae — 

    This week in Washington, DC, the National Academy of Sciences is hosting a three-day conference- the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, to examine the implications of new gene editing technology. Through a new technology developed in the past year, gene editing is now being done.

  • The Good Book Blog — 

    An Interview with Talbot's Dean, Dr. Clinton E. Arnold, and his son, Jeff Arnold, about their most recent book: Short Answers to Big Questions about God, the Bible, and Christianity.

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Greetings Dr. Craig, I'm a Yemeni Muslim, born and raised in Saudi Arabia, currently studying for a short term in Canada. I came across your work, and highly appreciate your contributions to modernizing and polishing, the scholarship from great men like Imam Al Ghazali and Thomas Aquinas. As a fairly conservative Muslim (perhaps because of my biases?), I find your arguments specifically for the Christian faith to be overall weaker than those generally for monotheism ...

  • Octavio Esqueda — 

    ¡Animo! Es una exclamación que todos necesitamos escuchar con frecuencia. A pesar de la presión popular que nos obliga a mostrar siempre nuestra mejor cara y a declarar que siempre estamos bien cuando alguien nos hace la tan común pregunta ¿cómo estás?, la realidad es que todos batallamos con diferentes circunstancias y siempre necesitamos que alguien nos muestre su apoyo y nos anime. Es importante que tengamos personas cercanas que nos alienten a seguir adelante. ¡Todos necesitamos a alguien en nuestro equipo! ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr. Craig, ... my question is regarding an argument against the existence of God that you have certainly heard before, however I have not seen the argument articulated in a way that I find satisfactory. The argument is essentially about the problem of whether or not God can commit evil acts (or whether or not it even is a problem). If God is all-powerful, and the ability to do that which is objectively morally wrong is contained within the concept of an all-powerful being, then there must be some possible worlds in which God does in fact commit evil acts. However, this seems to undermine God's perfect moral goodness, since a being who only does that which is morally good in every possible world is conceivable, and thus for there to be some possible worlds in which God commits evil acts would imply that God is not the greatest conceivable being ...

  • John McKinley — 

    In part 2 of this blog series, I present the second biblical metaphor revealing the Holy Spirit: the wind. We need to discern what the metaphor is, and what its meanings are within the biblical and ANE framework. I will be drawing some details from the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. My goal is to recognize patterns of meaning that may be intended to expand our understanding of the Holy Spirit’s presence and action in subtle ways hinted at through metaphors ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr. Craig, Thank you for all your work in Christian Philosophy and Apologetics as it has influenced my walk with Christ tremendously. You're the reason I have decided to study Philosophy at my college (Miami University of Ohio to be exact!). My question for you concerns your proposed model of the Incarnation. The model you propose agrees with the principle "That which is not assumed is not saved." So, The Logos assumes a human nature and all that that entails. But, I'm a bit puzzled because it seems to me that an essential part of being human is also to be contingent. It is literally apart of the very essence of a human to be contingent. If this is true then it seems that Christ must also assume a contingency in order to redeem us since that too is apart of "That which is not assumed is not saved." But, this obviously seems incompatible with the nature of God which is to be necessary. So, how exactly does the Logos assume contingency? ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Hello dr. Craig! I would like to thank you for your work,you really helped me a lot! I write you in time of great doubt and spiritual struggle. For years, my faith is going up and down and it is really exhausting. I do find your arguments very persuasive but this is where I hit the wall- the problem of evil ...

  • Joe Hellerman — 

    I came to Christ as a last resort after a year-long quest to find God back in 1975. With two thriving evangelical churches just a few blocks from my doorstep, why did I explore the Christian faith last instead of first? The cool factor, of course! I was a long-haired, pot-smoking keyboard player in a rock band. Eastern and New Age religion were “spiritual” and cool — Christianity definitely was not ...