Into the Wardrobe

I was reading the atheist critique to "Mere Christianity." under papers:

"In reading the Bible, he must deal with the two disparate accounts of Jesus' lineage in Matthew and Luke and with the fact that both trace his genealogy through Joseph, not Mary. For the Christian who wants to ignore these difficulties, there is nothing reasonable that can be said, but for the outside or the Fool, and certainly for the agnostic who does not want to come to any conclusions without adequate evidence, a problem such as this must be cleared up rather than avoided."

--Is this what the agnostic thinker builds his case upon?? Is he saying," yes, Christianity has everything else in order, except this--a geneology?"

"The Fool finds that Lewis' comments about what one must believe about Jesus to be not at all persuasive. He gives only two options in a crucial sentence on page 41. "Either this man (Jesus) was, and is, the son of God, or else a madman or something worse." Even the Fool knows that there are so many more options than these two that he can only be sorrowful for the maker of such an oversimplified and dogmatic statement."

--He failed to mention the "many more" options.

"None of these options seem viable to the Fool. In fact he has already been turned away by Lewis' shoddy reasoning and rhetoric."

All this man really said was, "I don't agree." He attacked the person, but not the argument. I was hoping an "agnostic" could make a better case than this one here. Or can anyone come up with the "many more options?"

My NIV study notes say that the account of Luke largely follows Mary's lineage, and not Joseph's, though the actual wording at the beginning of the listing is a little confusing.

The Gospels clearly say that only people that God chooses can come to have faith in Him. So many people I talk to seem to get a film over their eyes and minds when I try to talk to them about Christianity. We need to pray all the more for them. But it is better for them not to hear us at all rather then to hear us and understand, and then reject faith in the Holy One. (see Romans 2:14-15)

I think the author of that little bit didn't consider, or purposely ignored, that Lewis' argument is based on the fact that Christ claimed he was God. If He hadn't, then I could concieve of more options (nothing comes to mind, though.) Considering that Christ did claim to be God, then He was either lying, telling the truth, or mad (and therefore incapable of lying). "Why don't they teach logic in these schools?"

Sarah