Grace is an unexpected surprise

“Babette’s Feast” is a short story written by Isak Dinesen that was made into a film and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1987. “Babette’s Feast” tells of a minister’s two daughters from a remote village in Denmark called Norre Vosburg who give up love and fame to remain in service to their tiny, strict Lutheran church. In spite of the women’s intentions, the years take their toll on the people of the church, which begins to deteriorate – consumed with rules and regulations and plagued by bitter feuds among the congregation members. 

Out of pity, the two sisters reluctantly take in a woman refugee from Paris who knocks on their door one rainy day. She has an accompanying note with her that concludes with the simple statement, “Babette can cook.” Babette settles in and obediently cooks for the two sisters, fixing only what their pleasure-denying palettes would allow – bland cod and gruel. 

Twelve years go by, and one day Babette receives surprising news in the mail that she holds the winning French lottery ticket, redeemable for 10,000 francs. Upon hearing this news, the two sisters, who’ve grown attached to and dependent upon Babette over the years, realize that Babette will leave them soon. 

Around this time, the tiny church holds an anniversary celebration in honour of its founder, so Babette asks the sisters if she can prepare a special French meal for this event. To the sisters, the thought of a French meal seems worldly and self-indulgent, perhaps even originating from Satan himself. However, Babette has never asked for anything before, so the two sisters feel compelled to agree to her request in spite of their fears. After Babette receives her prize money, she begins to purchase supplies for the meal, and the sisters watch in horror as Babette brings in champagne, chocolate, turtles, pheasants, and even a cow’s head. The duo meet secretly with the other members of the congregation, and they all conspire to eat the meal out of duty, but won’t enjoy it or even speak of the meal to each other. 

The night of the celebration comes, and the congregation sits down to dinner. A church member’s nephew, a high-ranking, cosmopolitan general, joins them; as the meal starts, the congregation eats and drinks without comment, but the general is amazed – he is drinking the finest Amontillado he’s ever had and eating real turtle soup, a delicacy never found in remote Denmark. Later, when he tastes the main course, the general announces that the only place he’d ever had this one-of-a-kind dish was at Cafe Anglais, a famous Parisian restaurant that was once well-known for its female chef. Throughout much of the meal, the general’s unbridled enthusiasm stands out against the stark silence of the rest of the dinner guests. 

As the meal continues, the feast has a transforming effect, and the church members gradually loosen up and begin to enjoy the meal. They begin to laugh and talk of good times in the past. Feuds that had gone on for years are dealt with and buried. Finally, at the evening’s conclusion, they go outside together, form a circle under the stars, and sing a hymn together. What was, hours before, a decaying, feuding congregation is now a unified, joyful one, transformed by Babette’s feast. 

The story ends with two bombshells. Babette first tells the two sisters that she was, in fact, the famous chef at Cafe Anglais (which the general had spoken of earlier in the evening). She then adds that she’ll be staying with the two in Norre Vosburg permanently. When the sisters ask about the prize money, Babette reveals that she spent the entire sum on the celebration meal. After all, that’s what a dinner for twelve costs at Cafe Anglais! 

Grace versus mercy: Knowing the difference

 

Although the terms grace and mercy are often used interchangeably, there’s a subtle difference in meaning between the two: Grace is receiving something that’s undeserved, while mercy isn’t receiving punishment that’s deserved. For example, in Les Miserables, the bishop’s mercy saves Valjean from life imprisonment, and his grace gives Valjean a new life. In the same way, God shows humans grace by giving the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, and he shows mercy by not punishing for their sin those who accept his gift.

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AirAsia crash: Pilot’s son ‘thinks daddy is still at work’

The eight-year-old son of the crashed AirAsia aeroplane pilot “thinks daddy is still at work”, his uncle said today.

Arya Galih Gegana’s remaining family are shielding the young boy from the news his father Captain Irianto will not come home.

"I told Galih that his father will not be coming straight home because he has another job to do," Budi Sutiono, the pilot’s 55-year-old brother, told the Daily Telegraph.

"He thinks daddy is still at work.”

It is the latest tragedy for the family – Mr Sutiono’s other brother was buried last week after dying from a heart attack.

Inside the home the TVs are kept off, with mourners carefully avoiding discussing the catastrophe near the young boy. His mother Widya Sukarti Putri remains in her bedroom, emerging only occasionally to check the news and greet the friends gathering to express their sadness.

The boy's 22-year-old sister Angela posted on Twitter yesterday: "Papa come back, I still need you," with pictures of the two together.

"Slowly we will try to explain what has happened to his father,” Mr Sutiono said.

“But it needs time. We still haven't worked out exactly how we will say it. I need time myself to accept what happened to my brother."

Victims’ families are coming to terms with the loss and discovery of AirAsia Flight QZ8501, which disappeared on Sunday with 162 people on board.

Read more: Pilot describes seeing victims 'holding hands'
21 most powerful photos from the crash
First stories behind tragic victims

An international search found debris and bodies off the coast of Borneo yesterday morning, with a pilot reporting that he saw bodies “holding hands” as they were pulled from the water.

A sonar image has revealed what appears to be the outline of the aircraft lying upside down roughly 30 meters under the water.

In pictures: The 21 most powerful images from search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501  

Seven bodies, four men and three women, have been recovered so far. Two of the bodies have been retrieved with their clothes intact and one body was found wearing a life jacket.

The finds are significant as it may indicate that the aircraft was intact when it hit the water, a theory supported by the “fairly contained” accumulation of debris found so far.

AirAsia victim with life jacket raises questions

AirAsia victim with life jacket raises questions about plane's last moments 

PANGKALAN BUN/SURABAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) - A body recovered on Wednesday from the crashed AirAsia plane was wearing a life jacket, an Indonesian search and rescue official said, raising new questions about how the disaster unfolded.

Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters near where debris and bodies were found on the surface.

Ships and planes had been scouring the Java Sea for Flight QZ8501 since Sunday, when it lost contact during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Seven bodies have been recovered from the sea, some fully clothed, which could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water. That would support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall.

The fact that one person put on a life jacket suggests those on board had time before the aircraft hit the water, or before it sank.

And yet the pilots did not issue a distress signal. The plane disappeared after it asked for permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather.

"This morning, we recovered a total of four bodies and one of them was wearing a life jacket," Tatang Zaenudin, an official with the search and rescue agency, told Reuters.

He declined to speculate on what the find might mean.

A pilot who works for a Gulf carrier said the life jacket indicated the cause of the crash was not "catastrophic failure". Instead, the plane could have stalled and then come down, possibly because its instruments iced up and gave the pilots inaccurate readings.

"There was time. It means the thing didn't just fall out of the sky," said the pilot, who declined to be identified.

He said it could take a minute for a plane to come down from 30,000 feet and the pilots could have experienced "tunnel vision ... too overloaded" to send a distress call.

"The first train of thought when you get into a situation like that is to fly the aircraft."

Most of those on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.

Hernanto, head of the search and rescue agency in Surabaya, said rescuers believed they had found the plane on the sea bed with a sonar scan in water 30-50 meters (100-165 feet) deep. The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder has yet to be found.

Authorities in Surabaya were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives.

"We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly," Hernanto said.

Strong wind and waves hampered the search and with visibility at less than a kilometer (half a mile), the air operation was called off in the afternoon.

"We are all standing by," Dwi Putranto, heading the air force search effort in Pangalan Bun on Borneo, told Reuters.

"If we want to evacuate bodies from the water, it's too difficult. The waves are huge and it's raining."

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies.

Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first grim television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis center at Surabaya airport.

AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes has described the crash as his "worst nightmare".

EXPERIENCED PILOT

The plane was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the inquiry, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well.

The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travelers.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

(Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana, Charlotte Greenfield and Michael Taylor in JAKARTA/SURABAYA/PANGKALAN BUN, Jane Wardell in SYDNEY and Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE; Writing by Mark Bendeich and Robert Birsel; Editing by Nick Macfie)

First stories behind tragic victims of crash emerge

Details are emerging slowly of the lives of the tragic victims of AirAsia crash as recovery teams work to retrieve the bodies off the coast of Borneo.

Ruth Natalia Puspitasari, her fiance, Bob Hartanto Wijaya

Ms  Puspitasari would have turned 26 yesterday had she not been on the flight with her fiancé and his parents, ahead of celebrating her birthday in Singapore. The economics student, who met her future husband while studying at Petra Christian University in Surabaya, Indonesia, had recently moved to Guangzhou Province in China but her fiancé had stayed behind after becoming co-owner of a toy shop in his home town of Malang.

Siau Alain Octavianus

Octavianus was enjoying a family holiday before getting married to fiancé Louise Sidharta. Sidharta heard the news of the flight’s disappearance as she travelled to the airport to pick him up. "It was to be his last vacation with his family," she told CNN.

Sri Ratri Andriani

Worked as a travel agent and was travelling to Singapore as a guide for local tourists. Two days ago her elder brother Doni Nur Wahyu told the Wall Street Journal: ““I hope my sister is still safe.” He will be among those hundreds mourning lost loved ones today.

Lindawati Anggara

Only a high school student, he was on a family holiday with his father Rudy Soetjipto Lindawati Anggara mother, and his brother Kevin Alexander Soetjipto. He told a teacher before he left he was going to Singapore to celebrate the New Year.

Reggy Ardhi, Caroline Harwon Lioe, Marianne Claudia Ardhi, Michelle Clemency Ardhi and Jayden Cruz Ardhi

Travelling to Singapore to celebrate New Year as a family, Jayden, Marianne and Michelle were students at a local high school. Raven Limadinata told CNN he received a message from Michelle as the plane took off, captioned: “by Surabaya.” He described her as a “smart girl”.

Choi Chi Man, Zoe Man Suen Choi

The only British national on board the AirAsia flight, he had just started a job as an executive. He was travelling with his two-year-old daughter Zoe.

Nico Giovanni, Justin Giovanni

The 18-year-old scholarship student had recently completed his first year at the Anglo-Chinese School. A friend told the Straits Times Nico Giovanni was “very reserved” but “hard-working and respectful”. It is believed he was with his parents and brother Justin on the plane.

Feilensia Sularmo Go,

Mrs Sularmo Gos brother said she was travellign with her family. He told the Wall Street Journal: “I’ve never felt such [terrible] feeling like this before. I’m very close to my sister”.

Sukiatma Haripin, Hermanto Tanus, Indahju Liangsih, Susiyah and Thejakusuma

Only 17 years old, Sukiatma Haripin was travelling with his whole family – including his younger brother, nine-year-old Thejakusuma.

The family were travelling to Singapore in order to meet see their daughter Chiara Natasya Tanus who was studying in the city.

Jo Indri, Charlie Gunawan, Jie Steven Gunawan, Jie Stevie Gunawan, Kayla Audrey Gunawan,  Kenneth Mathew Gunawan, Hendra Gunawan Syawal

Jo Indri had decided to go to Singapore with five other members of her family. Her daughter explained they were all too busy to celebrate Christmas together. "There was not enough time to even go to the cinema,” she told to Channel Asia two days ago. “I am not too concerned but my nephew dreamt of Jo Indri wearing a very beautiful dress. Hopefully, it is not a bad sign."

In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501

Gusti Made Bobbi Sidharta, Donna Indah Nurwatie, Gusti Ayu Putriyana, Gusti Ayumade Keisah

The couple were travelling together with their two children 16-year-old Putriyana and nine-year-old Keisah.Family member, Dimas Ade Nurcahyo described the “whole family” as “very nice people".

Jimmy Sentosa Winata Oei, Boby Hartanto Winata, Ingrid Jessica Winata

The family were travelling together - Jimmy Sentosa Winata Oei’s was at first relieved when she saw the news. “My brother never flies AirAsia,” she told KPLR11. Then she saw his name and the names of her nephew and niece on TV screen. Her nephew, Boby, was a Manchester United and FC Barcelona supporter.

Chung Hei Sii

The only Malaysian on board the plane, is believed to have worked for a timber company and frequently travelled between Sinagpore and his home state of Sarawak.

Kevin Alexander Soetjipto, Cindy Clarissa Soetjipto, Rudy Soetjipto

Brother and sister were seated next to one another and a relative on the plane. Kevin Soetjipto was a student at Monash University. A spokesperson for the school told the Herald Sun the community was “deeply saddened to learn this news” of its “valued student”.

Florentina Maria Widodo

 

Biology teacher at Hwa Chong Institution was affectionately known to family and friends as Tina. She and her boyfriend Andy Paul Chen met at the National University of Singapore, playing guitar together.

AirAsia search: sonar finds plane upside down

AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash: 'Large, dark object' spotted on sea bed believed to be missing plane 

A large, dark object spotted on the sea bed is believed to be missing AirAsia plane QZ8501, an Indonesian official has said.

Bodies and debris were found in the area near to where a sonar image is reported to have revealed the underwater mass.

Ships and planes have been scouring the Java Sea for the missing flight since Sunday, when it vanished with 162 people on board during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Indonesian rescuers have recovered various items, including luggage, and seven bodies floating in shallow waters off Borneo.

“It's about 30 to 50 metres (100 to 165 feet) underwater,” Hernanto, an official with the search and rescue agency, said of the sonar image.

Authorities in Surabaya were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take the victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives.

“We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly,” Hernanto said.

Most of the people on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.

Officials said waves two to three metres (six to nine feet) high and winds were hampering the hunt for wreckage and preventing divers from searching the crash zone.

Among the bodies found on Wednesday was a flight attendant.

The fully clothed bodies could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water and support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall.

“The fact that the debris appears fairly contained suggests the aircraft broke up when it hit the water, rather than in the air,” said Neil Hansford, a former pilot and chairman of consultancy firm Strategic Aviation Solutions.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies.

“I feel a deep loss over this disaster and pray for the families to be given fortitude and strength,” Widodo said in Surabaya on Tuesday after grim images of the scene in the Java Sea were broadcast on television.

Widodo said AirAsia would pay an immediate advance of money to relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the television pictures from the search.

AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes has described the crash as his “worst nightmare”.

About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.

Singapore said it was sending two underwater beacon detectors to try to pick up pings from the black boxes, which contain cockpit voice and flight data recorders.

The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic.

It was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the inquiry, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well.

A Qantas pilot with 25 years of experience flying in the region said the discovery of the debris field relatively close to the last known radar plot of the plane pointed to an aerodynamic stall, most likely due to bad weather. One possibility is that the plane's instruments iced up, giving the pilots inaccurate readings.

The Indonesian pilot, a former air force fighter pilot with 6,100 flying hours under his belt, was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travellers across the region.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

 

Additional reporting by Reuters

A must-read: What’s So Amazing About Grace?

Phillip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Zondervan, 1997) is a brilliant, brutally honest, and totally absorbing account of what grace means. Sometimes Christians seem to have forgotten about the seemingly simple concept of grace – core to the teachings of Jesus – when you consider the legalistic way many of them live (see Chapter 16) and what preachers speak from the pulpits each Sunday. This book attempts to bridge that chasm. Before reading it, as a long-time Christian, I was sceptical that I had much to learn about grace; I was wrong. I personally found the book to be life transforming, completely altering the way I look at my relationships with God and with others around me. 

Grace is undeserved

Jesus’ parable of the prodigal (wasteful) son in Luke 15 has proven to be one of the most well-known and loved of all his parables. It tells the story of an ungrateful son who does the unthinkable – asks for his inheritance before his father has even keeled over – and tells of an amazing (there’s that word again) father who actually grants the offensive request. 

The son cashes in on his inheritance and leaves home for Rio de Janeiro – well, some far-off land, anyway. While there, he goes hog wild with his cash, probably squandering his fortune buying cheap touristy trinkets and a T-shirt to send to his dad that says: My prodigal son went to Rio and all he got me was this lousy T-shirt. But after his brief fun in the sun, the prodigal finds both his wallet and his stomach empty. He looks for work but is unable to find it, leaving him as desperate as a homeless man in a deserted soup kitchen. He goes on for awhile, but eventually realizes that his only option is to return home. 

A father in any day and age would deal with the prodigal son severely after such an escapade and would have a lifetime of “I told you so’s” to share with him. In the Middle Eastern culture of Jesus’ day, the treatment would have been even more harsh, because the prodigal’s actions were a slap in the face of two key beliefs of that culture – family ties and respect for family authority – both which were valued more than life itself. 

Everyone in the village likely expected the prodigal to be forced to work off his debt like a slave and never be fully accepted as a son again. The villagers would certainly never let the prodigal live it down. They’d endlessly humiliate, harass, and taunt any person who’s done such an unspeakable deed.  

But the father in Jesus’ story responds in an unexpected way. When he sees his son walking back, the father is sick to his stomach with compassion for his son as he realizes the suffering that his child has gone through and will go through by the villagers’ taunts. The father knows that the only way to prevent his son’s future shame is to take a drastic action himself, taking the focus off of his son and onto himself. Therefore, he sprints out to meet the ungrateful son, much like a track star running a 100-meter dash. Since senior citizens jog for exercise in this day and age, you and I don’t think much of his mad dash in public, but to the people of Jesus’ day, this sprint would have been a total embarrassment. No older person would ever jog, let alone run; it’s a matter of dignity. What’s more, in order to run, he’d have to expose his undergarments when he lifted his robe. 

But the father’s surprising behaviour doesn’t stop there. When he gets to his son, he puts his arms around him, hugging and repeatedly kissing him. He then calls his servants to kill a fattened calf and put his finest robe on his son, a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet. Not only does this amazing response show the prodigal the boundless love that the father has, but his action also signifies to everyone that his son is to be welcomed back as a son, not as a servant. 

A must-read: The Cross and the Prodigal

In this parable we have a father who leaves the comfort and security of his home and exposes himself in a humiliating fashion in the village street. The coming down and going out to his boy hints at (Jesus’ coming to earth). The humiliating spectacle in the village street hints at the meaning of the cross.

-Ken Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal (Concordia Publishing House, 1973) 

Ken Bailey’s The Cross and the Prodigal is perhaps an obscure “must-read” selection because it’s hard to find, yet I recommend it because Bailey’s look at the prodigal son parable in Luke 15 has been instrumental to my faith. The relatively short 132-page book has deeply impacted my perspective on Christ’s sacrifice, the extent of God’s love, and the nature of sin. 

The purpose of this book is to examine the parable of the prodigal son from the perspective of a Middle Easterner. Postmodern Americans and Europeans are removed from biblical culture in two ways – through 2,000 years of history and the differences between the Eastern and Western cultures. The result is to overlook some of the subtleties of the text and miss some of the underlying assumptions. Only when you look at the parable through Middle Eastern, 2,000-yearold eyes can you understand the father’s true sacrificial love and both sons’ equal sin, not just that of the prodigal.

 

Unfortunately, The Cross and the Prodigal isn’t widely available and takes a bit of searching to find.

That Amazing Stuff Called Grace

In This Chapter

Understanding the meaning of grace

Exploring the basics of salvation

Knowing your role in being saved

Defining the born-again Christian

Negating the idea of “hopeless cases” 

If you were to ask a random sampling of people on the street to name a Christian song or hymn, chances are that many of these folks – whether they are Christian or not – would respond with “Amazing Grace.” This song is amazin’, not only because it’s one of the most popular and beloved Christian songs of all time, but also because it so perfectly captures the heart of what Christianity is all about. 

“Amazing Grace” was written a few hundred years ago but has certainly stood the test of time. I think it’s rather fortunate that the song wasn’t written in this day and age when superlatives go in and out of fashion at a moment’s notice. If the song were written today as a teeny bopper tune, I can just imagine it would be entitled something like “Wicked Cool Grace.” Or, if some marketing folks got ahold of it, you’d surely have “Super-Sized Grace” or “Turbo-Powered Grace.” 

When you actually start to think about God’s grace, a legitimate question to ask is, Is it really worthy of the “amazing” label? Or is this song title just another example of superlatives gone amuck? In this chapter, you find out about the core teaching of Christianity – the grace-filled message of Jesus Christ dying for the sins of the world – and explore what the grace of God is all about. You can then make up your own mind on what superlative to use. 

Defining Grace

If Christianity is all about how mere mortals like you and I can have an intimate, eternal relationship with God, grace is what makes such a relationship possible. You could say then that grace serves as the underbelly of the Christian faith. But to really understand what grace means, consider three stories that illustrate what this concept is all about. I tell you the accounts in the following three sections and explain them in the fourth, so get a glass of milk and some cookies, because it’s story time. 

Grace is a costly gift

Les Miserables is the classic Victor Hugo novel that has been made into a musical and several films. It tells the story of Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for 17 years in France simply because he steals a loaf of bread to feed his hungry family. Valjean starts off as a well-meaning guy, but by the time he is released from prison, he’s transformed into a hardened, embittered man with no hope for the future. After being refused by an innkeeper on a rainy evening, Valjean knocks on the door of a church’s parsonage and asks for a night’s lodging. In true Motel 6 fashion, a bishop “leaves the light on” for Valjean, opening up his home, giving him a warm meal, and offering a comfortable bed and pillow. 

Valjean, however, isn’t of the mindset to feel much gratitude for this display of kindness; he awakens in the middle of the night, steals some silver plates, and runs off toward the edge of town. In the morning, the police catch Valjean with the suspicious goods and bring him back to the bishop for questioning. Valjean’s fate now seems sealed – he knows that being found guilty of theft a second time brings a permanent prison sentence. 

Yet, when the bishop sees Valjean, he does something completely unexpected. Rather than berating the thief and turning him over to the police, the bishop greets him warmly and asks why he didn’t take the candlesticks as well. As the police leave, satisfied that no crime has been committed, Valjean looks at the bishop with an expression of total disbelief: “Is it true that they let me go?”

 
The bishop then goes home to retrieve two silver candlesticks, the only remaining property of value that he owns, and hands them to Valjean. He challenges Valjean to use the silver to make himself into a new man, finishing with, “Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you.”

Verifying New Testament details with non-biblical sources

The history of the New Testament and the apostles’ claims are all consistent with external non-biblical sources. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, mentions Jesus in a passage in Antiquities (published today in The Works of Josephus, Hendrickson, 1987) and, in a passage that’s disputed for its authenticity in the same book, discusses the details of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection claims. Other references to Jesus Christ are in the writings of two Roman historians (Cornelius Tacitus and Suetonius), a Greek writer (Lucian), a Samarian-born historian (Thallus), and the Jewish Talmud. Each of these secular sources help confirm the basic historical details of the New Testament authors. 

Assessing New Testament authors’ credibility

A second issue concerning the New Testament’s reliability is the trustworthiness of the accounts of the original writers. After all, the precise words of the original manuscripts look certain to have survived intact (see the section, “Considering how many New Testament copies exist,” earlier in this chapter), but that doesn’t account for the idea that the original writers could’ve been mistaken or misleading with what they wrote. 

Several factors strongly indicate the trustworthiness of the New Testament authors, including 

Authors personally knew Jesus or were in direct contact with the apostles.

Authors wrote within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses.

All known non-biblical historical sources are consistent with the claims and accounts of the New Testament.

The nature of the authentic New Testament books is far different from fake gospels that occasionally surfaced in later centuries.

Minor inconsistencies in the accounts actually help confirm the trustworthiness of the writings. 

I discuss each of these in the sections that follow. 

Authors were qualified to write

Christians believe that the New Testament authors were qualified to write the books based on two factors: 

Proximity to Jesus: Each of the writers of the New Testament books either had direct contact with Jesus or else was in close contact with those who did. 

Attention to detail: All the authors (except Luke) were Hebrew. Hebrew writers were renowned for their meticulous nature when writing. For example, if a fact was questionable, they didn’t include it. And although Luke, a physician by education, wasn’t Hebrew, he was the most precise of all the New Testament authors in the details he provided in his Gospel and the Book of Acts, which makes it easy to cross-check his facts with non-biblical sources. 

Authors wrote shortly after New Testament events occurred

Authors wrote nearly all the New Testament writings within 40 years of Jesus’ crucifixion, and all within 65 years. Although it was essential that contemporaries of Jesus wrote all the books, 40 years still seems like an awful long time to remember details. After all, I can’t remember many details about my second grade math class, and I’m not even 40 yet! Yet, several important differences exist between how the New Testament writers documented events and how I faintly recollect Mrs. Geedy’s arithmetic class. 

First, the Gospels serve as the written version of the oral history that the disciples and eyewitnesses relayed during the first years of the early Church. As I discuss in the “Before the Internet existed: Communication in the ancient days” sidebar, oral history was much more precise and reliable in those days that it is in today’s modern era, where memories need only be exercised for a moment until you can jot the idea down on a yellow sticky note or in your handheld computerized planner. 

Second, at the time authors recorded the Gospels, many people were alive who could cross-check accounts to confirm or disprove their authenticity. At the beginning of his Gospel , for example, Luke indicates that he investigated many accounts from eyewitnesses and wrote an orderly account that synthesized these various reports (Luke 1:1-4). 

Third, Jesus made it clear that the Holy Spirit would remind his disciples of all that he said to them (John 14:26). Therefore, if Jesus really was who he said he was (see Chapter 5), then it’s not that big of a deal for the God of the universe to help the Gospel writers fill in the details. 

Authors didn’t sensationalize people or events

Some sceptics argue that the authors wrote the Gospel accounts based not on whether the incidents occurred, but on how these stories fit into Christian teaching. Basically, they’re saying that the miracle stories were added to boost the claims of Jesus. But this criticism doesn’t square away with what’s written in the New Testament. The Gospels are notable for their brutal honesty (such as the often less-than-stellar descriptions of the disciples) and their matter-of-fact details. They discuss – but don’t overly sensationalize – miracles and often tend to mention them without any fanfare. 

If you compare the New Testament Gospels with a few Gospel-wannabes that were written in the second and third centuries, you notice a huge difference between the two sets of books. Although the fake gospels contain amazing childhood miracles and idealized accounts of the apostles, the genuine ones have a down-to-earth quality to them. 

Authors were consistent theologically in spite of inconsistencies and discrepancies

One of the most common arguments against the reliability of the Gospels is the fact that some inconsistencies spring up in the accounts of the writers. For example, Matthew says that the two criminals crucified with Jesus curse him, while Luke makes a special point of talking about the repentant heart of one of them. Also, Matthew reports of only one angel at Jesus’ tomb, while Luke mentions two. Although these inconsistencies do raise questions in determining the exact specifics of what happened, Christians believe that they shouldn’t call into question the reliability of the writings. First, the inconsistencies that appear are relatively minor details in the grand scheme of things and never create theological differences between accounts. Second, ironically, these discrepancies actually show the authors’ integrity, as they wrote what they believed to be true instead of trying to put on a united front on all matters. If Christianity was a conspiracy among the apostles, then they could easily have gotten their story straight on such matters.

Considering how many New Testament copies exist

Imagine you’re mistakenly put on trial for shoplifting at a luxury clothing store in Hollywood. Although you claim innocence, the store manager is intent on setting an example and wants you locked away for good. During this trial, you have a single eyewitness who testifies that the shoplifter wasn’t you, but was actually a well-known film actress. The statement may help your case, but reality bites, and a lone witness may not be enough to convince the jury. But suppose your lawyer brings to the stand several thousand witnesses all proclaiming your innocence. In this scenario, you’d have the jury deciding in your favour quicker than you can say “Beetlejuice.” Clearly, then, the more witnesses you have testifying on your behalf, the more credible you sound. 

This principle carries over when you examine ancient manuscripts. If you have just two copies of an original document that are quite different, then it’s hard to know which was transcribed by Mr. Xerox and which was written by a John Grisham wannabe who simply wanted a creative outlet. However, if you have thousands of copies, all of which are consistent with each other, then you have a very strong indicator of what was in the original manuscript. Therefore, the general rule is that the more copies of an ancient manuscript you have, the more you’re able to check them against each other to determine their accuracy. 

More than 5,600 Greek manuscripts contain parts or all of the New Testament, an amount far beyond that of any other ancient book. In comparison, only 600 copies of Homer’s Iliad and a mere 7 copies of Plato’s writings exist. What’s more, when you cross-check these New Testament manuscripts and compare the results with other ancient writings, the accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts is nearly perfect, word for word – much more accurate than the copies of these other writings. For example, Bible scholar Bruce Metzger compared the New Testament to Homer’s Iliad and the Mahabharata, a Hindu scripture that’s sometimes referred to as the Hindu Bible. Check out his findings in Table 2-1. As you see from this investigation, only 40 lines of the entire 20,000-line New Testament are questionable. The only passages in doubt are John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20. Therefore, if you leave those two passages out, then all the New Testament manuscripts are in total harmony. 

Comparing the Accuracy of Ancient Manuscripts

Book: Hindu Mahabharata

Total lines: Approx. 260,000

Conflicting lines: 26,000

Accuracy: 90%

 

Homer’s Iliad

15,600

764

95%

 
New Testament

20,000

40

99.98% 

Source: Bruce Metzger, Chapters in New Testament Textual Criticism (E.J. Brill, 1963) 

Measuring the gap between original manuscripts and copies

A second critical issue when exploring the reliability of the New Testament is the time gap between when a document was originally written and when the first known copy was made. Obviously, the shorter the gap, the more reliable a manuscript is. 

Before the Internet existed: Communication in the ancient days

I’m admittedly spoiled by the wealth of information that’s available all around me. I’ve got a library of books in my study, the Internet at my fingertips, an MP3 player on my belt, and a television and DVD player in the next room. If you need any type of written, visual, or audio information, give me a sec and I’ll get it for you. Consequently, it’s hard for me to fully appreciate the struggles that people had for nearly all of history over the seemingly trivial matter of recording and distributing information. 

For much of the ancient past, people communicated history primarily by word of mouth, passed down through generations. Oral history may sound haphazard, but when you don’t have a laptop to store information, you’d be surprised at how much stuff your brain can retain when it has to. Still, although oral history is a valid form of sharing information and was ideal for master storytellers, people soon found that the written word proved to be more reliable and more convenient should the storyteller get laryngitis or get hit by a speeding donkey. 

By historical standards, the New Testament time gap is relatively small – all first copies of the books date within 250 years, nearly all within 200 years, many within 100 years. And one fragment of the Gospel of John was written around A.D. 95 – a mere 15 to 30 years before the first copy was dated between A.D. 110 and A.D. 125. 

As Table 2-2 shows, the New Testament time gap is much more favourable compared to the gap in the writings of Homer (500 years), Plato (1,200 years), and Aristotle (1,400 years). 

Comparing the Time Gap of Ancient Manuscripts

Author: Aristotle

Date Written: 384-322 B.C.

Earliest Copy: A.D. 1100

Time Gap: 1,400 years

 

Plato

427-347 B.C.

A.D. 900

1,200 years 

Homer

900 B.C.

400 B.C.

500 years 

 

New Testament

A.D. 50-100

A.D. 100-300

30-250 years 

Source: Based on Norman Geisler’s Christian Apologetics (Baker Book House, 1976).

 

Overall, more manuscript evidence supports the reliability of the New Testament writings than it does for any other ancient book. Therefore, if one wants to throw out the New Testament on grounds of the manuscripts themselves, then you’d first have to throw out every other ancient historical document, from Plato to Caesar.

Documenting history in the Bible

The Christian faith is based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But because it’s been some 2,000 years since Jesus walked on this earth, Christians face a problem: First-century Palestine didn’t have CNN or the New York Times to refer to in order to gather archival details on the life and teachings of Jesus. As a result, Christians today are more than a little dependent on the events, eyewitness testimonies, and teachings recorded in the New Testament. 

It follows that an essential factor in determining whether Christianity is true is examining the reliability of the New Testament. Although the whole Bible is important to examine, the New Testament is particularly critical to Christianity because it provides the historical accounts of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection as well as the complete written teaching of the early Church. Is the New Testament accurate history, something that would make a good journalist proud? Or is it nothing but a compilation of first-century tabloid tales rejected by the National Enquirer? 

In order to determine the New Testament’s reliability, one must explore two questions:

 

Are the ancient manuscripts reliable?

 

Are the New Testament authors’ testimonies legit? 

I address these questions in the two sections that follow.

Evaluating the reliability of New Testament manuscripts

Christians believe that the apostles and early Church leaders, after several years of sharing with others around them the Good News of Jesus Christ, realized that they had to do more than communicate verbally (see the sidebar, “Before the Internet existed: Communication in the ancient days”). They needed to document a full written account of Jesus’ life and his teachings to reach people they couldn’t get to because of geographical limitations and to reach those who would live in the future. Two of Jesus’ disciples (Matthew and John) and two others (who had direct access to the disciples and other eyewitnesses) wrote individual accounts of Jesus’ life (called Gospels). During this same era, the apostles also put Christian teachings into writing and distributed them as letters to different churches across the Mediterranean region. These letters, written by Paul , Peter, and other apostles (see the section, “Assessing New Testament authors’ credibility,” later in this chapter), fill in the cracks on Christian teachings that the Gospels and Acts, a book that records the history of the early Church, don’t discuss. All together, 27 books form the New Testament. 

Obviously, the writers couldn’t just print the books out on their inkjet printers and then run to the nearest copy shop to buy 1,000 collated copies of their work in shiny plastic spiral blinders. The New Testament writers had to write the accounts on papyrus, a paper-like material that’s even more prone to deteriorate than that cheap recycled stuff I buy at a discount at the local office supply store. And in order to preserve and distribute an original manuscript like this, the early Church had to make copies of these originals the old-fashioned way: one copy at a time. 

The people who did this work were known as scribes, and based on accounts of them, they were a special breed of people. Think of them as accountants on steroids: mind-bogglingly exact in transcribing an original to a duplicate. They made sure that every letter, word, and syllable was kept intact from the original to the copy. And, rumour has it that if a coffee stain or jelly smudge marked the original, they’d purposely spill on the new copy as well. (Okay, I made that part up, but you get the idea.) 

The scribes’ attention to detail is crucially important to Christians today, because the original manuscripts of the New Testament books no longer exist – at least any that people know about. On first take, that news seems unsettling, because it means that the Christian faith isn’t just reliant on the original testimony of the apostles, but on copies of that testimony. However, before you call the Gideons and tell them to stop distributing their Bibles at Motel 6, consider this: To historians, this is standard fare when looking at documents from the ancient world, whether they’re parts of the Old Testament (see the section, “Examining artefacts,” earlier in this chapter) or New Testament or are the writings of Plato and Homer. 

Because the original writings don’t exist anymore, you examine the reliability of the manuscripts by looking at 

The number of copies that exist

The time gap between when the original was written and when the first known copy was made

 

I discuss these factors in this section. For the lowdown on how the Church decided which manuscripts made it into the Bible, check out Chapter 6.

Retracing Christianity as a Historical Faith

The Christian faith isn’t an obscure belief system with Jesus as a mythological figure. Rather, Christianity is based entirely on real space-time history; in the words of Francis Schaeffer, its central figure is an actual man who “hung on a cross in the sense that, if you were there that day, you could have rubbed your finger on the cross and got a splinter on it” (The God Who Is There, InterVarsity Press, 1968). Therefore, when you consider the Christian faith, you also have to examine its historical claims of truth. 

Examining artefacts

Archaeologists, historians, and other researchers have closely scrutinized the historical events of Jesus’ life and the Bible as a whole and continue to do so. Although some sceptical archaeologists have been quick to discount historical accounts of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, actual findings have proven that they’re credible. In fact, a century of archaeological discoveries underscores the fact that the more evidence that researchers unearth in the Holy Land, the more the biblical record becomes authenticated. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are arguably the most significant discovery in many centuries. This collection of 500 scrolls and scroll fragments was accidentally discovered in 1947 by a shepherd in a series of caves along the Dead Sea. 

These scrolls were written in a period between 250 B.C. and A.D. 68 and provide amazing insights into the practices and beliefs of the Qumram Community, a particular group of Jews who lived during this timeframe. The scrolls include a variety of documents, including: a complete manuscript of the Book of Isaiah and parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; commentaries on several Old Testament books (such as Habakkuk, Job, Isaiah, and Micah); non-canonical books; and a Qumram manual of conduct and other community-related documents. Although the scrolls are Jewish and not Christian, they nonetheless serve to underscore the reliability of the Old Testament scriptures and have helped scholars reconstruct the history of Israel and the Holy Land area between 300 B.C. and A.D. 135.

 

Perhaps the most sensationalized discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls is a first-century limestone box designed to hold a deceased person’s bones. This bones box (or ossuary) has an Aramaic inscription carved on the side that says, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” (See Matthew 13:55, 1 Corinthians 15:7, and Acts 15 for references to James in the Bible.) The possibility exists that this bones box actually contains the bones of James, the brother of Jesus Christ. Sceptics don’t even argue strongly against this, because it would’ve been unusual to add “brother of (so-and-so)” unless that brother was well-known. So, chances are that this wasn’t just any random Jesus, but was indeed Jesus Christ. Experts continue to examine the artefact to determine its authenticity, but if it were proven to be authentic, this box would be the oldest nonbiblical, nonliterary reference to Jesus that has ever been recovered.