Answering the skeptic

My company’s Christmas party – yes, they still call it that – was a nice event. I did not, though, have the greatest of times. A very bright woman at my table made a few comments disparaging the veracity and message of Christianity. I felt it necessary, with as much grace as I could muster considering the festive atmosphere, to provide her evidence for the truthfulness of God’s word and the authenticity of its message.

With every support I erected, she would counter with another argument, factoid, or “what about,” a scenario that would seem to invalidate Christianity in the mind of any thinking person. Israel’s annihilation of the Canaanites is a favorite by which the sophisticate feels free to loathe the God of the Bible.

Anyway, the conversation went on. And on. I don’t feel I upheld the grace of the Christmas message. And I know I didn’t sway the mind of the skeptic.

As the sun’s rotation has moved me further from that day, the conversation continues to haunt me. Yes, I consider my manner. Yes, I consider what I might have said. More than that, I consider the skeptic.

Prior to the time of the Civil War, few in the Western world questioned the veracity or the authenticity of the Bible. Even the “skeptics” of the Revolutionary era, the Jefferson’s, Madison’s and Franklin’s, held a higher view of the Bible than did the skeptic across my table. What has happened? What has brought us to this post-biblical age?

I know the history. I’m familiar with the dismantling of the Bible that began in Europe in the nineteenth century. I also know the history of the men who have successfully dismantled the argumentation of the biblical skeptics. I know the decay and rot within Christendom as denominations have embraced a neutered Scripture. I am also aware of those who continue to hold a high view of God’s word and the power He has to redeem and restore.

Still, the serpent has injected his poison. Most Protestants and many Catholics do not believe that the entirety of Scripture is the word of God nor do they believe it to be true. But many do not know why they believe that. To most, the Church has become suspect; they have an axe to grind or something to hide from the masses. And the feeling continues that if the Church is corrupt, its source-text must be false, too. Any PhD to support that only lends credibility to the argument despite the evidence to the contrary.

An example. During the Christmas party debate, I mentioned fulfilled prophecy as evidence for the unique and amazing nature of the Bible. Taking the season in hand, the skeptic seized the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14 which states, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” She noted, and rightfully so, that the Hebrew word for virgin is the same word for young woman or woman of marrying age not necessarily meaning virgin. Still, that Hebrew word is translated as virgin most of the time in the Old Testament and in most translations. Beyond that, a young woman of marrying age if so referenced in the Old Testament era was, unlike our day, presumed to be a virgin. Consider the two synonymous.

The virgin birth is significant for deity to become humanity. Protestants and Catholics differ as to its theological and Christological significance (we can talk about that through another medium if you’d like). Anyway, Matthew in writing to a predominantly Jewish audience cites the Isaiah prophecy, a messianic prophecy, to indicate the identity of the child. Writing in Greek, Matthew uses the specific word virgin in translating the Isaiah prophecy.

Or he quoted from the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament done after Alexander the Great Hellenized the world. Seems the Jews, with no axe to grind, translated that troublesome verse in Isaiah 7 as virgin, too.

The point? While many will cite the corruption of the Bible by saying the passage in Isaiah could be translated young woman, it would be textually wrong to do so for a myriad of reasons. This is true for many of the questions and problems skeptics have with the Bible and Christianity.

For the skeptic, there will always be another question.  There will always be the men and women of letters to support their position.  And yet as 2010 dawns, G. K. Chesterton’s challenge to the skeptic remains as powerful as ever. “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”