[Faith-talk] Men Who Were Converted Trying to Disprove the Bible - Part 2 of 3

[Linda Mentink via Faith-talk]

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Men Who Were Converted Trying to Disprove the Bible - Part 2 of 3

April 8, 2014

__________

Above all other books, the Bible has been hated, 
vilified, ridiculed, criticized, restricted, 
banned, and destroyed, but it has been to no 
avail. As one rightly said, “We might as well 
put our shoulder to the burning wheel of the sun, 
and try to stop it on its flaming course, as 
attempt to stop the circulation of the Bible” 
(Sidney Collett, All about the Bible, p. 63).


In A.D. 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued 
an edict to stop Christians from worshipping 
Jesus Christ and to destroy their Scriptures. 
Every official in the empire was ordered to raze 
the churches to the ground and burn every Bible 
found in their districts (Stanley Greenslade, 
Cambridge History of the Bible). Twenty-five 
years later Diocletian’s successor, 
Constantine, issued another edict ordering fifty 
Bibles to be published at government expense (Eusebius).


In 1778 the French infidel Voltaire boasted that 
in 100 years Christianity would cease to exist, 
but within 50 years the Geneva Bible Society used 
his press and house to publish Bibles (Geisler 
and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, 1986, pp. 123, 124).


Robert Ingersoll once boasted, “Within 15 years 
I’ll have the Bible lodged in a morgue.” But 
Ingersoll is dead, and the Bible is alive and well.


In fact, many who set out to disprove the Bible 
have been converted, instead. The following are a few more examples:


WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY (1851-1939)


William Ramsay was a renowned archaeologist and 
New Testament scholar from Scotland. He was 
knighted by the British crown for his work in archaeology.


He was raised an atheist, and as a brilliant 
student at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland 
and at Oxford University in England, he sat at 
the feet of theological modernists and skeptics 
who disbelieved the Bible. It was assumed that 
the Bible is not historically accurate and that 
it contains a large portion of mythology. It was 
thought that the book of Acts was not written 
until 150 A.D., about a century after the events it describes.


When Ramsay began archaeological and historical 
research in Asia Minor beginning in 1881, he 
expected and hoped to find more evidence against 
the Bible. Instead, he discovered fact after fact 
that supported the Bible. He eventually concluded 
that the book of Acts was written during the 
lifetime of the apostles and that it is 
historically accurate. His discoveries led to his conversion to Christianity.


"He had spent years deliberately preparing 
himself for the announced task of heading an 
exploration expedition into Asia Minor and 
Palestine where he would [find] the evidence that 
the book was the product of ambitious monks, and 
not the book from heaven it claimed to be. He 
regarded the weakest spot in the whole New 
Testament to be the story of Paul's travels. 
These had never been thoroughly investigated by 
one on the spot. Equipped as no other man had 
been, he went to the home of the Bible. Here he 
spent fifteen years digging. Then in 1896 he 
published a large volume, Saint Paul, the 
Traveler and the Roman Citizen. ... The book 
caused a furor of dismay among the skeptics of 
the world. Its attitude was utterly unexpected 
because it was contrary to the announced 
intention of the author years before. For twenty 
years more, book after book from the same author 
came from the press, each filled with additional 
evidence of the exact, minute truthfulness of the 
whole New Testament as tested by the spade on the 
spot. And these books have stood the test of 
time, not one having been refuted, nor have I 
found even any attempt to refute them” (Josh 
McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 62).


Ramsay testified:


“The present writer takes the view that 
Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its 
trustworthiness. At this point we are describing 
what reasons and arguments changed the mind of 
one who began under the impression that the 
history was written long after the events and 
that it was untrustworthy as a whole” (The 
Bearing of Recent Discovery on the 
Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 1915).


VIGGO OLSON


The following is excerpted from “From Agnostic 
to Ambassador to Bangladesh,” Thanthropos.org:


Viggo Olsen was a brilliant surgeon who graduated 
cum laude from medical school and later became a 
diplomat of the American Board of Surgery and a 
fellow of the American College of surgeons. In 
1951 he was challenged by his wife’s parents to 
examine the claims of Christianity for himself.

Olsen recalled, ‘Just alike a surgeon incises a 
chest, we were going to slash into the Bible and 
dissect out all its embarrassing scientific mistakes.’


After he started his investigation he ran into 
problems. He remembers that he had trouble 
finding scientific mistakes. ‘We’d find 
something that seemed to be an error, but on 
further reflection and study, we saw that our 
understanding had been shallow. That made us sit up and take notice.’


After examining the evidence, Olsen became a 
Christian and later gave his life to be a 
missionary in Bangladesh. He was later honored 
with Visa #001 for his contributions to the country.


This is a man who was extremely educated, a 
brilliant surgeon, someone who was not willing to 
take a blind leap of faith, and after exhaustive 
research he was willing to admit, like so many 
others have, that the historic Christian faith is 
much more than a religion, it is based on a man 
who walked this Earth as the Theanthropos, the 
God-Man. The evidence that supports the 
resurrection of Jesus is so overwhelming it 
demands a verdict and Christianity lives and dies 
by the fact of the resurrection--without it, Christianity does not hold water.


Olsen went from an agnostic to giving up his 
career, his entire life, to serve people in Bangladesh. Olson testified:


‘It was the greatest adventure we could ever 
have. When you’re in a hard place, when 
you’re in over your head again and again, when 
you’re sinking and beyond yourself and praying 
your heart out--then you see God reach out and 
touch your life and resolve the situation beyond 
anything you could have ever hoped. ... That’s 
living it up! In my opinion, finding the purpose 
for which God made you--whatever it may be--and 
then fully pursuing it is simply the very best way to live.’


Olsen documented his life in the famous book called Daktar.


JOSH MCDOWELL


Josh McDowell, the author of Evidence That 
Demands a Verdict, was a skeptic when he entered 
university to pursue a law degree. There he met 
some Christians who challenged him to examine the 
evidence for the Bible and Jesus Christ. Following is his testimony:


As a teenager, I wanted the answers to three 
basic questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where 
am I going? ... So as a young student, I started looking for answers.


I thought that education might have the answer to 
my quest for happiness and meaning. So I enrolled 
in the university. What a disappointment! I have 
probably been on more university campuses in my 
lifetime than anyone else in history. You can 
find a lot of things in the university, but 
enrolling there to find truth and meaning in life is virtually a lost cause.


I used to buttonhole professors in their offices, 
seeking the answers to my questions. When they 
saw me coming they would turn out the lights, 
pull down the shades, and lock the door so they 
wouldn’t have to talk to me. I soon realized 
that the university didn’t have the answers I 
was seeking. Faculty members and my fellow 
students had just as many problems, frustrations, 
and unanswered questions about life as I had. A 
few years ago I saw a student walking around a 
campus with a sign on his back: ‘Don’t follow 
me, I’m lost.’ That’s how everyone in the 
university seemed to me. Education was not the answer!


Prestige must be the way to go, I decided. It 
just seemed right to find a noble cause, give 
yourself to it, and become well known. The people 
with the most prestige in the university, and who 
also controlled the purse strings, were the 
student leaders. So I ran for various student 
offices and got elected. It was great to know 
everyone on campus, make important decisions, and 
spend the university’s money doing what I 
wanted to do. But the thrill soon wore off, as 
with everything else I had tried.


Every Monday morning I would wake up with a 
headache because of the way I had spent the 
previous night. My attitude was, Here we go 
again, another five boring days. Happiness for me 
revolved around those three party-nights: Friday, 
Saturday, and Sunday. Then the whole boring cycle would start over again.


Around this time I noticed a small group of 
people on campus--eight students and two 
faculty--and there was something different about 
them. They seemed to know where they were going 
in life. And they had a quality I deeply admire 
in people: conviction. But there was something 
more about this group that caught my attention. 
It was love. These students and professors not 
only loved each other, they loved and cared for people outside their group.


About two weeks later, I was sitting around a 
table in the student union talking with some 
members of this group. ... I turned to one of the 
girls in the group and said, ‘Tell me, what 
changed your lives? Why are you so different from 
the other students and faculty?’


She looked me straight in the eye and said two 
words I had never expected to hear in an 
intelligent discussion on a university campus: ‘Jesus Christ.’


‘Jesus Christ?’ I snapped. ‘Don’t give me 
that kind of garbage. I’m fed up with religion, the Bible, and the church.’


She quickly shot back, ‘Mister, I didn’t say 
‘religion’; I said ‘Jesus Christ.’


Then my new friends issued me a challenge I 
couldn’t believe. They challenged me, a pre-law 
student, to examine intellectually the claim that 
Jesus Christ is God’s Son. I thought this was a 
joke. These Christians were so dumb. How could 
something as flimsy as Christianity stand up to 
an intellectual examination? I scoffed at their challenge.


I finally accepted their challenge, not to prove 
anything but to refute them. I decided to write a 
book that would make an intellectual joke of 
Christianity. I left the university and traveled 
throughout the United States and Europe to gather 
evidence to prove that Christianity is a sham.


One day while I was sitting in a library in 
London, England, I sensed a voice within me 
saying, ‘Josh, you don’t have a leg to stand 
on.’ I immediately suppressed it. But just 
about every day after that I heard the same inner 
voice. The more I researched, the more I heard 
this voice. I returned to the United States and 
to the university, but I couldn’t sleep at 
night. I would go to bed at ten o'clock and lie 
awake until four in the morning, trying to refute 
the overwhelming evidence I was accumulating that Jesus Christ was God’s Son.


I began to realize that I was being 
intellectually dishonest. My mind told me that 
the claims of Christ were indeed true, but my 
will was being pulled another direction. I had 
placed so much emphasis on finding the truth, but 
I wasn’t willing to follow it once I saw it. I 
began to sense Christ’s personal challenge to 
me in Revelation 3:20: ‘Here I am! I stand at 
the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and 
opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, 
and he with me.’ But becoming a Christian 
seemed so ego-shattering to me. I couldn’t 
think of a faster way to ruin all my good times.


I knew I had to resolve this inner conflict 
because it was driving me crazy. I had always 
considered myself an open-minded person, so I 
decided to put Christ’s claims to the supreme 
test. One night at my home in Union City, 
Michigan, at the end of my second year at the 
university, I became a Christian.


I said, ‘Lord Jesus, thank You for dying on the 
cross for me.’ I realized that if I were the 
only person on earth, Christ would have still 
died for me.’ ... I said, ‘I confess that I 
am a sinner.’ No one had to tell me that. I 
knew there were things in my life that were 
incompatible with a holy, just, righteous God. 
... I said, ‘Right now, in the best way I know 
how, I open the door of my life and place my 
trust in You as Saviour and Lord. Take over the 
control of my life. Change me from the inside 
out. Make me the type of person You created me to 
be. (Josh McDowell, “He Changed My Life,” The 
New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Thomas Nelson, 1999, pp. xxv).


McDowell concludes:


After trying to shatter the historicity and 
validity of the Scripture, I came to the 
conclusion that it is historically trustworthy. 
If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, 
then one must discard almost all literature of antiquity.


“One problem I constantly face is the desire on 
the part of many to apply one standard or test to 
secular literature and another to the Bible. One 
must apply the same test, whether the literature 
under investigation is secular or religious.


“Having done this, I believe we can hold the 
Scriptures in our hands and say, ‘The Bible is 
trustworthy and historically reliable. (The New Evidence, p. 68).


RICHARD LUMSDEN


Richard Lumsden (1938-97), Ph.D., was converted 
from Darwinian atheist to Bible-believing 
Christian at the apex of his professional career. 
When, challenged by one of his students, he 
decided to check out the evidence for himself.


A professor of parisitology and cell biology, 
Lumsden was dean of the graduate school at Tulane 
University. He trained 30 Ph.D.s., published 
hundreds of scholarly papers and was the winner 
of the highest award for parasitology.


The following is excerpted from “The World’s 
Greatest Creation Scientists” by David 
Coppedge, which is available from Master Plan 
Association, http://www.creationsafaris.com/products.htm --


“Dr. Richard D. Lumsden was fully grounded in 
Darwinian philosophy, and had no reason or desire 
to consider Christianity. Science was his faith: 
the facts, and only the facts. But at the apex of 
his professional career, he had enough integrity 
to check out the facts, and made a difficult 
choice to go where the facts led him, against 
what he had been taught, and against what he 
himself taught. His life took a dramatic 
turnaround, from Darwinist to creationist, and from atheist to Christian.


“All through his career he believed Darwinian 
evolution was an established principle of 
science, and he took great glee in ridiculing 
Christian beliefs. One day, he heard that 
Louisiana had passed a law requiring equal time 
for creation with evolution, and he was 
flabbergasted--how stupid, he thought, and how 
evil! He used the opportunity to launch into a 
tirade against creationism in class, and to give 
them his best eloquence in support of 
Darwinism.  Little did he know he had a 
formidable opponent in class that day. No, not a 
silver-tongued orator to engage him in a battle 
of wits; that would have been too easy. This time 
it was a gentle, polite, young female student.


“This student went up to him after class and 
cheerfully exclaimed, ‘Great lecture, Doc! Say, 
I wonder if I could make an appointment with you; 
I have some questions about what you said, and 
just want to get my facts straight.’ Dr. 
Lumsden, flattered with this student's positive 
approach, agreed on a time they could meet in his 
office. On the appointed day, the student thanked 
him for his time, and started in.  She did not 
argue with anything he had said about evolution 
in class, but just began asking a series of 
questions: ‘How did life arise? . . . Isn’t 
DNA too complex to form by chance? . . . Why are 
there gaps in the fossil record between major 
kinds? . . . What are the missing links between 
apes and man?She didn't act judgmental or 
provocative; she just wanted to know. Lumsden, 
unabashed, gave the standard evolutionary answers 
to the questions.  But something about this 
interchange began making him very uneasy.  He was 
prepared for a fight, but not for a gentle, 
honest set of questions. As he listened to 
himself spouting the typical evolutionary 
responses, he thought to himself, This does not 
make any sense.  What I know about biology is 
contrary to what I'm saying. When the time came 
to go, the student picked up her books and 
smiled, ‘Thanks, Doc!’ and left. On the 
outside, Dr. Lumsden appeared confident; but on 
the inside, he was devastated. He knew that 
everything he had told this student was wrong.


“Dr. Lumsden had the integrity to face his new 
doubts honestly. He undertook a personal research 
project to check out the arguments for evolution, 
and over time, found them wanting.  Based on the 
scientific evidence alone, he decided he must 
reject Darwinism, and he became a 
creationist.  But as morning follows night, he 
had to face the next question, Who is the 
Creator?  Shortly thereafter, by coincidence or 
not, his sister invited him to church. It was so 
out of character for this formerly crusty, 
self-confident evolutionist to go to church! Not 
much earlier, he would have had nothing to do 
with religion. But now, he was open to reconsider 
the identity of the Creator, and whether the 
claims of the Bible were true. His atheistic 
philosophy had also left him helpless to deal 
with guilt and bad habits in his personal life. 
This time he was open, and this time he heard the 
Good News that God had sent His Son to pay the 
penalty for our sins, and to offer men forgiveness and eternal life.


“A tremendous struggle was going on in Dr. 
Lumsden's heart as he listened to the sermon. 
When the service ended, the pastor gave an 
invitation to come to the front and decide once 
and for all, publicly, to receive Christ. Dr. 
Lumsden describes the turmoil he was in: ‘With 
flesh protesting every inch of the way, I found 
myself walking forward, down to the altar.  And 
there, found God!  Truly, at that moment, I came 
to know Him, and received the Lord Jesus Christ 
as my Lord and Savior.’ There’s room at the 
cross even for know-it-all science professors, if 
they are willing to humble themselves and bow 
before the Creator to whom the scientific evidence points.


“Dr. Lumsden rejoiced in his new-found faith, 
but found out there is a price to pay also. He 
was ejected from the science faculty after his 
dynamic conversion to Christ and creationism. The 
Institute for Creation Research invited him to 
direct their biology department, which he did 
from 1990 to 1996. Dr. Henry Morris said of him, 
‘He had a very vibrant testimony of his 
conversion only a few years ago and of the role 
that one of his students played in confronting 
his evolutionism with persistent and penetrating 
questions. He became fully convinced of the 
bankruptcy of his beliefs and realized that the 
only reasonable alternative was that there must 
be a Creator.’ Dick Lumsden was also appointed 
to the science faculty of The Master's College, 
and used his intimate knowledge of electron 
microscopy to help the campus set up an 
operational instrument for training students. 
There was a joy present in his life and manner 
that made his lectures sparkle, and he loved to 
demonstrate design in the cell that could not 
have arisen by Darwinian processes. In 
discussions with evolutionists, he knew just 
where to get them (he would say with a smile), 
having been in their shoes. His students 
appreciated the training his depth and breadth of 
knowledge and experience brought to the class and to the lab.”


Before he died, Lumsdens testimony was video 
recorded, and it is now available at the following location:

http://www.wayoflife.org/database/lumsden.html


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