13Oct 2026 by Post

The Fine-Grained Historicity of Acts – Part 1 

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, biblical apologetics, Book of Acts, Christianity, Gospel, historical apologetics, JonathanMclatchie.com, Paul, Undesigend Coincidences
Last year, I published a lengthy essay titled “The Book of Acts is High-Resolution Reportage,” in which I documented and discussed no less than forty undesigned coincidences between Acts and the first four epistles found in our New Testament – i.e., Romans, the Corinthian letters, and Galatians. Cumulatively, this class of evidence supports the historicity of Acts down to the granular detail. In this article, I will strengthen this case still further by adducing an additional set of undesigned coincidences drawn between Acts and the remaining Pauline epistles. Here, [in this 3-part series] I lay out a total of twenty-two examples of interlocking correspondences between Acts and Paul’s epistles. There is one overlap (#9 below) with those covered in my earlier article, since the epistle to the Philippians was of relevance…
Read More
16Sep 2026 by Post

The Prior Environmental Fitness of Nature: An Argument for the Existence of God

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, Christianity, design argument, Environmental Fitness of Nature, Gospel, Intelligent Design, JonathanMclatchie.com, scientific apologetics, teleology
In the sixteenth century, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) developed a model of the solar system which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at its center. Shortly before his death in 1543, Copernicus published his book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.[1] This sparked the beginning of a major scientific paradigm shift and marked the dawn of the Copernican Revolution, ultimately leading to the widespread abandonment of the Aristotelian geocentric model of the solar system and the acceptance of the heliocentric model in its place. Today, the Copernican revolution is thought by many to have dethroned man from his central place in nature. Recent scientific breakthroughs, however, have brought the debate over man’s place in the cosmos full circle. Over the past several decades, science has amassed considerable evidence…
Read More
12Aug 2026 by Post

The Anatomy of Deconversion

Anatomy of Deconversion, Apologetics, apostasy, Christianity, Deconstruction, discipleship, Doubt, Evangelism, Gospel, John Marriott, JonathanMclatchie.com, Theology and Christian Apologetics
For many years, I have had a fascination for the reasons why people deconvert from the Christian faith. I have, without exaggeration, viewed many hundreds of deconversion testimonies on YouTube, purchased and read books by deconverts, followed the blogs of deconverts, and personally interacted with many who have either given up their Christian faith or are considering doing so. I was therefore interested to pick up The Anatomy of Deconversion: Keys to a Lifelong Faith in a Culture Abandoning Christianity, by John Marriott, a professor of philosophy at Biola University. [1] Marriott’s doctoral dissertation focused on the subject of deconversion, so he is certainly well qualified to speak about the issue at hand. In this book review, I will offer a summary of the research conducted by Marriott (outlined in the first…
Read More
07Apr 2026 by Post

The Argument from Martyrdom: A Response to Rabbi Tovia Singer

4. Is the NT True?, and paul, Apologetics, Argument from Martyrdom, Book of Acts, Christianity, Gospel, JonathanMclatchie.com, Peter, Tovia Singer
Rabbi Tovia Singer is an orthodox Jewish rabbi and the founder and director of Outreach Judaism. He is widely known for his counter-missionary polemics and his criticism of the New Testament presentation of Jesus as the Hebrew Messiah (see his two volume set, Let’s Get Biblical: Why doesn’t Judaism accept the Christian Messiah?.[1] In a video published this week, provocatively titled “Why Would Paul Willingly Die for His Belief? Another Church Lie!”, Rabbi Singer makes a number of bizarre claims. One such statement is that “the notion that Paul was beheaded by Rome is complete nonsense. It’s an invention of the church, and it’s mentioned nowhere in the Christian Bible.” Singer notes further that “the book of Acts — which is devoted to Paul — ends with Paul being freed from prison.” Singer gives…
Read More
04Mar 2026 by Post

On Undesigned Coincidences: A Reply to Dan McClellan

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, biblical apologetics, can we trust the Bible, Christianity, Gospel, Jonathan McLatchie, JonathanMclatchie.com, Lydia McGrew, Undesigned Coincidences, Wes Huff
Dan McClellan, a Biblical scholar with a specialty in the Hebrew Bible, and popular social media content creator, recently responded to a clip of my friend and colleague, Wesley Huff, on undesigned coincidences as a marker of historicity in the gospel accounts. Wesley Huff subsequently posted a statement on his community page on YouTube, linking to my previous response to John Nelson, which deals with many of the same concerns raised by McClellan. This prompted McClellan to publish another video offering a rebuttal to my engagement with Nelson’s (and by extension his) concerns in my essay. I do not know why the critics of undesigned coincidences always seem to want to engage with those examples pertaining to the feeding of the five thousand. Literally every critical treatment of the topic thus far has focused on those. There are…
Read More
26Jan 2026 by Post

The Status of Women According to Islam

Apologetics, Christianity, cultural apologetics, Feminism, Gospel, Hadiths, Islam, Islamic Theology, JonathanMclatchie.com, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Muslims, women
The status of women in Islam is a subject enshrouded in controversy. According to many Muslims, Muhammad was a champion of women’s rights, bestowing upon the women in his community privileges and rights that they did not have previously. The notion that women in pre-Islamic Arabia had no rights, however, is demonstrably untrue. Former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi lists some of the rights that women had in pre-Islamic Arabia, which included ease of divorce, the ability to marry multiple men, and become overlords. Women were even able to propose for marriage, as in fact was the case with respect to Khadija’s marriage to Muhammad. To outsiders, the hijab is often viewed as a symbol of oppression. Since April 2011, wearing of head coverings (including hijabs) in public places has even been…
Read More
05Jan 2026 by Post

How Does Paul’s Relationship with the Jerusalem Church Present a Problem for Islam?

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Christianity, Church History, Gospel, Islam, JonathanMclatchie.com, Paul, Were the Apostles Muslims?, World Religions
In a previous article, I offered a simple reason why the Qur’an cannot possibly be the word of God, since the proposition that the Qur’an is the word of God entails a necessary contradiction. Here, I am going to present an equally compelling reason to reject the Qur’an as the word of God. As I alluded to in my previous post, the Qur’an contends that the disciples of Jesus were Muslims. According to Surah 3:52, “…when Isa [Jesus] sensed disbelief in them, he said: “Who are my helpers in the way of Allah?” The disciples said:“ If The Apostles were Muslim . . . So according to the Qur’an, there is no question that the apostles were Muslims, under Jesus. But what if we could establish that the teaching of…
Read More
31Dec 2025 by Post

A Simple Reason Why the Qur’an Cannot Be the Word of God

4. Is the NT True?, Bible, Islam, Islamic Apologetics, JonathanMclatchie.com, Muslim Dilemma, Quran, World Religions
The Islamic religion claims that the Qur’an, revealed allegedly by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad beginning in 610 A.D., is the inspired and inerrant word of God. Such an assertion, however, is highly problematic, and many, many arguments could be given to convincingly refute it. In this article, I am going to offer one of those reasons, which I perceive to be the most damning. My argument here can be summarized in syllogistic form as follows: Premise 1: Either the Bible is the Word of God or it is not. Premise 2: If the Bible is the Word of God, the Qur’an is not. Premise 3: If the Bible is not the Word of God, the Qur’an is not. Conclusion: Therefore, the Qur’an is not the Word of…
Read More
24Sep 2025 by Post

Early Church Persecution, and its Evidential Value: Part 2

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Christianity, Church History, Evidential apologetics, Gospel, JonathanMclatchie.com, persecution
[Editor’s Note: This blog was originally a single article. For the purposes of reposting it at Crossexamined, it has been divided into two parts. Click here for part 1.  [Excerpt from Part 1:] In this article [series], I . . . discuss the evidence that the apostles did in fact encounter hardships, dangers and persecutions on account of their Christian convictions. [In part 1] I survey the evidence for a general context of persecution (what may be called the indirect part of the case). [In Part 2] I will . . . proceed to argue that the apostles in particular voluntarily submitted themselves to danger, hardship and persecution on account of their conviction of the gospel’s truth. The Persecution of the Apostles — Evidence from the Apostolic Fathers   We now…
Read More
22Sep 2025 by Post

Early Church Persecution, and its Evidential Value. Part 1

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Christianity, Church History, Evidential apologetics, Gospel, JonathanMclatchie.com, persecution
The argument from Christian persecution was developed most fully by William Paley, in his 1794 book, A View of the Evidences of Christianity.[1] Indeed, Paley devotes the first nine chapters of his book to defending the thesis “that there is satisfactory evidence that many professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.”[2] This proposition, if true, goes a long way towards establishing that the early apostles — that is, those who were purportedly witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection — were sincere in their conviction that they had encountered the raised…
Read More