Why Joe the Plumber Chose the Bible Over His Science Book

June 21, 2012 By 37 Comments

Since science keeps changing and the Bible remains constant, then the Bible must always be right… right?

Joe the Plumber thinks so:

Who wants to break the news to Joe that the Bible has been revised many times and that’s why there are so many different translations of it…?

(via RWWBlog)

Filed Under: General, Politics 37 Comments
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  • Ggsillars

    Why is this idiot still getting attention?  Why did he ever get attention?

    • derp

       Palin and the Tea Party.

    • http://profiles.google.com/michael.laporte Michael La Porte

      CBN.  Why Hemant?  Who knows.  Its fun to beat up on willfully ignorant people?

      • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ Hemant Mehta

        Only when they are running for Congress AND literally believe in the Bible…

  • SpontOrder

    If that is how he was persuaded to become a Christian, no loss for our camp.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=510281669 Julie Carole

    This idiot may be the impetus for others NOT to be that idiot… Idiots have their function. 

    • AxeGrrl

      This is t-shirt/bumper sticker worthy :)

      And hell, given the “This idiot” opening of the text, it could be a series of t-shirts with different photos of various peeps…….Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum…..the possibilites are endless!

      I’d look into it Julie, you could be sitting on a goldmine :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1235270263 Steven Collins

    Oh, my God.  He’s right.  There is no revision statement on my copy of  the Bible!!!! I’m converting right now!!!

    But now that I look at it, there’s no revision statement on my copy of the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita either.  Now I’m really confused.

  • flyb

    Sad. Just, sad.

  • Michael

    A clock that doesn’t change vs a clock that does…

  • http://www.facebook.com/howie.vaudry Howard Vaudry

    Proof positive of the improbability of reasoning someone out of something that they were never reasoned into.

  • ortcutt

    Obviously this is a very stupid argument.  Lack of change is no evidence of veridicality.  The Wizard of Oz hasn’t changed either but that doesn’t make it true. 

    It’s also completely wrong as to the Bible.  First, the English translations of the Bible, which I will safely assume Wurzelbacher is reading, change all the time, and there are dozens of them.  The NIV was last updated in 2011.  Second, the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts that the translations are based on aren’t certain either.  They are based on thousands of manuscripts with tens of thousands of textual variants.  Even if Wurzelbacher believes, on the basis of no evidence, that the autograph manuscripts were divinely-inspired, he’s still in a bind because we don’t have those autograph manuscripts.  We have hand-made error-filled copies from centuries later.  No one has ANY IDEA what might have happened in those intervening centuries.

    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/chidy/ chicago dyke, orphan

      one of my fantasies has always been that someday the RCC goes too far, finally gets shut down (for something like running a child prostitution ring, if i were to bet) and has to sell off all its assets. i’ve long believed they are hanging on to some really essential manuscripts, keeping them out of circulation b/c they are damaging to RCC history and belief. there is a reason there are so many gaps in the history of christianity, and i think the RCC is part of that. 

      • The Other Weirdo

         Or, since history is replete with wars and fires and disasters and record-keeping was hit-and-miss for huge swathes of time, it’s safer to say that many things were lost accidentally, lost in the general destruction attendant to the various invasions, plagues, etc.

      • http://friendlyatheist.com Richard Wade

        If you haven’t yet, enjoy Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Roadside_Attraction

  • http://squeakysoapbox.com/ Rich Wilson

    So, since textbook publishers are trying to make a profit, God exists?

  • MegaZeusThor

    I know it’s obvious to everyone here, but to try and put it succinctly:

    Science is a method of understanding the world. 

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

    It changes to reflect out best understanding of the world. We know more now then we did two centuries ago. Two centuries from now (excluding some sort of end of the world apocalypse), our descendants should know much more scientifically than we do now. That’s a good thing – it means our knowledge is growing and old understandings are occasionally refined, updated, and so on. 

  • Gunstargreen

    This argument is so asinine. I never understood it.

    Because it would totally be better if science just never admitted to its mistakes or made any progress? I don’t know how people like this manage to breathe let alone make use of the modern comforts that science has afforded them by… gasp!… CHANGING.

  • http://www.christopherbaca.wordpress.com/ Chris

    While I agree that Joe the Plumber’s argument for “choosing the Bible over science” (which I think is a false dichotomy) is quite foolish, I only have one issue with the original post. The Bible doesn’t have many translations because it has been revised so many times. I daresay our current Bible(s) are all taken from the same sources and manuscripts. There are many translations because language is fluid, and we’re (at least) 2000 years removed from the most recent biblical writings.

    • Karl Withakay

       @Cris,
      “I daresay our current Bible(s) are all taken from the same sources and manuscripts.”

      Please see the comment by ortcutt above.   It is quite clear from the study of NT texts that nearly all NT manuscripts from antiquity up to the invention of the printing press  incorporate varying degrees of transcription errors, edits, revisions, redactions, text losses, glosses, additions, and other corruptions to the original works (ex: the ending to the book of Mark).  Also, literary analysis of the books of the bible make it fairly clear that numerous books as we know them today (the books of the Pentateuch, Isiah, etc) are likely composites of different works by different authors in different time periods.

      Our current English translations are not even all from the same sources and manuscripts.  There are two main traditions of Greek texts used to compile current Greek New Testaments (the is no single, authoritative copy/source from antiquity, though codex Sinaiticus is as close as you can likely get) , the Alexandrian texts represented by The UBS Greek New Testament & the Nestle-Aland edition (which underlie most current translations) and the Byzantine tradition represented by the Textus Receptus/Received Text (underlying the KJV and New KJV translations).

  • alconnolly

    Well as far as I am concerned Joe the plumber was right he said his story was incredible. It is.

  • http://profiles.google.com/michael.laporte Michael La Porte

    The ignorance of such a position — which facts are easily knowable — is stunning.  I wonder how these folks deal with people like Prof. Bart Ehrman and his “Misquoting Jesus” work, among other things.  I imagine that there is a complete lack of awareness of that too, since they are oblivious about the book they put so much faith in.

  • Graham Martin-Royle

    So he’s never heard of the Revised Standard Bible then?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jesus-Chrystler/1797838676 Jesus Chrystler

    Great, since I read the Bible, I can start plumbing for money as well, can’t remember the scripture that is used to treat a clogged drain though!

  • TiltedHorizon

    So the bible makes more sense because it remains constant? I guess Joe the plumber must be a terrible plumber as city codes and the tools of the trade change often.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EAIHLUU3JSTIB3D2OWHGYN5PHA Ingen

       He’s not a plumber. He’s never been a plumber. He’s also not named Joe.

  • Matt O’Neal

    This makes my brain hurt. I don’t know why I keep coming back f0r more. I just… can’t… help myself!

  • http://twitter.com/Buffy2q Buffy

    The stupidity….it burns.  

    • Jeff Xenobuilder

       Love this image…

  • Artor

    There’s not much point explaining anything to Plummer Joe. He’s shown himself from the start that he’s an ignorant dumbfuck and completely unable to tell fact from fiction. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/briancposey Brian C Posey

    He doesn’t realize that the revisions are most likely because of corrected typos and what not — not because the science changed.  I think I hate him the most for that.

  • Occam

    So where are the religious defenders on this forum?  I guess they must realize that “Joe the Plumber” is such a moron even *they* aren’t willing to defend him.

    Squeezing the last drops out of that fifteen minutes of fame….

    • kaydenpat

      He probably will be elected though, so not sure if being a moron will harm him.

  • Michael Corry

    Where I come from a wurzel, apart from being a kind of beet, is the village idiot.  Enough said? 

  • http://twitter.com/allytude allytude

    Does anyone else notice how much Joe the Plumber looks like Larry the Cable guy?

    So, if Joe the Plumber is unwell he prefers being bled by a leech, rather than have a doctor look at him, since medicine also changes all the time?

  • http://twitter.com/allytude allytude

    Does anyone else notice how much Joe the Plumber looks like Larry the Cable guy?

    So, if Joe the Plumber is unwell he prefers being bled by a leech, rather than have a doctor look at him, since medicine also changes all the time?

  • fett101

    Shouldn’t Joe become Jewish then since Christianity is a revision of that?