Addendum: Part 1, Part 3. I have also re-uploaded the images to imageshack since the original versions were lost when their server went down years ago
Page 5
"The Bible was written by more than 40 different authors, and across a period of 1,600 years. Yet amidst the diversity of authorship, there emerged a single unified story - the salvation plan of God for a sinful humanity."
This is patently false. A small catalogue of Fatal Biblical Flaws will swiftly put paid to the CCC's groundless assertion, and the same author also provides a list of Biblical Inconsistencies. Besides which, most of the Old Testament is irrelevant regarding "the salvation plan of God for a sinful humanity."
And then near the bottom of the page, we see an example of a circular argument: "Therefore, only because God inspired the OT and NT writers, as 2 Timothy 3:16 proclaims "All Scripture is God-breathed...", the Bible that we have today is not only a historically accurate work, but it is a divinely inspired account"
Frankly, I was expecting to see this earlier in the pamphlet, and in much greater quantity. Some small modicum of credit can be given to the writers of the pamphlet from not, as they are wont to doing, using the bible to prove the bible all the time.
There is also a quote from Simon Greenleaf about "the NT documents": "You may choose to say I do not believe it all, but you may not say there is not enough evidence." Not having access to the quote in context I cannot comment about what he was referring to, and if he was justified in his assertion, but one might note that this quote is from the mid-19th century or earlier, and if he studied the documents today he might come to a different conclusion.
Page 6
No complaints except for:
"BTS: Was there really a debate over the deity of Christ?
Mr Josh McDowell: ... No one believed or debated if he was merely a man or prophet."
This part is not quite correct. In reality, some of the earliest followers of Jesus did believe that he was merely a man. For example, the Ebionites and Carpocratians denied his divinity.
The footnotes on the page describe Josh McDowell as "a former skeptic who believed that Christianity was a hoax and went on a personal search to discredit the church and Christianity. Yet in the process of hundreds of hours of research, his doubts turned to faith in Christ." I have not read an account (preferably by him) of his religiou journey, but I'm willing to bet that it was like that of the other famous so-called skeptic turned believer - Lee Strobel (ie An act of Intellectual Suicide, probably motivated by some other extraneous factor).
Page 7 - This page deals with 2 of the "3 Most-Misguided-Theories"
1. Mrs Jesus: "Dan Brown's dubious 'sources': The Nag Hammadi texts (Which contain the Gnostic Gospels) an unreliable source: Written neither by apostles, nor by companions of the apostles, the Gnostic Gospels were written under a pseudonym - that is, the author used the names of the apostles just to gain credibility."
Odd, considering that this describes at the very very least 3 out of 4 of the canonical gospels as well! Matthew, Mark and Luke are just names traditionally given to those gospels, not an indication of authorship.
2. The 'Secret Gospels': "Why are Gnostic Gospels not included in today's Bible? Only books and letters that were associated with an apostle or associate were considered acceptable into the New Testament Cannon"
Besides the point above about authenticity, there is also the question of which apostles or associates were considered reliable, and it basically boils down to Church politics, internecine factional warring and such rather than any objective measure of authenticity or veracity.
Page 8 - This page deals with the last of the "3 Most-Misguided-Theories" and has a sidebar about Leonardo da Vinci, the Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion. I have no comments about this page.
Page 9 - A quiz about if you're a Relativist, Skeptic or Truth-seeker. Given that this is a shameless ripoff of brainless female magazine quizzes that don't tell you anything, I can't say that they could've done much else with this format.
Page 10 - Setting up the False Trichotomy
"No man in history has ever claimed to be God, much less a God who died for mankind."
Only a very specific and strict interpretation of this statement would render it technically correct. The god Osiris came down to earth in Corporeal form and after his death and resurrection, delivered salvation. Dionysius was born of Zeus and a mortal woman, and his cult gave out wine which brought "humans into communion with the divine realm". This is to say nothing of the various gods in mythologies all over the world who came down to earth in corporeal form. POCM lovingly documents various other permutations in other mythologies of divine-mortal blending.
The false trichotomy will be dealt with when the silly flowchart appears (wait for it!).
Page 11 - Straw man arguments, which will be addressed later
-End of Part 2-
