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Author "john-oakes"

wrote in Bible Manuscripts and Textual Questions, General, Reliability of the Bible .

Question: Andrew B. Davidson (1902) wrote that Scribes were arrangers of the scattered fragments, many of them anonymous, existing in their time. They arranged small anonymous prophecies under general headings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, just like all Psalms were gathered together under the name of David. Dr. Oakes, is it possible that anonymous prophecies became part […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Prefigures and Foreshadows, Q & A .

Question: Thank you for taking my question, My question is about the meal talked about in Exodus, that was eaten in haste, in which they ate the lamb they sacrificed. My question is this: in Jesus’s day, would that meal have been eaten on Friday night? Is that called the Passover meal? If it was […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Q & A .

Question: Why don’t Christians need to follow the Old Testament Laws (especially the Old Testament Civil Laws) anymore? Answer: Christians do not need to follow the Old Testament law because Jesus fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17).  Jesus replaced the Law of Moses with the Law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:21, Galatians 6:2).  The requirements of […]

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wrote in General, Practical Christianity, Q & A .

Question: What are some key problems with Christian theocracy? Why shouldn’t Christians seek to have a Christian theocratic nation? Answer: There is no direct statement in the New Testament which commands Christians to not create a theocratic state.  If believers in some country decided to found a state based wholly on Christian principles, I suppose […]

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wrote in General, General Apologetics, Other Religions, Q & A .

Question: How would you respond to these common claims that Muslims make with the intention of trying to show that Islam is true i.e. the one true religion 1) ‘Islam is not a religion in the common and distorted sense, for it does not confine its scope to one’s private life. It is a complete […]

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wrote in General, History, Other Religions, Q & A, Reliability of the Bible .

Editor’s note: I answered the question above in 2011. At that time, I had no knowledge of non-Christian sources supporting this claim, and said so.  However, a visitor to the web site has shared with me an article which does provide good support from a Jewish source in the first century that there was a […]

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wrote in General, Historical and Messianic Prophecy, Q & A .

Question:  How can Isaiah 42:2 apply to Jesus when he did cry out for people to repent, cleansed the temple and argued with the Pharisees? Response: I suppose you have a point here if we take Isaiah 42:2 to be literal.  Clearly Jesus “shouted” at times, otherwise how could his teachings to groups like the […]

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wrote in Apologetics, Archaeology, Audio, Bible Teaching, Church History, Foreshadows and Prefigures, Jesus, Pain and Suffering, Prophecy .

Dr. John Oakes gave a series of classes in both French and English in Port au Prince, Haiti in Aug, 2022  Reliability of Bible Haiti    Church History Haiti Audio I    Church History Haiti Audio II    Christian Worldview Haiti Audio    Prob Pain Suff Haiti Audio    Hebrews 1-6 Haiti Audio    Hebrews...

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wrote in Apologetics, Archaeology, Audio, Bible and Science, Bible Teaching, Existence of God .

Dr. John Oakes gave a series of lectures in Santo Domingo, Dominical Republic in Spanish and in English Aug, 2022    World View Santo Domingo    Reliability of Bible Spanish/English  Fiabilidad PPT   Science and God Santo Domingo Audio  Dios y la Sciencia PPT    Existence of God Spanish Audio  La Existencia de Dios PPT ...

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wrote in Apologetics, Audio, Bible Teaching, Philosophy, Theology .

Dr. John Oakes gave several classes at the ICOC World Discipleship Summit in Orlando, Aug, 2022  Col 2 Jesus vs World Audio    Col 2 PPT    Col 2 Sermon Christ vs World Notes    King Jesus vs World’s Philosophies Audio    King Jesus vs Philosophies PPT  King Jesus Col 2 Notes  In Christ WDS ...

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wrote in Audio, Bible Teaching .

Dr. John Oakes gave a 14 hour New Testament Survey class for the West Coast School of Ministry Spring, 2022    NT Survey Audio I    NT Survey Audio II    NT Survey Audio III    NT Survey IV Audio    NT Survey Audio V    NT Survey Audio VI    NT Survey V    NT...

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wrote in Apologetics, Audio .

Dr. John Oakes gave a series of four midweek classes on apologetics for the Houston Church of Christ Fall, 2022.  Reliablity of the Bible, God and Science, and dealing with Progressive Theology.    Science and God Houston Audio  Reliability and Inspiration of the Bible    Progressive Theology Notes    Progressive Theology PPT...

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wrote in Audio, Church History .

Dr. John Oakes taught a 14 hour class on Church History for the West Coast School of Ministry Fall, 2022    Church History WCSM Audio I    Church History WCSM Audio II    Church History Audio III    Church History Audio IV    Church History Audio V    Church History Audio VI    Church HistoryAudio...

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wrote in Audio, Bible Teaching, Uncategorized .

John Oakes gave a series of classes on the Book of Hebrews for the teaching ministry for the LAICC Fall, 2023.    Hebrews Audio I  Hebrews Audio II-A      Hebrews Audio II-A    Hebrews LA Audio IV  Hebrews V Audio    Hebrews Audio VII  Hebrews Notes Oakes    Hebrews PPT Oakes...

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wrote in Articles, Bible Teaching, PowerPoints, Theology .

Dr. John Oakes and Robert Carrillo have published a book on the Book of Hebrews, Hebrews: Living By Faith.  They are teaching an eight hour class on Hebrews for the Los Angeles International Church of Christ Bible School eight consecutive Saturdays at 9:00 Pacific Time.  The class will be on zoom at  843 0420 3186  […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Historical and Messianic Prophecy, Q & A .

Question: I have some questions regarding the interpretation and fulfillment of Joseph’s second dream.  1. What do the sun, moon and 11 stars represent in the dream?  2. Was Jacob right at the interpretation of Joseph’s second dream?  3. If Jacob was sun, 11 stars were 11 sons of Jacob, then who was moon?   Do […]

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wrote in General, Q & A, Reliability of the Bible .

[Editor’s Note: This is a two-part question, as the one asking clarified his initial question] Question: Can you explain to me why there is such a difference in the Genesis 5 and 11 chronologies of the antediluvian and post-flood patriarchs? I understand there is about 1380 years difference between the Septuagint and Masoretic translation texts, […]

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wrote in Anthropology, Creation, General, Q & A, Science and the Bible .

Question: This question pertains to your response regarding “Evolution” posted on September 15, 2022. I was somewhat surprised that you weighed in on Calvinist theology as the question was not overtly suggestive of that theology. (I was once espousing that theology until I came across your website). But that made me curious of what you […]

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wrote in Apologetics, Articles, Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Other Religions, Spanish Articles, Theology, Theology, Uncategorized .

Dr. John Oakes is teaching a five part series on how Christians ought to respond to false teachings which are found out there in the “Christian” world for a church in Guadalajara, Mexico.  The recording is in both Spanish and English.  Areas that will be covered include Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, Premillennialism, Mormonism and […]

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wrote in General, Other Religions, Q & A .

Question:  I’m from Cameroon, Africa. I mention this because having been to Africa and in Cameroon in particular you may have noticed that many African families still worship ancestors. The reason for this is that The Bible was one of the powerful tools European Countries used to Conquer Africa.  SO my question is: HOW CAN […]

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wrote in Creation, General, Q & A, Science and the Bible .

Question: I have a few questions about evolution and the Bible. First of all if we evolved then in 100 million years could humans have evolved into a different animal like how apes apparently evolved into humans? Secondly if evolution is true then that means there were land animals before birds but the Bible says […]

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wrote in Church History, General, Q & A, Reliability of the Bible .

[Editor’s note: These are two questions of a similar nature from the same questioner, so are being put together in one article.] Question: Why does it appear that Matthew’s version of the last supper was copied from Mark? They’re so similar and it wouldn’t make sense for Matthew to copy Mark for the last supper […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, Creation, General, Q & A, Science and the Bible .

Question:  I have a few questions about evolution. First of all evolution means death of animals before sin and that is super inconsistent with the Bible and there is no way God would allow death and suffering. And the last thing is if we evolved over time couldn’t we humans evolve into something else? Would […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Historical and Messianic Prophecy, Other Religions, Q & A .

Question:  Isaiah 42 does not talk about Jesus if you read with a broad mind, because KJV says.  “and the isles shall wait for his law.”  But the truth is Jesus did not bring new laws for Jews and he never nullified the laws of the Torah. Paul, who never met Jesus, distorted the true […]

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wrote in General, Q & A, Reliability of the Bible, Uncategorized .

Question: If we don’t know who wrote the gospels then why should we trust them? Anyone could have just made them up. I want to be able to trust the gospels but since their anonymous I don’t know if I can. Answer: First of all, we very likely DO know who wrote the gospels.  It […]

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wrote in Church History, General, Q & A .

Question: The early church is unanimous in attributing the four gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John but they are also unanimous that Matthew wrote first. However Mark probably wrote first since most of Mark is in Matthew. So my question is if they’re wrong on who wrote first then why should we believe that […]

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wrote in Apocrypha, Bible Manuscripts and Textual Questions, Church History, General, Q & A, Reliability of the Bible .

[Editor’s Note: This is a rather long question with a fairly long response] Question:  I read your article “Is Chapter 2 of Wisdom (part of the Apocrypha) inspired prophecy of Jesus?” and wanted to address your points. First, you asked where the Messianic prophecy is. Wisdom 2:12-20 contains a very clear Messianic prophecy: “For if […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Q & A, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question: I was reading your article on baptism and have a question. What happens to believers who are not baptized e.g the person who repented on the cross next to our Saviour? Answer: The person who repented on the cross is not a particularly helpful example for your question for a couple of reasons.  First […]

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wrote in General, History, Other Religions, Q & A .

Question: Hello Dr Oakes. I saw a video about why Muhammad was far more peaceful than Moses. The man claimed that Christian’s don’t read the Quran and Hadith everyday in context from Muslim scholars, so we have no right to say Muhammad was violent or to quote the violent verses without historical context. But he […]

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wrote in Church History, General, Q & A .

Question:  Jews say: “None of God’s prophet came after Malachi among them.” On the contrary, Justin Martyr said to Trypho: “you had prophets in succession until John; there never failed to be a prophet among you, who was lord, and leader, and ruler of your nation.” Who has the correct view in your opinion? Answer: […]

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wrote in Apocrypha, General, Q & A .

Question; The Ascension of Isaiah mentions unknown Hebrew prophets named Aged, Ananias & Josab. Why did they not get canonical status? Answer: The so-called Ascension of Isaiah is an apocryphal book.  One thing we can know with certainty is that it was not written by Isaiah (and therefore it is pseudepigraphal, ie. falsely attributed), as […]

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wrote in General, Practical Christianity, Q & A .

Question: If Jews were such honest keepers of God’s word, then why did they reject and kill true prophets although Deut. 13:1-5 & 18:20-22 tells criteria for judging true prophets? Answer: It is always difficult to judge people’s motives.  We can observe what they do and we can observe what they say.  However, as Samuel […]

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