Without Excuse: Apologetics Blog

  There is some confusion on how Levitical or Mosiac law relates to Christians. They are often used to accuse Christians of cherry picking the Bible, however such accusations are made out of ignorance. There are 613 Levitical laws that fell into one of three categories: civil, ceremonial, and moral. Civil related to the affairs of government. Ceremonial related to the affairs of the priest, sacrificial laws, dietary laws, cleansing, etc. Moral laws related to sexual sins, stealing, murder, the ten commandments, and so on. The civil and ceremonial laws were specifically intended for Israel at that time, under the Old Covenant. Some may wonder here why God cared about what His people ate or why sanitation was important. However, these laws did have practical applications. The ceremonial laws taught proper hygiene. In fact, during the middle ages as the black plague was sweeping across Europe, Jews were often less affected specially because their religious faith promoted better ...

Psa 137:8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Psa 137:9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. Does Psalm 137:9 support infanticide? Not hardly, context is everything. First a little back story. Psalm 137 takes place during the Jewish exile in Babylon (modern day Iraq). The Babylonians had come against Judah and besieged Jerusalem for eighteen months. The account is detailed in the Book of Lamentations. The siege was so serve that the people were starving to death. Children and infants were dying in the streets (lam 2:11-12, 19, 4:4), and mothers were boiling their babies for food (Lam 2:20, 4:10). The city eventually fell and the Jews were taken captive to Babylon. Psalm 137 opens with the Jews lamenting what had happened in Jerusalem. They remembered what the Babylonians did to them and their children and wanted vengeance. They also remembered what the prophet Isaiah...

Liberal scholars date the Book of Daniel to around 170 BC, because it seems to detail the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BC) so well. However evidence would suggest a later date. *The Book of Daniel is mentioned in the Septuagint which was written between 300-200 BC. *Jesus validates the Book of Daniel by calling Daniel a prophet (Mat 25:15; Mar 13:14). *The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus writes of the Book of Daniel being shown to Alexander the Great around 332 BC.  (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XI, 337 [viii, 5])  *Contemporary literature such as Sirach and 1 Maccabees essentially declare that prophecy has ceased. If Daniel was written at such a late date it would have been rejected as being inspired and not included in canon. *Fragments of the Book of Daniel, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, would place Daniel within 50 years of it's supposed origins.Specifically 4QDanc which is dated to the late second century BC. Professor Gerhard Hasel writes, "For those suppo...

This past week Bill Maher in his never ending quest to garner attention by offending every person of faith made the following statement: "What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at? I mean, besides Chris Christie." "Hey, God, you know you're kind of a dick when you're in a movie with Russell Crowe and you're the one with anger issues." "You know conservatives are always going on about how Americans are losing their values and their morality, well maybe it's because you worship a guy who drowns babies." "If we were a dog and God owned us, the cops would come and take us away." It's not the first time Bill Maher has made statements like this. These same tired arguments are routinely regurgitated in his diatribes. What strikes me as ironic is Bill Maher doesn't believe in God or the bible yet be believes in the parts of the bible which he believes makes it look bad.  You can...

Who killed Goliath, David or Elhanan? 1. David did (1 Samuel 17:50) - "Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand." 2. Elhanan did (2 Sam. 21:19)- "And there was war with the Philistines again at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam." Objection: While 2 Sam 21:19 says Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath. The words "the brother of" do not appear in the Hebrew Text. Answer: The mostly likely clarification lies in 1 Ch 20:5: "Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam." (1Ch 20:5) The apparent contradiction between 1 Ch 20:5 and 2 Sam 21:19 is likely a transcription error....

Hell appears 31 times in the Old Testament and, without exception, is translated from the Hebrew word Sheol. The same word is translated as "pit" three different times. Sheol is sometimes translated as "the grave" which would infer that hell and the grave are the same, but this is a mistranslation. The proper word for "grave" is "Gibrah", which means grave,burying place, and sepulchre. Hell in the New Testament is the Greek word "Hades". Sheol and Hades are the same thing. Hell is basically a jail the lost souls go to until they are judged and sent to prison in "The Lake of Fire" or "gehenna". There are other compartments as well (Tartarus, The Abyss, The Bottomless pit) but we will not concern ourselves with these at the moment. The question arises how can a loving God send someone to such a terrible place? Well for starters man was not initially intended to go to hell, this was a place prepared for Sa...

Recently in an interview with Jim Wallis, Bill Maher on his show made the statement “Explain to me how a book that is written by God, who is perfect, there’s so much–it’s pro-slavery, pro-polygamy, it’s homophobic, God in the Old Testament is a psychotic mass murderer–I mean, there’s so many things in it.". The interview can be seen here . There is much more about the interview and Jim Wallis that could be said, bit I am to address that particular comment made by Mr. Maher here. Those accusations are often parroted by atheists against God and the bible. That fact that Bill Maher needs an explanation shows his lack of understanding on the matter. Jim Wallis was correct about one thing, slavery as practiced by the Hebrews was more like servitude. People often think of slavery today in terms of the African slave trade, however that sort of slavery was explicitly denounced: "You shall not steal. (Exd 20:15)"  "He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is f...