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By Aaron Brake

Biblical inerrancy may be defined as follows:

[W]hen all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.1

One important element of this definition is that inerrancy only applies to the original autographs. But since we no longer have possession of the original autographs, the question is often raised, “Of what use or importance is the doctrine of biblical inerrancy? Is biblical inerrancy even relevant?” Some conclude that inerrancy is altogether ir_relevant. In his book _Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman states,

I kept reverting to my basic question: how does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don’t have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes—sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies….”2

This objection, left unanswered, may undermine our confidence and trust in Scripture, leading some to reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and others to conclude it is wholly irrelevant.

Let’s Get Metaphysical

But I believe our confidence in Scripture is not misplaced and biblical inerrancy is relevant. To help explain why this is so, let us consider the distinction commonly made by metaphysicians between word tokens and word types.3 Consider the following words:

RED BLUE RED

Now ask yourself this question: “How many words are there?” The question is ambiguous because there is a sense in which it looks like there are two words (RED and BLUE), and another sense in which it looks like there are three words (RED, BLUE, and RED).  The question receives clarification when we distinguish between word tokens and word types and specify which of the two we are interested in.

If we are asking how many word tokens _there are, then we have three: two tokens of the word RED and one token of the word BLUE. A _token is an individual, particular kind of thing. It is a specific thing that can only exist in one place at one time. If, on the other hand, we are asking how many word types there are, then we have two: the word type RED and the word type BLUE. A type in this case is a universal. It is repeatable and can be in more than one place at one time. It is the same word, which carries with it the _same_meaning.

Back to Biblical Inerrancy

What does this have to do with biblical inerrancy? When it is asserted that biblical inerrancy is irrelevant because we do not possess the original autographs, there is a failure to distinguish between the text tokens and the text type. We do have the original text type, even though we may not possess the original text tokens.

To help think about this further, consider that it is the word as a type that conveys meaning, not the word as a token. When we think of the word as a token we are thinking of it as a material object (i.e., black ink scribbled on a parchment). But when we think of the word as a type, we are thinking of it as a bearer of meaning. It becomes a shareable thing that we can have, for example, both in our mind and in a book in front of us at the same time.

Now, this is where textual criticism comes into play. When it comes to the text of the New Testament, even though we do not have the original text tokens(the original autographs as material scribbling on parchment), we are able to reconstruct with great confidence the original text type. Without going into a full-length treatment on the topic of textual criticism, Daniel Wallace notes the following concerning the New Testament text:

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  1.  Paul D. Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), 294. 
  2.  Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 7, emphasis his. 
  3.  I am indebted to J.P. Moreland for much of the following insight and commentary (used with his permission), with some additions of my own. Any mistakes are mine. 

by Dr. Michael Heiser

I get a lot of email about my views on Yahweh and divine plurality. You’d think people would find my material via Google or my divine council website, but I guess not. I’m making this page for you all, of course, but also to provide myself a convenient one-stop link to send people.

Mike’s “lay level” work on the divine council and the nature of Israelite monotheism (the basic essays)

Mike’s relevant scholarly publications

  • Some of these live on my divine council site as well. Others cannot be posted here due to the wishes of the academic journal that published the content (if you subscribe to my newsletter you can access articles not linked here via a protected folder). These articles tend to be technical, save for the one critiquing Mormonism’s use of Psalm 82.

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by Ronnie Floyd

Dear Friends in Christ Who Will Pray for America,

Now is the time to pray for America. The year of 2019 before us yearns for God’s people from all over the world to pray for America. We are living in serious and critical times.

Call upon your church, friends, colleagues, and any leader in this nation: We need to pray for America.

Below are three prayer priorities I am asking you to agree upon with us at the National Day of Prayer. Please do all you can to forward and assist in this manner. Now is the time to pray for America.

Prayer Priority #1: Oh God, may You begin to raise up a Love One Another movement across America that forwards and advances Jesus’ words to us: Love One Another. 

“Love one another. Just as I have loved you.” John 13:34

  • Jesus tells us to love one another just like He loves us. This includes every person in America as well as every person in the world.
  • Jesus wants us to love every person sacrificially, willfully, and unconditionally because this is the same way He loves us.
  • Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower us to do the things that only God can do through us. Therefore, call upon God to move in our nation miraculously, replacing hate with love, division with unity, and criticism of one another with love for one another.
  • Jesus, raise up a Love One Another movement across America.

Prayer Priority #2: Our Heavenly Father, we pray we will be used of God to build up America by blessing and adding value to each town and city in our nation.

“A city is built up by the blessing of the upright, but it is torn down by the mouth of the wicked.” Proverbs 11:11

  • Heavenly Father, we are Christians, the ones made right by You; therefore, as the upright, may we fulfill Proverbs 11:11 in every town and city in the United States. May we bless each town and city by adding value to it in any way we can.
  • Heavenly Father, Proverbs 11:11 says the wicked tear down with their words the towns and cities of our nation; but as the upright, may we choose to add value and bless them.
  • Heavenly Father, we ask You to raise up godly Christian men and women in their towns and cities who will run for local office and use their influence to add value by forwarding and blessing the future generations in these towns and cities.
  • Heavenly Father, we ask You to bless each town and city with the message and encouragement of Jesus Christ when He said, “Love one another” in John 13:34.

Prayer Priority #3: Lord, we ask You to be with the leaders in our local, state, and national governments as they work and make decisions together for the good of our nation. 

Call out their specific names to God if you have them:

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A transcript of “How te Read the Prophets” by The Bible Project.

Ezekiel, Obadiah, Habakkuk What do these names have in common? Well, they are three of the 15 prophets that have their own books in the Bible.

And if you have tried to read these books, odds are you got lost in their dense poetry and strange imagery. But these books are super important for understanding the overall biblical story.

So, let’s talk about “How to Read the Prophets“.

When I hear the word “prophet”, I think of a fortune teller, someone who predicts the future.

That is what being a prophet means in many cultures, but not in the Bible.

While the biblical prophets sometimes speak about the future, they are way more than fortune tellers.

How should I think about them?

Well, they were Israelites who had a radical encounter with God’s presence and then were commissioned to go and speak on God’s behalf.

Like a representative.

Right! And the thing that they cared about the most. It is the mutual partnership that existed between God and the Israelites.

Right! the partnership. God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and invited them to become a nation of justice and generosity, that would represent his character to the nations.

So, this partnership required all Israelites to give their trust and allegiance to their God alone. In the Bible, this partnership is called the “Covenant”.

But the leaders — the priests, the kings — led Israel astray and they broke the covenant.

So, this is where the prophets came in, to remind Israel of their role in the partnership. They did this in 3 ways.

First, they were constantly accusing Israel for violating the terms of the covenant. The charges usually include idolatry, alliances with other nations and their gods and allowing injustice towards the poor.

So, they are like covenant lawyers.

Right. So, second, the prophets called the Israelites to repent, which means simply, “to turn around”. They spoke of God’s mercy to forgive them if they would just confess and change their ways.

But, Israel and its leaders didn’t change. Things went from bad to worse.

And so that brings us to the third way that prophets emphasized the covenant. They announced the consequences for breaking it which they called, “The Day of the Lord”.

Oh, yeah! The apocalypse. Visions of the end of the world.

Well, sort of. The prophets were mostly interested in how God would bring his justice on Israel’s corruption and on the violent nations around them. And while explaining these local events, they often used cosmic imagery.

Cosmic imagery?

Yeah! like Jeremiah. He described the exile of the Israelites to Babylon as the undoing of creation itself. The land dissolves into chaos and disorder, no light, no animals or people. Or Isaiah described the downfall of Babylon as the disintegration of the cosmos. Stars falling from the sky, the sun going dark. For the prophets, when God acts in human history to bring justice, it is a “Day of the Lord”.

So, the prophets aren’t talking about the end of the world?

Well, hold on. They are doing many things at once. The cosmic imagery shows how these important events of their day fit into the bigger story of God’s mission to bring down every corrupt and violent nation once and for all. The prophets cared about the present and the future. And the cosmic imagery allowed them to talk about both at the same time.

Got it. So, no matter when you live, the Day of the Lord is bad news if you are part of Babylon.

But, it is good news if you are waiting for God’s kingdom. The Day of the Lord pointed to the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. And once again, the prophets use cosmic poetry to describe it. They see a New Jerusalem, like a new Garden of Eden, with all humanity living at peace with each other and with the animals. And, there is a new Messianic King who restores God’s kingdom in a renewed creation.

Beautiful! So, those are the three themes in the prophets. These prophets must have been very powerful, persuasive speakers.

Well, some were. But others lived on the margins. They would often perform strange, symbolic stunts in public to communicate their message. Like when Ezekiel lay in the dirt and built a model of Jerusalem being attacked by Babylon. Or when Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a symbol of the humiliation of exile.

So, did people pay attention to them?

Not really. The stories in these books show how the prophets were a minority group mostly shunned by Israel’s leaders. And their writings were a kind of resistance literature. Most people ignored them. That is, until their warnings came true in the Babylonian exile.

And after that, people began to take their word seriously.

Yes! The works of these earlier prophets were inherited later by unnamed prophets who studied these texts intensely. They’re the ones who arranged the Hebrew scriptures as we know them, including the books of the prophets.

Okay. And there are 15 books of the prophets. The big 3 are Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Then, there is a collection of 12 smaller prophetic works unified on a single scroll. And in each of these books, you will read stories about the prophets and their poems and visions, all arranged to show the cosmic meaning of Israel’s history. How God will turn their tragic story of failure and exile…

…into a story of hope and restoration for all nations.

And it’s that twin message of prophetic warning and of hope that the prophets cared about so much. And, it is a message that we still need to hear today.

“Son of Man” has been a confusing term for a long time. Now here comes this 5-minute video from The Bible Project to explain the term and tell a fairly complete story of redemption at the same time!

What is the relationship of the Son of Man to the divine council?

The Son of Man is distinct from the Ancient of Days, who is Yahweh, yet of the same divine essence, as he is described as coming upon/with the clouds, a description used only of Yahweh elsewhere in the Old Testament, and is given everlasting rule over all nations, a description used of the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity,c who rules from God’s right hand, exalted above all powers, visible and invisible.1

Unseen Realm Question and Answer Companion


  1. Douglas Van Dorn, The Unseen Realm: A Question & Answer Companion (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015). 

Those who would attack the church require only the slightest pretense. Where no basis in law exists, a legalistic pretense will be created as illustrated in two recent examples (with thanks to WND for reporting on them.)

Town Changes Rules to Ban Church

The first occurred when a town changed their rules to ban a church from the civic center.

In this case, a misguided fear of “violating the Constitution’s establishment clause” led the city council to ban church worship services.

The case is not yet resolved, but will likely go in the church’s favor (with no help from the constitution’s establishment clause.) The city was inconsistent when implementing their policies: they let other groups use the civic center for similar events and rented office space in the same building to a Lutheran church. But that didn’t stop “their fears” from making up ad hoc rules to exclude the church.

If cities should implement their policies consistently, or cleverly revamp them from scratch to exclude the church, protection from the constitution’s establishment clause will be revealed to be merely rhetorical. Practically, only those with the resources to press the issue will be heard in federal court. In the meantime, ministries will be shut out or shut down until the local domains excluding them have a compelling reason to relent.

‘Constitutional’ Protection?

The federal constitution doesn’t prevent a city from making policies and ordinances. There is no agreement between these entities (fedgov and city). The state constitution might have a clause to which churches may appeal, depending on the state. Such will only be tested if churches in their domain have the will and resources to protest.

The church in this first example protested to local authorities and will likely prevail. Their victory will stem from the inconsistent policy implementation by the city.

Retired Pastor Threatened With Eviction Over Bible Study

The second case hits close to home when a “retired pastor is threatened with eviction over his Bible study meetings.

A company that runs a senior-living center in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has decided that a Bible study is a “business” and consequently has threatened to evict a retired Lutheran pastor and his wife for conducting one in their residence.

From the start, the retired pastor characterized his Bible study as a “book review” to avoid friction with the management company. Then we see another example of a private entity making ad hoc changes to their policies to justify an eviction. In this case, they recategorized the Bible study as a business.

As in the first example, the company ’s mistake was inconsistently implementing their policies. Other groups were permitted to meet in the same space to engage in activities ostensibly identical to those of the pastor’s Bible study. The company would have to show that holding a Bible in your hands when meeting others somehow makes it a business meeting to justify their eviction of the pastor.

The legal defenders of this small group say the federal housing act (FHA) may be the remedy for the pastor:

The actions by the Evergreens “violate the Fair Housing Act and its accompanying regulations,” First Liberty contended. “The FHA prohibits discrimination ‘against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of the sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith, because of … religion.”

Private Homeowners in HOA Domains

The FHA might be a remedy for church activities under its domain. But what about private homeowners? 40 million households (53% of households in America)1 are in the legal domain of a Home Owners Association and bound by the agreement that defines it.

Fortunately, four small groups recently prevailed when an aggressive atheist brought suit against the HOA of a retirement community in California to put an end to four Bible studies.

HOA agreements control the use of the home. Could the language in those agreements be changed, after the fact, to restrict Bible studies or house churches?

Of course, they could.

What if the atheist in the previous example was on the HOA board of your community? What would prevent him from making up an ad hoc rule as was done in the first two examples in this article?

Most of those who’ve signed HOA agreements have little knowledge of their contents. After the fact, homeowners may object to their restrictions. But those restrictions are clearly outlined in a document bearing an essential legal feature: the signature of the homeowner. Indeed, participation in this domain is entirely optional.

As faith-based attacks on homes in the domain of an HOA increase, believers must be mindful about their voluntary consent into these domains.

First Line of Defense

A believers first line of defense is prayer and God’s supernatural protection. However, Christians should take notice of Walter Williams’ description of the first line of defense in secular terms.

A civilized society’s first line of defense is not the law, police, and courts but customs, traditions, and moral values. Behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error.2

The “customs, traditions and moral values” Williams refers to came directly from the foundational document of western civilization: The Bible. So did common law, although the current legal system in America is commercial.

In other words, whereas the Bible, itself, was the primary legal document in Christendom, Americans must now appeal to its faint echo filtered through society and commercial law.

Recommendations

While not possible or righteous to avoid all persecution, we are sent out “as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Mt 10:16.)” As hard as dove-like innocence may be to some, and serpentine-like wisdom to others, the fulfillment of the great commission requires both. Where one is lacking, believers are compromised.

Any justice received by Americans is limited to what they can or will afford. For ministries already entangled by legalistic pretense, it will cost money to break free. More often, what’s required is the wisdom to navigate the various domains of the territory to remain on task.

  • Pray for God’s supernatural guidance on every premise and decision of your ministry.
  • Look for states, counties, and cities with widely shared Christian beliefs; without a history of making ad hoc ordinances to quell irrational fears or provide temporary convenience.
  • Disabuse yourself of the false mindset that your first line of defense is the law. The legal system is the last line of defense and available only to those who can afford it.
  • Look for protection from the inconsistency of your opponent’s policy implementation or the customs and traditions of the domain of your ministry.
  • Think carefully before signing a home owner’s agreement that might one day be used as a lever of control over your Bible Study, ministry, or house church.
  • Where they don’t “receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.” (Matthew 10:14)
  • Where escape is impossible, stand your ground for the truth and God’s glory. Bear your cross with steadfastness and joy and “consider this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Co 4:17–18).

  1. https://hoa-usa.com/about.aspx 
  2. Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University. Copyright 2009 Creators Syndicate 

If you’re interested in the topic of exorcism, the documentary, “The Devil and Father Amorth,” is worth your time.

It’s a professionally made documentary primarily due to the thoroughness of the director. He interviews a broad sample of observers (and participants) around the exorcisms. And, despite his expertise, the director removes all effects and technical obstacles from his subject rather than add layers of them as he did in “The Exorcist.”

If you’ve watched the clip, you’ve heard the voice of one of the possessed women (Christina) at 1 minute, 12 seconds into the above trailer.

I consistently hear three voices every time the one being exorcised cries out. If this is, somehow, faked by the director, it discredits the documentary. However, I don’t suspect there was any sound editing of the ladies voice. To satisfy my own curiosity of the makeup of these “voices,” I captured many of them from the documentary, and you can see their spectral frequency prints, below.

Dissociative Trance Disorder?

When the director interviews a room full of five doctors of various expertise, he’s quickly referred to what the doctors say is “a recognized diagnosis, worldwide”: Dissociative Trance Disorder.1 From the abstract of that paper:

Although dissociative trance disorders, especially possession disorder, are probably more common than is usually though, precise clinical data are lacking. Ten persons undergoing exorcisms for devil trance possession state were studied with the Dissociative Disorders Diagnostic Schedule and the Rorschach test. These persons had many traits in common with dissociative identity disorder patients. They were overwhelmed by paranormal experiences. Despite claiming possession by a demon, most of them managed to maintain normal social functioning.

You can read the full paper, online.

Bishop Barron Isn’t Ready

Robert Barron, a Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, says he wouldn’t speak to the devil like Father Amorth because he’s not at that spiritual level:

Speaking to the devil like Father Amorth? I would never dare do that. I’m not there, spiritually, I think it’s a very dangerous thing…it’s dangerous ground. You have to be really, really, Holy. . . I’m not ready for that; I’d be afraid.

Jeffrey B. Russell’s Says it Best

One of the most insightful comments in the documentary is by Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of “The Prince of Darkness.” Jeffrey says that possession is merely the seizure of your body.

The way they take over your soul is by tempting you to sin. That’s how they get you because you’re using your free will to do evil.

Spectral Frequency Displays

As a musician, I have a good ear for sounds and the ability to distinguish between them.

For example, you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and can’t quite place the voice? I rarely experience that since the person behind the voice is evident to me (If I know who they are in real life.)

To make a more objective visual image, however, I used the Spectral Frequency Display in Adobe Audition to show the “print” of the voices in this documentary.

For reference: human speaking voices for men range from ~85 – 180hz and for women, 165 – 255 Hz. Frequencies above this are usually attributed to harmonics, room echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds produced by the throat. All of those elements are present in the voice prints, below.

The vertical axis is frequency, and the horizontal axis is time. The brightness represents the loudness of the sound source in that frequency range. The bright yellow areas are the primary sound, the orange and purple are harmonics, echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds. The black areas are silent.

Here’s the director’s voice asking a question:

Director's Voice

Here’s Christina answering the Director’s question:

Christina Speaking

Father Amorth praying:

Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer:

Father-Amort-Makes-Gutteral-Sounds-web

Family praying together:

Family Praying

Christina’s first “possessed” voice:

Christinas-First-Possessed-Voice-web

A six-second segment of Christina’s possessed voice:

Christina long segment of possessed voice

When looking at the prints of Christina’s voice during the possession, it becomes apparent why it gives the impression of either three or four voices. Two frequencies are pronounced enough to be heard separately at 1k and below. Two more are at 2k-4k. Her first print is also extraordinary in that it emits harmonics >16khz. No other voice in the documentary does that.

But look at the print when Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer. Strong harmonics appear three or four times just below 3k Hz. This is an important comparison because Father and Christina are in the same room at the same time.

For an additional comparison, I’ve recorded two isolated voice tracks of Janis Joplin. The recordings attempt to isolate only Janis’ voice to be as similar as possible to the Father Amorth and Christina.

Janis Joplin, Clip #1:

Janis Joplin Clip 1

Janis Joplin, Clip #2:

Janis Joplin Clip 2


  1. ”Dissociative Trance Disorder: Clinical and Rorschach Findings in Ten Persons Reporting Demon Possession and Treated by Exorcism” by Stefano Ferracuti, Roberta Sacco, and Renato Lazzari, Dept. Of Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Journal of Personality Assessment, 1996, 66(3), 525-539, Copyright 1996, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 

Dr. Heiser’s Naked Bible podcast is one of my favorites. With 215 episodes and climbing it’s become a challenge to find which episode mentions a topic of interest. Thankfully, there’s a transcript made of each episode. But how do you search the content of hundreds of separate files?

Like this:

Please support the NB podcast and download the transcripts from Dr. Heiser’s website as they come out. If you need a jumpstart, I’ve put zip files on the Divine Council Forum with all transcripts as of May 24, 2018. I won’t be keeping these up to date so download new transcripts from the NB Podcast site.

Searching Filenames is Easy; Searching File Content is Hard

Searching the contents of hundreds of files is no easy task. The two best (only?) tools for this are Adobe Acrobat Pro and DevonThink.

Acrobat Pro

With Acrobat Pro, there are two options to search multiple pdfs: search a directory or search an index. My searches take five seconds without an index and two seconds with an index. I haven’t used Acrobat to search more than 200 files in a directory but presume the lag time will increase files increase.

DevonThink

DevonThink searches return instantly. An index is built and updated as files are imported and the search time for 215 NB transcripts is not discernible. I have another directory with 1900 files of similar size and the search time for that directory is also indiscernible. Wow.

Recommendation

Both Acrobat and DevonThink are crucial to my workflows. If I had to choose one tool for this job, however, it would be DevonThink. Searching the contents of thousands of files is what it’s designed to do, and it does it exceptionally well. If you need to perform searches like this on a routine basis, the $149 cost is a no-brainer. It comes with the best OCR conversion engine (ABBYY FineReader) which costs more than DevonThink itself, go figure.

Adobe seems to overprice the standalone purchase of their software to encourage users to choose a subscription, instead. Since I use six of the tools in the Adobe CC suite on a routine basis, the $50/month is justified. Your mileage may vary.

This transcript is of John Lennox presenting his case for the existence of God at the Oxford Union in 2012.

Copyright © 2012 Oxford Media Associates

The excerpts, below, are a sample of the transcript.

God Exists

And as we look at the rise of science in the 16th and 17th centuries, Alfred North Whitehead and many others commented, that men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not ashamed of being both a scientist and a Christian because, arguably, Christianity gave me my subject.

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What I am amazed at is that serious thinkers today continue to ask us to choose between God and science. That’s like asking people to choose between Henry Ford and engineering as an explanation of the motor car.

When Newton discovered his law of gravity he didn’t say I’ve got a law, I don’t need God. No, he wrote the Principia Mathematica, arguably the greatest work in the whole history of science, because he saw that God is not the same kind of explanation as a scientific explanation. God doesn’t Compete. Agency does not compete with mechanism and law.

It reminds me a little bit of GK Chesterton who said, “It is absurd to complain that it is unthinkable for an unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then to pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”

Leading philosopher Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame says, “If atheists are right that we are the product of mindless, unguided natural processes then they have given a strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties, and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce including their atheism.” Their biology and their belief in naturalism would, therefore, appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that has nothing at all to do with God.

As modern science sprang from Judeo-Christian sources, so did the concept of human equality. Listen to atheist Jurgen Habermas, arguably one of Germany’s leading intellectuals. He said that “Universalistic egalitarianism from which sprang the ideals of freedom and collective life and solidarity, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.”

This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day there is no alternative to it. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.

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Hymn to the Conqueror by Zechariah