What It Was Was The Bible

There I was young and innocent, minding my own business scanning the blogosphere, when I come across a website dedicated to mind boggling amounts of stupidity from the world of atheism. In addition, the blog seems quite happy to post a stream of blasphemous and offensive art and pictures. Not just offensive to Christians, but anyone of faith. Hence, you will see no links to this particular blog. Just Google hate and it should pop up soon enough. In addition, the individual who runs the blog has one of the most dizzying intellects I’ve seen in recent years. His entire approach appears to be 1. Write something accusing religion of being stupid and evil, 2. Respond to someone who challenges his assertion that religion is stupid and evil by denying that that he wrote what is clearly visible on his blog. What can you say but, inconceivable!

Anyway, for kicks, and to escape the possible flood of trashing and hashing America that will follow in the wake of Mark Shea’s post that calls to mind the atomic bombing of Japan (which the Church clearly teaches is wrong), I thought I’d take some time and read the stellar arguments in the comments section. I stumbled across a post that claimed the Bible is just one giant falsehood in which our intrepid blogger begs for proof that shows he’s wrong. In the discussion, some brave commenter (who wisely chooses to remain anonymous) attempts to use actual scholarly theory, data, facts, and evidence to suggest the Bible as Myth might be overplayed. Well, lo and behold, a stellar giant of rational thinking swoops in and adds this to his comment mocking this appeal to serious scholarship:

The Biblical document? The Flood? Jews building the pyramids? Moses collecting stone tablets from the Burning Bush? Historical human Jesus? Hardly. The only author of the Bible, itself, who wrote within a timeframe that he could have actually witnessed the life of a historical Jesus (I’m speaking of Saul of Tarsus) never describes the birth, crucifixion, death, and resurrection as having happened on Earth. He probably was describing events he believed to have happened in the spiritual realm.

Without losing his temper, the anonymous poster responds that it’s best not to get your facts wrong when your purpose is to belittle the Bible for getting its facts wrong. Truth is, the Bible says nothing at all about the Jews building the pyramids (a later tradition at best), or the burning bush happening at the same time as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, much less understanding that Jews are not synonymous with the Israelites of Exodus fame. Not to be deterred, our brave atheist rises to the challenge:

The Jews were NOT enslaved by Egypt. The Jews did NOT wander the desert. There is no evidence. (Building the pyramids is a common representation of the Jews being “in bondage” in Egypt.) You want to split hairs over my larger point, go for it. The point is that Exodus is a myth. The Bible is biased and unreliable as history.

Split hairs? Attributing to the Bible something anyone who has read the Exodus story even once would know to be false? His response, and the response of the fellow who runs the blog, was a jumbled mess of incoherent rants and factually inaccurate responses; nothing other than ‘the Bible is too wrong cuz it’s wrong, that’s why.’ It was crystal clear he had never even once opened the Bible to read what he claims it gets wrong.

Later, when the same individual attempts to explain the various genres of literature within the Scriptures and points to the early Church Fathers to show that reflecting on various approaches to Scripture is not some modern reaction to science, the brave blogger responds with derision and accuses him of copping out.

The stunning disregard for facts, logic, and consistency in arguments in order to disprove something that he clearly has never bothered to actually study, all the while insisting that the Bible he clearly hasn’t read is wrong by setting up a flawed picture of what any serious scholar would accept as valid, makes me think of nothing so much as this classic gem from Andy Griffith:

Football would look strange to someone completely divorced from the reality of its rules, culture and surroundings. Just like religion and its sacred texts appear to look so flawed to people who have no desire to actually learn about their content or the context in which they exist.

What it was was the Bible