Unsettled Christianity

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Whatever do you mean, Joel?

Ken makes a logical fallacy, that for Jesus to be the Son of God, he would have to be completely inhuman. I note that Paul writes that Christ emptied himself of his deity to assume flesh, and yet, Ham argues with Paul. Surely, Ham opines, that Jesus was complete deity. For him, Jesus must have known everything and been incapable of not knowing. Scripture tells us that Christ was tempted in every way, and overcame those temptations. This is because Jesus was human. He was a Jew. A Palestinan Jew of the 1st century, no matter what else we wish to believe about him… Jesus was a Jew.

Ham allows two ‘researchers’ from AiG to write,

The idea advanced by Dr. Enns here is known as the accommodation theory and was first advanced in the eighteenth century by Johann Semler, the father of German rationalism. The accommodation theory is very popular among liberal theologians and basically asserts that Jesus accommodated (accepted and taught) the various ideas of His day, even if they were wrong.⁵ Allegedly, since Jesus was primarily concerned with spiritual matters, He didn’t bother to correct some of their false historical or scientific beliefs because doing so might have distracted from His real message.

Did Jesus Tell a Lie? | Around the World with Ken Ham.

If this was the case, that Jesus had to correct everything (and for some reason, Ham and others assume that the Jews of 1st century Palestine were just proto-fundamentalist Christians in believe), then why didn’t he do that about medicine? Or give the world nuclear energy? Or tell people that washing hands wasn’t just a good thing when eating, but so too for physicians? Do you know how many lives that could have saved between then and the late 1800′s when it started happening?

They must make the presupposition that the 1st century Jewish Jesus believed and taught what the 21st century Ken Ham does. Second, they must believe that unless Jesus did, then Jesus was wrong. Third, they must endeavor to make sure that other 1st century Jews believed the same way that Ham does now. Fourth, they assume that unless Jesus acted in accordance with their theology, then he was wrong. Fifth, they also must assume that the Gospels are ‘historical narrative’ of the same time which is produced by modern Western societies. It is a house of cards which protects their faith.

So, no, Ken Ham doesn’t believe in the historical Jesus; he believes in an Imaginary Jesus of his own creation.

By the way, there is a blog tour for Dr. Enns’ book…see a post of it here.

Related articles

• The Wisdom of Ken Ham (anatheistviewpoint.blogspot.com)
• Ken Ham vs. Karl Giberson – should I care who wins? (freethoughtblogs.com)
• A little comparative religion would do Ken Ham a world of good (freethoughtblogs.com)

Joel Landon Watts is a Masters of Theological Studies student with a focus in Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific ideals of the past century. Currently, he is a TA for Old Testament at United Theological Seminary under Dr. Vivian Johnson, Associate Professor of Old Testament. His first book, Rhetorical Strategies of the Evangelist: Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark, is expected to be published by Wipf and Stock early next year. He is currently co-editing a book on moving from Fear to Faith (Energion, 2013).

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