I fully expected Dan Barker to use (or, I should say, misuse), the quotation from Justin Martyr’s First Apology, and so I had invested a fair amount of time reviewing the material prior to our debate. In fact, in the video below, watch my face during Mr. Barker’s opening statement when he mentions Justin. That is the smile of “Another prediction comes true.” In fact, either in the #prosapologian chat channel, or maybe even on the DL, I specifically said, “I have a feeling Barker is going to try to go a different direction than he did in his book.” Not that you can mind-read such things, and hence must, if you are to be an honest scholar, respond to someone’s published arguments, but I just had that feeling. But I fully expected Justin to make an appearance, and since the debate was not the place to go over the entire presentation, I provide the background material here that substantiates the claims I made in the debate. I hope this will assist Christians in rebutting this common (and false) claim, found so often in popular (but equally shallow) atheistic writings.
Alpha and Omega Ministries is a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. James White, director, is a professor, having taught Greek, Systematic Theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics for numerous schools.
