Apologetics Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Timothy Paul Jones

Apologetics: The Earliest Surviving Listing of the New Testament Canon

26th September 2016

The claim has been repeated over and over that the first person to list the same twenty-seven books that we find in our New Testament today was Athanasius of Alexandria, in the year 367. When this claim comes from the lips of a skeptical scholar, it’s typically followed by a long leap to the conclusion that […]

Apologetics: How Long Was the Canon in Question?

19th September 2016

The Canon of the New Testament and the Categories of Eusebius The suggestion continues to be made by popular skeptics that the New Testament canon was in flux for hundreds of years. One scholar claims that no one came up with “a definitive list of books to be included in the canon that matched our list today” […]

Theology: How Free Is Humanity?

13th September 2016

How free are your choices? Do human beings possess free will? Does God determine your choices or do you? Part of the answer depends on how you define “freedom” and “free will”! With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the notions of human freedom and free will. Does God Save People Against Their […]

Culture: A Quick Guide to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

3rd September 2016

At the center of God’s story stands this singular act: In Jesus Christ, God personally intersected human history and redeemed humanity at a particular time in a particular place. Yet this central marvel of redemption does not stand alone. It is bordered by God’s good creation and humanity’s fall into sin on the one hand […]

Apologetics: Is Inerrancy a Modern Invention?

29th August 2016

“Inerrancy” is the belief that the Bible never errs. It’s another way of saying that the Old and New Testaments—as they were originally written—declare what is true and describe accurately what happened in the past. To say the Bible is inerrant is to say that the Scriptures do not affirm anything that is contrary to […]

Apologetics: How the Meaning of “Canon” Changed from a River Reed to a Book We Read

22nd August 2016

Recently, I had a conversation with Jonathan Petersen at Bible Gateway about the origin and meaning of the word “canon.” Here’s an excerpt from our discussion: Jonathan: What is the definition of “canon”? TPJ: The meaning of the word canon as we know it today can be traced back to how the Greeks used a […]

Culture: Iron Man 2 and the Metanarrative of God

19th August 2016

This exploration of Iron Man 2 is the fourth in a series of posts exploring theological themes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can find the rest of the series here. I recommend using VidAngel to filter the content of this film for your family. Every part of Tony Stark seems to have been forged in […]

Culture: The Incredible Hulk and the Metanarrative of God

12th August 2016

This exploration of The Incredible Hulk is the third in a series of posts exploring theological themes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can find the rest of the series here. I recommend using VidAngel to filter the content of this film for your family. Spider-Man teaches us that, with great power, comes great responsibility. Iron […]

Apologetics: Was Jesus Married?

8th August 2016

Ariel Sabar, writing for The Atlantic, has presented clear and convincing evidence that the so-called Gospel of Jesus’ Wife is a forgery. Dr. Karen King unveiled the fragment in 2012 and suggested that the Coptic text came from a fourth-century copy of an otherwise-unknown second-century Gospel. The clause that gave the fragment its name was found […]

Culture: Iron Man and the Metanarrative of God

5th August 2016

This exploration of Iron Man is the second in a series of posts exploring theological themes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can find the rest of the series here. I recommend using VidAngel to filter the content of this film for your family. The Marvel Cinematic Universe launched in 2008 with the story of Tony Stark, […]

Apologetics: Constantine, the New Testament Canon, and the Conversion of the Roman Empire

1st August 2016

Ariel Sabar has penned a devastating exposé of the forged fragment known as Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. The article is well-researched and well-written—but it also includes a couple of historical errors that seem to have become conventional wisdom in far too many news articles.

Apologetics: What If the Copies Were Corrupted?

11th January 2016

Suppose you own a Bible, but it’s translated in a style that’s difficult to understand. Or maybe your Bible has simply worn out from years of usage. If so, you can easily walk into any Christian bookstore and pick up a different version of the Bible. The earliest Christians couldn’t do that. There was no […]

Apologetics: How the New Testament Epistles Were Written

8th January 2016

Have you ever wondered exactly how the New Testament epistles were written? Did Paul sit down with a fountain pen and a piece of papyrus? Did Peter and James sketch out an outline before they wrote their letters? And what caused the apostles to write their letters in the first place? It was in the […]

Apologetics: Why the Lost Gospels Were Lost

6th January 2016

What are the “lost Gospels”? The term “lost Gospels” usually refers to ancient writings that were excluded from the New Testament, even though they included supposed recollections of events and teachings from the life of Jesus. A few of these lost Gospels have lasted throughout the centuries. Others survive only in tiny fragments of papyrus or […]

Apologetics: How Did the Bible Begin?

28th September 2015

Have you ever wondered how the Bible got started in the first place? That is one of the many questions I address in my new book How We Got the Bible. See the excerpt below from chapter two, “How Did the Old Testament Get from God to You?” to learn how the Bible began and who […]

Apologetics: What’s So Special about the Bible?

23rd September 2015

Perhaps at one point or another, you have found yourself gazing down at a leather bound copy of a large book with small print titled The Holy Bible and asking the question, “Why did God decide to leave us with this?” This God-inspired book wasn’t an afterthought or an accident! Eternal eons before God created […]

Apologetics: An Interview about How the Bible Came to Be

14th September 2015

Ivan Mesa, an editor for The Gospel Coalition, recently had a conversation with Timothy Paul Jones about how we got—and why we should trust—God’s Word, the topic of his recent book How We Got the Bible. At the bottom of this post, click on the coupon for a discount code that lets you buy the book for only $9.99–one-third off […]

Apologetics: A New Teaching Series on How We Got the Bible

4th June 2015

A few weeks from now, Rose Publishing will release a new book and video series entitled How We Got the Bible. The topic of the book and video series is—you guessed it!—how we got the Bible. (Click here for a quick peek at the video production process.) Here are a few of the topics I cover in […]

Apologetics: Why the “Lost Gospels” Were Lost

2nd June 2015

In 1945, a farmer named Muhammad ‘Ali al-Samman found a trove of ancient codices while searching for fertilizer. He and his brothers returned home with the thirteen papyrus books. That’s when his mother apparently used a few of the papyri as kindling in their stone oven.[i] Most of the texts, however, survived the kindling pile and […]

Apologetics: Early Testimonies about the New Testament Gospels

26th May 2015

In an earlier blog post, I explored the evidence that the four New Testament Gospels were linked with the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from the time they first began to circulate in the churches. In this post, I want to dig a bit deeper into specific first- and second-century testimonies about the authorship of the […]