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For PERSPECTIVES Vol. 5 No. 2 [April-June 2002] Please feel free to submit short questions or your comments. We reserve the right to answer and publish those we believe to be in the public interest. We reserve the right to use or not use submitted material (in whole or in part), to include your name, and to edit or condense your questions for clarity and space. Click here to submit a question or comment to the editor. Once Saved Always Saved?Your explanation on once saved always saved was very good. How do you see the argument by Calvinism (with Scripture in Romans) that God already knows who will and who will not accept Christ since he is all knowing? This doesn't connect with free will in my mind. --Louis Gaskins We have to be careful of how we construct a hypothetical for deductive analysis or its results are predetermined―the straw man syndrome. As you structured your question you imply that God is all knowing. When you lay the matter out that way you remove the capacity for God to learn. If God knows everything then he has nothing to learn. If God can't learn then his nature would have specific limits. Moreover, if God already knows everything then the implication would be that there is no true random nature inherent in the physical creation for God would foreknow it. No free will would then exist. So, we see the "argument by Calvinism (with Scripture in Romans) that God already knows who will and who will not accept Christ" as invalid. Our understanding of the bible is that God gave the family of Adam free moral agency. Moreover, God learns. Did not Jesus of Nazareth learn by the things that he suffered (experienced)? --editor Your concept of salvation is regrettable. Salvation is a gift not a work of belief. The Bible clearly says:" Truly, truly, I say unto you, he who believes HAS eternal life." John 6:47. Now, the last time I checked, "Eternal" means "Non- ending". If salvation is a process that take ones whole life to earn it is neither a gift or by grace. Salvation comes from God alone and He alone furnishes righteousness. It is a one time event that happens when one accepts Christ. (John 3:16) "Truly, truly, I say unto you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, HAS eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." John 5:24. I will pray for your group. It is a pity that you have misunderstood the power of the almighty living God and think that He needs your puny efforts to deliver you to himself. God help you. --Mark Wyatt Mr. Wyatt spins scripture and misrepresents our statement to have us believe a false doctrine. We do not believe, teach, or suggest that humans earn salvation (see Once Saved Always Saved?). That teaching is heretical. No amount of our obeying God earns salvation. Salvation is a gift from God but God has, nevertheless, made it conditional. The apostles taught that it is possible for a converted person to fall away and not have eternal life. Faith at work is a result of our relationship with God not the cause of it. What Mr. Wyatt apparently does not understand nor have experienced is the perfecting of the saints that God works in his people. If he did, the Spirit of God would help him grasp these matters and he would not have to take scriptures out of context and so horribly spin them. --editor Who Brought Sin into the World?Concerning the comment written by Doug Moody of NC (see Plugging the Holes in the Gap Theory in Perspectives 3.2), I have a couple of observations to make about his argument that the world could possibly be billions of years old because Satan brought sin into the world. Romans 5 teaches very plainly that "By one MAN sin entered into the world"; not by the acts of Satan or Lucifer. Further, if Satan had brought sin into this world, then how could God pronounce His creation "good" throughout Genesis chapter one with sin being existent in it? If we say that God judged and abolished the sin in the earth purging it for a second creation, then we have a serious problem with the power of God. Satan and his demons still exist throughout Scripture. I am all for unity among the brethren and reaching out to a sinful world, but it is ignorance to sacrifice Biblical teachings for the sake of common ground and scholarship. --J. R. Thomas Evangelicals and the CrossIn your response to YHVH and Allah, one and the Same you write "evangelical Christians have no doubt which is the true god and which are counterfeits". Who are the evangelicals? Are you saying that The Roman Catholic Church is worshipping the true god? Are you referring to Billy Graham as also worshipping the true God? It seems to me that both organizations display the same man/God image on their cross. Do not the Lutherans as well as a host of other "Christian Evangelicals" display the same Roman depiction of the crucified man/God Jesus? Are you saying that this symbolic icon (cross) leads men to a relationship with the true God of all in heaven? I guess I am asking what perception a Christian should carry in his mind about God? It is difficult for me to think of this Christian cross icon and look to heaven when the Bible pictures Jesus with a glorious shining burnished brass/gold type body? Is not the cross a type of idolatry? If so, how can the evangelicals have the true God? Will you comment on the above for me? --Bob Johanneson Our statement (see YHWH and Allah, One and the Same?) had to do with the fact that there is a significant difference between the god Allah and the God, not god, of Christians and Jews. Moreover, our objective was not an attempt to define who are evangelical Christians. Our use of "evangelical Christians" was in reference to those Christians who live by the teachings and authority of the Bible and the New Testament in particular. Since you brought it up, in order to minimize further confusion we changed the language of our comment to reduce if not eliminate these issues from the discussion of YHWH and Allah. You suggest, however, that Christians who utilize the symbol of the cross are idolaters and apparently question the conversion of Billy Graham, Roman Catholics and millions of Protestants. That is your privilege, but we prefer to leave such judgments to God, who certainly knows those who are his, and those who are not. We encourage people, whether ministers or laity, who spin the scriptures and spiritually abuse others by teaching others to engage in the excesses of either liberalism or legalism to repent of their error and to come to Christ irrespective of their denominational affiliation. As to the cross, one has to ask a couple of questions. Is it a symbol which simply represents Christianity and all for which we stand, similar to the U.S. flag being symbolic of out great country? Or, have some made the cross an object of worship? For us the cross is simply a symbol just as the letters forming the word God are abstract symbols. If so in the latter case, then they have crossed the line and fallen into idolatry. Lastly, if Christians who live by the teachings and authority of the Bible do not know the true God then who does? --editor Women in the BibleIn two books about early Christianity, I have read that the leaders - the bishops, the elders/presbyters, and the deacons - were elected per directions found in the book of Acts. Since many of the early converts were women, it is not surprising that women deacons were recorded in documents - because the women were voting and the men were split with regards to the cultural bias against women. There is even some evidence of women presbyters - very little evidence. This was why I am interested in the dress of women in the early Church. --wailingdeer The First ChristiansThe First Church seems to be a subject most people do not want to study. I study as a chair archaeologist, history, but share with many diverse Christians within an ecumenical movement. James as authority, within the Temple is of interest to me, that apparently Christian worship was done Solomon Porticle, that the synagogue service was in front of the authoritive sects, especially the Sanhedrin. A question of electing James as Pharisee and Christian to participate in worship and dialogue within the Temple surroundings, the twelve bishops of Jerusalem was under Rome authority or Jerusalem Church? The idea of Minyan within house, church, synagogue was of one, that basic Jewish people and the educated functioned as one in glory of God, and worship of Jesus? Did Eucharist participation, be part of unleavened bread service? --Richard and Karen Czubachowski If we understand your question properly, you are asking if Judeo-Christians observed the days of unleavened bread? The majority of scholars who have studied this matter hold that they did. Greco-Roman Orthodox Christians generally did not, however, as they distanced themselves from all things remotely seen as Jewish. --editor Does Richmond Professor Know What he is Talking About?A professor at the University of Richmond told me that chronologically none of the gospel writers could have personally known Christ. He says Mark was first to write at 60 years after the death of Christ, the last to be John all the writing apostles information was word of mouth, so he says. My bible study teacher says that is not true. She says that both Matthew and John were his apostles during his life time. Can you help me with this? --Kathleen It appears your professor is a biblical illiterate. Your bible study teacher is correct. We suggest you take some time and study the material we provide in this regard in The First Christians. --editor BCE and CE or BC and AD?What do you mean "....First Century CE...." What is CE? --twmck BCE can mean Before the Common Era or Before the Christian Era and CE the Common Era or the Christian Era. The BAR and the BR follow this norm but they see it as the common era and before the common era. AD is from the Latin. By using BCE and CE we hope we will not offend anyone. If so then they wear their feelings too close to the surface of their skin. --editor Historicity of Abraham and MosesI was wondering if you�ve read the article by Ze�ev Herzog in Ha�Arez magazine where he says that Moses, Abraham and other didn�t even exist and that David was a local tribal ruler at best. You can read it here, if you haven�t: http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbBreakingIllSpecial1.html. The reason I�m pursuing this is because it was given a pretty extensive audience in the New York Times recently. If you have, what do you think about it? Maybe you�ve already responded. Is there somewhere I can read it? --Mike Lawyer There is an ongoing scholarly dispute on the historicity of the patriarchs. You can keep up with the issues by regularly reading the Bible Review and the Biblical Archaeology Review. Its all part of the continuing debate between minimalists and maximalists (see As History). --editor Wyatt's Mt. SinaiDo you have any comments about Ron Wyatt�s claim to the Mt. Sinai being in Saudi Arabia? Here is a quote from one of his web sites: �Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review stated in Newsweek that "Jebel el Lawz is the most likely site for Mount Sinai." Dateline NBC has featured Jebel el Lawz in one of its reports.� Newsweek February 23, 1998. --John Ballou We have not taken the time to focus on the route of the Exodus with the intensity and thoroughness the topic deserves. Our research to date would not change our opinion from Mt. Sinai lying in the Sinai peninsula. --editor Bashan and the GiantsIt occurred to me that the area of Jordan which contains the area of Bashan, where the King of Og lived, this entire area in the Bible, was the land of giants. If this is so, it is one thing to try to locate one human skeleton. But since there were a whole race of these giants and we know their precise location, wouldn't it be quite simple to dig in that area and easily find a large number of skeletons that size? --James Sundquist There have been numerous excavations in the area. Skeletal evidence of a race of giants in the region remains wanting. Absence of evidence, however, is not evidence of absence. --editor When did the Dinosaurs Exist?Recently I have pondering the question of when dinosaurs were in existence. History and Science books say millions of years ago but because I am a Christian I believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. Anyhow I was interested to see if you could help me figure this out. --Nicole Dunifon There are many Christians who believe the earth is much older than 6,000 years. We suggest you read about some of the explanations Christians have for how we find the fossil record. Please see Creation Theory where we show the major creationist schools of thought on this topic. --editor Rohl's TheoryI am impressed with your website. I read a book recently called 'Pharaohs and Kings' by David Rohl. In it he proposes that the decline in material goods recovered in the Levant for the periods corresponding to the United and Divided Monarchies is the result of a misdating of all finds based on the present Chronology most widely accepted by contemporary Archaeologists, which he claims is based on well the now outdated work of Victorian era Egyptologists. I have been unable to find any review or criticism of this book, and so am unsure what to make of it. By his view The pharaoh who sacked Yerushalayim during the reign of Rehov'am was not Shoshenq (Heb: Shishak = Egypt: Shoshenq) but Ramses II (based on one of his 'nicknames' 'Sesse'=Heb:Shishak) He also claims to have found evidence for Yosef's Vizierate, etc. I would be interested to know what view you take towards this theory, (put simply that Israeli chronology should be pushed back approximately three centuries and Egyptian chronology brought forward correspondingly) and on what basis you might take exception to it. He did not read like a crank. He seemed to have marshaled his evidence. --Neal Clarke Conventional wisdom places the Third Intermediate Period (Egyptian Dynasties 21-25) from ca. 1069 to 664 BCE (the sacking of Thebes by Ashurbanipal). David M. Rohl, in A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History, republished in the USA as Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest, aggressively reinterprets Egyptian chronology. Viewers can visit Rohl's Test of Time Web Site for more information. We suggest Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest as a classic example of the hermeneutic approach to archaeology. We agree with Rohl that the biblical date for an Exodus "was entirely at odds with the dates for the 19th Dynasty (1295-1186 BC)." The historical and archaeological evidence concerning the 18th Dynasty, however, is overwhelmingly consistent with a 1443 BCE Exodus. We question Rohl's arguments in redating the 13th Dynasty, his 1447 BCE Exodus, and his rejection of the identification of Shoshenk I with Shishak. The calculated beginning of the 21st Dynasty stems from the equating of the 20th year of Shoshenk I with the 5th year of Rehoboam. Rohl's new chronology requires the rejection of the Shoshenk = Shishak identification. His evidence is neither scientific nor compelling. In scientific terms he did not present adequate "evidence" to falsify the Shoshenk = Shishak hypothesis. His shuffling of the chronological dynastic deck is a matter of hermeneutic interpretation and not science. This junk science approach makes good television and interesting fiction but is of little, if any, scholarly merit. It merely confuses the public and only produces more questions and confusion. We find Rohl's work consistent with the more or less historic British armchair approach to biblical archaeology. �editor GehennaI have been teaching an adult Bible class on the life of Jesus and the topic of the Valley of Hinnom and Gahanna arose during our discussions. In my research, I have noticed that many writers consider the Valley of Hinnom as the garbage dump for Jerusalem in the 1st Century and that Jesus used this known landmark in his discussions about Gahanna with his disciples. One writer mentioned that the first mention of this area as a dump was by Rabbi Kimchi that lived around the 12th - 13th Century. It seems from the OT that King Josiah desecrated this area after he destroyed the worship of Moloch and many documents I've read characterize his desecration of this area as creating a dump. Is there any viable archeological evidence that backs up this view? Is it just oral tradition and the facts have been lost to antiquity? --Michael Young We do not know of archaeological data suggesting the valley was a garbage dump per se or verifying the destruction of some structures of the area by Josiah. There are ancient burial caves and evidence of settlement by the poor of ancient Jerusalem (read a Jerusalem slum). Professor B. Mazar referred to gardening done in the valley with irrigated water. Remember, in such matters, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. --editor Foods and the BibleI live in Singapore. I am a UK graduate in Food and Nutrition. I want to write a book entitled: Foods from the Bible" about the type of food Jesus and Mary and the Apostles ate. I know the Bible refers to many of these foods like figs, olives, locusts, wine. I am looking for recorded details of what breads they baked, method of cooking. Jesus broiled fish over a small, outdoor fire. Would you know where I could get more references via the Internet? I would be so grateful for your help. By the way, I am an Orthodox Christian. --Irene-Anne This is the type of research you would be well to do at a theology library. Viewers who might want to help her out can do so. Her e-mail is [email protected]. --editor
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