Is the Bible Thematically Consistent?

April 24, 2010 By vorjack 29 Comments

by VorJack

One of the worst apologetic arguments for the authority of the bible is that the bible is unique in its continuity. That is, although the books in our modern bible were written over a stretch of centuries, they all speak as if from the same voice. Clearly, that is the voice of God.

This argument hinges on the notion that the books are “thematically consistent;” that they are all in agreement as to their major themes of morality and theology. This is pure bunk, and the argument fails. The books of the Bible are in conflict, pure and simple.

For example, one of the themes of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is that the Israelites should remain ethnically pure and not intermarry with foreign women:

“And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. Now then make confession to the LORD the God of your fathers, and do his will; separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” (Ezra 10:10-11)

Now, compare that with with book of Ruth, where the Moabite Ruth becomes the ancestress of line of Jesse, David and Jesus. Does this story square with Nehemiah 13:1, “On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God”?

This is likely not an accident; the book of Ruth may have been intentionally written as an argument against the ethnic purity themes of the earlier works.

Consider also the fact that Moses, the greatest hero in the OT, marries into a Midianite family. Of course, in the book of Numbers, Moses wages war against the Midianites, kills the men and captures the women and children. I suppose that’s one way to deal with your in-laws.

This is just an example; just one of the ways that the OT is in tension with itself. But now consider the NT and all the ways that the gospels conflict. Let’s take a subtle one: compare the eschatologies of Mark and John.

Mark famously has a straight-forward apocalyptic tone: “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” In contrast, John has a more complex “revealed eschatology,” in which Jesus’s ministry is part of the end times: “Truly, truly, I say to you he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life”

In Mark, the second coming is something that will take place in the near future. In John, it’s something that is here now, and yet is still to come. It’s not a pure conflict, but it is one of the ways that the Gospels are inconsistent with each other.

Of course, the apologists have another card up their sleeve: they know what each of these passages really means. They’ve already decided that the books are thematically consistent, and they’re prepared to strap any straying passage into Procrustes’s bed and make it fit.

Filed Under: Apologetics, Bible, Christianity 29 Comments

When Was Jesus Crucified?

April 2, 2010 By Daniel Florien 245 Comments

Today is “Good Friday,” the day Christians believe Jesus was executed through crucifixion. But did Jesus die today or tomorrow? The Bible actually says both.

Mark, the earliest Gospel, says that Jesus died on the day after the passover meal:

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” [...] As soon as it was morning, the chief priests … bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate…. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. (Mark 14:12; 15:1, 25 NRSV)

But John, the latest Gospel, says Jesus was crucified on the day before the passover meal:

Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. [Pilate] said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” (John 19:14)

So in Mark, Jesus was nailed to a cross at 9am the day after the Preparation of the Passover. In John, Pilate is about to send Jesus to his death at 12pm on the day of the Preparation for the Passover.

Those timelines just don’t add up. At least one is false; both cannot be true.

Why would John change the day Jesus was crucified from the earlier Mark narrative? Bart Ehrman gives an interesting theory in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium:

Possibly the author of John, our last Gospel to be written, is actually trying to say something, to make a “truth-claim” about Jesus in the way he has told his story. Readers have long noted — and this can scarcely be either an accident or unrelated to our present dilemma — that John’s is the only Gospel that explicitly identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”

In fact, at the very outset of the Gospel, Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, sees him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29); and seven verses later, he says it again: “Behold the Lamb of God” (1:36). John’s Gospel thus portrays Jesus as the Passover lamb, whose blood somehow brings salvation, just as the blood of the Passover lamb brought salvation to the children of Israel so many centuries before. [...]

John, or someone who told him the story, made a slight change in a historical datum in order to score a theological point. For John, Jesus really was the Lamb of God. He died at the same time (on the afternoon of the day of Preparation), in the same place (Jerusalem), and at the hands of the same people (the Jewish leaders, especially the priests) as the Passover lambs. In other words, John has told a story that is not historically accurate, but is, in his judgement, theologically true.

That’s the best explanation I’ve heard. John was either told the story slightly differently or changed it to fit his theological point (purposely or accidently).

What I find so refreshing about “liberal” biblical scholarship is its honesty. Fundamentalist scholars are usually apologists — they’re just defending what they want to be true. They are not willing to consider that this, for instance, is a real contradiction. They explain it away with theological smoke and mirrors.

The truth is we don’t know when Jesus died. We only have accounts written generations later, and what we have agree on some parts and disagree on others.

Did Jesus die at 9am the day after the Passover meal, or after 12pm on the day before the Passover meal? I don’t know. You don’t know. Scholars don’t know. And certainly the Christian knocking at your door doesn’t know.

But don’t expect Christian pastors and priests to tell you that this weekend. They’re not in that business.

[For a fuller explanation of this, you can read Ehrman's chapter on it.]

Filed Under: Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Jesus 245 Comments

The Rock Question

March 15, 2010 By Daniel Florien 65 Comments

(via Dinosaur Comics)

Filed Under: Apologetics, God, Humor, Philosophy 65 Comments

Would I Still Be an Atheist?

February 8, 2010 By kruthar 80 Comments

by Jesse Galef –

Overcoming personal bias can be one of the most difficult tasks in searching for the truth. The particular experiences and influences in our lives are – to a large degree – out of our control and yet they play a huge role in shaping our beliefs. And it’s not as though we can reboot our lives, remove the biasing agent, and see what we end up believing (we would also have to do it a few hundred times so we can get a decent confidence interval).

A first step is acknowledging our biasing factors, but how do we wrap our minds around it?  Alicorn at Less Wrong gives a great example:

During one of my epistemology classes, my professor admitted (I can’t recall the context) that his opinions on the topic would probably be different had he attended a different graduate school.

What a peculiar thing for an epistemologist to admit!

Of course, on the one hand, he’s almost certainly right. Schools have their cultures, their traditional views, their favorite literature providers, their set of available teachers…
<snip>
But on the other hand… but… but…

But how can he say that, and look so undubiously at the views he picked up this way?

It’s an uncomfortable position.  Now, for all I know, the professor was discussing preferences and not an objective truth claim. I don’t have as big of a problem with the notion that, had I been raised in the South, I would find grits more delicious than waffles (how absurd!). It’s more of a problem when we acknowledge that personal factors are affecting our so-called universal claims of objective truth.

As usual, my mind took the question to religion.  Most people continue to believe the religion they were taught as a child. As it happens, I was raised in a secular household without much discussion of God and grew up to be an atheist. But let’s revisit the scenario in which I was raised in the South (eating foul grits). If I had been raised by Evangelical Christians would I still be an atheist today? It’s conceivable that I would be a Christian apologist, writing philosophical papers for God’s existence and arguing on blogs. That image troubles me – and not just because it’s at odds with what I think right now. I want to be confident that my beliefs are an accurate reflection of reality, not the result of where I was born. The counter factual makes me wonder.

It’s difficult not to sound hypocritical. I believe that, by coincidence, I was raised by parents who were correct. But I’ve heard religious people of all faiths say similar things. What can we do to cut through the biasing influence of our upbringing? How can I be confident that, unlike them, I really WAS coincidentally born into a household which was correct? Obviously, this question applies to everyone, not just me and not just atheists.

All I can see to do is foster critical thinking skills – the conscious effort to overcome bias. I’m trying my best to keep an open mind, give other views a fair hearing, and pursue the truth. So far, as I’ve done that, I’ve found the evidence for the existence of gods to be pathetically flimsy.  I know I can never fully free myself of bias, but at least I’m doing what I can.  It’s my impression that as people learn critical thinking skills, they’re more likely to become atheists. That certainly boosts my confidence.

I know many of you had religious influences growing up and would have a completely different perspective on the issue. I would love your take.

Filed Under: Apologetics, Atheism, Psychology 80 Comments

The Christian and the Skeptic

December 28, 2009 By Guest Contributor 22 Comments

by Jersey Flight

Christian: You are telling me that you used to believe? Well then, by all means, what changed your mind?

Skeptic: I loved to read and I always thought that I should read the strongest arguments I could find, this included arguments for Christianity, and skeptical arguments against Christianity. This way I was always competent in defending my faith.

Christian: So you read books that argued against what you believed?

Skeptic: I did.

Christian: But why would you do that?

Skeptic: Because I want the truth, even if it goes against what I desire.

Christian: But you used to believe, and you used to persuade skeptics that Christianity was true?

Skeptic: I did.

Christian: And now you no longer believe, and you seek to persuade Christians that Christianity is false?

Skeptic: Well, I tell them why I choose not to believe, if you call that seeking to persuade Christians that Christianity is false then I guess I am guilty.

Christian: And all of this came about because you read non-Christian books?

Skeptic: Something very close to that, yes. Of course, I also understood them and I also sought to refute them, but in the end, they only further exposed the inability of what I believed.

Christian: My goodness, I am never going to read non-Christian books!

Skeptic: And yet, another manifestation as to why I reject Christianity.

Jersey Flight is a former Christian minister and the founder of The Skeptic Thinker

Filed Under: Apologetics, Christianity 22 Comments
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