Recently a friend sent a link to a debate between Wes Huff and Billy Carson. Wes in a very respectful and tactful way articulated a disagreement and debunking of Billy Carson’s misinformation about the Bible’s reliability regarding the claims that Jesus was crucified, and that he was married to Mary. It was clear to Wes that Billy did not practice clear textural critical approaches to his source material, rather is knitting together stories from the ancient world for his own purposes and hypotheses.
Here’s the link: ATS YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ngjtT43-4Ad 1 - 3
Regarding Billy’s emotionally charged "Mic Drop" moment: His claim that a wise, omniscient, and omnipotent God could create a world without chaos, and without the need for Jesus to die, is quite short-sighted.
One, it disregards free will, the very thing that introduces chaos. Without free will, there can be no true act of love. We are made in the image of God, who is love, and our free agency allows us to choose to reflect His love or the chaos brought by Satan.
Two, Billy’s statement exposes his underlying motive for rejecting YHWH and the Bible, and instead creating his own empire of followers with an alternative to God. His reasons may be numerous, but avoidance appears central. As was demonstrated by his willingness to cling to false documents to argue against the validity of scripture.
Question: Why doesn't Billy realize that being wrong about the Bible’s believability doesn't solve his original problem? If Christianity is true, then he is just in denial.
In response to Wes’s earlier debate about textual criticism, Billy argued that the point Wes debunked was only “10% of the 1000%” of what he believes, and then he proceeds to digress into other stories leaving his points about Biblical criticism. This is a tac to sidestep logic because the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in history demonstrate that there's no need to "figure out" any other mystery regarding the origin or purpose of life. (the Bible does not sidestep these other stories as referenced below).
As Hebrews 1:1-3 states: “In the past, God communicated with humanity through the prophets in various ways. But in these last days, He has spoken to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the appointed heir of all things, and through Him, God created the universe. Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After providing purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
In reference to ancient stories and world views:
The other topics that Billy brings up, such as evidence of Aliens and hypotheses drawn from other cultural folklore, are not uncommon for Biblical believers to encounter. These should be handled with respect, understanding that the Bible is compatible with these parallel ancient stories.
In fact, the New Testament's events involving Peter and James, as well as biblical characters like Job and Noah, reference these ancient days. Furthermore, many surrounding cultures have their roots in interactions with beings from the unseen created realm.
Reflect for a moment on this: Bible writers, who are ancient to our modern day, refer to a time that is ancient to them. Within the Biblical narrative, there is a broader context that we read about. Some of it is specifically included because it furthers the story that God is having written for the benefit of future generations. Other times, the story alludes to a world of storied context that surrounds the People of God amid the chaos of these other narratives.
There are many extra-canonical histories with similar stories, and even our creation story is an apologetic against some of these competing stories. The purpose of humanity and the Gospel story is firmly rooted in Genesis. The story of God and creation has three general narrative ages:
Throughout history, mysterious parallel stories existed alongside the context of the ancients, even surrounding the People of God’s story. However, things changed with the Victory of Christ over the heavens and the earth. Christ is now Lord over lords, King over kings, and supreme over all principalities and powers. This is all part of the grand narrative.
Below are a couple of links to resources from Biblical scholars who interact with various parallel stories to that of the Hebrew story but also go beyond into the source documentation of various not so ancient theories.
https://drmsh.com/ Dr. Heiser’s scholarly work “Unseen Realm” is a very helpful resource as one works through the purposes of the parallel realms of creation, both the Seen and the Unseen. As with anything one is encouraged to be one’s own editor and cling to what helps us live for God in our reality.
https://www.ancientaliensdebunked.com/ interesting dialogues that can expand one’s reasoning abilities and familiarity with competing parallel stories to the Bible.