Have You Ever Wondered?

Fritz E. Barton Jr. MD

Description

This book explores the questions about Christianity you always wanted to ask in Sunday School or seminary.

Churches do an excellent job of discipling members in daily application of the principles of Christianity. Traditional Bible study groups tend to focus on individual books. But where do inquisitive Christians find answers to topics – sometimes perplexing – about their faith?



Dr. Barton’s first book, Seeking Understanding Faith, focused on exploring God and interactive faith. This book explores answers to questions about the Bible. When did time begin? Did Jesus really have to die? Why do we celebrate Jesus’ birth at Christmas? What happened to the apostles? Have You Ever Wondered? addresses such questions.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Living
• Questions
• Inspirational
• Philosophie et théologie
• Question (disambiguation)
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781973698807
• Langue: English

Extrait

Have You Ever Wondered?
Questions about Christianity
Fritz E. Barton, Jr. MD


Copyright © 2023 Fritz E. Barton, Jr. MD.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
 
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Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version. (Public Domain)
 
Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
 
Scripture quotations marked NCV are taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
Scripture quotations marked NET are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2016 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
 
ISBN: 978-1-9736-9878-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9736-9879-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-9736-9880-7 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023909458
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 10/09/2023
Table of Contents
1.Where Did Time Come From?
2.Why Did God Pick Planet Earth?
3.How Did the Nation of Israel Come to Exist?
4.Who Was Elijah?
5.Why Did God Require Genocide of All Inhabitants of the Promised Land?
6.How Was the New Testament Assembled?
7.What Is Lower Criticism of the Bible?
8.What Is Higher Criticism of the Bible?
9.What Happened to Trust in the Bible?
10.The Abiathar Confusion: Was Mark Mistaken?
11.Israel and the Church: How Do They Relate?
12.How Did Understanding of the Soul and Afterlife Develop?
13.Body, Soul, and Spirit: What’s the Difference?
14.Christian Heresies: Was Jesus God or Man?
15.Why Did God Wait Thousands of Years to Send Christ to Earth?
16.How Do You Reconcile the Different Stories of Jesus’s Birth?
17.Was Jesus Born at Christmas?
18.What Was the Christmas Star of Bethlehem?
19.Why Was Herod Fearful of Jesus’s Birth?
20.Did Jesus Actually Claim to Be God?
21.Did the Voice at Jesus’s Baptism Adopt Him into Deity?
22.When Did Jesus Become the Son of God?
23.What Is the Begotten Controversy?
24.Why Did a Sinless Jesus Need to Be Baptized?
25.What Was the Chronology of Jesus’s Ministry?
26.Who Were the Women Who Supported Jesus’s Ministry?
27.Calling of the Twelve: Why Did They Respond?
28.Why Did Jesus Command People Not to Tell Who He Was?
29.Who Was John the Disciple?
30.Who Was Peter the Disciple?
31.What Are the Kingdoms?
32.Why Did Jesus Start Speaking in Parables?
33.When Was Jesus’s Last Supper?
34.Did Jesus Really Sweat Blood at Gethsemane?
35.Why Did Jesus Have to Die?
36.What Day Did Jesus Die?
37.What Was the Time of Jesus’s Crucifixion?
38.How Many Ascensions?
39.Was Jesus in the Grave for Three Days?
40.Where Is Paradise?
41.Did Jesus Really Go to Hell?
42.Who Is Satan?
43.Was the Resurrection a Surprise?
44.Where Did Easter Come From?
45.Why Did Miracles Cease after the First Century?
46.What Was the Chronology of Jesus’s Post-Resurrection Appearances?
47.Why Did History Not Better Record the Crucifixion and the Resurrection?
48.What Happened to the Apostles?
49.Who Was the Apostle Paul?
50.Why Is the New Heaven on Planet Earth?
51.Who Was John Mark?
52.Why Was Augustine So Influential?
53.Does Man Have Free Will?
54.What Is the Role of Grace?
55.What is a Personal Relationship With Jesus?
56.Are There Messianic Prophecies in Matthew?
57.Did Daniel Prophesy the Future?
58.Did Scribes Write the Bible?
59.How Did the Popes Dominate Christianity?
60.How Did the Gospel Writers Remember The Exact Quotes Of Jesus?
PROLOGUE
The difficulty in studying the Bible is that the story is scattered among sixty-six different books. Sorting out the “big picture” is challenging.
Having come from an academic background, I tend to think of things in topics. The selection of a topic for study often begins with the question,“Have you ever wondered…….”? Then, the investigation begins, gleaning a piece here and a piece there throughout the books of the Bible.
Personally, I had hoped that these questions would be taught in “Sunday School”. After all what is more important to understand than eternal fate?
Then, I hoped to find the answers in seminary, but many of these questions are too insignificant for higher education. Some, perhaps, seem irreverent.
Asking questions to “seek understanding” in no way means that you are challenging doctrinal validity. In my previous career training surgeons, I encouraged them to know “why” as well as “what” they were doing. It is the basic Socratic method of education.
In Seeking Understanding Faith , I reversed Anselm’s classic quote of “faith seeking understanding”. Understanding is a requisite to believing. That book dealt with the questions of God and interactive faith. This book is a collection of questions about the Bible and Christianity.
I will agree, up front, that this list of scattered questions has no cohesion. Some are bigger questions than others. This collection represents many of the questions that have intrigued me personally. Maybe you have thought about them too.
Have you ever wondered………..?
Fritz E. Barton, Jr, M.D.
1
Where Did Time Come From?
History
B oth Genesis 1:1 in the Old Testament and John 1:1 in the New Testament start with “In the beginning.” Biblically, time began at the creation of the universe. The first chapter of Genesis defines time into “days.” Of course, there is debate over the exact length of a biblical “day,” but nevertheless, it established the existence of time measurement.
The Garden of Eden contained the “tree of life” (Gen. 1:8; 3:22). Apparently, eating of the “tree of life” resulted in living forever (Gen. 3:22), which God forbade Adam and Eve from doing. In Genesis 3:19, God decreed that “man,” who was made from dust, would return to dust—that is, have a limited, not forever, life span. Then, in Genesis 6:3, the longevity of humanity was limited to 120 years.
Measuring Time
From humanity’s standpoint, it was noticed that conditions changed: light/dark, temperature with seasons, growth, and aging. So time was evidenced in more than cosmological rotations and exposure to sunlight. Earthly living things changed with time.
The measurement of time began sometime before 1500 BC. The Egyptians likely were the first to develop methods of measuring time. At first, it was one-twelfth of daylight, but of course, the length of daylight varied with seasons. More accurate measurements followed with sandglasses, water clocks, and candles. 1
With the invention of the mechanical clock in the thirteenth century, the unit of time moved from days to hours.
When Did Time Start?
Before Einstein, astronomers (for the most part) understood the universe in terms of three laws of motion presented by Isaac Newton in 1686. These three laws follow: 2 (1) Objects in motion (or at rest) remain in motion (or at rest) unless an external force imposes change. (2) Force is equal to the change in momentum per change of time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration. (3) For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Philosophers and scientists until the time of Albert Einstein concluded that the universe was both static and eternal. Even Einstein initially agreed. But with the development of the big bang beginning and evidence of an expanding—not static—universe, Einstein reluctantly changed his mind.
But how did the concept of time fit into all this?
In 1905 Einstein conceived of the theory of special relativity, which defined the relationship between matter, energy, and the speed of light. Hence the famous formula E = MC 2 . “Simply put, as an object approaches the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite, and it is unable to go any faster than light travels.” 3
But the theory of special relat