Three recommended videos that exemplify sound thinking about the New Testament, the soul, and Orthodox Christianity

Gratis post

One feature of this Substack is to draw attention to resources I regard as especially stimulating, educative, and enlightening. Very often, these are in the form of videos online that I’ve come across, of which others may not be aware. The three videos I’ve found in the past few weeks that I believe are worthwhile to share with you are unrelated to each other in content. Still, if there is one unifying theme, it would be (as the title I’ve given this post indicates) that each represents clear thinking about matters often muddied by poor reasoning. Sadly, a good deal of that poor reasoning comes from those purporting to be scholars.

(Valery Nikolaevich Rzhevsky (Russian, b. 1951), 'St Sergius of Radonezh at the Lavra')

Take, for example, the first video I’ve chosen. It's a superbly produced documentary, from the esteemed Logos Bible Study Platform, and it’s an excellent corrective to the popular, yet flawed, notion that the New Testament documents are untrustworthy. Not being in academia and thus free from any worries that I might insult “colleagues,” I have no qualms stating frankly that a good deal of what passes for NT scholarship today is often a mishandling of the subject matter by those whose agenda is (at best) unclear and (at worst) a scant or “skeptical” regard for the contents of the texts themselves, frequently based implicitly on questionable materialist and historicist presuppositions (historicism is the equivalent of “scientism” in modern historiography). I once did, but no longer can, take seriously “the latest” from, say, Elaine Pagels, J. D. Crossan, Candida Moss, Bart Ehrman, or others I could list. Some of the current “research” amounts to poorly substantiated assertions and flights of fantasy. (The stuff being put out by the Westar Institute, for instance, should be an embarrassment to NT scholars everywhere.) I make no apology for saying so. Bart Ehrman, by the by, comes up deservedly more than once in the video below as an example of how an eye-catching veneer of “scholarship” can become a front for an agenda alien to authentic exegesis, even if the scholars interviewed in it are too polite to say so directly.

Here is the introduction to the video on YouTube: “Skeptics… [argue] that the Gospel manuscripts have been doctored to push a theological agenda… Dr. Craig Evans [addresses] this claim head-on, traveling the globe to track down the most ancient New Testament manuscripts. Along the way, he highlights groundbreaking new evidence, demonstrating that the case for the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts is stronger than ever.”

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The second video in the line-up has to do with the nature of the soul. The presenter is neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor, author with science writer Denyse O’Leary, of The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, scheduled to be published this month by Worthy Books.

Dr. Egnor has been a controversial figure on the subject of evolution. However, as I understand him, what he opposes is the idea that evolution is something that matter all by itself “does.” Rather, something else, working on matter, produces all that we encounter and experience. What we know as the universe is a creation, revealing a living “intellect” or “consciousness” or “Spirit” that shapes matter and instills it with its own existence, life, and consciousness. To my mind, that is a far more reasonable proposition than that matter is all that exists, and somehow is both the “cause” and the effect.

Be that as it may, this video reflects his expertise as a neurosurgeon. If I have one objection to his presentation below, it’s his opinion regarding the souls of animals other than humans. I’m not so dismissive of their ultimate value as he is, and I chalk up his view to the gloomier aspects of Aristotelianism. Otherwise, I stand by the rest of the contents in the video. Here is its YouTube description:

Does science prove the existence of the soul? Here award-winning neurosurgeon Michael Egnor explores the evidence.

Many scientists and doctors believe that there is no such thing as the soul. That there is no part of us that persists beyond death. We are not spiritual in any respect. We are made up of cells and tissue, and completely controlled by a material organ in our heads: the brain. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Michael Egnor makes the case—based on 40 years of practice and over 7,000 brain surgeries—that science has gotten it all wrong.

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The final video has to do with the Orthodox Church. Recently, articles have been appearing about the rise of conversions to the Church, especially (and rather unnervingly for a certain secular mindset) among young men and also young families. This is happening, incidentally, not only in the United States, but in many places in the world (for example, here in Norway, where I reside). The issue of “masculinity” in Orthodox circles has been brought up in the media, pro and con. In this video, Justin Brierley, whose podcast focuses on all things faith-related, broaches the subject with the judicious Fr. Andrew Damick. What I appreciate about Fr. Andrew is his level-headedness, as well as his cheerful presentation of what’s best in Orthodoxy. He defuses the misleading “masculinity/femininity” topic while looking seriously at why a trend of conversion is occurring at this precise moment. When the subject of the demonic is brought up, he rises to the occasion with insight and balance. This video was posted on YouTube only yesterday, so it’s still “hot.”