Christianity Today

Of course, you have the resurrection of the widow's son by Elisha, the resurrection of the dead man in the grave when Elisha's bones touched him, the resurrection of Lazurus, the Resurrection of the widow of Nain's son. Jesus instruction to the 12 disciples to heal the sick and raise the dead, Jesus' resurrection, the resurrection of the saints in Jerusalem when Jesus was raised, The resurrection of Tabitha and Eutychus in Acts, plus all the current documented accounts around the world today. So, obviously John was talking about an unprecedented general resurrection of of that part of the human race that were Christians, at least a billion saints all at once. A unique event by magnitude only equaled by a following resurrection of all human beings, at least 7 or 8 billion. It was the 1st and second resurrection of this kind. By the way, this also puts the resurrection of the saints in Matthew in context as miraculous but certainly not unprecedented.

If the resurrection of the saints occurred as stated in Mat 27 then the resurrection mentioned in Rev 20:5 "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection" could not be labelled THE FIRST RESURRECTION, it would have been the SECOND, so take your pick - which one is correct and which one is false?

Max, the problem I have is the very first assumption, that the Gospel of Matthew is simply a greco-roman style biography. You state that the “Bioi offered the ancient biographers great flexibility for rearranging material and inventing speeches… and they often included legend. Because bios was a flexible genre, it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins.” Of course, if you believe the Gospel of Matthew, or the entire Biblical record is full of legend, historical fiction, exagerration and myth, then it would be reasonable and even laudable to develop a methodology to separate fact from fiction. Then I would agree with most of the points of your critique. Go Max! However, these are not mere academic conflicts or disputes over hermeneutics and it is the supporters of Licona who are decrying the “vitriol” and the “witch hunts”. You have a low view of scripture and I and many others here simply do not agree with you.

As an Australian observer of the North American Evangelical scene (for over 40 years) I have often been saddened to read of the unnecessary conflicts that occur in the academic world. It saddens me to read that scholars whose wrirtigns have both aided me in my teaching and in my personal journey are treating an issue that is one of interpreataion as one of evangelical orthodoxy. I teach 14 to 18 year old students that we should be very careful not make one isolated interpretation of a text a test of a person's orthodoxy. Mostly this is in the context of questions relating to Genesis. While I do not agree with Michael Licona's interpretation, I do not consider that this alone should justify a charge of evangelical heresy. This is not the first time charges such as this have been directed at individuals. It is not the first time someone has been forced to resign. Unfortunately I do not expect it to be the last, unless there is a cultural change in the North American Seminary world.

Sue, no one is making Licona swear to an interpretation of scripture. If that was what this was about it would not be news. As I said, many very different interpretations coexist in the evangelical church. Dispensationalist, charismatic, pre-millennial, a-millennial, arminian, calvinist. Often these positions all exist in the same pews as they do at our church. However, we all agree that the Bible is trustworthy, historical, non-mythological and vital to faith. The miracles are what they claim to be, the stories are not inventions by over-eager disciples. Those churches that believe the Bible is merely inspired, as Ghandi’s writings might be, or that the scriptures are riddled with myth, legend, inaccuracies and invention have a difficult time with evangelism. Licona had problems with the reliability of many scriptural passages, not just this one. That is why the faculty of his seminary voted him out.