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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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history

What Happened When Christians Stopped Allegorizing Canaan?

March 8, 2022 by Randal

During the Reformation, Protestants widely rejected the allegorized interpretations of the Canaanite genocide that had become de rigueur since Origen. With that safeguard gone, it was not long before they were appealing to Joshua to justify their own genocides. To illustrate, here is a passage from Philip Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword: And don’t think […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: genocide, history, Jesus Loves Canaanites, Philip Jenkins

Resurrection and History: A Conversation with Counter-Apologist

September 15, 2020 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Counter Apologist, historiography, history, methodological naturalism, resurrection

Methodological Naturalism as a Wet Firecracker: A Response to Ian N. Mills

September 2, 2020 by Randal

Ian N. Mills of the New Testament Review Podcast offered a critique of my critique of methodological naturalism. Here’s the video with a few points of critique below: First, a quick observation: if Mills can play clips from my video at 1.5x speed (or whatever it is) then why doesn’t he record himself at 1.5x […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: historiography, history, methodological naturalism, naturalism

Can a Historian Accept that God Raised Jesus from the Dead on Historical Grounds?

September 1, 2020 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: historiography, history, methodological naturalism, resurrection of Jesus

Dogma Debated: A Conversation with David C. Smalley

August 29, 2020 by Randal

Yesterday, I appeared on the David C. Smalley Podcast (formerly known as “Dogma Debate”). The conversation goes for 2.5 hours (!) and the first hour and a bit is available to everyone. The longer version is available to Patreon supporters. In the first part of the conversation, we talked about rationality, plausibility frameworks, and the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, Conversations with My Inner Atheist, David C. Smalley, history, interview, resurrection

Methodological Naturalism is BAD Historical Method

May 13, 2020 by Randal

Methodological naturalism — the idea that all causes to which one appeals must be “natural” — is bad historical method. It’s pure dogmatism, that’s all. Here is a simple illustration: in his famous book Chariots of the Gods, Erich Von Daniken visited ancient human civilizations. It’s a bad theory but note that it is, nonetheless, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: historiography, history, methodological naturalism

The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Miracle

May 10, 2020 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: 1 Corinthians, apologetics, history, miracle, resurrection

Reasonable Belief, Reasonable Doubt, and the Resurrection of Jesus

July 7, 2019 by Randal

Two days ago, I posted two Twitter surveys directed at two different groups and asking a similar question about an event which is purported to have occurred two thousand years ago. One would think it is possible for people reasonably to disagree about a topic this far removed in time and based on documentary evidence […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: historiography, history, rationality, resurrection

Miracles, Resurrections, and Historical Explanation

May 10, 2019 by Randal

This morning, I had an exchange with CounterApologist on Twitter regarding the question of whether the historical resurrection of Jesus is a datum open, in principle, to historical explanation. In this article, I’d like to expand a bit on one of the points I made in our exchange. I begin, however, with one of CounterApologist’s […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: history, miracle, resurection

Does the religious status of New Testament documents undermine their historical veracity?

October 22, 2015 by Randal

In his classic 1943 book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce makes the following observation: “Somehow or other, there are people who regard a ‘sacred book’ as ipso facto under suspicion, and demand much more corroborative evidence for such a work than they would for an ordinary secular or pagan writing.” This […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, biblical inspiration, history, New Testament, skepticism

29. Craig Keener on miracles

December 23, 2013 by Randal

From the crossing of the Red Sea to the virgin birth, miracles occupy a central role in the biblical narratives. Alas, their role in modern life has been decidedly more ambiguous. That ambiguity owes much to the skeptical eighteenth century philosopher David Hume who famously defined a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature. […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, Craig Keener, David Hume, history, miracles, providence

25. Do the gospels have errors? Michael Licona’s new insights on ancient history

November 26, 2013 by Randal

Christians have always been aware of the apparent contradictions in the Gospel accounts. For example, how does one reconcile the genealogies of Matthew (1:2-17) and Luke (3:23-38)? Did Jesus cleanse the temple at the beginning of his ministry (John 2:13-17) or the end (Mark 11:15-19)? Who appeared at the empty tomb? Was it a young man […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, historiography, history, interview, Michael Licona

On finally getting the Bible right

January 22, 2013 by Randal

When I came across this cartoon the other day at the “Value of Saintliness Blog” (you can visit the site here) I knew my readers would appreciate it. Let’s all have a good chuckle and then you can rejoin me below for a debriefing. Once the chortles have subsided, what’s the take away lesson from […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: epistemology, history, humility, knowledge, skepticism, truth

The Resurrection of Jesus, 52 Pickup, and Prior Probabilities

September 17, 2012 by Randal

In my rebuttal to John Loftus’ essay that the cumulative claims of Christianity are “wildly improbable” I pointed out that this argument has no force for those who already accept the cumulative claims of Christianity. To make the point I gave an illustration which I’ll streamline slightly here. Imagine that you tell me your new […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, history, Jesus, resurrection

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