Different Kinds of New Testament Textual Variants

 

Textual variants in the New Testament are different versions of the New Testament that arise when copyists make deliberate or unintentional changes to the text. Variants are usually put in four categories:

1) Neither viable nor meaningful

Most of the variants fall into this category. For example, differences in spelling make up 70% of all textual variants. These are very easy for Greek scholars to detect, and they don’t alter the meaning of the text.  

2) Viable, but not meaningful

These are variants that could be part of the original text. However, they ultimately make no meaningful change to the text. For example, New Testament manuscripts spell John’s name two different ways in Greek, both are viable options but do not affect any doctrine.

3) Meaningful, but not viable

These are variants that do change the meaning of the text, but they could not possibly be in the original. For example, the earliest and most important manuscripts of Luke 6:22 say, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.” However, we have a single eleventh century manuscript, Codex 2882, which says, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil.” It doesn't include the phrase “on account of the Son of Man.” But since this aberrant reading only occurs in one late manuscript, it is not viable.

4) Viable and meaningful

Meaningful and viable is the smallest and most significant group of variants. These have a good chance of being authentic, and they change the meaning of the text. This group accounts for less than 1% of all textual variants. If you do the math, less than 4,000 variants of the 400,000 total variants are both viable and meaningful. Note: The reason the NT has so many variants is that are so many copies; the same variant found in 100 manuscripts counts as 100 variants.

A few examples of viable and meaningful variants: 

1 John 1:4

New Testament scholars debate over whether 1 John 1:4 should say, “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” or “And we are writing these things so that your joy may be complete.” In the original language, these two words differ by only one letter. The meaning of 1 John 1:4 is clearly altered depending on which rendering is used.

1 John 5:7-8

"For there are three that testify: in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree."

Most modern English translations don't contain the italicized portion above. The majority of the earliest manuscripts do not contain the questionable section, but it found its way into the King James translation in the 17th century, which didn't utilize the earliest manuscripts. Most scholars, conservative ones included, say that this section was not in the original writing.

Theologically, this can be perceived as a problem because these words so clearly affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. However, a case for the Trinity can be made without them

Mark 16:9-20

Sometimes referred to as the "long ending" of Mark, this portion of Mark's Gospel is not considered by most authorities to be in the original. Most English translations mark this section with brackets, and note that our earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not contain it. It speaks of drinking poison and picking up snakes (which is probably a bad idea!), but it also mentions the resurrection of Jesus. Considering that the resurrection of Jesus is affirmed elsewhere in Mark's Gospel and in the New Testament, this variant also does not impact any core doctrine.

The case for the "long ending" of Mark 

 

The case against the "long ending" of Mark 

John 7:53 - 8:11

This is a difficult variant for many Christians because it is the only place in the Bible where one of the most beloved stories about Jesus' life is recorded.  Many of us are inspired by Jesus’ words to an angry mob when a woman was caught in the act of adultery: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." and "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

Most scholars, including conservatives, agree that this story was not originally in John's Gospel, yet many believe it has a good chance of being historical. (1) In any case, this variant doesn’t challenge any core tenet of the faith.

But again, what doctrinal difference does any viable and meaningful variant make? Here’s what Bart Ehrman [famed atheist/agnostic NT scholar] says in the appendix of his book Misquoting Jesus (p. 252):

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian, and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are NOT affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

(1) See Bruce M. Metzger & Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: It's Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration p. 319-320; Dan Wallace, "My Favorite Passage That's Not in the Bible," 

The Exodus: Did it Happen?

Okay, right off the bat: There’s no archaeological evidence for the Exodus account. However there is compelling internal evidence for it. 

First, concerning the lack of archaeological evidence, to conclude that the Exodus didn't happen just on that basis would be the logical fallacy of an Argument from Ignorance. Usually described by, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Secondly, the Egyptians kept only records of their victories, never their defeats, and the Exodus would surely have been a defeat for them.

The Egyptians kept no record of defeats, only victories not just due to pride but because the Egyptian religious belief that once anything is written down or spoken it may have the ability to be perpetuated and perhaps repeated, something that is part of the nature of Egyptian religious beliefs.

We see examples in the Egyptian’s desire to have their names spoken after death in order to maintain their existence in the afterlife, and so the idea that writing an event down will also make it possible for the event to continue, perhaps recurring at some future point. Surely so catastrophic an event as so many slaves being let go at once would not be something the Egyptians would wish to commemorate.

Thirdly, even if there had been such records, they would never have survived in the damp delta area. We have virtually nothing of this nature, archaeologically speaking, from the Delta. The fact is that the entire area is simply too wet for papyrus to survive. The ancient ground level is now some twenty feet or more below the modern surface, and the water table is so high in the area that most current excavations must employ the constant use of pumps to keep the diggings dry.

So there’s little external evidence for the Exodus. But what of the internal evidence?

1) The straw in the bricks.  Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and say, ‘let my people go’ and to celebrate a festival to our God. And Pharaoh replies In Exodus 5:6-8

That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: 7 “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. 8 But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 

Bricks in Egypt were made with straw to give it strength. But they were not made that way in Canaan. The fact points to an authentic account of someone who knew Egypt, not a made-up-later tale from a Canaanite outsider.

2) They were said to have worked with bricks, and not the stones that a later writer might suppose from the pyramids and tombs and the storage places for Pharaoh, namely, Pithom and Raamses.” (Exodus 1:11)

3) The way that the Hebrews got into their bondage (Exodus 1:8-10) fits in well with how Egypt pushed back at Libya, taking captives, as the Egyptians always minded when foreigners become too numerous. It was okay to have a few, but when they became a large body to be reckoned with, they didn’t like that. 

4) Pharaoh lays plans to kill off the newborn Hebrew boys in Exodus 1:16, in which Pharaoh lays plans to kill off the newborn Hebrew boys. He instructs the midwives to put the child to death if it is a son.

The Hebrew word for “stool for childbirth” literally means “two stones,” as in ‘a stone under each buttock.’ Egyptians did give birth that way [see pg 116] and it can be seen in their hieroglyphs, and it makes more sense than the modern way of lying prone, for it allows for gravity to assist. 

According to the descriptions in the Bible, women in the process of childbirth either kneeled or sat on someone's knees.(Genesis 30:3). See here as well. 

5) What of the frequent expression that Pharaoh’s “heart was hardened?”  The Egyptians believed that a person thought with his heart. After all, it is the heart that beats faster when someone is excited.

6) The name “Moses,” and says that it’s a purely Egyptian name. It means “birth.” It is incorporated into the names of several pharaohs: Ahmose, (“the moon god is born”) Thutmose. (“Thoth is born”) In Greek, the name with its appended suffix becomes Amosis and Thutmosis. Ramesses is similar in pattern: (Re is the one who bore him)

If this Egyptian etymology is correct, it makes an even greater point for authenticity, because the Bible writer doesn’t appear to know that, and he attributes a Hebrew setting to the name, a play on the verb mashah (to draw out [of water]). We read that the weaned infant was brought to Pharaoh’s daughter, “so that he became a son to her; and she proceeded to call his name Moses and to say: ‘It is because I have drawn him out of the water.’” (Exodus 2:10) The application doesn’t quite fit, say some, for the word construction implies that Moses does the drawing, whereas the text says otherwise, and the only way to solve the difficulty is to ignore it. Moreover, why would Pharaoh’s daughter name the child with Hebrew etymology and not her own? Without intending to, the Bible writer gives added reason to regard the account as genuine.

7) There is a document, known as the Leiden Papyrus, from the time of Ramses the Great. It contains an instruction to "distribute grain rations to the soldier and to the Apiru who transport stones to the great Pylon of Ramses". Some connect Apiru (it means “stateless people”) with the origin of the “Hebrew” that it sounds like. It fits well with Exodus 1:11, “they appointed chiefs of forced labor over [the people of Israel] to oppress them with hard labor, and they built storage cities for Pharaoh, namely, Pithom and Raamses.” Source. Note: I have not had any luck is seeing a transliteration of the original 

Ramses the Great ruled for 67 years, had about 100 children, of which 52 were sons, and outlived many of them, including his firstborn, Amunhirkepshef. It is his 13th son, Merneptal, who succeeds him as pharoah. Of his early military campaigns, Merneptal has recorded in his fifth year that “Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe; Ashkelon has been overcome; Gezar has been captured; Yano’am was made nonexistent; Israel is laid waste, its seed is not.” The Merneptah Stele is the first (and only) mention of “Israel” in ancient Egyptian records.

It is telling how the word “Israel” is written. At the end of every other mention is a hieroglyph of three hills. It means “country.” At the end of “Israel” is the drawing of a man and a woman. It denotes Israel is not yet an established place, not yet a country. It is still a people wandering in the Sinai wilderness. 

If this had been a story that was made up decades later, they would not have known all of these particulars. Thus given the evidence it's likely that the Exodus occurred, even though we do not have all the details

Jesus Said More about Hell Than Anyone in the Bible

Descriptions Jesus used for hell

Jesus spoke of hell more than anyone else in the Bible. He referred to it as a place of “outer darkness” where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12). In other words, all the joys that we associate with light will be withdrawn, and all the fears that we associate with darkness will be multiplied. And the result will be an intensity of misery that makes a person grind his teeth in order to bear it.

Jesus also refers to hell as a “fiery furnace” where law-breakers will be thrown at the end of the age when he returns. “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:41–42). He calls it “the hell of fire” (Matt. 5:22), “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41), “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43), “eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46).

This last description—“eternal punishment”—is especially heartrending and fearful because it is contrasted with “eternal life.” “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” In this contrast we hear the tragedy of loss as well as suffering and endlessness. Just as “eternal life” will be a never-ending experience of pleasure in God’s presence, so “eternal punishment” will be a neverending experience of misery under God’s wrath (John 3:36; 5:24).

Hell Is Not a Mere Natural Consequence of Bad Choices

The word wrath is important for understanding what Jesus meant by hell. Hell is not simply the natural consequence of rejecting God. Some people say this in order to reject the thought that God sends people there. They say that people send themselves there. That is true. People make choices that lead to hell. But it is not the whole truth. Jesus says these choices are really deserving of hell. “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to [that is, guilty of, or deserving of] the hell of fire” (Matt. 5:22). That is why he calls hell “punishment” (Matt. 25:46). It is not a mere self-imposed natural consequence (like cigarette smoking leading to lung cancer); it is the penalty of God’s wrath (like a judge sentencing a criminal to hard labor).

The images Jesus uses of how people come to be in hell do not suggest natural consequence but the exercise of just wrath. For example, he pictures the servant of a master who has gone on a journey. The servant says, “My master is delayed,” and he “begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards.” Then Jesus says (referring to his own sudden second coming), “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 24:48–51). This picture represents legitimate and holy rage followed by punishment. 

Jesus told another story to illustrate his departure from the earth and his return in judgment. He said, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. . . . But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us’” (Luke 19:12, 14). When the nobleman returned in his kingly power to reward those who had trusted and honored him with their lives, he punished those who rejected his kingship: “As for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me” (Luke 19:27). Again the picture is not one of hell as a disease resulting from bad habits but of a king expressing holy wrath against those who rebuff his gracious rule.

Fear Him Who Can Destroy Both Soul and Body in Hell

This is why Jesus said, “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). The fear he commands is not fear of hell as a natural consequence of bad habits, but of God as a holy judge who sentences guilty sinners to hell. This command to fear God as a holy judge seems discouraging at first. It seems as though following Jesus means leading a life of anxiety that God is angry with us and is ready to punish us at the slightest misstep. But that is not what Jesus calls us to experience as we follow him.

It seems amazing to us, perhaps, that immediately following his warning to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” Jesus says something designed to give us deep peace and full confidence under God’s fatherly care. The very next sentence goes like this: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:29–31).

In the same breath Jesus says to the unrepentant unbeliever, “Fear God who casts into hell” and to the repentant believer “Do not fear because God is your Father who values you more than the sparrows and knows your smallest need.” In fact, the all-providing care of God to the believer is one of Jesus’s sweetest and most pervasive teachings:

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? . . . Therefore do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. (Matt. 6:26, 31–32)

God Is to Be Feared, and God Is to Be Trusted

How does Jesus mean for us to experience these two truths about God—he is to be feared, and he is to be trusted? It won’t do to simply say that “fear of God” means “reverence for God” rather than “being afraid of him.” That does not fit with the words, “Fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:5). Of course, it is true that we should reverence God, that is, stand in awe of his holiness and power and wisdom. But there is also a real fear of him that can coexist with sweet peace and trust in him.

The key is that God himself is the one who removes his wrath from us. Our peace does not come from our removing the God of wrath from our thinking, but from His removing His wrath from us. He has done that by sending Jesus to die in our place so that, for everyone who believes in Jesus, God’s wrath is taken away. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus said, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up , that whoever believes in him may have eternal life . . . . Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:14–15, 36). When Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), he was experiencing the wrath of God’s abandonment in our place—for he had never done anything to deserve being forsaken by God. And when he said finally from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), he meant that the price of our salvation—our deliverance from God’s wrath and into all God’s blessings—had been paid in full.

The reason we do not live in the discomfort of constant fear is because we believe.

Jesus had said that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28), and now the full ransom was paid, and the work of absorbing and removing the wrath of God was finished. Now, he says, everyone who believes has everlasting fellowship with God and is fully assured that the wrath of the Judge is gone. “He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

Fearing Unbelief and it's Consequences 

What then is left to fear? The answer is unbelief. For those who follow Jesus, fearing God means fearing the terrible prospect of not trusting the one who paid such a price for our peace. In other words, one of the means that God uses to keep us peacefully trusting in Jesus is the fear of what God would do to us if we did not believe. The reason we do not live in the discomfort of constant fear is because we believe. That is, we rest in the all-sufficient work of Jesus and in our Father’s sovereign care. But at those moments when unbelief tempts us, a holy fear rises and warns us what a foolish thing it would be to distrust the one who loved us and gave his Son to die for our anxiety-free joy.

Closeness to God Takes Away Fear

If we will trust Him and enjoy Him and throw our arms around his strong neck, he will be everything we ever hoped for in a friend. But if we decide that there are other things we want more than him and turn to run away, he will get very angry. Jesus said this as clearly as we could wish in Luke 19:27, “But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.” Fearing God means fearing the terrible prospect of running away from the merciful, all-providing, all-satisfying reign of King Jesus.

Hell Means That Sin Is Unfathomably Serious

Jesus’s command that we fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell teaches us to see sin as more serious than we ever dreamed. The reason so many people feel that eternal hell is an unjust punishment for our sin is that they do not see sin as it really is. This is because they do not see God as he really is. When Jesus tells us what he will say to those who are going to hell he says, “Then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:23). They are workers of “lawlessness.” That is, they break God’s law. Sin is against God first, then man.

Therefore, the seriousness of sin arises from what it says about God. God is infinitely worthy and honorable. But sin says the opposite. Sin says that other things are more desirable and more worthy. How serious is this? The seriousness of a crime is determined, in part, by the dignity of the person and the office being dishonored. If the person is infinitely worthy and infinitely honorable and infinitely desirable and holds an office of infinite dignity and authority, then rebuffing him is an infinitely outrageous crime. Therefore, it deserves an infinite punishment. The intensity of Jesus’s words about hell is not an overreaction to small offenses. It is a witness to the infinite worth of God and to the outrageous dishonor of human sin.

The Precious Gift of Godly Fear

Therefore, give heed to Jesus’s clear command to fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Hear it as a great mercy. What a wonderful thing it is that Jesus warns us. He does not leave us ignorant of the wrath to come. He not only warns. He rescues. This is the best effect of fear: it wakens us to our need for help and points us to the all-sufficient Redeemer, Jesus. Let it have this effect on you. Let it lead you to Jesus who says to everyone who believes in him, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

If atheists "follow the science"....

If atheists "follow the science" then all of them should be anti-abortionists because "Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions around the world assessed survey items on when a human's life begins and, overall, 96%{5337in out of 5577} affirmed the fertilization view" [1] and unjustly killing an innocent human is murder. But 87 percent of atheists support abortion.[2] Curious...

Perhaps there is some scientific data that challenges the life begins at conception view.

Perhaps there is an exception to the killing of the unborn that makes it okay.

That would be their argument to make.

Or perhaps atheists only "follow the science" when it's convenient for them

Sources

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36629778/

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-family/atheist/views-about-abortion/

Just a Few of the Archaeological Finds that Support the Historicity of the Old Testament

The House of David Victory Stone 

Also known as the Tel Dan Stele, this slab of stone that was found in northern Israel in 1993 provides proof of Israel’s most famous ruler. The Aramaic inscription carved into it offers the first evidence of King David’s dynasty outside of Biblical sources.

It has been dated to the eighth or ninth century BCE and appears to recount the victory of King Hazael of Aram-Damascus, Syria, over King Joram of Israel and King Ahaziah of the House of David. This account differs from the Book of Kings, which states Jehu killed Joram and Ahaziah before taking the Israeli throne. The fragmented inscription reads:

[…] and cut […] my father went up [against him when] he fought at […] And my father lay down, he went to his [ancestors]. And the king of I[s]rael entered previously in my father’s land. [And] Hadad made me king. And Hadad went in front of me, [and] I departed from [the] seven […]s of my kingdom, and I slew [seve]nty kings, who harnessed thou[sands of cha]riots and thousands of horsemen (or: horses). [I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of the House of David. And I set [their towns into ruins and turned] their land into [desolation …] other [… and Jehu ru]led over Is[rael … and I laid] siege upon […]”

Providing undisputed evidence of the rule of David, the Tel Dan Stele is perhaps the most important relic of Biblical significance to have ever been found in the Jewish state.

 
King Solomon’s Wall

A three-month excavation in Israel’s capital Jerusalem, just over a decade ago, uncovered a section of a wall that is believed to date from the tenth century BCE. Influential archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University led the dig in a location known as the Ophel, close to the Temple Mount. The wall, which is an impressive 70 meters long and six meters high, appears to confirm the Book of the Kings’ account of King Solomon building a huge defensive barrier in Jerusalem (1 Kings 3:1).

There aren't very many kings during the tenth century that could have built such a structure, basically just David and Solomon. This is the first time that a structure from that time has been found that may correlate with written descriptions of Solomon’s building in Jerusalem. Other relics found at the site appear to support her assertion. They included figurines of women that symbolize fertility, as well as jar handles inscribed with the message “to the king” and seals that bear Hebrew names.

 
Hezekiah’s Tunnel

Charles Warren discovered Hezekiah’s Tunnel in 1867, after being sent to conduct excavations close to the Temple Mount. The tunnel, which was constructed around the eighth century BCE, formed part of a system used to transport water from the Gihon Spring to within the city’s walls. Its discovery also confirms the Biblical account of Hezekiah preparing the city for a siege led by Assyrians after the King of Judah offended Assyrian King Sennacherib. An inscription found on the tunnel wall confirms this feat of engineering was made possible by two teams using axes, who dug through rock and gravel from opposite ends until they eventually met in the middle.

 
Ketef Hinnom Amulets

Excavation works undertaken in 1979 at a tomb dating back to the seventh century BCE in Ketef Hinnom, southwest of Jerusalem’s Old City, uncovered something remarkable: Two tiny silver scrolls that would have originally been worn as amulets. It took three years for the scrolls to be carefully unrolled, and while most of the text on them was indecipherable due to how much they had disintegrated, experts quickly realized their significance.

They are the earliest written passage of the Hebrew Bible, even predating the famous Dead Sea Scrolls by around 400 years. Part of one inscription is a version of Numbers 6:24-26: “The Lord bless you and protect you! The Lord deal kindly and graciously with you! The Lord bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace!”

 

Jerusalem’s City Wall

Archaeologists working in the City of David National Park made an exciting announcement that confirms the Biblical description of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem led by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and the exile of the Jewish people that followed. The discovery of the ancient wall, which is five meters wide, proves Bible accounts of Jerusalem being fortified by a huge structure.

Dr. Filip Vukosavovic of the Ancient Jerusalem Research Center coordinated the excavations alongside Dr. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “When we exposed the first part of the wall, an area of ​​about one meter by one meter great, I immediately understood what we had found,” Dr. Vukosavovic said.

In 1846—before archaeology even existed as a field—an Assyrian obelisk was discovered in what is today northern Iraq. It referred to Jehu, a ninth-century BC Hebrew king. For the first time, an archaeological find corroborated what was in the Bible, and Victorian society was electrified. But this was only the first in a torrent of similar discoveries that challenged secular claims that the Bible is a collection of made-up myths and folktales.

This trend of archaeology corroborating Biblical accounts continued so consistently that in 1959 Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Since then, the evidence has kept coming.

For example, in 1961 an inscription was found bearing the name "Pilate," the earliest known reference to this figure outside of the New Testament. In 1968, a first-century home in Capernaum was identified as that of the apostle Peter. In 1990 an ossuary was found bearing the inscription—and bones—of Caiaphas, the high priest who infamously pushed for Jesus's execution. In 1993, a stele mentioning the "House of David" was discovered, yanking King David out of the realm of myth and into the historical record.

 
The destruction of Sodom

This peer-reviewed paper in the most respect scientific journal describes the cataclysmic destruction of a Middle Bronze Age city north of the Dead Sea and represented years of research and technical analysis by 21 scientists, who likely never expected to author a paper in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals that mentioned the destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom. But in the end, the parallels proved impossible to ignore.

For starters, the archaeologist who excavated the site had been guided there by what the Bible said about Sodom. Dr. Steven Collins knew if the place existed, this site—today called Tall el-Hammam—must be it. In 2006 he began excavating. When he and his team got down to about 1650 BC—when Sodom was believed destroyed—they uncovered a five-foot layer of soot. Randomly scattered throughout this vast "destruction matrix" were bits of melted brick, burned fragments of human bones and other baffling detritus. No volcanic eruption—or fire or earthquake—could have produced this.

The day they found it, Collins discovered the shard of a jar. A seasoned ceramic typologist, he tagged it instantly as from about 1700 B.C. But one side of it had a strange glassy green glaze. The technology to intentionally produce anything like that would not exist for another 24 centuries. What could it be? A lab in New Mexico concluded that the pottery had been melted by super-intense heat lasting a very short period of time. What would do that?

Another perplexing fact: though the site was inhabited for millennia before the cataclysm, immediately afterward, there was a gap of 700 years before humans again settled there. Why would a site offering unmatched natural resources and military advantages be shunned for so long? It was unprecedented.

What Dr. Collins came to believe—and what the recent Nature article corroborated in extraordinary detail—is that what happened was a "cosmic airburst/impact event" very similar to what happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That's when an asteroid of about 180 feet in diameter entered the Earth's atmosphere at 34,000 mph, and exploded a few miles above that largely uninhabited region. The equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, the 1908 blast flattened 80 million trees, and so disturbed the upper atmosphere that for three days people in London could read newspapers at midnight. The Nature article says the Tall el-Hammam explosion was likely even more powerful.

The destruction it wrought is hard to fathom. The most powerful hurricanes produce winds approaching 200 mph, but this explosion may have generated winds of 700 mph. Walls 15 feet thick were utterly obliterated. The heat was such that nearly all of the thousands of inhabitants were vaporized. In fact, Nature tells us that the temperature at the center of the Tunguska explosion was 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit; the Tall el-Hammam explosion was perhaps even hotter. Whatever charred bone fragments survived—along with melted pottery, plaster, and roofing tiles—indicate that for 25 seconds the temperature was roughly 3,500 degrees, hot enough to melt stainless steel and titanium.

The only events comparable to what happened at Tall el-Hammam are the atomic bomb tests in the New Mexico desert in 1945, which melted the sands into a glaze so similar to what Collins found on the Bronze Age pottery that when he first showed the fragment to the lab scientist she assumed it was from the Los Alamos testing site.

The Nature article concludes explicitly that what happened in 1700 BC bears inescapable parallels to what the Bible says about Sodom. And indeed, they are startling:

1) stones fell from the sky;

2) fire came down from the sky;

3) thick smoke rose from the fires;

4) a major city was devastated;

5) city inhabitants were killed; and

6) area crops were destroyed."

It even says that what happened "may have generated an oral tradition that...became the source of the written story of biblical Sodom in Genesis." That a prestigious journal of science would admit these things should at least make any critical thinking person sit up and take notice.

It's not Christus Victor vs Penal Substitutionary Atonement, but rather PSA and CV together helping to give a fuller picture of the Atonement.

 The Penal Substitutionary Atonement [PSA] and Christus Victor [CV] are not competing theories of the Atonement; they are simply different aspects of it, two sides of the same coin.

PSA focuses, often exclusively, on the Crucifixion and death of Jesus taking the penalty for our sins, being punished as a substitution in place of us being punished.

CV focuses, often exclusively, on the victory that Christ achieved over the devil on our behalf as shown via His Resurrection.

The atheist Euthyphro Dilemma

 The Euthyphro Dilemma is usually formulated against Christians as:

1) Does God choose what is good because it is good,

2) or does God chose what is good?

For the Christian, neither choice is acceptable.

To affirm that God choose what is good because it is good is to establish an autonomous moral principle that has authority over Him

To affirm what is good is whatever God has said it is to render morality arbitrary

The solution for the Christian is a 3rd option: God is Good itself. Since God is simultaneously the source and the measure of all goodness, the dilemma disappears.

But the atheist has an Euthyphro Dilemma of their own concerning the source of their morality:

A common atheist view of morality is that human instinct/society has decided that human well-being [Or harm mitigation] as the root of morality. Both atheistic views of morality often require people to act against their interests.

However:

The Marquis de Sade an atheist philosopher, concluded that Nature teaches us the principle that the strong ought to rule over and therefore exploit the weak.

Friedrich Nietzsche atheist philosopher, said a healthy society does not exist for its own sake, but exists for the sake of a higher type of person.

Both philosophers chose instincts such as the desire to dominate and cruelty, which are the antithesis of the "human well-being/harm mitigation" morality. The question therefore arises: why should we choose a "well-being or harm mitigation" morality over those of the Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche?

To argue that our morality’s source is human instinct/society means that we have no reason to prefer a "well-being or harm mitigation" morality over the Marquis de Sade and Nietzsche’s, since their moralities are derived from the same human understanding as today's atheists who should be aware of the fact that there are humans who do not have the same instinct for compassion as they do. So why prefer one morality over another?

Why should the human instinct/society be the arbiter of what is good? We look to history to see that it has been wrong in the past: Abolitionists held the minority view during most of human history, yet their anti-slavery philosophy is now almost universally accepted, except for the minority who continue to enslave people today.

If, as atheists assert, human instinct/society is the source of their "well-being or no harm mitigation" morality, a Euthyphro-style Dilemma arises.

The atheist Euthyphro-style Dilemma is this:

1) is a "well-being or no harm/harm mitigation morality" good because human instinct/society says so, or

2) is it morally good because it is a good?

If they say it is morally good because human instinct/society says so, then they run into the problem of those who feel/operate according to different instincts - aka Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade. Why well-being or no harm/harm mitigation morality" over Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade?

If we say it is morally good because it is good or benevolent, then we admit a morality is external to us.

Whereas theists argue that morality’s external source is God, atheists who wish to adhere to an external morality have the burden of demonstrating this morality’s external source.

I suppose that a 3rd option would be that which best helps humans survive as a species, but why humans? What makes us special? Why not cockroaches or rats or the tardigrade? If it's about well-being or harm mitigation, those 3 probably caused less harm than humans combined...