{"id":19034,"date":"2018-05-10T12:07:36","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T16:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?p=19034"},"modified":"2018-05-10T12:07:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T16:07:36","slug":"why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html","title":{"rendered":"Why &#8220;Bible Difficulties&#8221; Should be Fully Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-19037 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2018\/05\/Bible-Reading-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">An atheist mentioned Gleason Archer\u2019s <em>Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties<\/em>\u00a0and commented, \u201cHow could God\u2019s word have \u2018difficulties?\u2019 What on earth was difficult about God\u2019s revelation to mankind [?]. I mean, he\u2019s God, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*****<\/p>\n<p>This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist:<\/p>\n<p>1. The Bible is a very lengthy, multi-faceted book by many authors, from long ago, with many literary genres (and in three languages), and cultural assumptions that are foreign to us.<\/p>\n<p>2. The Bible purports to be revelation from an infinitely intelligent God. Thus (even though God simplifies it as much as possible), for us to think that it is an easy thing to immediately grasp and figure out, and would not have any number of \u201cdifficulties\u201d for mere human beings to work through, is naive. The Bible itself teaches that authoritative teachers are necessary to properly understand it.<\/p>\n<p>3. All grand \u201ctheories\u201d have components (\u201canomalies\u201d \/ \u201cdifficulties\u201d) that need to be worked out and explained. For example, scientific theories do not purport to perfectly explain everything. They often have large \u201cmysterious\u201d areas that have to be resolved.<\/p>\n<p>Think of, for example, the \u201cmissing links\u201d in evolution. That didn\u2019t stop people from believing in it. Folks believed in gradual Darwinian evolution even though prominent paleontologist and philosopher of science Stephen Jay Gould famously noted that \u201cgradualism was never read from the rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even Einstein\u2019s theories weren\u2019t totally confirmed by scientific experiment at first (later they were). That a book like the Bible would have \u201cdifficulties\u201d to work through is perfectly obvious and unsurprising to me.<\/p>\n<p>4. Most of the rationale of explaining \u201cBible difficulties\u201d is not from a perspective that they are<em> real difficulties<\/em>, but rather, to show that purported difficulties really <em>aren\u2019t<\/em> such. They are usually based on illogical thinking or unfamiliarity with biblical genre, etc. Many alleged biblical \u201ccontradictions\u201d simply aren\u2019t so, by the rules of logic.<\/p>\n<p>5. The Foreword of the book by Kenneth S. Kantzer explains its rationale: \u201c[T]he faith of some troubled souls is hindered by misunderstanding the Scripture. They are confused by what seems to them to be false statements or self-contradiction. We need, therefore, to clear away such false obstacles to faith.\u201d (p. 8)<\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n<p>In another discussion, I wrote:<\/p>\n<p>All complex documents have to be interpreted. When human beings start reading them, they start to disagree, so that there needs to be some sort of authoritative guide.<\/p>\n<p>In law, that is the Supreme Court, In Christianity, it is the Catholic Church, following a consistent tradition of interpretation through the centuries. Protestants reject that authoritative interpretation and adopt <em>sola Scriptura<\/em>, and so create for themselves all sorts of self-defeating problems and unsolvable dilemmas (I\u2019ve written two books about that).<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not that the Bible is profoundly unclear. I have always found it to be clear on any given topic I explored. But one has to have a basic knowledge of how to interpret it. The ancient Hebrews thought about things very differently than the Greeks, and that way of thinking must be learned and understood.<\/p>\n<p>The Bible is crystal-clear about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2015\/10\/jesus-is-god-biblical-proofs-2.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Jesus being God<\/a>, and the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2015\/11\/the-holy-trinity-biblical-proofs.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"> Holy Trinity<\/a>. I compiled several hundred prooftexts about that in the early 80s. yet there are many religious groups that reject the Trinity.<\/p>\n<p><em>That\u2019s<\/em> why we need authoritative interpretation and the notion of orthodoxy: to have a way to determine truths and stop all the relativistic competing interpretations.<\/p>\n<p>The Bible, though inspired revelation, was still conveyed to us through the work of human writers.<\/p>\n<p>My position is that it <em>can<\/em> be understood<em> relatively<\/em> easily for the most part by the common man (with just some basic knowledge of interpretation pointers), but that (for various reasons), human beings in fact have come to disagree about some of the major doctrines in it, and thus, a final say is needed, as in many areas of life. The buck\u2019s gotta stop somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>There were always authoritative teachers in the Jewish and Christian tradition. It was only Protestantism that largely destroyed that.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>(originally 7-17-17 on Facebook)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo credit:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">photograph from<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maxpixel.net\/Book-Bible-Inside-People-Man-Reading-Alone-2599318\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">MaxPixel<\/a> [public domain \/\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/deed.en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">Creative Commons Zero \u2013 CC0<\/a>\u00a0license]<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An atheist mentioned Gleason Archer\u2019s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties\u00a0and commented, \u201cHow could God\u2019s word have \u2018difficulties?\u2019 What on earth was difficult about God\u2019s revelation to mankind [?]. I mean, he\u2019s God, right?\u201d ***** This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist: 1. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":19037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1043,258,522,1472,1473,514,1879,1878,616,33,1387,1386,535,1877,777,32,536,35,47],"class_list":["post-19034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-and-tradition","tag-anti-theism","tag-atheism","tag-atheist-biblical-exegesis","tag-atheists-the-bible","tag-atheists-theology","tag-bible-only","tag-biblical-prooftexts","tag-biblical-theology","tag-canon-of-scripture","tag-christian-authority","tag-exegesis","tag-hermeneutics","tag-holy-bible","tag-infallible-authority","tag-perspicuity-of-scripture","tag-rule-of-faith","tag-sacred-scripture","tag-scripture-alone","tag-sola-scriptura"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why &quot;Bible Difficulties&quot; Should be Fully Expected<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The inspired Bible was conveyed to us through the work of human writers, &amp; because of its length &amp; multi-faceted nature can be expected to have some &quot;difficulties.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why &quot;Bible Difficulties&quot; Should be Fully Expected\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The inspired Bible was conveyed to us through the work of human writers, &amp; because of its length &amp; multi-faceted nature can be expected to have some &quot;difficulties.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-10T16:07:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2018\/05\/Bible-Reading-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Armstrong\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dave Armstrong\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html\",\"name\":\"Why \\\"Bible Difficulties\\\" Should be Fully Expected\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-05-10T16:07:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-05-10T16:07:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#\/schema\/person\/471eaa20e441eca4bb1ea50393cf632e\"},\"description\":\"The inspired Bible was conveyed to us through the work of human writers, & because of its length & multi-faceted nature can be expected to have some \\\"difficulties.\\\"\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why &#8220;Bible Difficulties&#8221; Should be Fully Expected\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/\",\"name\":\"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism\",\"description\":\"Catholic biblical apologetics\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#\/schema\/person\/471eaa20e441eca4bb1ea50393cf632e\",\"name\":\"Dave Armstrong\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/820e6db89734ae7a9e5dac8d498f5ac7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/820e6db89734ae7a9e5dac8d498f5ac7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dave Armstrong\"},\"description\":\"Dave Armstrong is a Catholic author and apologist, who has been actively proclaiming and defending Christianity since 1981, and Catholicism in particular since 1991 (full-time since December 2001). Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \\\"This Rock\\\" (now called \\\"Catholic Answers Magazine\\\"), \\\"Envoy Magazine\\\" (Patrick Madrid), \\\"The Catholic Answer,\\\" \\\"The Coming Home Journal,\\\" \\\"Gilbert Magazine\\\" (American Chesterton Society), and \\\"The Latin Mass.\\\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \\\"The Michigan Catholic\\\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \\\"Envoy Magazine.\\\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \\\"Catholic Answers Live\\\" (twice), \\\"Faith and Family Live\\\" (Steve Wood), \\\"Kresta in the Afternoon,\\\" \\\"Son Rise Morning Show,\\\" \\\"Catholic Connection\\\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \\\"The Catholics Next Door.\\\" His large and popular website, \\\"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\\\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \\\"Envoy Magazine.\\\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \\\"index\\\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \\\"Surprised by Truth\\\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \\\"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\\\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \\\"The Catholic Verses\\\" (2004), \\\"The One-Minute Apologist\\\" (2007), \\\"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\\\" (2009), \\\"The Quotable Newman\\\" (editor: 2012), and \\\"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\\\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \\\"The New Catholic Answer Bible\\\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \\\"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\\\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \\\"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\\\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \\\"Quotable Wesley\\\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why \"Bible Difficulties\" Should be Fully Expected","description":"The inspired Bible was conveyed to us through the work of human writers, & because of its length & multi-faceted nature can be expected to have some \"difficulties.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why \"Bible Difficulties\" Should be Fully Expected","og_description":"The inspired Bible was conveyed to us through the work of human writers, & because of its length & multi-faceted nature can be expected to have some \"difficulties.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html","og_site_name":"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","article_published_time":"2018-05-10T16:07:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":427,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2018\/05\/Bible-Reading-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Dave Armstrong","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dave Armstrong","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html","name":"Why \"Bible Difficulties\" Should be Fully Expected","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-05-10T16:07:36+00:00","dateModified":"2018-05-10T16:07:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#\/schema\/person\/471eaa20e441eca4bb1ea50393cf632e"},"description":"The inspired Bible was conveyed to us through the work of human writers, & because of its length & multi-faceted nature can be expected to have some \"difficulties.\"","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2018\/05\/why-bible-difficulties-should-be-fully-expected.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why &#8220;Bible Difficulties&#8221; Should be Fully Expected"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/","name":"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism","description":"Catholic biblical apologetics","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#\/schema\/person\/471eaa20e441eca4bb1ea50393cf632e","name":"Dave Armstrong","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/820e6db89734ae7a9e5dac8d498f5ac7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/820e6db89734ae7a9e5dac8d498f5ac7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dave Armstrong"},"description":"Dave Armstrong is a Catholic author and apologist, who has been actively proclaiming and defending Christianity since 1981, and Catholicism in particular since 1991 (full-time since December 2001). Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}