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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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13Aug 2025 by Post

Let’s Help Harvard Understand Intelligent Design

2. Does God Exist?, 3. Are Miracles Possible?, Apologetics, Christianity, design argument, Evolution, Gospel, Harvard, Intelligent Design, Jonathan McLatchie, JonathanMclatchie.com, naturalism, scientific apologetics
Last week, my wife and I spent an afternoon at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, in Cambridge, MA, near where we live. We both were generally impressed by the exhibitions, particularly the dinosaur section, and would recommend the museum to anyone visiting Boston. I was, however, quite disappointed to see this notice at the entrance to the display on evolution: It was disappointing to see the inaccurate representation of intelligent design (ID), along with the poor scientific epistemology. A “Super-Natural Explanation”? First, proponents of ID have long stressed that ID, in its purest sense, does not necessarily postulate a supernatural cause but is consistent with a natural or supernatural intelligence. Furthermore, I would contend that the natural / supernatural distinction is problematic. What precisely is meant when a phenomenon…
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18Jun 2025 by Post

The Miracles in Acts, and Their Evidential Value

3. Are Miracles Possible?, 4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Book of Acts, Christianity, Early Church, Evidence for God, Gospel, historical apologetics, Jonathan McLatchie, JonathanMclatchie.com, miracles, natural, supernatural
The book of Acts recounts various miracles performed by Paul and the other apostles, as well as the deacons Stephen and Philip. If it can be shown that these miracle reports substantially represent the testimony of these individuals, then this is an important aspect of the testimony that must be accounted for. For reasons I have discussed at length previously, there is strong reason to believe that the apostles sincerely believed what they claimed. As William Paley puts it, “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,…
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14Apr 2025 by Post

Do the Resurrection Narratives Contradict? A Reply to Dan McClellan

3. Are Miracles Possible?, 4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Dan McClellan, Easter, Gospel, historical apologetics, Jesus, Jonathan McLatchie, JonathanMclatchie.com, Resurrection
Dan McClellan is a Biblical scholar who has taken to creating YouTube content. He has a popular channel, with 127,000 subscribers at the time of this writing. He often produces short videos responding to conservative scholars and apologists. Unfortunately, McClellan often comes across as incredibly condescending towards conservative scholars, with a rhetorical tone that is, in my view, unbecoming of scholarly discourse. I know that other conservative scholars feel the same way. McClellan recently published a 17-minute video responding to a TikTok video by my colleague, Dr. Sean McDowell, on discrepancies in the resurrection narratives. In this article, I will address points raised in this video. McDowell begins by observing, correctly, that “even if there were contradictions in the Bible, this wouldn’t prove that Christianity is false.” I agree with McDowell. I do…
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