J. Warner November 7, 2014
Last week I presented the case for the Resurrection of Jesus at the University of Transylvania in Lexington Kentucky. The students there listened attentively as I traced the New Testament “Chain of Custody” to demonstrate how early Church Fathers (like Polycarp, Ignatius and Clement) helped establish the reliability of the Resurrection account. I recounted the writings of many of these early Church leaders as they described what they learned from the original disciples and eyewitnesses of Jesus’. Historic claims related to the life of Jesus and the Resurrection can also be traced in the writings of men like Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, Tatian, Justin Martyr and many others. After the talk (during the Q and A), one astute student noted some of the Church Fathers in my “Chain of Custody” actually held heretical positions related to Christian doctrines. He also observed these Church leaders were identified within the historic role-call of Roman Catholic leaders. He questioned how I might be willing to accept their testimony related to what they learned about the historicity of Jesus if I wasn’t willing to accept their “Roman Catholic-ish” beliefs about things such as the role of sacraments, the existence of purgatory or the nature of Mary. Can people who hold different theological views still play an important role in establishing the historicity of Jesus? Yes they can.
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